Or getting one of the tv trays from JML. hold on let me take a look for a link.....


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http://www.jmldirect.com/currency/EUR/Table-Mate-Woodgrain-PT1037/

@Limbo - I did indeed used to do that, but it ends up taking up so much space on my already small table that it's really just a temporary workaround, I just need to get my act together and actually buy a non cruddy chair that can be raised and lowered and has back support ¬_¬ Kitchen table chairs really aren't that great.

@Dee - That looks like a great idea, would be fantastic for working on batch infantry while sitting on the sofa! Cheers for the link, I might very well grab one of those

DP Skin is now completed, as are his fade down hands which I am really happy with. I am loving the Vallejo gloss black as it mixes and blends so well. You can get a really nice shine gradient by just drybrushing. It is completely win. The paint pot in the pic is one of their liquid metals which are mindblowing. The "old gold" literally looks like gold leaf on a model, it is spectacular. Only problem is you need an alcohol solution to clean the brush, and as I don't have any yet, I won't be using it right now. It would have to be used on all models in a unit/army anyway as it is so shockingly realistic that fielding models with it beside others with GW metallics would look very obvious.

So anyway, finished skin + claws -







After wracking my brain trying to work out where to put hazards on him, it hit me. He may not have any flat metal areas bar his tiny thigh guards, but PIPES. PIPES EVERYWHERE. So hazard pipes shall be done and lolled at. Tomorow will be finishing off the vellejo black horns with shadow grey highlights, then on to his armour

I have one its cool. you can put a laptop on it as well.

looking good!

Sweet! Can't really recommend painting on the sofa, althought that may be cause my sofa and livingroom table are about the same height =/

Nice looking DP! (... wait what?) I really like how the white came out; usually that is a giant pain but the results are nice.

Here's hoping you put a little tutorial in here about that liquid metal stuff!

Also, paint table wise, have you tried putting a few books or 2x4's under the legs to raise the table? I did that with mine, just raising it 2 inches on the 2x4s but it helped a good bit, moving the whole thing closer to my head. I am thinking I will go a bit further and maybe raise it another 2-4" in the future, though at that point I might just make a custom table for better stability. (Lowering your chair might work since you have little bitty hobbit legs though ;-))

All these models look totally amazing. But thats just my opinion. Lol.

Your models and painting are SUPER!! You should be very proud of yourself. Being a dad with two daughters that are gamers,Im always proud of what they bring to the table! Ive seen models and game play that is just amazing! Great job and I cant wait to see your next post

Thanks for the comments all!

Skin, horns, spines and teeth are now finished. There is a very minor Shadowgrey highlight on all the black areas, but I wanted them to look start so tried to not detract from them too much. Basic undercoat for the iron is now in place, a 3/1 mix of chaos black and boltgun thinned a little for the best coverage. The reddish areas in the sunken parts of his pauldrons will be defined a bit more around the edges, but my vision of what this dude is going to look like when finished is slowly becoming apparant I think.





Will hopefully get all his iron done tonight, then it is just on to the gold and pipes




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Iron all done. It will be getting some rust streaks once the gold and pipes are done, but other than that I don't want to darken it down any further then it is. Red indents on shoulders are to get red inked + light black washed to darken them a bit, photo's really make them look awful when in reality they look pretty nice.





So tired D:

wow , i really like your lack of coulr in your models

Bah, I don't! After what, 2 months now of nothing but black white and metal, I really am looking forward to next months Lizardmen

If he asks me to paint them white I might just have to jump out a window.

Dont you mean throw them out of the window?

No, that would not be near a spectacular enough display of my intense rage at having to paint any more solid whites/blacks!

I am anticipating lots of nice vivid colours and plenty of gold for them, it will be a really lovely change of pace.

Aha, French today Ifalana?!!

The DP looks awesome so far.

What sort of scheme you going for with the lizzies, 'standarad GW or something out of the box?

yeas- you do appear to be french - or maybe belgian

I asked to get my flag locked to Ireland, my work Ip seems to be unable to decide on one Country, hah!

Lizardman aren't decided till I have a good chat with the owner to find out exactly what he wants. If it's up to me each unit will have different markings based on spawning pool, with one colour being used across units to bind them together. I am praying for chameleon skinks. Praying.

I think I was French today Weety

That is a very nice silver you have got going there, it has a lot of depth which is very hard to do on metallics (IMO). Looking forward to seeing the possible lizardmen!

Holy progress on a worknight Batman!



Golds basecoated with dark flesh to allow shadowing and a nice even colour. Really starting to look like the final version in my head. All in all this has been a really quick piece of work and one that I am very happy with. Very glad to see I am improving when it comes to speed.

@Commander Cain : Cheers. I don't like to go overboard with layering for dark metallics, you lighten in up to much, so I instead do about 3 drybrush layers and then do the actuall " painting" with inks and washes. I find this suits my skills a lot better.

Iffy, I would have never believed that anyone could make that dumb looking figure look like anything... but you did. I'm very impressed.

I'll post mine when he returns from the US.

Looking at the photos now, I need to retouch his tail in areas. Will have that sorted by tomorow night.

Gitsplitta, I do agree he is intensely goofy, it would have been so easy to screw this up, so I had to plan out what the scheme was going to be very carefully. I know people were not too keen on the pale grey at first, but I do think nearly any other skin colour would have left this awful. The skin has pulled detail from the iron, and once the gold is on, the black horns and fingers will do the same to it.

Dee, looking forward to it

I've just caught up with your blog Ifalna and there is some great work in here. keep up with the updates!

You know, it just ocured to me that I read the "armored" bits completely differently. I always pictured him having a sort of armored halter top with a steel codpiece, and bare abs (with tubing going in.) I couldn't figure out the dissonance until I realized you went for armored "muscles" on the belly with his demon-dong popping out the bottom.

Interesting...

I feel emphasising his Ken doll nethers was an important aspect of finishing this model I never even thought of leaving the abs as flesh honestly, but that kind of would have looked like he was wearing a metal belly top/boobtub so I am glad I steered clear.

Edit: Oh great, I'm British today it seems.

Dang girl, how do you manage to fit in the great painting with all this moving around you do

My real location is obviously on a floating island. It is the only logical answer.

Yea, I am not sure which is odder, that you went for the featureless groinal plain, or that I figured "Of course he is wearing a metal bikini". Now I really want to see it with a little knot tied in it after the bottom of the armor was tucked through the neck hole.

As a completely unrelated aside, you can put a lot of vodka and dark rum in cranberry juice...

Thanks for the mental image Wehrkind, if I ever paint another DP, it will be in a metal bikini

Stripes done skin done iron done horns done. All that needs doing now is 3 or so more layers on the gold, the piping to have a very thin line of undiluted devlin around its edges, and his tail and legs (especially his left ) to be tidied up as there are some issues with the grey.





His special base to match the termies is on the way, and he should be on his way home next week.

He's coming togheter really nice! How did you layer the gold?

So far the gold is only dark flesh followed by a 1/1 mix of tinbitz /shining gold. Next couple of layers will be more and more shining gold, leading up to pure shining on the lightest areas.

Badab/sienna wash will be added to the edge of any raised parts too.

looking nice.

lol, I almost hate to say it but the hazard pipes look great! Excellent work!

Hey hello there,
i would like to give some constructive feedback but 2 things keep me from doing it .
First: I dont know if its wanted.
Second, I have the feeling, the pictures need more light to see all the details you painted.

For example, on my monitor (which may be bad for watching pictures, i dont know) the horn on the back just looks plain black and misses highlights. Same with the horns on the head.
Or the skin just goes from either white to black.. without much in between.
Please dont take that wrong, i believe its just the lighting or monitor but id like to know .

Cheers

Looking very nice! Question: Whereon the body does the armor start and stop? Is there just a sharp line between the front and back somewhere in the middle (as with two chest pieces that are swappable) or is there a melded area?

If the former, I suggest putting some straps and a little thong on his backside to show how that armor is staying put

Iron Angel wrote:Hey hello there,
i would like to give some constructive feedback but 2 things keep me from doing it .
First: I dont know if its wanted.
Second, I have the feeling, the pictures need more light to see all the details you painted.

For example, on my monitor (which may be bad for watching pictures, i dont know) the horn on the back just looks plain black and misses highlights. Same with the horns on the head.
Or the skin just goes from either white to black.. without much in between.
Please dont take that wrong, i believe its just the lighting or monitor but id like to know .

Nothing wrong with feedback!

This is a Character standard commission, meaning I am holding back from the likes of Shrike or Korvydae.
The black is as black as possible, it has literally one small highlight and that's it, which is a very thin line along the main edge. What looks like small amounts of shine along the edge of his horns is actually the highlight. The skin does have some shading changes, but it is based around the actual muscle ridges bar being more kind of zenithal, due to the standard again The pictures are pretty bright, if I went brighter then he would just look white completely. Maybe it could be a monitor brightness/contrast tweak?

@Wehrkind - there is absolutely no phasing between metal and skin. It is really, really bad. His chestpiece at the sides just stops being metal and becomes skin, and I am pretty sure his back is not metal as it has none of the cracks or grid bits. Very poorly designed and confusing model imo. I had to kind of paint on a joint for the chestpiece to end at the sides. Maybe some little bra straps and a whaletail at the back would help, yeah?

Oh and @ Dee, thanks for the email. Really cool idea for an IW DP!

Ah ok now i get it

Whats your next project?

And people say Im mad.

http://www.ursasden.com/

this is the friends site who did it.

Dee, that site is amazing. The converted slaanesh demon prince blew my mind. He does really great work allright.

Iron Angel, next up is a medium lizardman army, about 110 troops, a slaan, and some salamanders. I am really looking forward to this as it means batch painting units, which I love, bright colours, and tons of gold! After that it should be a medium Skaven army, and an Ork Big mek.

Ifalna wrote:Dee, that site is amazing. The converted slaanesh demon prince blew my mind. He does really great work allright.

Iron Angel, next up is a medium lizardman army, about 110 troops, a slaan, and some salamanders. I am really looking forward to this as it means batch painting units, which I love, bright colours, and tons of gold! After that it should be a medium Skaven army, and an Ork Big mek.

Can't wait to see them.

_Tim?

You enjoy batch painting... that must be sooo usefull for a commissions painter. I just don't know how people can put themselves through batching :(

Ifalna wrote:
@Wehrkind - there is absolutely no phasing between metal and skin. It is really, really bad. His chestpiece at the sides just stops being metal and becomes skin, and I am pretty sure his back is not metal as it has none of the cracks or grid bits. Very poorly designed and confusing model imo. I had to kind of paint on a joint for the chestpiece to end at the sides. Maybe some little bra straps and a whaletail at the back would help, yeah?

I will send you a fiver if you do it! Your friend can consider it my contribution to the commission. :-P

Now if only you could sculpt the little copper tone dog pulling down the back of it...

Trilobite wrote:You enjoy batch painting... that must be sooo usefull for a commissions painter. I just don't know how people can put themselves through batching :(

There is something very satisfying about seeing an entire unit come together colour by colour. By the time the unit is done, it feels like I only completed one large model. I always found I get a much more uniform look by doing it too, but then again I also love cleaning and organising things into perfectly even stacks, so it could very well be due to just being a freak.

Wehrkind @ If only. I think the owner would send me a letter bomb!

He's from Ireland then?

*rimshot*

Thank you very much! I'm here all week! (Till someone sends me a letter bomb)

I think you just lose sight of the models themselves. It becomes more of a painting by numbers thing, like "apply green paint here, move along, apply green here, move along."
That said, well painted ranks look incredible.

Trilobite wrote:I think you just lose sight of the models themselves. It becomes more of a painting by numbers thing, like "apply green paint here, move along, apply green here, move along."
That said, well painted ranks look incredible.

Try batch painting Space Marines! It is not a fun task

I have a salamanders army. It looks pretty. It put me off army painting completely. I vowed never again to let a painting project tie me down like that and now I only do single minis and purely for the enjoyment. That said, Im restarting my nids and have so far painted the tyrant which was super good fun. Next I have 20 gaunts. I wonder how Il feel about batching them this time. Might take one gaunt per day or somthing, seems less painfull.

