Those poxwalkers look ace! Thanks for the heads about Darren's channel closing down, I've been following him since he started it but missed that last video! Such a bummer, he's a wealth of knowledge.

gobert wrote:Cracking job on the pox walkers mcmatilla, they look suitably nurgle! Their pustules are particularly disgusting!

Cheers! I'm happy with the pustules as well (I mean.. ), though there was a point when a big one on a walker's very closely resembled a tennis ball! That kinda gave me an idea for a future walker..

Viterbi wrote:Nice first foray in using contrast paints. I love them and mostly use them for leather, skin and over metals. Atm I‘m painting models only using contrast and no other paints. Really helps with learning more brush control, that stuff is flowy

Thanks! I'd almost forgotten about applying Contrast over metals! I have to try that with some model, mayhaps a marine?

Pomander Cask wrote:The pox walkers look great! I'm thinking of testing contrast paints too and it's good to hear you like them.

Thank you! I'll keep on testing them out, and I'm looking forward to what you'll come up with!

zahnib wrote:Those poxwalkers look ace! Thanks for the heads about Darren's channel closing down, I've been following him since he started it but missed that last video! Such a bummer, he's a wealth of knowledge.

Much obliged! Darren's channel really was brilliant, such a shame that it'll get canned. Though I may or may not have already downloaded all the videos for personal offline viewing.. Maybe I'll eventually get to trying out the Lord of Blights masterclass!

---

On the hobby front, I've started painting the three ork boyz. I've almost got them basecoated now, and hopefully get to post a WIP photo soon. Work has kept me quite busy during this social distancing period, but I do try to paint a bit every day.

 mcmattila wrote:
Much obliged! Darren's channel really was brilliant, such a shame that it'll get canned. Though I may or may not have already downloaded all the videos for personal offline viewing.. Maybe I'll eventually get to trying out the Lord of Blights masterclass!

I shall keep this in mind

Ah, pox walkers! Nasty fellers.

For an hour and a half paint job you did a really good job! They are close to studio quality.

You did those poxwalkers proud, their boils look excellent.

(which is a fun thing to write out)

You've painted some great models since I was last here. Pox walkers look good, particularly for a relatively quick method. Love those old priest models too, so much character and the painting really does them justice. My favourites though were those Farstriders, great work on the cloaks and the dirty scheme on the armour works really well.
Looking forward to seeing what you do with those orks, and more rats

Uriah looks great. The red is especially good, but the whole thing hangs together really well.

Ezki wrote:Ah, pox walkers! Nasty fellers.
For an hour and a half paint job you did a really good job! They are close to studio quality.

That's high praise indeed!

amazingturtles wrote:You did those poxwalkers proud, their boils look excellent.
(which is a fun thing to write out)

Heh! Thanks a lot!

Maharg wrote:You've painted some great models since I was last here. Pox walkers look good, particularly for a relatively quick method. Love those old priest models too, so much character and the painting really does them justice. My favourites though were those Farstriders, great work on the cloaks and the dirty scheme on the armour works really well.
Looking forward to seeing what you do with those orks, and more rats

Thanks for all the kind comments Maharg! Painting the Farstriders was a lot of fun, now I'm just waiting to get a game in with them. Might be a while though..

Fifty wrote:Uriah looks great. The red is especially good, but the whole thing hangs together really well.

Much obliged Fifty, and welcome to the blog! I have similar feelings about the model: the red is probably a bit more interesting than the rest of the colors, but I think the model works pretty well as a whole nevertheless.

---

Okay, so in my last post I said I'd post some WIP pics of the orks, but it turned out that I just went and finished the things. More time spent painting, less documenting and all that.. Anyway, here they are:



As I've already said some words about the building, this post is about the painting. The general process was largely the same as with the last two. I think I spent a bit more time on the weathering and especially on the freehand this time around, but hopefully the rest of it went a tad quicker than the first time around as I was more aware of what I should be doing. I was again a bit intimidated about the orange before I started painting it, but in the end it turned out nicely and pretty quickly. I did have to be careful when working on the clothes and other bits so as not to accidentally get paint on the finished orange, but happily I managed without mishaps. And then of course I proceeded to paint on some freehand and chipping! The latter especially is good to fix any mistakes that might've happened.



Speaking of freehand, I tried to come up with some other designs besides the classic checkers to mix things up a bit. There's some triangles, or "dags" I believe, on one of the shoulder pads, and a sort of racing stripe design on one of the helmets. But of course I'm the most proud of the little "evil sun" on the back of one of the shoulder pads! I was actually going to use a decal first, but noticed that the decal would be too big for the pad. I thought: "what the heck, these are orks, doesn't matter if it's a bit wonky", and ended up practicing some more freehanding. Again, it was a bit scary as I wouldn't be able to get the same orange back, but I knew that I could hide any mistakes with battle damage. Turned out all right I think! And why the Evil Sunz emblem, you might ask? Well, as I'm doing my own color scheme I get to pick and choose! The evil sun might be my favorite, but possible future models might have a bad moon or any other clan logo on them as well, as the designs are pretty cool. Also, being orange, my orks obviously feel the call of speed at least a bit (as well as dakka and bling!).



And that's it for my boyz, for now! With these lads done, I've finished all of the ork boyz from my teenage years. Well, actually I've still got one half-finished conversion with which I might do something.. However, while painting these orks I've started to seriously consider getting a new box of boyz, or lootas/burnas, just to paint a couple every now and then. Also, some time ago I got myself another bucket list model, the AoBR Warboss, from eBay! So he'll eventually get painted as well. Just got to build him first, and come up with an appropriate base as well.

Finally, I'm entering these guys to Ann's April hobby challenge, splendidly titled "Paint the Crap You Already Own". While I still have the opportunity to go to an FLGS and buy new models (stocks might be low though..), I very much agree with the idea that we should all try to make our backlogs of unpainted models as nonexistent as possible. Keeping that in mind, I'll try to get a couple more (old) minis finished before April's through!

Lovely work (as always).

Your orks look awesome!! The paler shade of skin and the orange go so well together and the chipping is really nicely done. I'd also love to know your painting recipe for the bases?

Your orange boyz look fantastic. I love your fabric highlighting technique, it always looks good on your minis. The pale skin and pinkish face look great too. The AoBR model will look great leading the mob too, hopefully he gets to the front of the painting queue at some point

Great work yet again!
I like the vibrant orange, it turned out well. I also always love your weathering work. It works really well with the awesome freehand patterns.

Really looking forward to that AOBR Warboss! I also got the model, but it has been painted some 10 years ago. He's an awesome guy.

The orange orks are lovely! You’ve done a great job with all the patterning and weathering. I enjoyed reading about the process too, it’s always interesting the way you approach things.

Marvelous work on those orcs! The skin color is amazing and the chipping looks so great.

Wow, thanks again for the kind comments everyone!

Arakasi wrote:Lovely work (as always).

Thank you Arakasi!

zahnib wrote:Your orks look awesome!! The paler shade of skin and the orange go so well together and the chipping is really nicely done. I'd also love to know your painting recipe for the bases?

Cheers! Can't take credit for coming up with the scheme/recipes (that's Amy from Tale of Painters), but they are a really effective combination! The bases are easy, it's the "default" bone recipe from GW: basecoat Zandri Dust, wash Agrax Earthshade, drybrush with Ushabti Bone and Screaming Skull. If I have bigger stones/tiles/etc. I usually basecoat those with Zamesi Desert, and then continue as described, but I didn't do that with these bases. The skulls are painted with the same paints, but after drybrushing I glaze/highlight the skulls with the same paint (UB/SS). This makes the surface smoother and the color stronger than on the drybrushed sand, which makes the skulls stand out a bit more.

gobert wrote:Your orange boyz look fantastic. I love your fabric highlighting technique, it always looks good on your minis. The pale skin and pinkish face look great too. The AoBR model will look great leading the mob too, hopefully he gets to the front of the painting queue at some point

Much obliged gobert! The best thing about using hash-highlighting is that it's super fast and low pressure! The Warboss will definitely jump the queue at some point, but I'll paint a project or two before that..

Ezki wrote:Great work yet again!
I like the vibrant orange, it turned out well. I also always love your weathering work. It works really well with the awesome freehand patterns.
Really looking forward to that AOBR Warboss! I also got the model, but it has been painted some 10 years ago. He's an awesome guy.

Thanks a lot Ezki! With these orks I've practiced weathering with a brush. It's definitely not as nice/random as it would be with a sponge, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. And as the models are relatively small, it doesn't take a huge amount of time.
I'm also looking forward to the Warboss, he's a beast!

Pomander Cask wrote:The orange orks are lovely! You’ve done a great job with all the patterning and weathering. I enjoyed reading about the process too, it’s always interesting the way you approach things.

Much appreciated Pomander! I'm glad you enjoy my writings, I also like to read about other people's approaches and thoughts on their models.

Viterbi wrote:Marvelous work on those orcs! The skin color is amazing and the chipping looks so great.

Thank you very much Viterbi!

---

Alright, let's do another WIP shot for a change. I've gone back to my Revelators and finally started painting the Scouts. I made pretty good progress during the Easter break: the gray armor is now layered, missing only the highlights. The clothes are basecoated and shaded. After I took the photo I basecoated the gold as well. There's still quite a lot to do, obviously, but I think most of the boring stuff is now done. Should definitely be able to finish these in the next couple of weeks.

Thank you for the detailed reply! Awesome, I might give it a crack on my Sisters of Battle, balance out all that black! Scouts are looking great! I especially like the sergeant.

Those (scion?) heads look perfect for the scouts who already look great before the highlights start. Their armour is just so fantastically smooth it’s unreal. I cant even manage that with 3 thin coats!

zahnib wrote:Thank you for the detailed reply! Awesome, I might give it a crack on my Sisters of Battle, balance out all that black! Scouts are looking great! I especially like the sergeant.

