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Good stuff, man it feels good to kill a Riptide.

Nice supply drop, I eye similar tools every time I go to hobby lobby, and have to constantly remind myself that I either already have (or don't need) the things I see!

Looking forward to getting stomped by you and the others in Para's comp. Will be nice to move a space marine from the shame pile to the display shelf.

RandyMcStab wrote:Good stuff, man it feels good to kill a Riptide.

That it does. But damn they take a lot of firepower to kill. We don’t see a lot of Tau at the FLGS, I think this is only the 3rd riptide I’ve ever faced across the table, and the only one I’ve killed. I’ve come close, and/or tied them up for most of the game before. But my Ultras never actually finished the deed.

GrimDork wrote:Nice supply drop, I eye similar tools every time I go to hobby lobby, and have to constantly remind myself that I either already have (or don't need) the things I see!

Looking forward to getting stomped by you and the others in Para's comp. Will be nice to move a space marine from the shame pile to the display shelf.

I just finally snapped and bought it; I’ve gazed wistfully at this stuff for years. I tend to be very stingy with my expenses, as I’m a stay-at-home dad with no income. But The Wife spends more then $25 on hair dye a month, so I figure I can invest in some needed tools that with halfway decent care should last me years. And I might be able to find some non-hobby uses to help justify it. Not that one frivolous expense justifies another, but I do try to budget a little “keep me happy” money into our monthly expenses. Not that I use it often.

As for the painting comp, I have no aspirations of even getting close to winning. I recognize that I paint a quality table top standard, but am a far cry from the jaw-dropping work that many of our fellows bang out on a regular basis. I like competitions like this one for the sense of community, and an extra shot of motivation. Which I generally need. That and encouraging me to stray from my comfort zone.

Yeah, its most of those things you said for me too. I don't plan to win, but I may try a little harder on this model than if I were just painting it to clear up desk space.

Tools.... Something I overlook when considering supplies. I pick up the occassional pot of paint when needed and got new brushes for christmas, but nothing along the lines of actual tools. You ever considered a Dremel? My Dad bought me one for Xmas. I'll be honest and say it's a little unwieldly, but drilling through plastic is an absolute breeze. Not tried it through metal yet...
A micron would be a solid investment.

You have probably seen me cast my hat into the fray with Para's hobby challange. I'll be getting my paint on pretty soon, too. Are you planning anything special for the honour guard, or business as normal?

I have a demel. Well, technically my friend has a dremel, which lives at my house, and has done so for the last decade or so. While I have used it on plastic, it doesn’t go slow enough, so control is a major issue. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to do any conversion work on metal, so mostly is sits in a box and collects dust.

The HG is just going to be business at normal. As normal as a hyper-elite, creme of the chapter, highly equipped killing machine can be called “normal” though. But he’s going to be in the same blue and gold as the rest of the guys in the HG squad though. I might take advantage of this time to base the lot of them though.

Got some time to paint this morning, finished the seer. I think he turned out pretty good. I’ve got a feeling I’ll eventually be pinning that staff arm, but right now it’s glued on. This puts me at 3/4 for the month, so I need to pick up the pace.

The first layer of blue is down on the HG.

Just a quick WIP update, so you don’t think I only update this blog on fridays when I have to. HG is progressing well, next step is to clean up a little overage from the blue wash and do the tabard. Plus the arms. The dwarf is also steadily getting work done, I think all his colors have been blocked in at this point. Next step is some highlights/washes, and a bit of cleanup. He’s going to get some freehand on the shield. I think I might attempt a celtic knot. Not an overly complicated one, but something to push my bounds.

The dwarf colors are very dwarf-like, looking forward to your freehanding attempt.

Marine looks good too. I know they'd probably get torn to shreds 10 minutes into a campaign, but those tabards look cool on space marines.

That marine is really looking great Nev. Love the vibrant blue and gold.

GrimDork wrote:The dwarf colors are very dwarf-like, looking forward to your freehanding attempt.

Marine looks good too. I know they'd probably get torn to shreds 10 minutes into a campaign, but those tabards look cool on space marines.

The dwarf is mostly a symphony of browns. Good, solid, dwarven earth tones. It’s hard to tell from the angle of the picture, but he has a red cape. Right now just khorne red base. I want to add some depth to it, but keep the shade more in the burgundy range.

The tabards are growing on me. They always struck me as totally impractical, and as you say, have a life expectancy of zero in a combat situation. But they do help convey the baroque aesthetic of the imperium. “We’re overly ornate and impractical, and if you have a problem with that, we are going to grind you into dust.” Right now they are the hallmark of my honor guard, although a few other marines sport them. I think just the sternguard sarge and librarians though, not a lot out there.

Gitsplitta wrote:That marine is really looking great Nev. Love the vibrant blue and gold.

Thanks. While it is a bit of a pain to use the blue wash as a glaze, I like the results it gives. Since starting with the base gold/chestnut wash/drybrush gold scheme for all my gold work, I’d never go back. It’s a simple technique that gives really good results.