I guess at least the salamanders are such a nice color that it made it slightly less tedious, green is the besst

I really like the armor. Gold looks great. Not quite sure I'm feeling the color choice of the skin though. I think I would like to see a much darker skin, almost black.

Well we can see how I feel after doing 100+ batch models next month. So many may warp my opinions on the matter

TheChronoTrigger - Heck yeah black would have been pretty awesome alright. It was in the running when I was deciding on colour scheme but I figured it would have taken a lot more effort to get looking good, and I did not want to spend Showpiece level time on a Character standard model if I could help it.

I also would have worried a bit that the dark metal would have caused the black skin to be lost and would not capture the eye, but I may still try it out eventually as a test

The gold seems to bring the model together. At first I was thinking where is the warmth as it would bring nice contrast to the fig and with the gold you are bringing it. Cannot wait for the next update.

Cheers Metsuri.

Will be continuing a little more work on him tonight. While in town I picked up some cork boards to try out some more dynamic basing, and some methylated spirits which seem to be the mildest alcohol solvent available that I can use to clean brushes after using my new liquid metals. I will test it out on an older brush and hope it does no damage, fingers crossed.

If it is fine, I will post a pic of how great the metals look in my next picture update, which will be either later today, or tomorow

Edit: Actually, heres 2 quickies of the amazing liquid gold. Not touching the DP till my hand shakes stop. No food eaten today yet.



Top is a single layer GW shining gold. Middle is a single layer Liquid gold "old gold". Bottom is Liquid gold with a devlin wash, undiluted. It really is as reflective as it looks, and covers black in one brushstroke. You can also get darker versions. It is so bright that it is really hard to photo unless in just natural dull light.

The only gripes with it are that you need to clean your brush carefully. Any water added to the paint pot will cause the gold to rust, so you need something like Methylated spirits ( mine was €2.50 ) to clean up. You would also be wise to not use synthetic brushes as the alcohol can damage them, but GW brushes are fine it seems. Just condition them afterwards with any waxy brush conditioner. I use "The masters brush cleaner and preserver" and have only pure positivity to lavish upon it.

I wiped some of the lid spill with this tissue, I still can't believe how metallic it is compared to GW metals.

Wow that is pretty shocking. I have seen Testor's enamels go on that crazy shiny (I have some old Hero Quest Chaos warriors I did up like that when I was about 12) but still I am a little shocked. I am really curious now to see what you can pull off with that; it seems like it might be a little too super shiny reflective to use much of without a wash, lest it look like bad '80s airbrush art ("omg I can totally do metallic unicorns riding a '67 mustang on a chromed rainbow in space!") but it might work really well for details or even filigree if it flows nicely. Hrmm...

Good luck to you on the batch work. If I may offer a little advice on process:

1. Plan your colors ahead of time, and keep them set up and out in their groups. (I personally try to keep it to 2-3 layers and a wash at most.)
2. Avoid mixing colors if possible (just too hard to keep right after you are on model 43.)
3. Small batches (5-7 seems to be best for me)
4. Plan some more.
5. Don't switch colors or brushes mid stream. If you make a mistake, at most dab it off with another wet brush and keep going. Touch up is a definite step to plan for along the way.
6. Plan for a Touch Up Step periodically, and definitely for a "Unique Detail" step towards the end for the little bits that make each model special (or the other models don't have.)
7: Break things up by having other models to do in between batches so you don't burn out. You probably have less of an ADD issue than I do, but after 30 of the same sort of model you will want to murder God.

Ok, that is a lot of words, but I like to think I have gotten pretty good at it after churning out 3 armies in 2 years (well, sans vehicles at least... hate those.)

It will deffo need a wash, but it is going to be fantastic on the lizard men. Plan is a layer of this, layer of 1/1 mud/water, then this as a slight highlight. It takes washes really nicely as you can see on the bottom part of the sword. It does not actually mask detailing once washed as all the recesses get darkened, but you can actually see a slight reflection of yourself in it in a flat surface with no wash. Insane.

Consistency wise, it is very very liquid, as thin as water but it does not run, so it is actually really controllable bar it drying insanely fast. Luckily you can remove mistakes with a swipe of cotton swap with methylated spirits, which the primer ignored, so hopefully the other paints will too. Afaik, it also needs to be sealed with mat sealer or it will tarnish over time as it contains real metal.

My way of batch painting is very similar to yours it seems! I work 1 colour at a time, so if doing blue, I will base blue on all models, highlight blue, wash blue, and finish blue before moving onto the next part. I feel it helps the feeling of completion come quicker. I also don't mix up paints as it is too much hassle to try and remix, though with the wet pallet that may now be redundant Plan is to work on the Black reach SM captain in between the batching, as he is going to me more practice on weathering and slightly better basing.

That metal is insanely bright. I may have to buy myself some. Though having to use alcohol to clean your brush is pretty insane.

I batch paint slightly differently: if I am painting, say, red, I basecoat red on all the models, Then, I go through and basecoat all the other colors. Then I go in and do the first layer of highlights on each basecoat, followed by more highlights, ETC, ETC. It isn't a very good system, so I may be switching over to finishing one color, then moving onto another one, and finishing it.

How many models can you batch-paint at once? I have done 5 savage orcs, though that is a record. 3 seems to be a much more manageable number.

I once tried to do 20 solid marines. *twitch,giggle*.

I usually batch entire units in one go. I know that seems mental, but it never bothered me. Looking back though, my painting skills were a lot lower than they are nowadays after so much practice, so I might end up doing small batches instead, ranks perhaps.

I think it also really varies on what you are painting. I mean if you are painting empire or SM's, they are all going to be really similar, meaning you can batch an entire unit and not lose out on time. But what about Skaven? Zombies? Things that need different colourations, different coloured stains, cloth etc. Those would really have to be done in clumbs of whatever colour you are planning.

For the Skaven I should be doing in a month or two, massive clan rat units will be broken into grey fur, brown fur, black fur groups, then the same basic colours for their clothes, but mixed up. Some might have brown pants and dirty green shawls, some might have vice versa. That means I will need 3 batch groups for the fur, and then swapping around for the cloth etc.

Christ I am all excited already. I am such a freaking nerd.

Go get yourself some scrambled eggs on toast.

*L* I hear you. I have come to accept the dork lord Geek. Right around the time I realized I spent ~90% of my free time painting, building, working on my foundry project and then reading econ texts as a "break", and that my wife collected the receipts from all that to build an accounting statement of some sort just in case a business shambled to life for fun I thought "I should totally be building a small closet shrine to the Dork God here... oooh in fact I could build a foam core mock up of a symbol and then cast it from brass... and paint up really sweet little devotional statues..." then decided to start my own religion

I am pretty impressed that you grind a whole unit at a time though. 14 marauders at once about killed my interest (though I did bone my paint process). That is a really good call on the rat men though, breaking them down into fur groups, then cloth groups. That might turn out to be a new "best practice" for motley, but not too motley, blobs of gribble.

One thing I have tried with some success when doing lots of multicolored things (Zombies in this case) was to go with only 2-3 base color groups that were pretty light, and then apply various washes for the shading and color differences. I found it actually worked pretty well, though a base color and highlight was preferable to a straight light base. It there is not a ton of different colored details it seems to work really well. Boss Salvage's nurgle/skaven are a good example of this too, though more mono chromatic than I have in mind. (Not that he has any pics up that I know of. PIKER!)

Dee, some bolognase sorted me out. Nom.


Wehr, the seperate washes over the same base colour will be utilised for the Skaven for sure, but I will be saving that for the final touches. Lots of dirt and stains. I am going off nightshift tonight, so I have to try and stay up for most of the day. Will work more on the DP and try out my Silver liquid metal. I am pretty sure it will be almost like chrome considering the gold!

Edit: Oh I'm British again :(

Can't you control your amazing floating island?

Ifalna wrote:
Christ I am all excited already. I am such a freaking nerd.

Nothing wrong with getting excited over minis, or being a nerd. However getting excited over batch painting does possibly require the services of a counsellor. But when you speak to them don't mention demon pronces in metal bikinis

edit: You know I meant princes.

The vast majority of those models would be better described as Pronces. You hit the nail on the head.

My island goes where the wind takes me, but I always seem to end up back home.

EDIT: Oh I'm Irish again.
EDIT2: BACK TO BRITISH ffffffffffff.

Windy day over the Irish Sea ?

Ugh, good luck on the transition. That used to kill me when I was working nights. Got a hell of a lot of sisters of battle painted though. Amazing what 8-10 hours of uninterrupted painting time over night can do for a collection Good luck to you!

Ifalna wrote:EDIT: Oh I'm Irish again.
EDIT2: BACK TO BRITISH ffffffffffff.

Don't worry,in our hearts you'll always be Irish to us no matter what that damned little flag tells us.

Daww I am Irish again.

Hour 10 in the Nightshift to Dayshift swap.
Leave work. Time for home. Have to stay awake at least 12 more hours. May die.

Hour 15 in the Nightshift to Dayshift swap.
Sitting at home. Ate miscellaneous noodle based Marks and Spencers ready meal. 200 calories. Make up for this by pigging an entire packet of Haribo Starmix. Feel sense of accomplishment. Decide to try and make a faux stone base for my Goblin hero.

Hour 17 in the Nightshift to Dayshift swap.
Really happy with first attempt at Faux stone base. Go to add static grass and realise I have made the base on a round not square version. NERD RAGE.

Hour 19 in the Nightshift to Dayshift swap.
Made second correctly shaped base. Epiphany that this really should not be taking 2 hours and that may be going mad from lack of sleep. Take swig of black paint water. It is not the orange juice next to it.

Hour 20 in the Nightshift to Dayshift swap.
Read threads on Dakka. Update blog detailing desperate need to sleep. Realise static grass still needs application. Go do it.

Hour 21: See the Truth for the first time while staring into the face of madness. Chaos is the only TRUE answer to the horrors of eternity. Gleefully carve prayers to new patrons onto my flesh with a craft knife.

Hour 24: Post pictures of "free hand skin texturing" on Dakka.

Oh jeez Ifalna, you made me laugh! But I feel sorry for you.
Now would not be a good time to play with sharp objects.

Im going to make a "to die for" chilli for dinner later on, just have to be careful not to drop anything on my foot (Op on big toe) and then its back to the PH DA Ven Dred.

Slept for about 6 hours, going to go back to sleep around 7 am and then get up again at 11 ish.
Dee, I have no food. Please send chilli!





These were great fun and I will definitely be making more. So much better than flat basing. Want to do some grey stone ones too for sure, and broken crumbly street tarmac. Going to finish off the DP tonight and will have pics up soon. His base still has not arrived, so he will have to make do for the moment. Hopefully will be here in the next day or so. Will also be heading out to town in the morning to get some small whitelight desk lamps to use with the lightbox. I figure the reason I am having such trouble getting the light under control is that what I am using is just too powerful, my giant LED magnifying glass hobby light which seems to have the light output of a small star.

Edit: DP finished bar little tidy up on back of legs.



I am happy enough with him considering he is only middle standard. He did not take too long so the time spent to final quality ratio was an improvement for me.
Once his base arrives I will get final lightbox shots and he should be off home this week.

The demon prince looks nice with the gold done, it brings so much color to the fig and gives needed contrast and warmth.

The stone base also looks good. You could try to dry brush the grass with bone or similar color to get them look more dried like they don't have enough water.

He looks great! The gold is very well done, I am thinking of stealing the recipe...

_Tim?

Boy that gold really makes the demon pop... Love that base too, how are you making the stone? (if you don't mind sharing)

Ifalna wrote:I am happy enough with him considering he is only middle standard. He did not take too long so the time spent to final quality ratio was an improvement for me.
Once his base arrives I will get final lightbox shots and he should be off home this week.

God I hate you. I can only dream that that would be middle standard for me. And, you know...not take forever to achieve in the process..

Looks fantastic! Keep the paintin' coming!