No problem zahnib! I think the sand will complement the Sisters well!

gobert wrote:Those (scion?) heads look perfect for the scouts who already look great before the highlights start. Their armour is just so fantastically smooth it’s unreal. I cant even manage that with 3 thin coats!

Thanks gobert! Yup, those are Scion helmets (and a bare Marine head). Layering Dawnstone took 2-3 thin(-ish) coats, and was a bit of a chore, but nowhere near as bad as painting mk7 armor.. It does look nice when it's done though! And like my earlier power-armored Marines, the Scouts will be left clean.

The Scouts are getting closer and closer to the finish line.. I'm hoping they'll be done during the weekend, or early next week. The armor, clothes and the metallics are now done, just have to highlight the black, do the camo cloaks, some details, decals and the bases. I'm a bit on the fence about whether to add some gray on the boots (the pads), or to keep them black. I think I'll paint the base first and see how it looks..

Scouts are looking awesome mcmattila! Its a really nice conversion. I vote yes for grey on the boots though I think waiting until the base is painted is a good idea.

Your scout is looking good so far. I do think a bit more grey would help tie him to the rest of the army. Either his shins or the casing of his shotgun maybe?

zahnib wrote:Scouts are looking awesome mcmattila! Its a really nice conversion. I vote yes for grey on the boots though I think waiting until the base is painted is a good idea.

gobert wrote:Your scout is looking good so far. I do think a bit more grey would help tie him to the rest of the army. Either his shins or the casing of his shotgun maybe?

Thanks guys! Good suggestions. I decided to add gray to the boots, like gobert said, to better tie them to the rest of the army.

---

And the Scouts are done!



So yeah, they've been a relatively long time coming, and I've shown them unpainted a couple of times already. As the construction has already been discussed, I'll focus on the painting in this post. I'm glad to say that painting the Scouts was for the most part an enjoyable process. It was also a bit different from my other recent projects: I tried to keep them consistent with my other Revelator models, which meant no weathering and less highlights than with, for example, my Astra Rodentia or Inquisition models.



This is not to say that I don't like the look! I'd describe the look as vanilla-GW-tabletop, and the slightly cartoony look is neat if a bit uneventful. I did however try something new with these guys, as I try to do with every project: I did their cloaks in six-color desert camo, which is about my favorite camo design. Well, to be frank, it's more of a four-color desert, as I simplified it for the miniature form, but I think it reads well for what it should be. Might try all six colours for the sniper Scouts when I eventually get there, as there's more room in their cloaks..



A note on the color scheme as a whole: I'm really liking that my chosen armor color of gray and the desert basing scheme allowed me to create a somewhat sensible scheme for scouts. I was a bit worried about my standard accent colour yellow, but then I realised that as Scouts don't use company colors, I had no issues! Yeah, there's some gold, but there always has to be some bling in Warhammer.. All in all, I think they look like an effective bunch of commandos ready for some close-quarters action.

Stunning. The grey on the boots was a good call.

Wow! They turned out really well, congratulations. The camo looks good, it's a nice and scouty theme.

Looking great mcmatilla! The camo really does look cool, those black and white dots must’ve been fiddly. The extra grey helps too, particularly from the side and rear.

Those scouts turned out great! Where did the sergeant's powerfist come from? Again those bases are looking ace

Scouts look great. Nice job on the camo scheme, looking forward to seeing it in its full glory on the sniper scouts

Arakasi wrote:Stunning. The grey on the boots was a good call.

Much appreciated Arakasi!

amazingturtles wrote:Wow! They turned out really well, congratulations. The camo looks good, it's a nice and scouty theme.

I'm glad to hear that amazingturtles!

gobert wrote:Looking great mcmatilla! The camo really does look cool, those black and white dots must’ve been fiddly. The extra grey helps too, particularly from the side and rear.

Cheers gobert! The dots required a steady hand, but weren't actually too bad to do. They were all "one-and-done", didn't have to fix any mistakes or do multiple layers.

zahnib wrote:Those scouts turned out great! Where did the sergeant's powerfist come from? Again those bases are looking ace

Many thanks zahnib! The power fist comes from the Scions kit, same as the helmets, backpacks and the bolt pistol arm. That kit turned out to be great for Scouts! Now I just have to come up with a use for the rest of the bits.. Maybe some rat Scions?

Maharg wrote:Scouts look great. Nice job on the camo scheme, looking forward to seeing it in its full glory on the sniper scouts

Thanks a lot Maharg! Heh, the snipers might take quite a while to do, as I still remember how annoying these shotgun Scouts were to assemble.. Hopefully the snipers are a bit easier!

mcmattila wrote:

zahnib wrote:Those scouts turned out great! Where did the sergeant's powerfist come from? Again those bases are looking ace

Many thanks zahnib! The power fist comes from the Scions kit, same as the helmets, backpacks and the bolt pistol arm. That kit turned out to be great for Scouts! Now I just have to come up with a use for the rest of the bits.. Maybe some rat Scions?

Ah that makes sense! The scale works perfectly with the scout models. Haha, yes! Some elite raties

Great work on the scouts, amazing how you managed to do such a clean camo effect on the rolls on their backpacks

You’ve said it on the internet now, so it has to happen... Rat Scions ftw!

Viterbi wrote:Great work on the scouts, amazing how you managed to do such a clean camo effect on the rolls on their backpacks

Thanks Viterbi! To be honest, I kind of surprised myself too! I think some of it is due to painting it relatively flat: I did a bit of highlighting when laying down the pattern, and then washed it with 1:1 agrag:medium. The white dots were painted after the shading so that they wouldn't get tinted brown. It seems that with camo you get away with less shading/highlighting - I've noticed that using undiluted wash can easily muddy up the whole design. Of course, the rest of the scheme is also pretty flat, so maybe that's why it looks cohesive I'll keep on testing..

gobert wrote:You’ve said it on the internet now, so it has to happen... Rat Scions ftw!

Haha! You are right of course! I'll see what I can come up with. Might be a good opportunity to use that plasma gun hand..

Late to the party, but those ork boys look fab, and really fantastic freehand on them

 IGtR= wrote:
Late to the party, but those ork boys look fab, and really fantastic freehand on them

Thanks IGtR, much appreciated!

---

I've gone back to the AoS starter box and started working on the two minor Khorne characters (Bloodsomething or -other, both of them..). They're now at "battle ready", with the skin mostly finished and the rest basecoated and washed. Them being characters, though, I want to go a bit further and do some highlighting and quick details. Sadly, due to work I probably won't have time to get these guys finished before June, but I'll have to see how it goes..

Looking good, Another wash and highlight on the skin and they look great. The armour really pops with that recess shade to separate red and gold!

Outstanding work on the scouts! They look very clean and well defined. The camo pattern on their rolled cloaks looks like the real thing

The Khorne fellows are looking great already. They'll be awesome when done!

Ah, the blood-secretary and the blood steaker. Or something of that nature. They look nifty!

Khorne probably could use a secretary, really. And some accountants. Someone's got to keep track of all of those skulls.

I love Khorne red and it looks at its best on some Khorney Warriors. Exceptionally neat as ever, will they be getting roughed up a bit?

Viterbi wrote:Looking good, Another wash and highlight on the skin and they look great. The armour really pops with that recess shade to separate red and gold!

Thanks Viterbi! I intend to keep the skin quite pale/light, but you're right, some selective washing might be in order. I'll also do some red/purple washes for bruising and such.

Ezki wrote:Outstanding work on the scouts! They look very clean and well defined. The camo pattern on their rolled cloaks looks like the real thing
The Khorne fellows are looking great already. They'll be awesome when done!

Much appreciated Ezki!

amazingturtles wrote:Ah, the blood-secretary and the blood steaker. Or something of that nature. They look nifty!
Khorne probably could use a secretary, really. And some accountants. Someone's got to keep track of all of those skulls.

Haha! You're right, what's the point of adding more skulls if you don't know how many you have in the first place?

gobert wrote:I love Khorne red and it looks at its best on some Khorney Warriors. Exceptionally neat as ever, will they be getting roughed up a bit?

Khorne Red is a really nice paint, yes! I wasn't planning on doing much weathering, but I guess a few quick nicks and scratches wouldn't hurt. I'll add some red and purple to the skin, and some rust at least to that harpoon.

---

Haven't done any hobbying this week, since I've been very busy with work, and that will continue at least for a week. But I do have my hobby supplies and a few minis so maybe I'll get to finish the Khorne guys or build something when the work eases a bit.

Okay, time for a long overdue update! Hopefully I can pick up the pace a bit during the summer..

Nevertheless, I've now finished the two lesser Khorne characters! They've actually been done for a week or so already, but I've been too busy to post them here before now.



To be honest, I didn't really look forward to painting these Chaos models due to the insane amount of details. But the AoS starter set is sort of my testing ground for "tabletop standard" and "speed" painting, I set out to paint them quickly, to a decent standard and without too much pressure. As with the 'reavers, the starting point was an article in White Dwarf Jan '17. However, in the end I used very little of the tutorial as is, instead employing quick techniques I've picked out in the last couple of years and trying some new ones as well.



I think I achieved my goals with this small project pretty well. The pair has around a week of painting days on them, and hopefully they look like I've put some effort into them. Here are some of the techniques/steps that I used to speed up the process: the skin is just drybrushing and washes, and the basecoats for the blacks were done with Contrast black over gray basecoat (okay, this might've actually slowed me down a bit). The bone bits were layered by "overbrushing" rather than meticulously going over each and every detail. Highlights on the metallic parts are very rough, and on the whole I didn't really go back to fix "mistakes" that much.



Below you can see my progress on the starter set so far. The two leaders are yet to be built, but otherwise all the models are there. It's looking pretty good, with 36 models painted and 11 to go, but of course this has been a slow burn project. When I'll get back to it, I think it's the Stormcasts' and the Lord Relictor's turn.



I could also use these models to claim a square in the hobby bingo, this time "adding a model to army and painting it before using it in battle". I don't know if I'll ever use them for a game, but by default they've been painted before playing, so should count.