Some more work done on the HG. I finished the tabard. I’m not sure if it counts as “wet-blending” but I did do some color progressive mixing on it. Little spot of snakebite leather and bubonic brown on the palette, and changed up the ratio as I worked up from the depths. All in one sitting, not waiting for previous layers to dry. Then dry, wash, and highlight. Makes for some pretty smooth gradients. Whoda thunk it? Arms are progressing. Need to brown wash the gold, clean up the blue, and then wash that.

Not a lot of progress on the dwarf. I hit the flesh with a brown wash when I had it out for the tabard.

On the workbench I cleaned some flash off of the Fire Dragon exarch and the last of the rangers. Need to do a little bend work on one of the rifles and probably the firepike. I think the to-prime pile is now at the point where I’d take it out for a spray if the weather clears. Hopefully this month, but maybe next one.

Sorry I missed the chance o say I like the filthy Eldar witch earlier, look better covered in cleasing flame obviously.

The tabard looks good but I think your pic is letting it down. I know how hard it is to light pics properly (you've seen mine) but it looks like you're selling yourself short.

I agree with Randy. It looks like the light is coming from the right, but the tabard is facing left.
From what I can see, it looks good. I can see the dark, middle and highlight. With more light, we might be able to see the subtler transitions better.

Thanks guys. I know I’ve got a lot to learn about photography. OK, that’s a little dishonest. I’ve got a decent amount I need to learn, but also a chunk I know about that I just need to put into practice. I’d blame this one on just being a quick WIP shot, but my “final” pictures aren’t much better. It’s perpetually on my New Year’s resolution list, might actually get to it this year.

As I write this and think about setting up a light box for decent photos, the sun is shining in the window over the winter snowscape that is the back yard. The thought crossed my mind that I could carve a 1x1 foot cube out of the snowbank and use that as a box. It’s pure white, tons of full spectrum natural light, and totally free! Then I come to my senses, look at the thermometer, and chuckle at the thought.

Randy: It’s not easy to model minis on fire, running around burning to death. I might have some unbuilt skeletons kicking around I could try it with though. I’d have to sift through the old fantasy side of things. Might make for some fun objective markers though. While the odds of it actually happening are low, it reminds me that I do want to experiment in green stuffing flames. The thought was to make a burning blade out of one of the ravenwing swords as a magnetized option.

Now that the snow is in theory melting, I’m feeling the drive to build more. We’ll see what the workbench holds.

Enjoy your weekends guys.

hey you know what i want to try, but im not sure how to do it
a steaming power sword my firt thought was gluing some cotton, but that would ruin the paint...

LordRahl wrote:
hey you know what i want to try, but im not sure how to do it
a steaming power sword my first thought was gluing some cotton, but that would ruin the paint...

My thoughts, which are all totally hypothetical, are thus:

Roll up some green stuff
Flatten it into small sheets, probably about 1cm square or smaller. Probably need 4-6 of these. Cut roughly into a flame shape (but probably just triangular-ish)
On a moistened surface (to prevent sticking) smear them out a bit to get a tapered, ragged edge.
Apply to sword, on the downwind edge, smoothing in towards the middle of the blade. stick flames on both the inside and outside of the blade, mostly towards the tip, tapering down towards the hilt.
Wait till cured, paint.

That’s how it plays out in my head. As I’ve not done any real sculpting, it may not actually work out that way. But it should make for a fun experiment. And it it doesn’t work out, I’m just out a bit off putty (which I have a lot of) and a spare sword bit, which I also have in copious amounts.

So hey, my Eldar are supposed to be Saim-Hann. And that means more then just a red paint job, it means jetbikes. Which I’ve been slacking on. So I spent some time at the bench slapping some together.


I know I need to do the riders, I just don’t like them. At some point my need to have them will override my apathy. Or drive my to actually convert the guardians which is what I originally intended.

But in addition to banging out another 3 bikes, I also put together a ShurCan bike. And took some WIP shots, so here’s my vague tutorial is you want to duplicate my work.

Parts: One jetbike, and the cannon from the vehicle sprue. You should have plenty of extras.

At this point I’ve made 3 cuts. The peg that holds the shurcats on, the little nub at the front of the foot plate, and the top half of the circle normally needed to mount the cannon to the WS/Falcon. There is a little more knife and file work needed.


With a round file, I carved back the underside of the canopy. This gives the gun a little more room to set in. I also carved back the front part of the bike frame. so the hose on top of the cannon fits. Both fairly simple.
Here is a slightly better shot.

And with the canopy on:

And a long shot with the squad, so you can’t see the flaws in my work, but more likely the view had in a game.


So there you have it. Very basic work, but also fairly easy. I should probably go back and fill that little half round hole at the top of the gun. But it’s mostly hidden, and my GS skills are not the best.

In other news, the HG’s arms are on, and I glued a rock and a tuft of grass onto his base. I’ll probably snow flock in later today. I grabbed a WIP pic, but it was blurry, so I trashed it. I’ll grab a pic when he’s done at this point.

Bike looks good, sometimes simple is best

Looks good, Nev.