That's a great job, Ifalna. I can't believe that's not your top standard.

Very nice. The Liquid gold really did the trick. make the highlight " pop" I'd leave the grass the way it is. After all if Demons are strolling areound how long would it live anyway.

Nice. You work in the lighter colors is fabulous and inspiring ( whites and greys )

Cork for the Base?

That does look really nice. I am definitely going to have to try some of that gold for myself. Nice work

Nice Demon, the gold really does work well with your skin tone......

Looking forward to seeing you start the ol Skaven....

congrats on your fine work, looks finished.

Metsuri, thanks for the compliment and thats a great idea for the base Will also try adding some wash to the roots, the grass stands out too much as it is.

Tim, the gold is really easy. Tin bitz/shining gold 1/1 over a dark flesh base, then build it up to shining gold with in between washes of Badab mixed with gryphonne. The final highlight is shining gold with a touch of mithril, added just around the edge points. The amount of layers you want to add is up to you and how bright you want the finished piece.

Jin and Heffling, that would have been my best standard before I started posting on and reading through Dakka and it would indeed have taken me forever. Over the last few months I have upped my standard through practice and research, and forcing myself to finish models in XX time with XX amounts of highlight layers has really helped improve how fast I work, and I would endorse trying out those kind of exercises for sure! Fun, and they really do help.

Solar_Lion, the DP is just regular GW metallics, the liquid gold is something I want to get used to on non important models. I would have been afraid to test it on this guy and wreck him then be late in having him done for the owner :(

The bases are indeed cork, and they were really fun to make. I am now in love with Cork for sure.

Wehrkind, wait till the Lizardmen are pure bling, then we can see it in action

Doots, thanks a ton. I am looking forward to them too.


I am all in the clear now untill Monday when I am picking the Lizardmen, so I am playing around with the Avatars of War Goblin hero as a fun side project Like the Skaven, he is going to be a speed paint exercise, so hopefully he will turn out ok. I am not sure if it will be worth posting progress on him, so I might just post up his final pic when he is all done.

Still waiting on the DP base, getting annoyed now as I was hoping to be sending him home tonight, but it is out of my hands at this point.

For the DP, I really love the hazard stripe hoses.

I also work at night and have for about 5 years now. I don't think I'd want to go back to working days. Unfortunately, I hardly have the 10 hours of uninterrupted painting time others referenced, as I consistently and randomly have people from Aus and the UK calling me with their random computer problems, mid-orks.

Ouze there is no way I could handle nightshift for that long. The shift I was on was different to everyone else I know, meaning my "weekends" were two days sitting at home all night alone. That was great for the first 2 weeks.. but after that I got horribly lonely.

About 1.5 hours into the gobbo now. He is a speed paint exercise so not counting the base, I am giving myself 5 hours to get as decent a result as I can get. Really enjoyably to paint so far, bar some horrible glueing issues. I spent a good few hours trying to track down a pin vice in town, but it turns out they don't exist in Cork so I ended up buying the GW one. In fairness it was only €12 so as long as it doesn't break within a week, the value was ok.





Click + zoom enabled, curse you giant pictures.

Do you find that the output of you magnifier light tends to dry the paint on your brush when you paint. I find that to be the case with my magnifer. It dries the paint really quick so i have to wet my brush all the time.

It does if I am using the magnifier, yes. I have found using a wet pallet with Vallejo thinning agent in the mix really helps the paintbrush last longer however.

That's an hour and a half's worth of work? I'm amazed, it would take me 4-5 hours alone to reach that quality. Did you use any drybrushing? Or just paint and washes?

For the liquid gold you demonstrated, who makes that paint? I recall you said it would rust if you get it wet, so I'm wondering if it's not something I could use to give a rusted feel to a model.

Drybrushing on the metals, highlighting on everything else. I have no problem with drybrushing being used on all parts of a model, but it is just not my personal cup of tea, so I tend to keep it for specific things like fur or metals

The liquid gold is Vallejo model colour liquid metal "Old gold". I have no idea what it would look like if you let it rust, it was just a warning I read regarding how careful you have to be making sure no water gets in to it. I would think that if it was truly rusting, it would get a lot solider and harder to use. Might leave some out with some water and test to see how it goes though.

What was thinking was to try it and thin it with water, then let it rust naturally while I work on other projects. I mean, you can't get any more natural looking than the real thing, right?

Heffling, I will test that out for you and see how long it takes/if it works

I visited my FLGS today to organise picking up the lizardmen on monday. I left with 10 free white lions on sprue. This is why my FLGS is amazing.

Basic scheme is white silver and blue if I am not mistaken? Going to have something lovely to work on while waiting for the lizardmen, the gobbo can go on hold, these guys are amazing /excited

4 hours from on sprue to final work, so Im guessing with drying time, about 2 hours of painting (these are so horrible to put together, dear god why).
Rest of the unit will be to the same finish. 3 layers paint 1 layer wash max, table top standard. Base just needs a coat of black once the snow dries.



Really lovely guys, the unit of 10 is going to look really nice I think!

Wow, nice work Iffalna. I think the snow on the base really helps pull the model together thematically too. I don't think it would have the same impact on a different base style. The great job you did on the silvers & whites really gives him that "winter warrior" feel.

Cheers Gits. I basically copied the eavy metal scheme for them but simplified it immensely to fit my tabletop standard rules, so it was actually a really educational exercise as I had to try and get the same colouring but with a lot less blending/layering. A dark base would not have worked out as well I don't think.

Him on his own is not that impressive, but once they are all done up with standard bearer and musician etc, I think they will look really good. Will have to get a movement tray for them to finish it off too. Mistakes made where the face not having dark enough shading to distinguish the helm starting, and trinkets using far too light silver over the white and dissapearing. Will be changing a few things as I work on the others.

Lizardmen tomorow, wooop!

Edit: Just got contacted by the owner about the lizardmen scheme.

When I originally started posting here, my intense love of painting blue was hinted at after being noticed by one of two people. I actually made a conscious effort this year to not use blue as often as I used to, to experiment with new tones, but I have really missed it.

This is how he wants the army painted. The entire army.



Yesssssssssssssssss

Ah fantasy Romulans.

I look forward to a blue army - sounds great

Hurray for frog blue lizardpeople

Woooooo I like that blue! cant wait.

Yes the Frogs are the winners here.

The mins you are painting are just super! I cant wait to see the Lizardmen! I would like to know what you used for snow tho?

Very nice work thus far! Was that 4 hours for 1 White Lion, or 3? If the latter, nice speed; the former, nice patience

Yea, the 'I am SO alone' got to me too doing nights. I used to work 12 hour shifts ~4 days a week over night, so the last night I would come home, crash, and then stay up for ~24 hours to try and get back on a normal schedule and see my wife etc. The first day or so I got a ton of painting done, until about 10 am when my eyes and hands no longer pointed at the same thing :(

I am kind of curious about the snow too. I just did up a dozen bases for my WoC and tried doing snow with baking soda for the first time (the fact it just came out of the fridge really added to the effect.) Not really certain how it is going to come out though, as I want just little piles of half melted snow, not full on winter wonderland. Right now they just look like little piles of cocaine waiting for a razor and a mirror.


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Also, jeebus! 12pounds for a pin vise? Good lord, for that much you probably could have ordered from the WarStore and got some extra fun stuff, including international shipping. Hell, for like 20pounds more you could have gotten a nice Dremel kit...

No offense, but what the hell is going on in the Ol' Isles?

Nice work on the rock bases. Especially considering you were apparently halfway to being stark raving mad at the time!

Heffling wrote:
For the liquid gold you demonstrated, who makes that paint? I recall you said it would rust if you get it wet, so I'm wondering if it's not something I could use to give a rusted feel to a model.

Just be careful with that. I recall back when Ogre Kingdoms was released and an article in White Dwarf featured an army that someone had used a metallic paint with an oxidizer to create actual rust covered weapons and armor on their army. While it looks cool, you're dealing with actual rust, ie: Pointy Tetanus Warriors!

Glad to see others are as excited as I am about the lizards

Talons, the snow is any brand hobby snow mixed with pva till it becomes thick. You then spread it over the base and press it down carefully to get a nice even coat. Once done, dip the base back into the powder snow to get a fluffy coat on top, then just leave to dry. Easy and quick.

It was 4 hours for the one guy from sprue to finished, so 2 hours painting I would say, the rest of the time was cleaning, assembly (horrific) waiting for everything to dry, then priming and waiting again. I got 4 more assembled last night but they are soul destroying :(

€12 for a pin vise is good here. Ireland's economy is pretty insane at the moment. We get paid very well but everything costs a ton. I see all these mentions of cheap and effective sprays to use as primer, the cheapest spray paint of ANY kind here is going to run you over €10, but €10 is also the price of a cheap lunch here, or about 15 minutes of work salary for the average job. It is pretty weird honestly, but the €12 for the vice was pretty good value.

Hungryp, how amazing would it be to be hospitalised with tetanus and when asked for the cause, to reply " Freaking opponents chaos termies".



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New vallejo paints just arrived, Lizardmen are waiting at home, and I got my hands on some purity seal to make sure nothing goes funky with the metallics oxydising.

First test model should be done by tonight ready for the owner to get it approved for batch painting

WOW!
I knew that Ireland was expensive but that puts things into perspective 10Euros for lunch ouch
Gotta love the EU haha

Looking forward to seeing the outcome of the Scaly Ones. Sure it will be as brilliant as ever

<3 Painting blue.

Are the grass tufts actually bought as tufts? Or did you glue tiny bunches of static grass down?

Hmm, I'm quite convinced about getting some Vallejo paints. This is the second time I've seen excellent results on the metallics. Do you use any of the Game Color line? They look like they might be dross. I use a lot of Coat D'arms, and they rule the roost IMO. Lots of pigment, and thinned out a teeny but they flow like a dream.

Tek, the grass tufts are just a blob of pva, static grass, then another blob on the grass once it dries and some more grass added on top. Makes it look a little thicker!

First saurus test model is now finished and waiting on feedback from the owner. The red crest looks odd here but his shield will have red scales to tie it in, so it should look nice. There needs to be a bit of red/orange on all the models at his request, to help tie in the Slaan and the salamanders.



The gold is the vallejo liquid gold with a sienna wash. It took literally seconds.
I spent a few hours today cleaning off the painting area and moving all the paints out of the irritating black holders and back into their case, they all fit perfectly and I have more room for all my new vallejo stuff which I put in a segment of the old black holders that I cut off. Far easier to work with now



Can't wait to move into the spare room with all my stuff though, we are moving the bed out to turn it into a hobby/gaming room, so that will be a refreshing change. Might actually get shelves and be able to store things properly!

Did you order the try table?

I wonder how long the tablecloth will last in that state...

Haha, it's an early 90's bedsheet. Its in its retirement now, hence being a paint soaker.

Dee, no but I am still considering it

Love the darkblue on the lizards scales! The red and lightblue goes really nice with it and I really want to see a whole bunch of these painted

Great looking lizardman! I must say that the grass looks a little... square, maybe a few smaller patches scattered around would look better

WOW. i must say a massive well done! the improvement from one model to the next is phenomenal! i think you may well be winning demons in the not to distant future! just one small thing, i'd seriously increase the contrast on the high elf's armour, maybe from a dark matt blue or purple up to Mithril silver. though i wouldn't worry to much if it's just a quick job.

all the best

Chris

Ifalna wrote: how amazing would it be to be hospitalised with tetanus and when asked for the cause, to reply " Freaking opponents chaos termies".

Haha, yeah! They'd definitely have to be Nurgle though!

I agree with Orar

Have you entered into the Golden Demons before or are you going to?

Limbo, Cheers, that was the plan. With his shield in the same red, it should look lovely.

Orar, I don't like the mithril armor either. I was going to bring it up from boltgun instead of chainmail on the next ones as I can't spend too long on them as they are meant to be tabletop, but I deffo might try bringing it up from a bluey/purple grey. I need to test if I can do it decently in 3 highlights max.