I've actually painted another quick model since finishing the Khorne guys, and should be able to show it soon. Just have to take some photos of it first. And I've made a start on the next project as well, but more on that later..

Quick and rough paint job he says... they look excellent to me! The symbol on the chest of the big monster is really cool, is that freehand or sculpted on?

Yeah, the Khorne stuff looks really good for a quick tabletop-level job.

Those Khorne boys look great! The skin came out really nice

Khorne guys came out great, speed painting method was a success. I particularly like the skin on the fellow with the whip

 gobert wrote:
Quick and rough paint job he says... they look excellent to me! The symbol on the chest of the big monster is really cool, is that freehand or sculpted on?

Gotta echo gobert, if that is your less good paintwork, I am very envious Army shot is cool, love the silver stormcast, always nice to see them in knightly colors.

Thanks again everyone for the great response, and sorry (again) for the very late reply.. :(

gobert wrote:Quick and rough paint job he says... they look excellent to me! The symbol on the chest of the big monster is really cool, is that freehand or sculpted on?

Cheers! That's a sculpted detail on the Khorgorath.

aku-chan wrote:Yeah, the Khorne stuff looks really good for a quick tabletop-level job.

Thanks! Lets see if I can eventually keep it up for the Blood Warriors..

zahnib wrote:Those Khorne boys look great! The skin came out really nice

Thanks! Due to the washes, the skin is not as pale as I had at first envisioned, but i like it as well!

Maharg wrote:Khorne guys came out great, speed painting method was a success. I particularly like the skin on the fellow with the whip

Thank you! The whip guy had a lot of scarring which was a prime candidate for some crimson and purple washes to make it more interesting.

Viterbi wrote:Gotta echo gobert, if that is your less good paintwork, I am very envious Army shot is cool, love the silver stormcast, always nice to see them in knightly colors.

Much obliged! I'm not sure if it's less good, but quicker at least! Hopefully I'll be able to paint the rest of those primed models some day soon(ish). Like, by the end of next year at the latest! Oh, so many cool models and projects to paint, and so little time..

---

After the Khorne guys I decide to go for another quick project, and one that I painted for my wife. It’s a single Termagant model, originally from the Battle for Macragge box.



Now, my wife isn’t interested in the Warhammer/miniature hobby at all, but on occasion courteously pays attention to what I’m painting. Some time ago she asked if I’d paint her something. “Of course”, I told her, as long as she’d come up with a scheme. I gave her a choice of some models and she picked an old Termagant, or “a tiny dinosaur”. Her thought process started from a Hello Kitty scheme, but as soon as she discovered someone had already stolen her idea (Hive Fleet Leviathan ), she wanted a python pattern on the carapace.



Ok, something that I probably wouldn’t have tried myself, but as such a great challenge! I looked at some reference photos on Google, and it turns out that there’s quite a lot of different patterns on the snakes. What I ended up painting was more of an impression than a straight up replication. I think the pattern more or less works on the back carapace, but I messed it up on the head. I also don’t know how the scheme would translate for other (bigger) Tyranid models, but as this was a one-off I don’t really have to.



The painting process itself was almost as experimental as the scheme. I used three paints to lay down the base for the skin (Steel Legion Drab, Zandri Dust and Ushabti Bone), and then used washes and drybrushing to define the model further. The carapace bits got a bit more careful approach, with the pattern design and the striations. I used some new paints, or rather inks on this model, too! I recently bought some Daler Rowney FW Acrylic Inks, and I tried them out on this Termagant. I used black on the pattern design, white to highlight and burnt umber to outline some of the carapace panels. While all of them felt like great products, the white definitely takes the cake. I don’t think my pot of White Scar will see much action any more..

So yeah, another fun little project completed and new things were learned! And what did the missus think, I hear you ask? She seemed to like it!

That's a very neat looking tiny dinosaur, and the pattern came out wonderfully! Gives it a very natural pattern that i could see blending in well with cliffs and rocks and what not, which is after all something that snakes like to do.

Your quick and "rough" paint scheme surely looks very good! They are looking really good together.

The python pattern is really awesome! That would look amazing on a big horde of tiny dinosaurs.
I think the head is looking good too. The smaller 'scales' are forgiving about small mistakes (which I did not spot mind you).

 mcmattila wrote:

I also don’t know how the scheme would translate for other (bigger) Tyranid models, but as this was a one-off I don’t really have to.

I think the pattern would look great on a bigger nid monster. If you decide against this being a one-off, it would be interesting to see!

 mcmattila wrote:

And what did the missus think, I hear you ask? She seemed to like it!

Job well done!

You say Python pattern I see Moth pattern. Both work to me. Also really neat work. I’ll have to look at those inks, I think HobbyLobby carries them .

Awesome little Tyranid! The striations on the carapace look fantastic, especially how they interact with the python pattern. Top drawer stuff, which hopefully isn’t just a one off!

Haha, the tiny dinosaur came out great!

amazingturtles wrote:That's a very neat looking tiny dinosaur, and the pattern came out wonderfully! Gives it a very natural pattern that i could see blending in well with cliffs and rocks and what not, which is after all something that snakes like to do.

Thank you very much! The "natural approach" was what I was going for!

Ezki wrote:Your quick and "rough" paint scheme surely looks very good! They are looking really good together.
The python pattern is really awesome! That would look amazing on a big horde of tiny dinosaurs.
I think the head is looking good too. The smaller 'scales' are forgiving about small mistakes (which I did not spot mind you).
I think the pattern would look great on a bigger nid monster. If you decide against this being a one-off, it would be interesting to see!
Job well done!

Thanks a lot Ezki! The problem I see with a whole horde of 'nids in this scheme is that it would (maybe) just be a sea of brown, without any pop. I don't know if the black and off-white on the carapace would be enough to give the models good definition.
The mistake I did with the head, as I see it, is that I didn't scale down the pattern enough, which made it less clear than on the back. But of course thinking about this, I realize that scaling up the pattern might work for the bigger models. Before I was thinking I'd "continue" the pattern, which would probably look silly and unnatural.

Theophony wrote:You say Python pattern I see Moth pattern. Both work to me. Also really neat work. I’ll have to look at those inks, I think HobbyLobby carries them .

Hah, I can see it! Thanks Theo!

gobert wrote:Awesome little Tyranid! The striations on the carapace look fantastic, especially how they interact with the python pattern. Top drawer stuff, which hopefully isn’t just a one off!

Thanks gobert! The original idea was to make the pattern/carapace look more like actual scales, but I quickly noticed that that would've taken way, way too much time, and might've distracted the pattern. The striations were kind of an after-thought, when I got some white ink on my brush to highlight just a few corners, I ended up going nuts I've always been a fan of striations on the Tyranids carapaces, though.
Well, I've occasionally thought about collecting a swarm of Termagants and Genestealers, to complete the Battle for Macragge Tyranid side (I don't have all of my original models any more). But I'd probably go for a different scheme for those (carbarf's Hive Fleet Karkinos is the bees knees!), but never say never, of course..

zahnib wrote:Haha, the tiny dinosaur came out great!

Much obliged!

---

Okay, back to WIP photos. I've been painting Mollog for the past couple of weeks, and I'm hoping to finish him by the end of the weekend. I took the photos last night, they're missing the two big red mushroom caps I finished today. Oh well, got to leave something for the showcase photos I'm going to paint the conical mushroom blue, and the base obviously needs paint. But other than those "big" pieces, it's mostly a bit of detail work and some more highlights.

The frog looks especially good , looking forward to seeing Mollog all done up in his fungi glory.

Oooh, mollog looks great, his rock like skin looks fantastic. The shelf mushrooms on his belly and his toenails look particularly nasty. Can’t wait to see him all done

Theophony wrote:The frog looks especially good , looking forward to seeing Mollog all done up in his fungi glory.

Thank you Theo!

gobert wrote:Oooh, mollog looks great, his rock like skin looks fantastic. The shelf mushrooms on his belly and his toenails look particularly nasty. Can’t wait to see him all done

Thanks gobert! I was very happy with the skin also, as I was initially pretty worried about painting it. Thankfully our boy Duncan helped me on the right track!

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And he's done!
During the spring I went a bit nuts and bought a load of Underworlds warbands. I recently took stock of them, and noticed that I had seven boxes of unbuilt teams! Clearly I need to do something about the pile, and I started with one of the more novel warbands, Mollog's Mob. In this post I'll show you the titular, grumpy leader of the lot.



I'd normally paint the unit as a whole, but I've noticed that the summer months are usually spent working, travelling and with the wife, and if not, the weather's often too hot to paint. So a bit strapped for hobby time.. But I wanted to enter something for Ann's hobby challenge, Miniatures of Magnitude. Although the challenge ran for two months, I only had around three weeks to do my entry. Hence I decided to just paint Mollog, and leave the rest of the gang for another time. Fortunately all the models have somewhat different schemes, so batch painting wouldn't necessarily have helped anyway.



For the paint scheme I mostly followed the box art and Duncan's tutorial. I didn't have all the paints used in the tutorial, but I thought that the scheme had a little to much purple in it anyway (the skin and the big mushrooms). My scheme ended up a bit more blue, and with more vibrant toadstools, a combination which I have to say I like more than the GW's versions. I also took the highlighting a little further than Duncan did, as I'm trying to push the contrast on my models. Overall, I think this might be my best work so far, and it was a joy to paint!



There were a couple of new things that I tried on this model, and of which I'm really happy about. The first was that I used Pallid Wych Flesh for all (non-metal) final highlights, something that worked really well. It seems to pull all the colors together and of course makes those highlights pop. I also tried drying retarder for the first time, and did some rudimentary weblending on the toadstools and the blue mushroom. I think I didn't yet get the right mix of paint and retarder, but I'll surely keep practicing with it on future models.



And yeah, in addition to painting a big model for Ann's challenge, there was an appropriate square in the hobby bingo as well: "paint a monster". Done!