I'm not a big fan of the cannon sticking out massively from under the bike. It just doesn't sit quite well with me. But at least you can easily see which one is which on the TT.

What don't you like about the riders? Personally, it's their face-piece which does it for me. It's why I got alternative ones when I did a my brief stint of Eldar.

It’s the face grill and the cone head. Looks closer to the silliness of RT/2nd ed then the modern kits. Not a terribly big surprise, considering the age of the sculpt. But it hurts a nice cohesive army look.

As for the cannon, no other option leaps to mind. You might be able to do some over the shoulder, fixed on the back of the bike thing. Which, while looking cool, would not be easy. A slightly easier option would be to cut either the gun down, and/or carve more of the bike away. This would tuck it more into the frame of the bike, and lower it’s profile. Might require carving away a slot in the front canopy. That’s a lot of knife/file work; while others might be able to make it look good, I don’t have faith in my own skills.

The last option would be to pick up a box of the new harli bikes, and just use those. Or the GW conversion kits. But that’s spending more cash, and I’m cheep.

Here are the bikes staged and ready. I’ve got one more on sprue, and will probably leave it that way for a bit. Right now I’ve got 2x3 man squads, a farseer/warlock, and an autarch. What I could do is take the lat bike and make another warlock with it. Problem with that is I’d need to source bits or do a lot of kitbashing/greenstuffing. But I’m not sure if I need another regular biker. So the last one can wait for now. But I wanted to get a group shot in.

HG is done, and came out for a formal photo shoot. I took the time to white balance these. Just used the adjust tool in iPhoto, so hopefully it worked.







And one with his peers:


To go back to the tool topic, I used the offset paint knife to base him, the first mini I used it on. So much better then before. If you are using a straight tool to spread stuff around, consider switching to an offset. It makes things so much easier.

Marines came out beautifully Nev. That squad will look choice on the tabletop.

Looks great

Those HG are pretty fantastic! Really nice golds especially!

Beautiful HG! But I believe you're missing the banner

Thanks guys.

I think the banner is actually going to be the next thing I work on Zambro. When I had the HG squad out, I thought about finishing them up, which included basing and banner. The basing might require waiting until I can get the primer out, as I’ve got some special bits I should probably use for them. But the banner can be done now.

Here is the research I did for it a few pages back:

Tall Banner
Gold Ultramarine symbol on a field of deep, rich blue
Intricate with honorifics and victory scrolls
Unburnable, and self repairing.
Lists all 77 UM chapter masters
Honorific for every major victory. Cassus was present for 9 of them. While 400 years old is quite a stretch, it’s just a portion of the ~10k years the UMs have been racking up wins.

As the banner is not very wavy, I don’t think I need to use the blending tricks I’ve been working up. The new thing I’m planning is putting the micra pen to the test. Both for squiggles all over the parchments, and to blackline the gold Ultramarine symbol.

This is a great blog dude. Very nice work. Your HG make me jealous...

darkcloak wrote:
This is a great blog dude. Very nice work. Your HG make me jealous...

Thanks. With the exception of the last guy, they are probably 90% from the sternguard kit. While I do have a lot of old odds and ends in my bits box, I think the parts I used to make them are readily available. So no need to be jealous, just steal my ideas and build your own! With the exception of the banner topper, everything is generic marine, so works for any chapter. Kinda funny that I’m playing the chapter that gets an HG kit from GW, and I make my own.

The standard bearer pole is from the command squad, as is his bolter IIRC. Bolter might be from the commander sprue. He needed an offhand bolter, and there are a few still out there that you don’t need to cut the hand off first.
The champion’s back w/cape is from the commander. Not sure where the sword came from.
I think the guy resting his hand on the pommel of his sword is 100% sternguard.
By the time I made the axe guy I had burned through the sternguard torsos, so he just gets a tactical one. The axe is an old SW one, cleaned up a little. One of the few off-hand axes I’ve seen.
The relic blade is half GK (legs, arms, backpack), Torso is tac, shoulders are from a vet kit. Might be vanguard, rather then sternguard. Head is VV as well IIRC.

Paintjob is my standard base/wash/drybrush. Except the tabards, which I am quite proud off. Like the way they turned out. They took a little blending and mixing. I think the hardest part for someone trying to duplicate my work would be getting the paints. Some of the ones I use are archaic. I worry every time one starts to get low.

As I was blocking in the colors I realized I had forgotten to pencil in the Ultra symbol. Oops. So now I need to go back and try to get it on, centered, and looking nice. To help with this, I grabbed a pic (above) and printed it out. I figure I can muck about on paper before trying to put brush to plastic. And since I had a pic, I figured I might as well post an update here in the blog.


Edit: More procedural progress!


Right now you are looking at an image, of a printout, of a picture, of a mini. C’est ne’pas un pipe. (or something like that, my modern art history is a little rusty). This was a helpful endeavor. I got a better idea of the ratios and placement I’ll need, and a reminder of the shape. I forgot the tops were cut in a little, I was going to do them flat. Now back to painting!