GD wise, I am not remotely at a level where I would even get past the opening round. I hope if I keep practising I might be one day, but I am positive I am not now. I might go to a UK games day some time as it looks like great fun though, will have to wait and see

Hyngryp, oh god thats an even better angle to it. You would really feel like had served ol' papa nurgle if your models literally diseased someone. Gross, but funny.

Just got word back from the owner and he is completely happy with the test model, so starting up more now They have absolutely no down time bar waiting for the washes to dry, so they should not take all that long! I used a lot of cheats I have picked up so far on the saurus. He is brought up from white with a full layer icey blue, then a second layer of enchanted blue as his first dark layer, leaving a pale belly. Then another layer of midnight blue watered with a glaze mix is used for his dark layer, which leaves the scales looking slightly highlighted as the enchanted blue shines slightly through.

After that its 3 layers red wash in the mouth, picking out the teeth and then putting devlin just along the gums. A full watery blue wash is put across all the skin to tie the blues and shade the belly, then a tiny highlight in icey blue on the belly again. Scales are picked out with black and a white spot highlight added to them, then gold painted on with liquid gold in one coat. After that its just the crest and his claws and staff. It all got done in an hour, and a lot of that was waiting for things to dry!

1 hour? Really? That's so fast!

Can't wait to see more!

_Tim?

Yeah these dudes are mega fast. 2 hours into the command unit now and here is the progress. I made a point of actually documenting each step as it helps keep all the models unified.

Step 1: Icey blue these bad boys.




Step 2: Enchanted blue along the scaled areas, leave the belly pale, but limbs completely dark




Step 3: Midnight blue mixed with a glaze agent, used the same way as enchanted blue but leaving enchanted blue showing under it.
2 layers of red wash undiluted in mouth.




Step 4: Oh no blurry :( Blood red crests, spines blacked out, black spots randomly on scales.



Step 5: Asurman blue light wash over all blues to tie them, teeth and claws brought up from graveyard earth to pure bleached bone in 3 layers, weapon detailing + non gold armor painted pure bleached bone. Eyes dotted in but not yet tidied.



Taking a break now to have a shower, then back to them.

Really nice work. Thanks fior the pics documenting the process. I'm looking forward to watching this thread go forward.

Cheers Wolfshadow. For army commission I stated I would do a step by step for each unit incase the customer wants to paint more for themselves, so this is the first trial run

Step 6: Shimmy to the left! All bling gold added, crests finished off with fiery orange edges.




Step 7: Heavy sienna wash to dull down all gold, some also added to the bleached bone areas. Comparison with finished tester model and fullsize as clicking and zooming is for losers anyway. These only have 1 or 2 steps left.

Very nice indeed! Love the gradient from light blue to dark!

My comment would be that the metals still seem too shiney, but I think that's a matter of personal aesthetic preferences.

Can't wait to see the rest.

Washes really do speed things up, don't they? That liquid gold really doe's work well for Lizardmen.

Just don't mention the word "shower" around us nerds, we bow down do or stereotypes, and don't bother with such paltry things as "showers".

_Tim?

They look great!

However, you might consider making the blades of spears and swords an obsidian black colour. In the fluff, obstinite (the stone) is jet black. Could pop nicely as well.

Sorry for the disappearance, busy day!

Jin, you could well be right. I will wait and see how a finished unit looks before deciding, if the gold looks a bit off, it would be very little hassle to just add a badab wash afterwards! Thats the nice thing about not getting into too much detail with models I think, there is room to change things.

Vitruvian XVII, you are completely right, I knew the spearheads were stone but I forgot they were black, I repainted them and it does pop a lot more, kudos!

Commander Cain, Good point indeed. I have randomised the ground spots a bit more on the other bases, I hope it looks a bit better.

As for the next steps, I kind of got into a bit of a painting groove while I was at home today and ended up finishing them and the second rank off and forgetting to take any shots of the last stages. 2 ranks makes them really show what the army will look like in full, and once I got past the command group, the painting process sped up further The more I paint of these the faster I will get I think. Here are some shots of the double rank to show how the colour scheme is coming together. All done bar bases ( doing last for army ) and a little touch up on the spear shafts.

If anyone has any constructive critiques to improve these while keeping them 3 layers 1 wash, please do let me know, the faster they are coming out, the better. Right now I am on 5 in 4 hours but a lot of that is wasted drying time, so maybe I should just work on 2 groups at once.

very nice

One suggestion... obsidian is very similar to glass, so obsidian points would shine like polished glass.

They look great though, very striking colors!

They look amazing. White primer really seems to be helping. Maybe I should give it a try, next time I have a bunch of lightly colored models to paint.

_Tim?

Glad i could help Ifalna!

I think the best way to minimise drying time is to paint entire units at once. eg. Do a batch of 5 up to washes, then the next 5 etc. Not sure how many batches you'd need to do before the wash dries though. At least 2 i'd expect. Alternatively, putting them close to a lamp, under a light fan or hairdyer speeds drying considerably.

As to what Gitsplitta said, yes it does shine. I usually hit my lizzies stone with a layer of PVA to gloss it a bit. With the awesomeness of the liquid gold though, im not sure if it would get lost in all the shine. It has a good contrast atm.

I really like the way they look, but I think I have a few ideas to make them look a little better:

1: Tie the red in with the body a little more. The crest looks very flat (might be the pic?) and since it doesn't blend at all it sort of looks added on. Part of the issue is that the crest on the model doesn't really grow from the model, but is really sculpted to just sort of be there. You might be able to even that out a bit by tying some purple or red into their heads, to give a slightly more gradual transition and say "This is attached, thanks!" Possibly a small bluish pattern on the crest would also help.

2: The spear points probably should either be glossy or have some NMM style highlights as they said. Some paint on glossy sealer would probably do the trick, and give a nice contrast in shine to the gold.

3: The spear shafts might need a little bit of a wash, as currently they look a little flat. Might be the pic again.

4: I don't know how well the scales are getting picked out. They look pretty good, but I wonder if perhaps they couldn't stand to be a little lighter. The darker blue areas look a tad monochromatic, and thinking back to my old iguana, his scales tended to have a little more gloss and color variation. Just a thought though. Possibly thinning out the darker color before the wash so that more of the light blue peeks through.

Those are looking nice though; don't take these suggestions as severe crits! Those are just the things that pop out at me a bit.

Oh, also, south american tribes often wore various kinds of war paint, or so I have read. You might be able to mix in some different colors with some red or chalky white stripes here or there.

Thanks for the great feedback!

I can't really go all out with the obsidian as making it "shine" would be far too time consuming for models I am earning €1 each from, hah, but painting on some gloss is an awesome idea and one that is still within the 3 layers 1 wash rule for these dudes, so kudos Wehrkind, that will be used!

Vitruvian XVII, I think the gloss will be ok with the gold to be honest, the gold has had its shine taken down a couple of levels due to the purity spray so shining the obsidian should not be too over the top. The only other way I can think of avoiding the gold oxidising while retaining its shine would be to gloss varnish it too, but I like the tarnished version on these a little more. If it looks wrong I can always just purity seal it to remove the shine anyway, so lets test and see how it looks!

Tim, white all the way for these guys. It sped them up so much faster.

Wehrkind, great suggestions and I will be certaintly using them for the character standard + models, I just can't really afford to pick out the scales further on these dudes due to the layer restriction on their standard :( You are completely right that the crests look a bit flat, in reality they are blazing orange fading to blood red in the center, but it does not really seem obvious enough, so I am going to reinforce the orange colouring on the outside . Shafts will be getting a quick tidy up before the unit is finished but I kind of wanted them to look like a solid ivory coloured spear, so going further with shading might detract from the units cartoony look maybe.

The entire unit of 20 is now nearing completion, and I have started working on 10 at a time which is stopping time waste issues with drying. They are getting done much faster now and I can't see there being any time issues with completing the entire project The Dp's base FINALLY arrived this morning, so tonight he will get it added and his final shots taken, then off in the mail hopefully in the morning. I am going to continue work on the speed paint exercise Gobbo from earlier while working on the Lizardmen in order to not burn out on them. Bit of variation is needed I think. Pics up once I get home.

The colours doesn't work for me I'm afraid :/

If you are doing more than 20 taking time in between batches to work on something else is necessary. I have found for every 5-10 that are part of the army the 1-2 minis with a significantly different paint job are a god-send.

If you want to paint models fast the best thing I can suggest is using a hair dryer so you don't spend as much time waiting for paint to dry, you could try a purple wash on the red bits as well.

Rose_Mountainz, colours were decided by the owner. I think they will look nicer once their shields are on and more models in the army are completed personally. The Orange and red Salamanders will be a good contrast.

ChaoticMind, bingo. I do need a bit of variation or I will just be seeing blue for months. I have some nice models here I can work on like my little Gobbo or some whitelions, both of which are very nonblue I also have huge amounts of boxed models I really need to get my act together on. Boyfriend got me a tomb scorpion and a fireprism for my birthday which are untouched, how shameful.

itsonlyme, that works really well aye! I used some basic small lamps and the heat drastically lowered drying time which was awesome.


I had a rather lovely gift of an xbox and enslaved yesterday + I got monster hunter freedom unite on psp which I am still working through, need to make sure I get that base finished tonight before giving in to gaming temptation!

Hon your in england

I thought that might do the job I tend to do that a lot when I have batches of models to paint in a short time.

@ Dee - I thought Ifalna was Irish because of the prices for commission being in euro's

I am Irish, just having major problems with my flagging when I post from work due to the IP's being proxies/dynamic :(

May have to add from my Sig that I operate from Ireland exclusively, hehe.

I think it's possible to get your flag permanently set to a certain country

Try searching Nuts and Bolts

Also... That blue is insanely good

I actually already got it set to Ireland, but it just doesn't seem to be working. No way around it right now according to the mod that helped :(

DP all done. Will get around to altering the background to be one unchanging colour, but for now I am completely exhausted and need bed.

Edit: Screw it, altered.

That is a pretty nice base, though I keep imagining him taking one step forward and losing some toes in the fan

I hear you on the lizard fellows; it is often hard to remind oneself not to go nuts on a model that you need to make 100's of As to the poles, have you tried using multiple washes on them? I do that for my marauder horns, basing with Light Flesh, then a Sepia wash all over followed by a Devlan wash at the bottoms. Seems to work pretty well (at least no one has called foul on it yet)

Also, do me a favor when you are getting some down time and swing over and let me know what you think of the Warrior test scheme. Having inordinate amounts of trouble tying him in for some reason.

Daemon Prince looks perfect! Nice touch with the base.

Very nice Ifalna... you're probably getting tired of hearing that. The colors and forms really jump out at you! Nicely done.

Get some sleep, you've earned it.

I downloaded and tried out GIMP based on earlier suggestions, and 10 thumbs up for it. Much faster and capable of handling far more information at once than paint.net which I was being enraged by daily.

The base was a nice finisher for this guy alright, but I am still not happy with its general lumpyness and intense resistance to taking paint, even when scrubbed clean beforehand. Ended up having to keep it under a heatlamp to force it to instant dry the base coat instead of it pooling strangely, which worked in the end. Would still not be buying these again personally.

Wehrkind, I kind of want the shafts to be clean and not shaded. There is sepia around the tops and bases but its not strong enough to be really noticeable, so I am going to strenghten it and tidy up the bleached bone on them I will take a gander at the warrior now!

Sleep was great, more Lizardmen tonight though!

Ahh I see what you mean about the very light shafts.

What is the deal with the base? Is it some weird plastic or resin? I assume you primed it first, which I would think would cover that up?

Yea, sleep sounds good. I should look into that.

The base is the same make as the ones on the terminators, it is resin, but the mix used just seems really bad for modelling. It was like trying to paint on glass. Scrubbing it in washing liquid and hot water is usually fine for resin, but not this stuff. Repeated washes did nothing, and trying to prime just left whatever you used, paint or spray, in little beads of paint. It could not stick :S

The only way around it I had was to heat it so the paint dried almost as quickly as it was painted on, meaning I could get a primer layer to actually coat it :( Full of bubbles and imperfections too.