Good job in finishing mollog! He looks great, I like the idea of finishing all the highlights with the same colour. It’s subtle but certainly pulls then all together. The blending looks great on the blue mushroom particularly, but the striations work well on the red one, so it’s all round good!

Your Mollog looks awesome!! The skin came out great and the red mushrooms contrast to the blues nicely. Also the water in the puddle on the base looks really good!

Awesome stuff dude, love the kid scheme

gobert wrote:Good job in finishing mollog! He looks great, I like the idea of finishing all the highlights with the same colour. It’s subtle but certainly pulls then all together. The blending looks great on the blue mushroom particularly, but the striations work well on the red one, so it’s all round good!

Cheers! The "single final highlight color" is of course not an original one, there was some of it going on in Duncan's tutorial, and for example Vince Venturella has spoken about it many times. At first the idea feels a bit counter-intuitive, but as long as it's an off-white and you keep the highlights thin, it works really well! And it theoretically saves time too!
I sometimes think whether I'm overusing the striation/dot-style highlighting, but no, (or even if I am,) I love it!

zahnib wrote:Your Mollog looks awesome!! The skin came out great and the red mushrooms contrast to the blues nicely. Also the water in the puddle on the base looks really good!

Thank you very much! The water also kind of ties Mollog to the base, as the paints used are the same as for his skin.

JoeRugby wrote:Awesome stuff dude, love the kid scheme

Kid? Nid? Haha! Much obliged!

No one is saying it so i'm just gonna: he's got a tiny butt.

Ok, got that off my chest, so i can now say that the painting looks great! The frog and the pool are probably my favorite parts too.

 amazingturtles wrote:
No one is saying it so i'm just gonna: he's got a tiny butt.
Ok, got that off my chest, so i can now say that the painting looks great! The frog and the pool are probably my favorite parts too.

Haha, yes he does! In the 'eavy metal version it was painted darker, but I wanted the moon to shine nice and bright!
Thank you very much amazingturtles!

Where amazingturtles has only eyes for his butt ( ) I love what you have done with the toad, those eyes are looking great. All in all that sculpt is great and you've done a magnificent job painting him!

 Viterbi wrote:
Where amazingturtles has only eyes for his butt ( ) I love what you have done with the toad, those eyes are looking great. All in all that sculpt is great and you've done a magnificent job painting him!

Hey, butts are cool!
Many thanks Viterbi! I also really enjoyed the sculpt.

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I haven't had much hobby time in the last couple of weeks, but I've slowly been building a Space Marine biker squad for my Revelators mini-marines army. Here are the first two finished riders, a third will follow later.



I got these bikes from my wonderful wife as a b-day present a little while back. She doesn't really know anything about the armies or rules of the game, i.e. which units are part of what armies, which would be good for games, or what models I have in my collection already. Well, I too am not really familiar with the rules, nor do I care, and I've said to her that if she wants to get me minis, she can buy anything that she thinks looks cool. She ended up with these, as the marines looked familiar and one of my other hobbies/interests is motorcycles. I really appreciate her putting thought into this, rather than just picking the first box she sees!



I quite like the models, even though in practical terms they're a bit silly with the wide tires and low ground clearance. They look brutal though, and fit the marine aesthetic splendidly. However, there's no denying that they're getting on a bit.. Assembling the models was rather fiddly, and getting the bike halves to align satisfactorily took some work. I was also worried about the seamline in the middle of the bike, but I read a good tip on TaleofPainters: when putting the halves together, use a lot of (plastic) glue! Then press the halves together so that some of the glue goop oozes out. When it's dry, the seam can be scraped clean, leaving a smooth surface. I primed these fellas last night and the trick worked out great!

I wanted to individualize the riders a bit, so I did some light conversion/kit bashing work on them. The sarge's head is from the SM Commander kit and the fist is from a Tactical Squad. I also added a banner top from the same box to further mark him as the squad leader. Both of the riders got some pouches and grenades, and some purity seals on the bikes. The chainsword on the other bike is from the mk3 marine squad. As it's originally meant to be holstered/strapped to a backpack, it was a bit shorter than a normal Tactical Squad chainsword and already had some straps so it looks like it's actually secured in place. The idea for the sword came from photos of Imperial First bikers in an old 3rd edition SM Codex.



I wasn't happy with the stock bases, and ordered some plain 75mm oval bases from eBay. I don't think they're exactly the same shape as GW's (the oval looks like it has slight "corners"), but in the photos it seems to be okay. They also had to be washed as there was some black goo on them. So yeah, the quality's not quite up to GW standard, but okay. As they're bigger bases, I wanted to decorate them a bit more than just plain sand and the occasional skull and tuft. Of course, as some of my models have bases that are just sand, I didn't want to go too mad. The sarge got a slight "ramp" made out of cork, while the other marine got a piece of H-beam and some DIY-barbed wire. Just something to hint at a battlefield, but still keep it in the desert/wasteland style.

So where's the third squad member? He's still unassembled as I want to try something new: I recently got a package from Greenstuffworld, and with it a pack of Blue Stuff. I'm trying to make a mold of the bike wheels and copy them for terrain/basing projects! I made a couple of tries already, but wasn't satisfied just yet, so I'll try some more. The copies don't need to be perfect, but I'll try to get them as good as I can. When I get to the actual assembly, the rider will most likely be a meltagunner, but he'd require some work on arm posing, so we'll see how it comes out.

Nice job on the bikers, I know what you mean on the joints, I resorted to filler, but might go for polycement for the next 2. The minor conversions have gone well too, I’m thinking Chainsword for my sergeant assuming I’ve got one and a suitable arm spare somewhere! Out of interest, did you drill the exhausts?

 gobert wrote:
Nice job on the bikers, I know what you mean on the joints, I resorted to filler, but might go for polycement for the next 2. The minor conversions have gone well too, I’m thinking Chainsword for my sergeant assuming I’ve got one and a suitable arm spare somewhere! Out of interest, did you drill the exhausts?

Thanks! Yes, I did drill the exhausts with a 3mm bit, which was basically as big as you can use. The holes didn't come out perfect as perfect circles, most likely as there's not solid plastic behind the exhaust "covers". I think they're okay though, and painting them might further disguise the mishaps. I also considered various swords for the sarge, but ended up picking a fist so that I can add some yellow on him as well, as I did with my Tactical Squad sarge.

Lovely work on the bike bases and good to see, that the bikers are seperate from the bikes for easier painting. I fear with the new bikes, that the riders or parts of them will be on some bike parts.

The thinness of the plastic is what i was worried about. I’ll give it a go, maybe on my next bike I’ll see about drilling pre-assembly to see if I can put a back to it. Cheers!

Nice to see the old bikes getting some attention before they are replaced by their Primaris counterparts. Look forward to seeing them painted up!

 Viterbi wrote:
Where amazingturtles has only eyes for his butt ( )

(oh no, my innocent reputation!)

The bikes are great! The basing works really well and makes them look a lot more dynamic.

Viterbi wrote:Lovely work on the bike bases and good to see, that the bikers are seperate from the bikes for easier painting. I fear with the new bikes, that the riders or parts of them will be on some bike parts.

Thanks! Yeah, it's really nice that the riders are totally separated from the bikes. Easier for painting, and if you want to use the bike for a terrain project or something, there's no fuss. I took a look at the Outrider sprues and indeed it looks like subassemblies will be tougher. But maybe it's just these easy-to-build kits, perhaps there's eventually a multipart-kit with different assemby..

gobert wrote:The thinness of the plastic is what i was worried about. I’ll give it a go, maybe on my next bike I’ll see about drilling pre-assembly to see if I can put a back to it. Cheers!

No problem! After the first bike, I thought about drilling before assembly for the next one. And then I went and assembled it, forgetting the drilling. I drilled the pipes after, and just left it at that. I'm hoping that black paint and shadows take care of the empty, not really clean holes

zahnib wrote:Nice to see the old bikes getting some attention before they are replaced by their Primaris counterparts. Look forward to seeing them painted up!

Thanks, me too! I'll eventually be painting the Primaris bikes as well, as I ordered myself the Indomitus box. Those will most likely be in a different color scheme though..

amazingturtles wrote:The bikes are great! The basing works really well and makes them look a lot more dynamic.

Cheers! Didn't really consider that during build, but you're right!

This weekend I took a slight detour from finishing the bikers, to build and paint a single small model. Here's my first Warcry model: a Corvus Cabalist.



So on Friday I was browsing the local (/national) wargaming forum's trading area, and spotted someone selling quite a lot of unopened kits for half price in my city. Apparently he had excitedly bought a bit too much and was selling off things he didn't see painting in the near future. Probably a wiser man than many of us Even so, I got in touch with him and a couple of hours later a brand new Corvus Cabal box changed hands. And a few other kits as well, but more on those later..

Having bought new models and the weekend ahead of me, I had the perfect opportunity to finish a hobby bingo square that has so far eluded me: finish a model in 48 hours of acquiring it. Now, this shouldn't be too hard, as surely we're all eager to get those new models finished as soon as possible! But for one reason or another, they often go to the cupboard of unfinished models to wait for their turn, and might stay there for quite a while. Now, truth be told, I've mainly wanted the Cabal box to own the Shrike Talon and maybe some cool conversion bits, I'm not really interested in playing Warcry. I reckoned that painting one of the standard Cabalists would be good practice for the Talon and should be quick enough to paint even at my slow pace.



I built and based the model on Friday evening. I did a minor conversion too, as I'm not super fond of the kama style weapons they have. I shortened the handle a bit and used the kama's blade to give the model a knife with a hawksbill style blade, which I like quite a bit more than the original. On Saturday I primed her zenithally using rattle cans, which went a lot smoother than with the Poxwalkers. In addition to that, I washed the model with Nuln Oil and drybrushed it with White Scar, which gave me a really nicely defined and shaded starting point. I also used some Contrast and Base paints to lay initial basecoats on the model. I decided to go with the studio scheme for these, partly because I didn't have much time to mull it over, partly because the studio scheme fits the Cabal really well. I did leave the bloody throats out, as I think they're a bit silly..