Wow, are you certain it is resin and not say bronze? I don't even know what you could do with that; a very mild acid could be used to etch it a bit and give it some grip, or some extra surfactant in your paint/primer to keep the surface tension down.

Actually, what might have worked (and I keep meaning to try on metal model) is spray it with Testors Dullcote. I have used that on models that I primed with spray paint that dried way too slick to paint/wash, and a thin layer added enough tooth that stuff worked as normal. If you get another teflon base that might do the trick.

Iffy, those lizardmen look brilliant!!! i would almost consider abandoning my 40k biasdness to collect a lizardman fantasy army! But i would be loathe to abandon the blood angels!!! Keep us up to date!!!

niallkissick wrote:Iffy, those lizardmen look brilliant!!! i would almost consider abandoning my 40k biasdness to collect a lizardman fantasy army! But i would be loathe to abandon the blood angels!!! Keep us up to date!!!

Three words: Reptiles in space

Gorn!!

OMG... I may have to try that some day...

Beautiful DP Ifalna, I started lurking this thread when he showed up and I'm happy to see him all finished up at last. That skin is really something, as is the decision to go with black fingers For the join of chest armor to body, did you do any sort of blending? My own plastic DP I fudged the sides in the building process, figure painting I'll go for a clean break too, as odd as that may be

Keep up the great work, will be watching (and reading Wehr's comments )

- Salvage

I did not mean to disappear, sorry! Have been mega busy and just could not get around to posting.

Wehrkind, good idea. I think the bases were actually cursed by some kind of geek wizard, if the spray is stickier than spray primer then I may well try that in the future.

Boss Salvage, thanks very much. I just left the join as it was and painted it to look like the armor ended. I still can't believe such a dodgy model was released without them noticing though, really :(

As for space lizards, I am pretty sure Kirk already fought one in that desert scene where he hurled the polystyrene boulder at it and it fell down far too late in reaction. With the epic old Star Trek fight music. BAH BAH BOM BOM BAH BA BA BAH BA BA and Shatner all sweaty and slightly pudgy.

I got loads more work done on the Lizards, and some more on the gobbo though I don't have shots of him at the moment. The first unit of Saurus are all done, and the Skink units are getting their last touches now. Photos of them are WIP but you get the idea. There are 20 in 2 units of 10. One units crests go from red to orange, the other from orange to red. The rest of the skinks in this army will be blue, these just count as chameleons and so have a green version of the blue scheme. I gave them blue eyes to tie them in.





And a close up of 2 skinks so you can see a bit of detail. Still need a fair bit of their knicknacks done and a little highlighting on the scales, but that is the basic idea of what they look like now
Starting on Saurus unit 2 tomorow, will have pics of the finished unit then as the ones I took tonight turned out awfully blurred due to intense Ifalna failure.

Nice work on the skin, it has a lot of depth. I like the reflective eyes as well.

qft, eyes look awesome!

Thats a lovely green as well!

I wasn't too certain on the dark green at first (expecting more yellow, paler skinks... weedy gits) but looking at those two up close they look really nice. I also think your camera hates reds and oranges and the display thereof.

I think you missed a spot on the left skink's right arm though, right around the elbow

Yep, that's some good looking reptiles. Like the subtle difference with the crests to identify units.

Oh aye there are little bits missing on a few, these were literally two I just grabbed, not perfect ones. Any missed spots will be hit in my final check before they are considered finished, its the one problem I really have with batch painting, I find I end up missing more bits than I should and have to go back and check later :(

The eyes on Skinks are great as they are huge and leave lots of room to make them look nice with not much effort I was originally going to do them red but the blue is best I think. I was a bit sceptical too about the dark green but it worked out not too shabby! I just had to keep the light underbelly really light.

I agree with decision for having blue eyes over red.
This way they have a cute intelligent look to them!

Finished these wee guys paint jobs off last night, will finish off the bases and have pics up when I get home I would prefer to have a basic sand/rock base scheme on these models to emphasise the colour, but owner wanted something a bit more alive, so stuck with the static grass.

The repeated batch painting is kind of wearing me down a bit, so I am going to put extra effort into getting some more work on the gobbo done before starting on the next unit in full. Need a bit of a change and his tiny detail will be enough to get me back on track for sure

Great work as always Ifalna!

The eyes on the skinks really do look great. Kinda the same effect as real chameleon eyes: they creep me out a little, but I can't look away.

So, Ifalna, how much out of this commission is done, and how much is left?

They eyes were fun and quite easy due to how BIG skinks eyes are! 2 units down, have 2 more skink units, 1 saurus, 4 salamanders, a few templeguards and the slaan. I work slow on workdays and fast on weekends, so I am planning another saurus and skink unit done by this weekend, everything should be finished up by mid next month unless I get hit by a car or shot into space.

Click for larger pics, showing them in fullsize was overkill






There arent as neat as I would usually do, but then again I don't personally really paint to tabletop quality unless requested. And a bit more work on the Gobbo



Dakka gallery seems to think I am really skimping out on contrast on these pics, but I am always afraid to up it as it kind of adds more depth to the model then there may actually be :( I don't really know which would be better, as they are or upped contrast by the gallery?

Wow everythings coming together really nicely, great job!

I personally prefer pics as they come, dakka auto-adjust does some funny things to mine

Whoah, love the skinks! They look excellent.

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Wow everythings coming together really nicely, great job!

I personally prefer pics as they come, dakka auto-adjust does some funny things to mine

I would have to agree here. Just correcting the lighting is fine with me, but digitally adding more contrast than there actually is seems wrong.

The Skinks look ace, would you mind posting a tutorial? Also, I cannot wait to see the finished Gobbo!

I'm with Vit & Tim, don't use the auto-adjust... the overall effect is not good. Your pics are fine the way they are.

Looking very nice. The skinks and lizards look very nice en masse, and the gobbo is off to a great start! Love the skin and mouth.

I am loving the gobbo too, the model itself has an amazing amount of character. One of the Avatars of War series if I recall. Tim, I can't post a tutorial for the green skinks but I will be able to do a quick once when I am working on the blue salamandar herders. The technique will be exactly the same, the 3 colours will just need to be swapped for the green versions which were scorpion, snot, and Da if I recall.

I will steer clear of the auto adjust then, it just always seems to look nicer in the thumbnails it shows when you are uploading, but that is likely due to not being able to see it in detail. I was planning on painting more tonight, starting on the blue skinks, but I am still at work and completely exhausted. I doubt the day will get any easier before I finish tonight, so not sure if I will get much done :( I might just do another White Lion or some more work on the Khorne knights who are very very slowly getting there.

Edit: woo posting for work with an Irish flag, looks like the flag lock is finally working!

I wouldnt count your chickens just yet, the floating island knows no bounds!!

If it bothers you overly much you could upload an auto-ajusted one then just take it down if you dont like it, or do the same image twice (if thats possible!)?

I tried to get some more work done but I am just too tired, so I ended up just getting some metals on the gobbo started off. Weekend will be no work and tons of sleep, cannot wait. Night night to anyone still up!



Light is a bit bright in this one, sorry. No daylight, curse you nighttime.

Every time I come back here there are more amazing minis that put my best efforts to shame. Now I wont be able to spend a relaxing afternoon goofing off, it will be a relaxing afternoon trying to improve.

At least your work is able to inspire sleep addled brains for 8+ hours at 6 in the bloody AM.

It looks great, Ilfana. Did you use any drybrushing other than on the base?

Ilfana, how can you stand to stay up so late? Your are an inspiration to us all!

_Tim?

Tim, raw willpower and Port

Heffling, none bar the base no. Chainmail is mostly just washes. I love drybrushing, I just tend to use it rather sparingly on models. Especially tiny ones as there never seems to be enough surface to get good use out of it.

Wow that is one ace straight build of a the new deamon price. One of the best I have seen for sure. Like the skinks eyes, very nice. 8D

I use a smaller brush for drybrushing. I find it does really well on things like Ork and Goblin skin, although my painting is certainly not up to your quality.

I would love to know how you did the cloak, it looks amazing.

O-O Awsoem shrike! Very nice work... How the heck do you get shading lines that small........

Ifalna wrote:They eyes were fun and quite easy due to how BIG skinks eyes are! 2 units down, have 2 more skink units, 1 saurus, 4 salamanders, a few templeguards and the slaan. I work slow on workdays and fast on weekends, so I am planning another saurus and skink unit done by this weekend, everything should be finished up by mid next month unless I get hit by a car or shot into space.

Click for larger pics, showing them in fullsize was overkill






There arent as neat as I would usually do, but then again I don't personally really paint to tabletop quality unless requested. And a bit more work on the Gobbo



Dakka gallery seems to think I am really skimping out on contrast on these pics, but I am always afraid to up it as it kind of adds more depth to the model then there may actually be :( I don't really know which would be better, as they are or upped contrast by the gallery?


wow those are great. that Gobbo is looking nice . you used a white base do you use white for most your mini's? I mainly use black for mine.tho that Gobbo's white base is giving me second thoughts on using white as a base again. I love the lizardmen btw they're bright but not overly bright. which can be hard to pull of at times.

I only tried my first white prime model in the last few months, but I would 100% recommend it for any model that will have light colours on the majority of it. It takes a bit of getting used to but it is really great to work with.

Shading lines on shrike were just where I carefully avoided painting white. All the white was brought up from a black base on him so it was easy to keep shading in the recesses

Todays work was 10 templeguard. They took a rather long time as there is just so much detail on them, and the amount of gold on them is insane. They are unbased as the grass is something I am going to put on in one sitting on as many models as possible, hence some brown on the toes not being fixed as it will have static grass anyway! They are still only tabletop so 3 layers 1 wash max, but they are nice and coherent and I manged to keep them neat-ish. There is another group the same size to go still, but 10 was the perfect size to get done in one sitting





Tomorrow is another Skink unit, and I will do a quick tut on them for anyone interested bar the insatiable Tim(?)

That unit is looking nice and coherent, which is what anybody can ask for. The speed you keep up is amazing and this bloggery about the lizardmen army has been great in giving me inspiration to try to speed up my own painting to get close to same level. Currently I'm too much into painting for skirmish games and it takes too long to finish figs with my methods.

WOW!!
Very Impressive
Makes me want to get Lizardmen now

I did not manage to get the skink unit finished today due to crappy migraine issues, but they are very very close to completion so it is not too bad Just the back scales weapons teeth and gold to go. I took shots of each stage on the one skink so here they are with a step by step. Scroll straight to the bottom if you just want to see where they are at the moment in regards to being finished!

Step Uno: Prime white. Black would be killer for these.



Step 2: Basecoat with ice blue, or any blue mixed with white to the shade you want.



Step 3: Paint on Scale pattern with enchanted blue. This particular pattern leaves their underbelly pale, but top of back and limbs dark. Darken mouth with unwatered baal red.



Step 4: Darken further with Midnight blue mixed with some glaze agent to let the lower layers peek through. Watering it would have the same effect, but just be a bit harder to control. Remember to cover slightly less of the underbelly so the enchanted blue is showing.



Step 5: 1:1 asurman blue/water wash all blues to tie them. Block in red with blood red.



Step 6: Quick icey blue rehighlight on bottom of underbelly. Blend eye and frill to orange at edge. Wash with 1:1 Baal/water to tie colours.



Step 7: Add black slit pupil and white dot (I find adding the dot just behind the pupil is perfect for round eyes like these.



Step 8: Add gold to all metal areas. Vallejo liquid gold does this in one stroke but can be hard to work with, 2 shining gold layers should do the trick. Pick out teeth and claws with graveyard earth.



Step 9: Bleached bone on weapon followed by undilited Sienna wash on claws, gold, and weapon shaft. This will dull the gold and give a basis for shading on the claws/staff.



Step 10: Bleached bone highlight on weapon, claws and teeth. Graveyard followed by bone is usually enough to give it a basic highlight, though I would usually have a few layers blending the two in between.



Step 11: Gloss black on scale ridge and weapon, followed by a very quick grey highlight.

Ifalna, one thing has been bugging me about the Saurus champ on the finished unit you posted - is that a hefty mold-line across the top of his weapon?

Hefty mold lines on most of them as the owner did not clean them up :( I count cleaning as part of assembly which is an additional charge and I really can't fit any more price cuts into this army for him without it getting pretty silly.

The metal skinks did have some terrible flash issues I took care of though, so bad it would have ruined the actual paint scheme ¬_¬

Fair enough, just wanted to check you'd spotted it

Unit all done bar basing. Click for larger images.




Thinking about moving onto the salamanders now, which will either be pure orange and red, or orange and red with a blue sail to mirror their handlers. Need to contact the owner and see what he thinks. I can't help but feel it is the white background that is absolutely murdering my reds.. shooting with a black shows a massive difference. Also, why are the metal skinks so smiley? Do they know something the plastics don't?

Nice eyes , dont often see light reflection in minis eyes.
your colourful blog , is a perfect antithetical blog to my own dour black and white experience ;-)

It is kind of funny to me to see you building from a super light blue to a dark as I always go dark and highlight up usually with a wash to tie the layers together. For some reason I keep thinking "NO! DON't DO IT!" like I am the annoying girl in a theater watching a horror movie. It always turns out nicely, but my brain refuses to accept the steps :-P

Those temple guard look very nice too. I have a set from the black box back when they came out that I am meaning to sell or build and paint, and you are right that they are just crazy detailed for a plastic set. Very impressive.

Ifalna wrote:

Absolute best I can do with what I have on hand, and even then the light is awful as the side lamps are energy savers, meaning they are pink. If you ignore the pinkish shine, at least you can get a better idea what is happening on this one, but I think the darker one looks better overall. What you are missing is not really a huge deal as he has an intense lack of detail below the legs, bar the skull and purity seals :(

Next buy will deffo be two basic computer desk lamps with white light, the energy savers are a massive no no.

Edit: Whooah, holy crap, 10k views. That is pretty mindblowing.

There are 3 types of energy saving lightbulbs - at least in Australia, may be the same over there.

Bluish and weak - cool light
Yellow and stronger - warm light
White and really bright - daylight.

Most stores don't even carry the daylight options, I had to order them in, but I've never had reason to regret - gives off great lighting.

Lords2001, having the same problem here. Any daylight bulb I have found has either been like 100 watts, or not energy saving.

What I have been using since that pic is little 40 watt white bulbs for side lighting and my white led light for above light. It is a hell of a lot better.

Wehrkind, I am usually the exact same. I generally always work from dark to light as the darker areas tend to be in joints, shadowing etc, meaning they are harder to reach so working with them last is asking for trouble. The Lizardmen are the exception to this as I wanted to let some of the undercolour show through the darker glazes, so bright to dark was the only option

I took a break from the skinks yesterday to work on the gobbo. Got his golds finished and decided to move onto silver and try out my vallejo liquid silver, but it ended in catastrophe. I had not used it yet so did not realise the lid was faulty, when I shook it to mix the pigment it sprayed all over my legs and the wood floor.. the wooden floor of my rented apartment.

I spent about an hour cleaning it with alcohol and it is fine now, but god, if that had been carpet it would have been game over :( Tonight will be finishing the little gobbo as he is near the 4 hour mark which is where I wanted to stop on him. Need a break from the lizardmen for a night!

Ugh... that's pretty horrific. I have done similar things, but non-acrylics on rented hardwood is about enough to make you further dilute it with hastily lost urine. That is usually the point where I stop painting and go do something I am less likely to destroy things with :(
As a side note, if you do get stuff on the carpet, and you can get Oxyclean in the IR, that stuff gets nearly everything out of carpet. Never tried it on paint, but it got 4 month old blood and 8 month chocolate syrup out of my college apartment cream colored carpet quite handily. Which was good, because you can imagine how hard it would be to explain that to my parents.

Now show us some damned goblin pics! No fair holding out!

So I put exactly 5 hours into the gobbo and stopped. I figure I spent too long on the skin and gimped myself out of time for some parts, so I am not entirely happy with him, his painting standard is not stable and I missed out some bits. Lesson learned from this exercise for sure.

Will revisit him for touchups as I plan on seeing if he will ebay, so here he is after the 5 hour mark. Compared to the Skaven I did not use my time as wisely, something I will have to work on. Click and zoom, fullsize page stretches :(



This weekends work (starting tonight) is 2 more lizardmen units, a saurus unit and templeguard. Should have no problems getting both finished, then might spend some time basing what needs to be finished off. Busy busy.

Edit: Oh god! Ahaha, friend at work just brought me in 200+ models, all old SM's. Bases on some go back to 1992 but I have no idea what these are. He painted them when he was 6, they are stellar.



Three I grabbed and took an awful iphone shot of, I refuse to strip the 2inch thick gold paint armor guy with the yellow face and painted on eyepatch, but the dude on the left is pretty cool, he is actually in decent proportion but I have no idea what he is. The white blob in the middle is an armless termie repainted 4 or 5 times, we were in tears laughing going through the box. I am going to go through all these and take some funny pics tonight, there has to be some real gems in here.

The dude on the left is a 2nd ed Ultramarine Captain model if I recall correctly. The dude on the right should be Dante, the current Blood Angel Chapter Master

There is literally 2 shoeboxes of these, and a load of white scars on bikes still in their old boxes. I will have no idea what any of them are, so will be needing help to try and ID each considering some have pretty impressive layers of paint

I love the way the goblin turned out, especially his face. You did an excellent job and it really draws your eyes to it when you look at the figure. The axe is an issue though. All that gold just looks very out-of-place on what is otherwise a very earthy and naturalistic model and it competes with the face for the viewer's attention.

I'm going to take that onboard Gits. The gold on some of the armour parts is nice when you are actually holding the model, but the axe is too much, you are right. Will be returning to him soon to get him to a state I am happier with, so will repaint the axe to not be as overpowering.

I would love to have it orcy chipped paint style, but it rarely looks good on fantasy, so maybe a mucky old steel instead I want to define his armor a little more too while keeping it earthy. I am deffo happy with the skin, but I went too far with it considering he was meant to be completed entirely within 5 hours.

Well, I know you're working on your time discipline for obvious reasons... and you mentioned that there were several things that you weren't satisfied with. Just thought I'd give you my two cents as an outside observer as to which thing seemed the most in need of attention to improve the figure.

Wow, 200 marines, lucky you. I mean I thought I was fortunate when I was given 36 RT models...

I can tell you that the white primed Terminator in the middle is a Rogue Trader Era, (I own 6 of them and recognised the sculpt).

Two cents from outside observers are exactly what I am after in this blog! Helps so much to have others look at something with a fresh point of view and help you zone in on what needs changing/could be improved

The dude on the left is an old space marine captain/sergeant. And good lord! I want that OOP blood angel! (the guy to the right) I have been looking for him for some time, for me he's what blood angels are all about. You should be proud of him!

OK, so far it seems to be:

3 metal SMs on bikes, with swords and axes, look rather old, but are not assembled.
5 plastic sms on bikes, on sprue, look to be the same age.
20 white sms seen like the ones in the pic.
15 blacks like in the pic.
4 blue stormtrooper ones like in the pic.
2 old rhinos.
10 seaguard elves (what?)
And a mishmash of fantastic looking metals All can be stripped and are salvageable, missing arms etc have all been located in the bits box, I just need to sort whos is whos.

As if I didint have tons of models already tempting me to paint...



Thats not counting the second trigon in the cuboard and commission work D:

So, a selection of the different types of SMs, I can't tell if they are just different types or different editions/ages.



The metals - Oh god the terminator, that paint is like tipex




And look, is it this a little cat on his knee? Aww bless I think it is.

he he he , nice models , if you get the paint of in one piece you will be able to cast them again ;-) like the vindicare assasin! far right.

They are some old looking models! A lick of paint and they should look fab though.

(He has a cat on his knee! )

You were given all this? Lucky duck.

yeah very lucky! as long as you can clean them up!

The dude with a cat on his knee is an unnamed Blood Angels Captain figure, from around the same time that the Ultramarines captain was from.

Looking at those last pics, L-R....

Pic 1:
Devastator marine without heavy weapon (metal, 2nd ed), metal tac marine, plastic tac marine from 2nd ed starter set, metal tac marine without gun

Pic 2:
Scout sergeant, terminator with lightning claws, Blood Angels Captain

Pic 3:
Ultramarines captain, Sergeant with bionic arm, Vindicare assassin (original sculpt)

Pic 4:
BA Captain with overly thick paint.....

The gold dude is Captain Tycho v 1 and is way oop looks like he was dipped in shining gold

Dysartes, would the devastator weapon be an entire metal SM arm with what appears to be a rail gun? If so, I have it here, was wondering who owned it.

I checked for Tycho 1st ed and he seems to not have the ott sunlike hat, maybe it is optional Personally I really like the assassin as a model, though his "My guns are way too big and I can't move" body stance is a bit silly

Ifalna to me that looks like the old TAC SM heavy weapon model - is it plastic? Mine's holding a missile launcher that looks horrible.

Yeah its def an old Heavy weapons marine and i too think is with a missle launcher.

The old missile launcher was really bad so might in fact look like a railgun

BTW the sunlight hat is an Iron Halo (in case you were wondering)


Oh and the Vindicare is a good looking model but I prefer the one where he is aiming

Ah no, if it was a missile launcher, I have that. Its terrible looking, a massive tube with a little arm holding it, so Tek and Smurf are right

big jar full of detol is my recommendation for them. Thats how I've stripped all the second hand ones I get

Ifalna wrote:Ah no, if it was a missile launcher, I have that. Its terrible looking, a massive tube with a little arm holding it, so Tek and Smurf are right

Unfortunately
I do have a soft spot for the old models. A mate of mine gave me a massive box of oldies not long back, inclusing these old mono-pose plastic SM.
If your mate is interested, stripped or repainted, some of those older models go for a few quid nowadays. Others not so much.

Also Cutex Nail Polish Remover is very handy with plastics

Acetone Free though

If you get the one that is not Acetone free it will be like taking a flamer to the models

Fairy power spray, neat, in a jamjar; soak overnight, scrub with toothbrush, rinse in hot water, et voilà! Problem with nail polish remover is it softens plastic and degrades detail. I've successfully stripped RT marines caked in paint with fairy. Also fine on metal; further advantage is not too monstrous to your hands, either.

Ifalna wrote:Dysartes, would the devastator weapon be an entire metal SM arm with what appears to be a rail gun? If so, I have it here, was wondering who owned it.

I checked for Tycho 1st ed and he seems to not have the ott sunlike hat, maybe it is optional Personally I really like the assassin as a model, though his "My guns are way too big and I can't move" body stance is a bit silly

Probably, Ifalna - can you post a pic, so we can ID which it is, as that description is a little vague. Could be a lascannon or plasma cannon, though.

The "Tycho 1st ed" reference comes from the fact that he was used as Captain Tycho in the battle report where the character first appeared, where he got hit with the psychic attack that froze his face. However, the figure wasn't marketed as Captain Tycho, and it wasn't till the release of Codex: Angels of Death in 1994 that Tycho got a specific figure (and rules).

If you can get it, Simple Green does a nice trick for removing paint (and dissolving super glue) without being painful on your hands or stinking to high hell.

There must be a lot of people who bought a crap ton of marines right when BA were popular. I got a lot of them some years ago with the old Las/plas Razorback, the characters, some of those Sgts you have and all manner of pop together guys and horrid heavy weapons people, etc. They haven't done much other than sit in a cabinet, though the dread I repainted along with the Razorback.

Nice work on the gobbo too. Fix that axe and I would imagine lots of folks who love hating themselves with a Goblin warlord will pay top dollar for it

Ifalna's flying Island ... any close to halls flying castle?

you mean howls moving castle surely. or maybe laputa the flying island - classics

The Ifalna flying island would not be as impressive sadly, more like Monkeys cloud!