(A couple of photos of the primed model: after spraying on the left and after washing/drybrushing on the right)

On Sunday I painted the rest of the model and got it finished with a good hour left before the deadline! I know I could've just left her in the "battle ready", basecoated stage, give her a simple base and call it done, but as I had plenty of time, I wanted to do it properly, and actually practice for the Shrike Talon. So I ended up covering pretty much all of the basecoats by layering and highlighting. It was a very enjoyable process though, so I don't mind. I used a similar palette as for Mollog, and again finished all colors with highlights of Pallid Wychflesh. I'm particularly happy with the beak (on the mask), I think I got the transitions down pretty well. I also like her eye, which at first at first I was going to leave black, but while I "was in the area" with my paintbrush, I thought I'd paint just a small dot of white in the corner to give an impression of a pupil. Worked well!



White there are a couple of things that could be improved and I'll probably change with the next Cabalist, I'm very happy with the model and feel that I can more or less paint the Shrike Talon and any other Cabalists with the same techniques and paints. So yeah, one more square down, which takes me quite close to getting my first completed row. Unfortunately, I won't be making a 2'x2' table in the foreseeable future, due to limited storage space and no real use either.. So it's back to working on the bikes and the "vehicle" square!

Nice work! I really like the texture you hint at with how you paint cloth. What did you use for the patches of brown on the base??

Wow! She’s spectacular! The reduced palette and finishing with Pallid wychflesh all come together to give sinister and cold feel to her. Your right to be proud of the beak because it’s fantastic!

That is one moody looking cabalist, great adaption of the stuido scheme! Excited to see your Shrike Talon, I painted my Cabal in more tropical colors, it's nice to see the contrast.

Crows! How did i not know that there was a warband with crows! I need crows.And the crow's eye looks great, that little bit of light makes it look so good.

The rest is good too of course but the crow is the best. As all crows are.

zahnib wrote:Nice work! I really like the texture you hint at with how you paint cloth. What did you use for the patches of brown on the base??

Many thanks zahnib! Some of the texture's down to stippling, some to the spray can zenithal priming. The brown patches are watered-down Mournfang Brown and Steel Legion Drab. I think it's a bit more visible on the photos than IRL, but in any case I probably should've thinned the paints down even more. As to why I painted some brown in there, it was part of my attempt to add a little color and interest to a gray base. It's the same palette I used on Mollog's base too.

gobert wrote:Wow! She’s spectacular! The reduced palette and finishing with Pallid wychflesh all come together to give sinister and cold feel to her. Your right to be proud of the beak because it’s fantastic!

Much obliged! Achieving a cold overall scheme for her was my main goal. I strayed from it a bit with the bone and the browns, but it looks like it complements the blues well.

Viterbi wrote:That is one moody looking cabalist, great adaption of the stuido scheme! Excited to see your Shrike Talon, I painted my Cabal in more tropical colors, it's nice to see the contrast.

Thanks a lot Viterbi! Yeah I remember your Cabal scheme! I like it, definitely something a bit different. Heh, before you added the green, I got a certain Howling Banshee vibe from the red and white models!

amazingturtles wrote:Crows! How did i not know that there was a warband with crows! I need crows.And the crow's eye looks great, that little bit of light makes it look so good.
The rest is good too of course but the crow is the best. As all crows are.

Hah! I knew you'd get a kick out of these crow people with crows! How didn't you know about this warband with crows?!

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I've made a bit of progress on the bikers: the armor is now layered with Dawnstone on both the bikes and the riders. It's the most tedious part of painting my Revelators, so I'm happy Edging the armor should be relatively quick, at least with the bikes. And after that's done, it's mostly just detail work from there. I'm hoping to get these two guys done in a week!

Good progress on the bikes, mine are sat waiting to be primed and I don’t have any bases for them yet. They look cool in your grey scheme and the black fuel tanks work well too. I should probably stick a wire up in to my riders too...

 mcmattila wrote:

zahnib wrote:Nice work! I really like the texture you hint at with how you paint cloth. What did you use for the patches of brown on the base??

Many thanks zahnib! Some of the texture's down to stippling, some to the spray can zenithal priming. The brown patches are watered-down Mournfang Brown and Steel Legion Drab. I think it's a bit more visible on the photos than IRL, but in any case I probably should've thinned the paints down even more. As to why I painted some brown in there, it was part of my attempt to add a little color and interest to a gray base. It's the same palette I used on Mollog's base too.

Oh cool, I haven't experimented with zenithal undercoating yet. I remember Darren Latham going over his techniques for adding texture to cloth, sounds like a similar approach. I like the added brown! I've been trying to find ways to add a bit of colour to my bases so might borrow your approach

gobert wrote:Good progress on the bikes, mine are sat waiting to be primed and I don’t have any bases for them yet. They look cool in your grey scheme and the black fuel tanks work well too. I should probably stick a wire up in to my riders too...

Cheers! The black/darker fuel tanks were copied from the studio Ultramarines scheme, I think it gives gives a nice contrast and breaks up the light gray well. And yeah, sticking those riders on a wire surely helps holding on to them while painting!

zahnib wrote:Oh cool, I haven't experimented with zenithal undercoating yet. I remember Darren Latham going over his techniques for adding texture to cloth, sounds like a similar approach. I like the added brown! I've been trying to find ways to add a bit of colour to my bases so might borrow your approach

Borrow away!
I also remember Darren's textured cloth tutorial, I used it more closely on my Farstriders. For the Cabalist I took a quicker approach, just highlighting with a stippling motion instead of using clean lines. Easier, and gives a more interesting/fitting look for a ragged character!

 mcmattila wrote:

amazingturtles wrote:Crows! How did i not know that there was a warband with crows! I need crows.And the crow's eye looks great, that little bit of light makes it look so good.
The rest is good too of course but the crow is the best. As all crows are.

Hah! I knew you'd get a kick out of these crow people with crows! How didn't you know about this warband with crows?!

It is my shame! But now i know, and i am ready....

Colors on the bikers are looking good!

Very smooth colors on the bikers! And you gotta love the look of the two marines without their bikes, the hand position looks so weird

Lovely model that Corvus Cabalist! And your paint job gives that model justice!

Good start on the bikes also. Painting that Dawnstone must have taken a lot of patience

Beautiful Bird dude dude

Thank you all for the comments, and sorry again for taking so long to reply. I've been neglecting the forums for a while now due to real life commitments, hopefully I'll be able to post a bit more frequently from now on, both to my plog and to other dakkanauts'.

amazingturtles wrote:It is my shame! But now i know, and i am ready....
Colors on the bikers are looking good!

Cheers!

Viterbi wrote:Very smooth colors on the bikers! And you gotta love the look of the two marines without their bikes, the hand position looks so weird

Thanks! Yeah, the mini marines, especially these older ones are funny in that they look pretty good when they're completely assembled, but before that the weird proportions are very apparent!

Ezki wrote:Lovely model that Corvus Cabalist! And your paint job gives that model justice!
Good start on the bikes also. Painting that Dawnstone must have taken a lot of patience

Much obliged! Yup, it's a sweet model!
And yes, painting Dawnstone wasn't fun.. I'll say a bit more about that below.

JoeRugby wrote:Beautiful Bird dude dude

Many thanks! To be facetious, I think that's a dudette

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This project has taken waaay longer than I would've thought, but the two bikers I built a month ago are now finished! There's still one more to build and paint for a complete squad, but I think I'll paint something else before that..



I've got a bit of a confession to make. I don't find my Revelators power armored marines much fun to paint. All the main colors - gray, yellow and gold - are more or less a struggle to paint. Well, maybe "struggle" is a wrong word, tedious would be more apt. The base paints cover well, but the layer ones are terrible. I very much like the end result, but getting there is mostly dull, very time consuming work, and I feel that I could use that time better on some other model. But I'm kind of locked in with the paint recipe now, and as I'd like to see some kind of a "finished" army at some point, I'll continue to add a unit every now and then.



And oh yeah, if you see any out of place silver spots (hopefully not) on the models, that's because the Vallejo Metal Color bottle caps are the worst! For some reason they occasionally leak while shaking them, resulting in a spray of silver droplets all over the place! This time a couple hit my models, of course in a way that required three paints to fix each splotch. I need to remember to cover the caps with a paper towel while shaking the bottles..



It wasn't all bad, of course! The detailing and light freehand work (check out the "navigator" screens below) were enjoyable, as was the basing and even edge highlighting the gray armor. I'm pretty happy with the chipping as well. The goal was to do a very light application to the bikes only and leave the riders clean, to echo the rest of my Revelators. All in all, again, I think the finished models look great and are a cool addition to my collection, even if there are one or two mistakes on them..



Another great thing is that these bikers also qualify for a couple of hobby challenges: firstly, they're my submission for Azazel's Jewel of July-August. I'll try to paint a quick character or something before the month is over for an additional entry, but yeah, we'll see how it goes.. Secondly, they count for the vehicle square in the hobby bingo. Heh, I'm really setting up those sweet bingo rows, aren't I? Hopefully I can actually follow through on at least one of them!

They may be a pain, but they turned out great! How many coats does the grey take? Would a different primer make it easier or do you already start with grey? Aside from the awesomely smooth greys, the screens on them look amazing! I’ll have to get watching some YouTube tutorials to get anywhere near that! Awesome work as usual! Looks like you need to do some scenery to get a bingo!

Those bikes are awesome! Nice work on the weathering and those nav displays are really nicely done. The Revelators scheme also looks ace! Well worth the effort I think. Also those bases are super shmick

The texture on those bikes look amazing, the scratches are marvelous. Definitely worth all the hard work for a great looking army!

gobert wrote:They may be a pain, but they turned out great! How many coats does the grey take? Would a different primer make it easier or do you already start with grey? Aside from the awesomely smooth greys, the screens on them look amazing! I’ll have to get watching some YouTube tutorials to get anywhere near that! Awesome work as usual! Looks like you need to do some scenery to get a bingo!