Fable 3 has ... distracted me slightly this weekend I am ashamed to say. Aiming for 20 Saurus today and hopefully most of the Saurus's shields which are all still on sprue for ease of painting. They will be exact copies of the templeguards bar all the bone detailing, so they won't take long at all.

As for stripping these old dudes, Dettol has always worked wonders for me so I will stick to that ( love the smell and it is so freaking useful as a product ) it should sort out both the plastics and metals and not wreck my hands if I splash anywhere.

Nothing wrong with Monkey's cloud!

Dysartes wrote:The dude with a cat on his knee is an unnamed Blood Angels Captain figure, from around the same time that the Ultramarines captain was from.

Looking at those last pics, L-R....

Pic 1:
Devastator marine without heavy weapon (metal, 2nd ed), metal tac marine, plastic tac marine from 2nd ed starter set, metal tac marine without gun

Pic 2:
Scout sergeant, terminator with lightning claws, Blood Angels Captain

Pic 3:
Ultramarines captain, Sergeant with bionic arm, Vindicare assassin (original sculpt)

Pic 4:
BA Captain with overly thick paint.....

Actually, in the first pic it is:

plastic heavy weapon trooper with missile launcher (2ed starter set), plastic 3rd edition trooper (both 3rd starter set and marine kit boxes), plastic tactical marine (2ed starter - god they were awful!), 2ed metal marine(had horribly proportioned plastic arms)

The golden legend with eye patch is indeed v1 tycho - v2 had the same pose (actually same base body and details) with a different weapon and head.

Still got mine from the early 90's...

CMDante wrote:Actually, in the first pic it is:

plastic heavy weapon trooper with missile launcher (2ed starter set), plastic 3rd edition trooper (both 3rd starter set and marine kit boxes), plastic tactical marine (2ed starter - god they were awful!), 2ed metal marine(had horribly proportioned plastic arms)

The golden legend with eye patch is indeed v1 tycho - v2 had the same pose (actually same base body and details) with a different weapon and head.

Still got mine from the early 90's...

With regards the Blood Angels Captain, Stuff of Legends would disagree that he was marketed as Tycho - though, as I've previously mentioned, he was used as Tycho in a battle report before Tycho was an official special character.

Ifalna can confirm if the others are metal or plastic.

Gosh I am back at last, sorry for the dissapearing act, have had an insanely busy week or so at work now.

1st pic were indeed all plastic, and the final guy is crazy out of proportion allright. Work on the Lizardmen has continued onwards and is progressing nicely, Slaan and Salamanders have not been sent yet so there is no rush right now and it is nice to take the rest at a leisurly pace. Weekend for me starts tonight so I am expecting to get plenty done, including the first test for this months slot of 9 Deathkorps and an Emporers champion which are going to be lovely to work on between the lizards, nice break up from the blue!

Decided I am going to strip the old metals, including Mr Tycho/Old BA captain, though I will treasure the pics of his oiriginal paint job forever. I figure I can paint him up nice enough for him to regain some of his prior dignity.

Dysartes, that page is fantastic. I love Macragge. That has to be the worst positioning I have ever seen. I know he is meant to be on the throne, but it would be so easy to just have him standing and looking like he has very bad constipation. Fantastic

Ifalna wrote:Dysartes, that page is fantastic. I love Macragge. That has to be the worst positioning I have ever seen. I know he is meant to be on the throne, but it would be so easy to just have him standing and looking like he has very bad constipation. Fantastic

Glad to be of assistance, Ifalna - there are some classics amongst the old stuff, though there are some howlers in there too.

yes I would agree. dispite my love of old minis I dont think I could bring myself to love that macragge. And the leman russ model is a bit pants as well. the captainsat the bottom on the other hand are some of my all time favourites

Test model for steel legion tabletop unit done.

Asked to base it completely on



The result is below, tabletop so 3 layers 1 wash, though I cheated and washed with dev mud after the white prime as well. Personally I would rather the highlights be starker, but going to mail it to the owner and see how he feels. Back shot was ruined by blur, but it is boring anyway so no major loss.

Nice Ifalna... clean, striking... very good. I can't tell... is the barrel of the gun drilled? Always makes a huge difference to me in the way a figure looks, though that might be beyond the realm of a tabletop standard.

Just very clean with smooth blending... hard to argue with that.

BTW, your source picture doesn't show up.

Good looking stuff. Nice to see the different projects on one blog. Keeps it exciting.

Duur Gits D: Fixed, thanks for letting me know. Showed for me but likely due to it already being downloaded on this pc, I botched a link from yahoo mail instead of the actual site.

I may well drill the barrels, there is only 9 of these to TT standard so its not really a massive waste of time or anything Soon as I get feedback on if he wants it kept this way or any alterations ( highlights are so neutral that it really only pops irl, I would prefer a bit strong on the browns especially ) I will start on the other 8, then there is a karskan Sarge (?) to do in cameo and a emperors champ to character standard, which is going to be nice because a blog full of tabletop has to be a bit disappointing.

Edit: Also, I found some of this in a hobby shop and decided to test it out as the brush cleaner I have is fantastic, so surely the soap would be too!



It cost a fair bit, but I was amazed when I got it home. I always get paint all over my fingers when I am speedpainting units, but this stuff cleaned my hands completely and did not dry out my stupidly sensitive skin. It is green and smells like Spearmint, I would be tempted to use it for all handwashes but it is a bit too pricey to waste Tried washing my painting plate with it too and it is clean as new. Really impressed and am happily recommending this on.

Pretty nice, though the model looks a bit to yellow. In the picture you used as a reference, the color is more of a tan...Still, good work...as always

_Tim?

Aye, tonights work is to darken down the yellow and brown down the red at the owners request, but keeping the neutral highlights to keep it a bit gritty Tried out the kolinksi's and wept tears of joy. They are stunning.

Yesterdays work was 28 (my god) saurus, all they need doing now is their gold and weapons which is quick, shields are painted and just need to be stuck on. I think this is the largest amount I have ever batched at one time and I am pretty sure at some point I zoned out and entered another plane of existence, I lost about 5 hours yesterday that I can't recall.



1 more unit green skinks, then the Slaan and salamanders and this army is done. Can't wait to get a shot of the entire army assembled and ready to go.

Lookin' good Ifalna. This will be an imposing force when complete.

are they a commissing or for you?

Commission, I don't actually play anymore. Cross between not having the time and not having interest as I mostly just played as a past time with my friends back in Dublin

fantastic painting skills

Cheers Dee.

Heres the colour version the owner decided on, browns are not highlighted but you get an idea of the finished model now. Will be taking light box pics once I get a few more done as the glare is really detracting from his helm and mask.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ohhh goody! Looks like we have flooding again in Cork tonight. Here's a pic from our apartment window last time this happened.




I may have some extra time to paint if it happens again

Wow, what is causing the flooding? That is really crazy!

_Tim?

Crazy winter storms usually. The best part is that last time this happened, there was a water shortage as all the main pipes broke.

So we had flooding that was making cars float away, but had to go to designated drop spots to get water from council fire engines. Makes sense right?

What a pain in the...

The yellow looks much better now! Much dingier.

_Tim?

water water every where but not a drop to drink. this makes me happy to live on a hill.

Ifalna wrote:Crazy winter storms usually. The best part is that last time this happened, there was a water shortage as all the main pipes broke.

So we had flooding that was making cars float away, but had to go to designated drop spots to get water from council fire engines. Makes sense right?

Just sieve through an old pair of tights until clear, then boil for 20minutes, unless it's seawater it's then safe to drink!
That way you can just lower a bucket out of the window to get water

As for the painting, those mini's look great, especially the steel legion (shame no-one really fields them anymore) and looking forward to what you do with the OOP stuff! can recommend dettol personally, has never failed me yet. I've got a bunch of the 2nd edition starter box plastics sitting about, there is a good possibility the missile launcher guy is plastic (as the starter box had identical missile launcher guys to that one).

Ifalna wrote:
So we had flooding that was making cars float away, but had to go to designated drop spots to get water from council fire engines. Makes sense right?

Yeah, makes sense to me after the number of times we've heard the council tell us we can't live at the marina because we're on a flood plain 'But we're on boats, we float' 'Sorry it's a flood plain, can't live there' 'If it floods, we're fine just a little higher, we float' ' No, it's a flood plain, that means it could flood' ' Yes, and we will float...' ad infinitum

monkeytroll wrote:
Yeah, makes sense to me after the number of times we've heard the council tell us we can't live at the marina because we're on a flood plain 'But we're on boats, we float' 'Sorry it's a flood plain, can't live there' 'If it floods, we're fine just a little higher, we float' ' No, it's a flood plain, that means it could flood' ' Yes, and we will float...' ad infinitum

Perhaps it would flood so spectaculary fast that your boat would be catapaulted into a nearby orphanage. You need to keep on top of these situations D:
Update on lolstorm, it is now nearly completely dark at 4.pm, and the sky is an angry navy grey. Forecast is on the ball so far.

What floor do you live on? At least you won't have to worry about re-charging your wet palette, you could just use your couch!
:-)

Haha, well I hope not as I am on the 4th, and it would be a tad worrying if it got that high We don't flood at all as our side of the river is much higher, but the other side gets as bad as you saw in the pics and it is literally only a 15 meter long bridge away.

Stores were closed for going on 6 months after it happened due to the damages, so really hoping it doesn't hit, best coffee shop I have ever used only just managed to reopen, it would be gone again if it floods :(

They look loads better now, the grimmer look adds some much needed contrast IMO.

I am anything but Grimdark when it comes to painting, so I always need to be pulled back a bit from going full pastells and whatnot None of my own work lacks a very colourful focal point even if the rest is rather dark, so trying to get these gritty is difficult. Glad the owner was so helpful

Your work is inspiring for us less then spectacular painters. I like the results you get with just 3-4 layers.

I'm learning so much from reading through all these awsome P&M blogs on here and on Warseer. Hopefully my next tabletop minis will be at least a solid tabletop standard.

Im doinf a wolf priest for a friends hubby.... he's very picky and if he calls me a bloke one more time im gonna do a GIBBS on him. and throw his minis on the fire.

Better, paint his wolf priest as a drag queen. Maybe then he'll sort it out.

wolfshadow wrote:I like the results you get with just 3-4 layers.
I'm learning so much from reading through all these awsome P&M blogs on here and on Warseer.

That's what I spent nearly a year doing before posting the blog Practice ad research are the keys to progress for sure. The 4 layer method I use is something I practiced a lot with to try and improve as I knew I wanted to start doing commission work and wanted to have some experience to fall back on when it came to turning out nice looking models without excessive blending or shadow work. Sometimes when you do an exercise with it it does not work as you hoped, but you just have to think about where you went wrong and learn from it. Glad I was some help though Wolfshadow, cheers!

Dee, prove your femininity by painting it bright pink with some glitter, he can't argue then. Gits has the right idea.

I'll charge him 2x as much .....

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, I have indeed been painting, just in very short bursts as I got hit with some kind of horrific virus's being passed around work on the aircon. :(

Day 1 only had some people coughing, day 2 had those people out sick and everyone else coughing, and by day 3 we had massive fevers, hallucinations, chills, exhaustion, wracking coughs etc. It is bloody horrible. Im only coherant for a few hours while the fever passes and I stop rambling but it hit me 3 times now. Worst part is, I don't feel dead, just really weak, so its not even worth the doctor over as I can feel myself slowly getting better. Lemsip, Solphadene, tons of fluids and lots of sleep. Weak as crap and have fever sweats though meaning In sweating pure water and have to just keep drinking. Had an interesting night last night of being convinced I was in Kenya and that my partner was my Dad, helping me put on socks.

Ill get some pics up for everyone tomorow, I havent dissapeared, just been spending most of the last few days in bed :O

Sounds nasty, take it easy and get well soon.

Woah Iff, watch yourself. Hallucinations suggest something else is going on in your system... s'pose high fever could do that but ouch. Dr. might help you mitigate your symptoms while you're body is slowly healing... something to think about at any rate.

WTF is going on in Ireland? Water up to your car windows, plagues going around all over... next thing you know the potato crop will fail, and then where will you be?! :-P

Gitsplitta has a really good point though Iffy; fevers will cause hallucinations, but usually only when they are getting towards the dangerous levels as I recall. You guys might all be rocking legionnaire's disease or something, which justifies a Dr's visit. I hate going to the doc too, but it is worth getting checked out. I need to watch someone paint so I don't feel guilty at my own lack of progress after all!

If it continues I will have to visit one Gits, I've never had anything like this before. I am COMPLETLEY coherant now, but 2 hours ago was peaking fever and rambling, in 2 hours I could be doing it again, thats the pattern anyhow.

I am pretty positive the ramblings/hallucinations are from the fever because I get stupidly hot to touch, just after I get really cold, so it's coming in waves. So far a can of redbull from the fridge ( ) on my forehead has stopped me hallucinating and I just sleep through it and feel fine, but I was running a chill the first night so the boyfriend was trying to keep my warm as the fluctuations were so fast, so I couldnt cool down quick enough before I started seeing things.

The whole reason this happened is that HR refuses to send people home anymore, as that means they have to be paid.. the first 1 or 2 people who had this were in work for hours before leaving, and our Air conditioning is connected across 3 stories. Now it's hit well over 20 people, a lot of which don't actually have someone to look after them at home... and not even so much as an email regarding it has been sent out at work :( It is pathetic.

James actually got it before me, but he called in sick and slept through it. I went in to work on a crazy cold windy walk and triggered it to go full blown. All he has now is the sniffles so he can look after me, so I am very lucky.

Aww, that sucks. Get better soon. The hallucinations don't sound all that fun.

Oh dear... get well soon

Hope you get better. In the mean time feel free to post on dakka while hallucinating. Or try painting. Either may result in laughs for you at a later (more healthy) date

Seriously though, do get better soon.

I am very susceptible to high fever, more so than anyone else in my family. I've found that taking a luke-warm shower (not cold, or cool... just slightly warm) can bring my body temperature down considerably in just a few minutes and get me through the worst of it. You might try it when you're approaching one of the "peak" fever cycles.

I hope you feel better soon Ifalna. The Steel Legion look super!

Your stuff is really well done, I am excited to see more.

Yeah typical companies. Dont actually care sometimes and are just a number to them

Get well soon though and i think def go see a doc
A bit of proper prescribed medicine will do wonders

As long as he did not call you nurse when he was ill

Damn. GitSplit has the right idea, some moderate showers to take the edge off and otherwise just drink a lot of fluids. Gatorade is actually very good for that as it will replace electrolytes you sweat out and give you some calories. If you are like me when you get sick and go off your food, having some energy in your system that doesn't require burning fat will help you feel a lot better.

Hope you feel better soon, and don't forget that we all love drunken/hallucinogenic posting!

they do the same thing in my work - with the same results - get well soon!

When I was in M&S and I suffered with bad headachs and if i was ill and sometimes they made me very ill when I got back I got a telling off as I was ill.

Nice work picking out the details of the eagle symbols! Also those steeds look fantastic, great work!

Thanks for all the well wishes. Today has been the first real " out of bed day" fever has passed and have strength back but am in work in the morning so I will have to wait and see how it goes!

Missing out on basically a whole week of my painting time (my 3 day weekend) was a harsh blow and I will really have to up the pace now :( I did get some work done today though, the second 28 strong Saurus unit is completed, all shields completed and attached, and all models fully based. Now there is just 1 skink unit and 10 more templeguard to go bar the metal models. Would have really preferred to have had some strength while Ill so I could at least have gotten some work done during it, but oh well.

Click to zoom, massive pic!

They look good together, you painted all of these pretty fast!

How many points is that roughly?
And glad to hear your doing better.

I have absolutely no idea how many points it is, havent played in years. With the slaan, salamanders and rest of the skinks, it would seem to be a decent amount?

Seems like those lizards are coming together pretty nicely!

That's a great looking army Ifalna. I'm sure your client will be delighted!

Back from a trip to Dublin and straight back at the painting table.

4 hours work today =



Bad move skinks D:
Started properly on the rest of the Steel Legion unit, the sniper is a really fantastic model. All that's finished so far are the weapons which I tried out some stressed metal on while trying to not go above tabletop, lenses need a wash to darken down the reds, will be more updates of both soon

Those guardsmen are really nice looking Ifalna... and I HATE guardsmen! The RPG-on-steroids guy looks very cool as well as the sniper you mention.

Steel legion nearly completed. Tan and browns done, all metals bar weapons are not finished so they are waiting on a wash/highlight. Next are the accessories and little details like darkening eyes.
Skink unit completed but you have seen plenty of my skinks so far, assembling Slaan and Salamanders while in bed tonight, lol. For anyone currently waiting on a PM back from me, I will be replying while at work tomorow.

Group 1



Group 2



And the amazing looking sniper, cloak needs a little more work.




Click for big, hate linking massive images D:

HOLY ****!

That sniper looks awsome.

what color are the bases going to be, and will the snipers Camo cload be blended to match it?

Very nice, how are you feeling now?

Bases are going to be a cementy colour.

The snipers cloak has thrown me because of all the bloody leaves on it. If it has leaves, it should be plantish/dirt coloured logically, or autumnal. If it had no leaves I would have a bit more freedom with it, so I'm waiting to hear back from the owner and see if he is ok with how it is or not. It needs some more work on darkening the camo areas and highlighting the leaves anyway.

Forgot to mention, these are tabletop standard. The next higher standard models I will be putting out are the Slaan and emperors champion starting in the next week or so.

Edit: Feeling back to normal Bad cough only cleared up in the last 2 days, have had it since I got hit with the Office plague. Least I hopefully won't be getting the flu again for some time though! /fingers crossed.

Beautiful, much better than the test model you painted before!! I much prefer the brooding look.

That sniper looks awesome, even better when not painted as a Vostroyan imo. You just convinced me to go and buy it!!

Ifalna that sniper is just super!!! and what did you use for a copper color on the rocket launcher? I like the way it looks like metal but its not shiny. Im glad everyone at your house is feeling better.

The old worn copperysilver look is white primer with a solid wash of devlin mud, then drybrush of tinbitz, light drybrush of boltgun, and another heavy devlin mud. Takes the shine away and leaves it looking like old tarnished metal imo. The chain sword dude has the same on his blade.

I am very glad we are feeling better too That illness was not fun.

Ifalna wrote:I am very glad we are feeling better too That illness was not fun.

You're talking in the third person again, Ifalna.....

Nice looking Steel Legion, I must say.

They are splendid looking. They make me feel chilly just looking at their snowy bases (or maybe its just really cold in my flat)

They look great , are the steel legion all gws ,or are hey another companies as that sniper looks great

Nice, love those Steel Legion figs. That Vostroyan sniper looks awesome. Fits in pretty damn nicely too. Which is something you wouldn't expect from two aesthetically different ranges.

Weety you cheeky minx, the bases are not done yet Snow would actually look really cool on them though, darnit! They will be having grey concrety bases, one of them has it finished, the dude with the sword and skull mask.

I have a sarge to do at this level too, but he needs some camo. Will be fun!

Very striking Ifalna... which is saying something as guard are usually pretty nondescript.

I have snow on the brain! -

It has snowed in Dublin and nearby in the mountains, have fingers crossed it will get here!

Cheers Gits, they should look really nice as a completed unit.

weetyskemian44 wrote:I have snow on the brain! -

Brings a whole new meaning to "brain freeze".....

No snow yet D:

Feedback from the owner received, he is happy so far with everything (phew) but will be browning the camo on the cloak completley, will have to make the leaves more autumnal but it's still a headwrecker as the bases will be concrete. He will have terribad comouflage for his surroundings lol, worst sniper ever!

I have another glorious weekend of nothing bar painting coming up, so these should be finished then and I will be on to the lizardmen metals and his Sarge model. Painting after work can be really awkward due to how long my shifts are, it depends entirely on if I am exhausted when I get home or not. What I would do for a 9 to 5 job D:

What if the netting was a grayish color with brown leaves and then the bases just had some fall foliage on them? might help tie it together.

Oh yar, the Slaans colours were decided on too.

Going to have a bluegrey stone throne with tarnished golds and green vines. Skink attendant will be blue. Wee snakes I might go crazy with, will have to wait and see.

The slaan himself will have a yellow stomach fading to scarlet skin. Claws/eyes will be black with electric blue fades, so basicaly he is going to be the complte opposite of the rest of the army, a red/orange/yellow main scheme with blue accessories, complimenting the blue army with red/orange crests and shields. Not sure if his bone spikes on the throne should be obsidian or bone.. so feedback on that would be cool please

Salamanders will be red with orange sails also, thinking of blue inner mouths.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yar, the Slaans colours were decided on too.

Going to have a bluegrey stone throne with tarnished golds and green vines. Skink attendant will be blue. Wee snakes I might go crazy with, will have to wait and see.

The slaan himself will have a yellow stomach fading to scarlet skin. Claws/eyes will be black with electric blue fades, so basicaly he is going to be the complte opposite of the rest of the army, a red/orange/yellow main scheme with blue accessories, complimenting the blue army with red/orange crests and shields. Not sure if his bone spikes on the throne should be obsidian or bone.. so feedback on that would be cool please

Salamanders will be red with orange sails also, thinking of blue inner mouths.


Edit:

What if the netting was a grayish color with brown leaves and then the bases just had some fall foliage on them? might help tie it together.

True it would, but the choices are down to the owner, so if he wants the cloak browned and the bases concrete, I have to basically just work the leaves into that somehow. If I make them brown and slightly red, they should be ok. It is not a massive issue though, these models are to tabletop only. If I have to repaint it won't exactly take long. Cloak as it is is just 2 washes over primer.

Had snow on friday night while watching NCIS.

If you wanted to be clever (or if was your own model) you could print out some 1/36 size magazine covers etc, chop them up a little, and put them on the base. Paper litter is "urban" foliage A good way to bring some colors into concrete bases.

Love that copper-tone on the Steel Legion, and great job making the sniper look part of the same unit using colour rather than modelling. My vote for the slaan spikes would be obsidian, but tbh that's more a natural selection for me becuase of the red colouring - I really do have to try and wean myself off always using a red/black combo.

Cant wait to see your take on the Slann.

WIP Pics for us lesser mortals please.

Steel legion now finished ( bar the Ork head, poor guy). Will be sending shots to the owner to see if he wants any final changes Click for big as usual!


Just to stress, everything below is Tabletop standard only, so they arent exactly top tier haha, judge them as you would an opponents troops.
Group 1:



Group 2:



Everyone together:



Some sniper shots:





And the finished skinks to show I have indeed been working away I find it a bit irritating that I have gotten so much better at painting this scheme since I started but now there are barely any left to finish off. I guess thats just how it works though, least I could recreate the look very easily now







Slaan assembly to be finished up tonight, then either starting on the Karskin Sarge + Salams tomorow, or the Slaan. Will wait to hear back from the owner of the legion first

By the way, I am starting to get really with this camera now. No matter if I use auto or go fully manual, the results I get are seemingly random, even with full manual settings and the camera not being moved between shots, not the model. I keep it on f8 and alter the shutter speed based on how much Light I would like with around iso 80 on a macro/supermacro setting, but the results while in focus are usually grainy and the colours get completely ruined. I am using white lighting so have it set to that on white balance but still the background magically changes colours between shots ¬_¬ It is not a bad camera, Canon powershot sx200 IS, I just cannot seem to get it to work right.

That sniper looks badass Iflana. Very nice work.

This thread is turning into quite the commision-portfolio thread for you. Very nice work. If I needed minis painted for me, I'd def consider having you do it.

Ifalna wrote:

And the amazing looking sniper, cloak needs a little more work.




Click for big, hate linking massive images D:

Lol I love the picture of Fry you got there.

The guard look fine, sharp, clean painting and they have the contrast that's needed to look good on the table top.

The problem with the camera might be caused by your background. You seem to use white background and the camera might get confused from the amount of white in the picture. I had that kind of problem with my older camera, it was easily fixed by replacing the background with blue or gray sheet.