Many thanks gobert! The gray is first two coats of Mechanicus Standard, then a wash of Nuln Oil, then 2-4 coats of Dawnstone, followed by an edge highlight of Administratum Grey. Dawnstone needs more coats on larger flat surfaces, and the most annoying thing is trying to avoid painting in the recesses.. Someday I'll experiment on a more efficient way of painting Revelators, but it won't be with this army. And hey, I watched plenty of tutorials before painting the screens, they were my first! I also kinda tried to mix it with the "gemstone" tutorials (white dot on one corner, refracted light on the opposite corner), but this wasn't entirely successful, I think.

It does indeed seem like doing scenery and sculpting would be the fastest way to a bingo! I actually got a couple of ideas for both, so I'll just have to do them before the end of the year.

zahnib wrote:Those bikes are awesome! Nice work on the weathering and those nav displays are really nicely done. The Revelators scheme also looks ace! Well worth the effort I think. Also those bases are super shmick

Cheers zahnib! Yeah, I also like the finished models, and the time spent on painting them is mostly forgotten when it's all said and done. I'm also continuously surprised by how good the bases look with the really limited palette I use on them. Here I did add a bit of rusty metallic bits on the other base, but they blended right in with the drybrushing, just like I wanted.

Viterbi wrote:The texture on those bikes look amazing, the scratches are marvelous. Definitely worth all the hard work for a great looking army!

Much obliged Viterbi! I'm also happy with the chipping on the bikes, I think I was pretty on point with the amount - some signs of use but not ready for the junk yard. That being said, I've been thinking about the way I paint the chipping, and some things I could do to improve it a bit. Right now I sponge on dark gray and then highlight almost everything with a brush (sounds more time consuming than it actually is). This results in a somewhat uniform chipping; the placement is random, but all the chips are the same "depth". A better way could be to first sponge on the highlight color, representing the lightest scratches. Then paint dark gray (representing shadow/primer) on some of the bigger light gray dots, and maybe a little silver on some of those dark gray spots. This would simulate a greater range of "depth" on the damage.

Aye, they may be a lot of work, and not much fun, but the work clearly pays off. The gray and the yellow are all so smooth, and they play off each other so well.

Those bikers were well worth all the effort you put in. I think you're right about the chipping, the different depths will make the great paint job even better. Maybe consider a small scratch or two on the transfers as well? The areas they are on aren't that likely to get too much damage but the rear ones stand out slightly, looking a bit too neat

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Aye, they may be a lot of work, and not much fun, but the work clearly pays off. The gray and the yellow are all so smooth, and they play off each other so well.

Thank you very much Gwyn, and welcome to the plog! If I'm honest though, I feel like the photographs hide some sins: especially the yellow is far from baby smooth when you see it from up close, but it's as good as I'm currently able to get it.

Maharg wrote:Those bikers were well worth all the effort you put in. I think you're right about the chipping, the different depths will make the great paint job even better. Maybe consider a small scratch or two on the transfers as well? The areas they are on aren't that likely to get too much damage but the rear ones stand out slightly, looking a bit too neat

Much obliged Maharg! You're right about the transfers, I appreciate the critique. When I was painting the bikes, and thought that I was finished (as in, I had already painted the base rims and shouted "yes, they're finally done!"), I noticed that I hadn't applied the transfers So when I had applied them (taking my sweet time as always), I guess I just wanted them to be done and not take the two minutes it would've taken to paint a couple of gray dots in there, thinking I'd get away with it. Apparently not! I'll do them when I eventually paint the third biker.

---

A couple of days ago I got to play a couple of games of Underworlds, something I haven't done since last Christmas. And probably won't get to anytime soon, either.. Lots of fun, and the Farstriders got their first outing as well! They weren't terribly efficient, but I guess that was mostly down to bad dice rolls. Showed potential and were fun to play, anyway.



In other news, I'll be starting in a new job next week. Well, a new old job, as it is the same position as last spring - substituting as an English teacher. It's a bit of a bummer in the sense that it's still on the other side of the country and I can't live home with my wife. But the pay is a lot better than what I currently make and I can surely use the experience. It will be even more hours than last time, so I don't know yet how it'll affect the hobby time, but I'll make it work. In any case, I've quit my "summer job", and have (had) this week as my holiday. I'm trying to finish a model I've been working on in the next couple of days, before I move for the job.

I love texture on the clothing of the Corvus Cabal guy. I don't want to think about how long that must take though.

 Fifty wrote:
I love texture on the clothing of the Corvus Cabal guy. I don't want to think about how long that must take though.

Many thanks Fifty! Most of that texture is actually from spray priming and drybrushing before any color was added, you can see how it looked like in the "spoiler" pics. Of course I added some additional texture in the highlighting stage, but I feel that stippling a highlight on doesn't take any more time than painting a clean highlight line. One of the faster models I've ever done! (at least when counting the working days, don't know about the hours..)

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Alright, time for a different kind of update (and a partial excuse for why the bikers took as long as they did): I've made another update on my hobby area. This time far more substantial than changing my light setup, as I got myself an adjustable/standing desk! Setting it all up took me a good couple of days, mostly on tidying up the cables.

The new desk, up and down


For the most part it's a big improvement! Being able to adjust the height to fit both working/gaming on the computer (lower down) and painting (higher up) is brilliant. I haven't yet tried out painting standing up, but there's certainly enough height even for that. The thinner desktop is also great, as it's easier to clamp stuff on, and to actually get the chair under it.

The old desk


Now, just like after my lighting update, unfortunaly I won't be able to enjoy this setup for a long time. As I said in my previous post, I'm moving back to the other side of the country next week and the standing desk stays here. So in a couple of days it's back to the old desk! But at least I'll have a proper working area, unlike last time.. And all of my hobby stuff!

Whoa, that is the fanciest desk! I hope your move goes well.

Sweet setup! I’ve got one of those desks at work for my back. It’s really good to be able to change from sitting to standing when your hours in to a spreadsheet. I’ve just got a normal desk at home :’( I miss my work desk!

Good news that you’ve got a better paying job! Bad news that you’re away from home at the other end of the country. Hopefully you get some time to see your family (and fancy pants new desk!)

That's a nice painting setup you've got, I love the printer has its own little cabinet, I imagine all three draws are neatly packed with paper ready to be printed on. Good luck with the move, hopefully you'll still get some time for painting in the coming months.

amazingturtles wrote:Whoa, that is the fanciest desk! I hope your move goes well.

Why yes it is! Thanks, the move and everything else has gone as well as one might hope. Work has started nicely and after spending a few nights at relatives I'm now settling in to my own apartment!

gobert wrote:Sweet setup! I’ve got one of those desks at work for my back. It’s really good to be able to change from sitting to standing when your hours in to a spreadsheet. I’ve just got a normal desk at home :’( I miss my work desk!
Good news that you’ve got a better paying job! Bad news that you’re away from home at the other end of the country. Hopefully you get some time to see your family (and fancy pants new desk!)

As it happens, I've got one at work as well! Too bad though that I can't really raise it as the kids sitting right behind it couldn't see the board
We'll have some holiday weeks coming in a month or so, so we'll see each other then at the latest. Or maybe we'll arrange something even before that!

zahnib wrote:That's a nice painting setup you've got, I love the printer has its own little cabinet, I imagine all three draws are neatly packed with paper ready to be printed on. Good luck with the move, hopefully you'll still get some time for painting in the coming months.

Haha, not quite! The cabinet is actually a memento of sorts, it's part of a desk I got when I started school at age 7. Filled to brim with all sorts of stuff(/junk) collected along the years. Very little that I actually do anything with anymore I'll try to get some hobby time again in the weekend, just as soon as I'll get my (old) table assembled again.

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And here's another hobby update! I finished my Lord-Relictor last weekend, but didn't have time to post it here yet. A fine pair for the Blood Secrator I painted a month ago, I reckon!



If you're familiar with the original model, you'll notice that I've swapped his head. I hate the stock helmet with a burning passion - what were they thinking with that ridiculous nose? As Space Wolves heads have been shown to fit very well on SC bodies (not least by the OG Silverlions by Banzai1000 / Thilo Engels), I promptly copied the trick.



For the most part, he was surprisingly enjoyable to paint. Before this model I've basecoated the armor on the Silverlions with GW's Ironbreaker, which is a bit rubbish and requires a lot of layers. This time I used Vallejo Metal Color Duraluminium, which is a pretty close color match but covers better (two layers, tops!). After an Agrax Earthshade wash and a drybrush of Runefang Steel (VMC is too thin for drybrushing, I imagine), the result is indistinquishable from Ironbreaker. Well, there might be some difference, but not due to the different basecoat! Comparing the Relictor to my older models, there's a bit more Agrax showing through, which is an effect I like. More definition and a bit more weathered look. I think it's down to me getting on the "make-up-brushes-as-drybrushes-train" a little while ago. They really are great (and cheap!), and can produce a really smooth result. With the Citadel's small drybrush I tended to go a bit too heavy. It's still a good brush for small details though.



Speaking of details, they were the most fun part of the model. Once again I tried adding a bit of color on to the face, and while it's not my best work it's one of the better ones. I think I got the black beard relatively nice as well. For the hourglass I took some pointers from an 'Eavy Metal tutorial in an old White Dwarf (#362). Went a bit overboard with the reflections, but I guess it's fine for a first attempt. Also, I'm not sure if the blue-gray color is the best choice here, as it's not repeated in other areas of the model. It certainly stands out, but maybe too much. Finally, after finishing the gold in my usual way, I thought I'd try enhancing the contrast a bit with some Guilliman Flesh. I think this worked out great, although it might've been beneficial to re-highlight some edges with VMC White Aluminium / Runefang Steel.

The only part that was a bit tedious to paint was his cape. Those SC parchments are pretty annoying to paint, at least the way I do it.. And as if that wouldn't have been enough, I also had an Agrax mishap which left the whole cape glossy after the wash. Thankfully after some coats of matte varnish and Lahmian Medium I was able to fix it. Hopefully now that I've painted the Relictor, who surely has the most flappy bits, the rest of my SC models will be easier to paint!

Nice work. I didn't find the blue-gray of the hour glass to stand out - at least in the photos - it took me a while to even find it! Interestingly, for some reason I think I prefer the back to the front. Can't put my finger on why though - I must just like parchment.

That hourglass is so good! I'll second Arakasi, I don't think it stands out too much. Beautiful work mcmattila and that head swap works really well

Agreed, the hourglass doesn't stand out, it's pale and light in an also pale and light colour scheme, so even if it's the only blue, it fits in.

Great job on the lord relictor. I too like the extra contrast on the metal work that the more liberal Agrax wash gave, adds drama to him I think. That hourglass is something else though! Great work!

Amazing job on the Lord-Relictor, hourglass looks unreal. I now feel bad for the one on my Judiciar But more importantly at the side of his "banner"... What's in the bag? WHAT'S IN THE BAG???????

Relictor's new head works great!

That's a perfect head swap. I like swapping heads in general, especially with everything so monopose, and yeah, the relictor is one that really needs it. Great paint work as always!

Arakasi wrote:Nice work. I didn't find the blue-gray of the hour glass to stand out - at least in the photos - it took me a while to even find it! Interestingly, for some reason I think I prefer the back to the front. Can't put my finger on why though - I must just like parchment.

zahnib wrote:That hourglass is so good! I'll second Arakasi, I don't think it stands out too much. Beautiful work mcmattila and that head swap works really well

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Agreed, the hourglass doesn't stand out, it's pale and light in an also pale and light colour scheme, so even if it's the only blue, it fits in.

Thanks a lot guys, your input is much appreciated! Good to hear that the hourglass fits in nicely and doesn't jump out - it's not meant to be the focus of the model after all! I guess the blue ended up so desaturated that it goes well with the steel armor around it.

gobert wrote:Great job on the lord relictor. I too like the extra contrast on the metal work that the more liberal Agrax wash gave, adds drama to him I think. That hourglass is something else though! Great work!

Thank you gobert! To be precise, the amount of agrax is most likely the same as with the others, but my drybrushing after was more restrained. But anyway, I'm glad you too like the result!

Viterbi wrote:Amazing job on the Lord-Relictor, hourglass looks unreal. I now feel bad for the one on my Judiciar But more importantly at the side of his "banner"... What's in the bag? WHAT'S IN THE BAG???????

Spoiler:

I need to watch Seven again

Much obliged Viterbi! And no sense in feeling bad about your model, just go and repaint it! I've been wondering about the contents of the bag as well.. I think it's too small to be a skull (unless...). Maybe someone's ashes? A heart? It's fun to think about!

aku-chan wrote:Relictor's new head works great!

Thanks aku-chan!

amazingturtles wrote:That's a perfect head swap. I like swapping heads in general, especially with everything so monopose, and yeah, the relictor is one that really needs it. Great paint work as always!

Amen to that! Cheers!

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Time for another work in progress post, and a pretty exciting one at that! I've finally built my first model from the wonderful Cawdor box, and I've jumped straight to a conversion.



I wasn't around when the original Necromunda was available, but after seeing some of the old metal Cawdor cultists with heavy stubbers (thanks, Azazel!) I got the idea of making my own, modern and plastic version. Now, I know there's a heavy stubber in a Forge World weapon set, but as that costs almost as much as a new box of gangers, I can't really justify getting it. Plus, making your own unique model is always cool! I ended up ordering a Chimera stubber from eBay for a couple of bucks, as it was the cheapest option and the scale looked about right.



In the Cawdor box there wasn't a complete body that would've worked "as is", so I needed to combine the body and arms from one assembly with the legs from another. Thankfully the sawing and glueing went much easier than expected, and the seam doesn't stand out. Attaching the stubber was a bit fiddly and required slightly trimming the body/noose for the gun to fit as well as it could. The barrel was also shortened quite a bit, about a centimeter, to make it look more manageable (there's "heroic scale" and then there's "silly big"). The barrel might still be just a bit too thick, but as I don't have the materials to scratch-build a new one, I say it's close enough. The original ammo box was likewise way too big to use, but I found an ancient SM vehicle storm bolter from my bits box, which seems to fit very nicely. I finished the gun with a piece of an equally ancient CSM heavy bolter ammo belt. Finally, to balance the model a bit more I gave it a GSC heavy stubber backpack, which actually has ammo boxes on it quite similar to the storm bolter box!



Now, I don't actually envision him to be a Cawdor ganger, strictly speaking, but an Imperial cultist wreaking havoc with Uriah Jacobus and friends. So rather than going with a stock Necromunda base I built a chapel-themed, tiled base. For added scene-setting I glued on some kind of a hose made out of greenstuff. Hopefully it'll add some 40k techno flavor to the (eventually) white marble floors.

Looking at the pictures now I see there's a couple of small things I need to fix/add to the model, but on the whole I'm really happy with how it has come out so far. The pose looks feasible and the gun functional, now I just have to think about the specifics of the color scheme!

The cultist looks great! Good base too. Did you use some kind of mold for making the green stuff hose?

Wow, a lot of work but it turned out amazingly. The cultist backpack works very well for that. And of course you gotta have hoses lying around in chapels. It makes perfect sense in a 40k way!

Great conversion, excited to see some paint on him in the future!

Pomander Cask wrote:The cultist looks great! Good base too. Did you use some kind of mold for making the green stuff hose?

Thanks Pomander! The hose was made with GSW Roll Maker.

amazingturtles wrote:Wow, a lot of work but it turned out amazingly. The cultist backpack works very well for that. And of course you gotta have hoses lying around in chapels. It makes perfect sense in a 40k way!

Thank you! Yes it does! There's all sorts of techno-chapels and tech-priests and machine gods and what not, got to have those hoses!

Viterbi wrote:Great conversion, excited to see some paint on him in the future!

Cheers! Me too, although it might take a bit of time to get to him..

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One of the perks of moving down south for work is that Finland's one and only Warhammer store is now quite a bit closer. As in, a 45min drive instead of seven hours! When Games Workshop recently announced that each of their stores would sell Sergeant "Ripper" Jackson from 12th-20th of September, I thought what the heck, I'll go and get her. And while I'd be in Helsinki I thought I'd check out a couple other hobby shops as well!



I ended up going to four in total and buying an item or two from each. First stop was Poromagia, an independent hobby shop / gaming club. Not only did they have a great supply of GW's products, they also stocked a lot of AK Interactive and Greenstuffworld products. This is great, as I'll be able to get all the cool things without waiting 2-3 weeks for a delivery! But the highlight of the store for me were the many display cases, all filled with beautifully painted models. I even found the "Orange Mechanicus Orks" I saw in the Warhammer store a couple years back, and stupidly didn't take a photo of. They were a big influence on my own orange Orks, so I was very happy to be able to correct my mistake and take a picture of them. I bought some GSW barbed wire and a bottle of VMC Gold.



Next I visited Hobby Point, which is a big crafting and model making store. It doesn't sell wargaming miniatures, but scale models and model railroad stuff (among other things). They had a lot of Noch stuff, which could be useful in the future. Now I just grabbed a trio of paints and additives before proceeding to the Warhammer store. It's a rather small space, and with Covid-19 there wasn't as many gaming / display tables as there used to be, but it's well stocked with minis and the staff was friendly and helpful. I got my Ripper and grabbed a copy of Helsreach novel too (I'm a bit excited about Black Templars at the moment).

Finally, I decided to check out Fantasiapelit as well. They are a bigger company and have a store in many/all of the big cities here, but I guess this one in the capital is the biggest. Certainly well stocked with GW kits! The biggest surprise was stumbling on some really cool models in an unassuming, largely empty display case surrounded by manga books. I saw the models and thought to myself "whoa, someone's really pulled off the Blanche style.." I then circled around the case and read the card beside the models - "Creator: John Blanche". So now I've seen genuine models from GW's creative mastermind in plastic and paint! Of course, while I was surprised, I remembered that mr. Blanche visited Helsinki for Mordheim 2019, so that's how the models got here. Apparently, the models were gifted to Tuomas Pirinen (the creator of Mordheim), who then loaned them to Fantasiapelit so that everyone could see them. Kudos, Tuomas!



I almost made it out of Fantasiapelit without buying anything, but then I noticed a copy of Gretchinz!, a board game which I remember reading about quite a while back and liking the look of. As the price wasn't too bad I grabbed it. Don't know when I'll get to try it out or with whom, but that's beside the point!

So yeah, four really cool shops with amazing inventory. I'll surely be visiting them at least a couple of times before my eventual move back north. Oh, if only I'd have the space and time, I'd buy all the things..

Sounds like a nice trip. Thanks for the report!

Good to see you’re making the most of being away from home. Really cool that you got a chance to snap the Orange Orks’ inspiration and those Blanche minis are so cool, worth the trip on their own! You’ve got a great haul of goodies too!

Nice tour of the local shops. Love browsing new places. The Cawdor gunner is great. First thing I thought of when I saw him was the original Cawdor stubber heavy. You've done a wonderful job capturing your inspiration.

Those orks

While not a Blanche fan, those models are magnificent.

Nice haul as well

Awesome post mcmattila, feels like a mini-article out of White Dwarf So cool you came across the orange orks again and those models by John Blanche!

The Cawdor heavy stubber looks great, really clean and effective conversion. Look forward to seeing him painted up

A bit late, but I love the totally-not-Cawdor inquisitorial heavy stubber chap! You have done a really good job of working it all together to look like a composite model rather than an obvious conversion.

Well done and thanks for sharing!

Apologies once again for such late replies on my part.. Work, and unwinding after, have taken a toll on the blogging/forum posting lately.

bbb wrote:Sounds like a nice trip. Thanks for the report!

It was! No problem!

gobert wrote:Good to see you’re making the most of being away from home. Really cool that you got a chance to snap the Orange Orks’ inspiration and those Blanche minis are so cool, worth the trip on their own! You’ve got a great haul of goodies too!

Yeah, I agree about the Blanche models. If I'd known about them beforehand, they'd have been the main attraction, now they were an awesome cherry on top of a great trip!

youwashock wrote:Nice tour of the local shops. Love browsing new places. The Cawdor gunner is great. First thing I thought of when I saw him was the original Cawdor stubber heavy. You've done a wonderful job capturing your inspiration.

Thank you very much! It's great to hear that he brings the classic model to mind. It's funny though, when you compare the two models, they're not too similar: the pose is very different and the head has more of a Redemptionist look! Of course, being a Cawdor with a heavy stubber helps

Theophony wrote:Those orks
While not a Blanche fan, those models are magnificent.
Nice haul as well

Heh, Blanche's work cerrtainly is divisive, and I can understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea. I mean, this model in particular is quite brown and lacks any intricate freehand designs, so definitely not a competition piece. Still, I think the painting's well executed and the model is glorious!

zahnib wrote:Awesome post mcmattila, feels like a mini-article out of White Dwarf So cool you came across the orange orks again and those models by John Blanche!
The Cawdor heavy stubber looks great, really clean and effective conversion. Look forward to seeing him painted up

That's high praise indeed, thanks zahnib!

IGtR= wrote:A bit late, but I love the totally-not-Cawdor inquisitorial heavy stubber chap! You have done a really good job of working it all together to look like a composite model rather than an obvious conversion.
Well done and thanks for sharing!

Not late at all, thanks a lot! I always strive for cohesion in my builds, so it's great to hear it's working.

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I've slowly been settling down to the new digs and the new schedule. While I've painted a bit less than before, I've now managed to finish a few new models! Here are the rest of the Poxwalkers from the ETB kit:



Not too much to say about the painting that I didn't say last time - these guys were basecoated with Contrast paints and then refined with "regular" ones. For some reason the whole process was a lot longer than last time. I think I was a bit more careful with the painting and did a bit more back-and-forth in some areas. The extra time probably doesn't show anywhere (I hope they're consistent with the last batch), but nevertheless I found the painting very enjoyable and relaxing.



While some of the sculpts have room for improvement (the big guy's pose being a prime example), I'd quite like to get a hold of the Dark Imperium Poxwalkers as well. As I said, these models are fun to paint and would make good conversion fodder, models for dioramas, or just a nice looking horde for a plague lord to boss around. But as they've now gone OOP, they might soon cost as much as the Dark Vengeance Cultists, at which point there are other cool models to consider. I guess I'll have to keep an eye out for eBay "bargains"..

Nice work on them, and yeah, they're pretty fun minis. I remember trying to repose the big one with mixed results, as he is a bit awkward looking.

Nice job on the poxwalkers. I like how you’ve painted their clothes as if they were all in a uniform. I might have to use that when I do mine! If you’re after more there were some available a few weeks ago on some independent stores. Might be better value than the gougers on eBay!

Those poxwalkers are great. Like gobert said the orange uniforms give a nice sense of cohesion. Its like they were all working in the same factory when papa Nurgle came to town

amazingturtles wrote:Nice work on them, and yeah, they're pretty fun minis. I remember trying to repose the big one with mixed results, as he is a bit awkward looking.

Thanks! Yeah, if I ever get another I'd try to convert it too. Of course, finding (stylistically) suitable arms might be difficult, if you don't take them from other Poxies..

gobert wrote:Nice job on the poxwalkers. I like how you’ve painted their clothes as if they were all in a uniform. I might have to use that when I do mine! If you’re after more there were some available a few weeks ago on some independent stores. Might be better value than the gougers on eBay!

Cheers! I like orange on my minis, it seems, and this was a great chance to do that "American prison jumpsuit" look. And of course it was also faster to paint all the cloth in one color!
The problem with the other Poxwalker sculpts is that they were only available in "Know No Fear" and "Dark Imperium", and buying those would be very expensive for the 'walkers alone (if you found the boxes). This ETB kit is still on sale. I actually think that there are (at the time of writing) quite reasonably priced 'walkers on eBay, it's just the postage that's annoying. I'll probably cave in at some point though..

zahnib wrote:Those poxwalkers are great. Like gobert said the orange uniforms give a nice sense of cohesion. Its like they were all working in the same factory when papa Nurgle came to town

Thank you very much! Yeah, same factory or same penitentiary (both?)!

 mcmattila wrote:

Thank you very much! Yeah, same factory or same penitentiary (both?)!

It’s 40k, so it’s probably both. In fact it’s probably also a church too!

 gobert wrote:

 mcmattila wrote:

Thank you very much! Yeah, same factory or same penitentiary (both?)!

It’s 40k, so it’s probably both. In fact it’s probably also a church too!

Hahahah, gobert you took the words right out of my mouth

 zahnib wrote:

 gobert wrote:

 mcmattila wrote:

Thank you very much! Yeah, same factory or same penitentiary (both?)!

It’s 40k, so it’s probably both. In fact it’s probably also a church too!

Hahahah, gobert you took the words right out of my mouth

Don’t forget the breeding/medical center to ensure future generations of workers/inmates/clergy/entertainers

So much detail on those poxwalkers Very vibrant (and quite likely virulent) and amazing paintjob!

Bit of catching up to do.
I've been stalking, but I've been a bit lazy on my writing lately.

Firstly, welcome back to southern Finland!
The huge amount of hobby stores sure is a plus. Almost justifies the higher rents.
Liked your 'travel blog' style post regarding the visit around the different stores!

The Heavy Stubber Cultist is a really cool conversion! Looking forward to see him painted.

I'm not used to see poxwalkers with so many details. As your last batch, these guys are looking amazing!

Also, jealous of your hobby area back in 'landella' ('in the middle of nowhere'. Sorry, had to ).
The current layout of our flat does not allow me to have a proper electric desk. I have to make do with my IKEA corner table, full of monitors, two computers and a small painting area

Always a joy to check this thread. Quality work every time and great writing to back it up.
Kudos.

Viterbi wrote:So much detail on those poxwalkers Very vibrant (and quite likely virulent) and amazing paintjob!

Thanks a lot Viterbi!

Ezki wrote:Bit of catching up to do.
I've been stalking, but I've been a bit lazy on my writing lately.

Heh, you and me both!

Ezki wrote:Firstly, welcome back to southern Finland!
The huge amount of hobby stores sure is a plus. Almost justifies the higher rents.
Liked your 'travel blog' style post regarding the visit around the different stores!

The Heavy Stubber Cultist is a really cool conversion! Looking forward to see him painted.

I'm not used to see poxwalkers with so many details. As your last batch, these guys are looking amazing!

Also, jealous of your hobby area back in 'landella' ('in the middle of nowhere'. Sorry, had to ).
The current layout of our flat does not allow me to have a proper electric desk. I have to make do with my IKEA corner table, full of monitors, two computers and a small painting area

Always a joy to check this thread. Quality work every time and great writing to back it up.
Kudos.

Much appreciated Ezki! Yeah, I suppose most Poxwalkers are done for gaming purposes and quickly painted to "tabletop standard". I wouldn't call mine "masterclass" in any way, but I guess there's a (un)healthy amount of variation in tones. Honestly though, the sculpts do a lot of the work!

And hey, a desk full of computers doesn't sound terrible either! I mean, for painting real estate it does, but computers are cool too!

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I've been on build mode again, and let me just get on record and say: I'm as slow with my modeling as I am with painting! I had the whole (last) weekend for hobbying, and managed to build a grand total of three and a half models, plus their bases.. I've also been working on a storage solution and some rudimentary mold making.



So first up, the new models! Well, new-ish. I bought the ETB Intercessors triple pack (now OOP, it seems) last spring during the lockdown period and even started working on one of the models (the guy on the left in the pic above). I'm not a huge fan of the bolt rifle design, much preferring the old bolters and pistols. Likewise, the mk7 helmets and backpacks look better than mkX to me. Thankfully they're all more or less interchangeable with the Primaris kit! So yeah, the first guy got his bolter, a mk7 backpack and a custom mk7 helmet. It might not show well in the photo, but I've carved the helmet a bit to join the two eye lenses into a single visor. It's actually a conversion I first created back in my teenage years, inspired by Doomguy (/Doom Slayer).

The second Intercessor also got some mk7 weapons, but a mk3 helmet and backpack. I don't really care for those on mini-marines, so I've still got plenty of them left after building my Devastator squad. They look great on the Primaris bodies though, especially for the more knightly chapters. This one will be a Black Templar! One additional modification I did was shave his chest () smooth for some extra freehand room. (Cawdor ganger for a size comparison.)



I also built two more Corvus Cabalists, this time the characters in the gang - the Shrike Talon and the Shadow Piercer. I think the Talon is one of the coolest models in the GW's current lineup, and was built accord to instructions. The Piercer received a tiny conversion: I clipped off the tip of her sword to give it a bit cleaner lines. For both of their bases I added some plasticard tiles to hint at a ruined city. The Shrike Talon's 40mm base maybe could've used some more decoration, but I didn't want to give the model any more height (with cork board or such), as he already towers over his mates. Maybe I'll add some discarded weapons or other bits before priming..



Then on to the magnets and storage! A couple of months back I decided that it was time to build a magnetized container to store/transport miniatures in. I bought a plastic tub and a big sheet of 0.7mm steel, which I cut into smaller ones at my workplace. I ended up with six 25x33cm sheets, so plenty for future boxes as well. A good thing, as I switched jobs and don't have access to a proper quillotine anymore! I attached the steel sheets to the plastic tubs with nuts, bolts and some washers. There's plenty of room for "regular" sized models (9-10cm), and taller boxes are available should I ever get myself an Imperial Knight! These boxes are stackable and the lid locks securely with kind of clips, which are easy to open.

I got a pack of 3x2mm magnets from GreenStuffWorld and attached them to models' bases with Milliput. I've seen people do this with Greenstuff, but Milliput is cheaper and can be used as an adhesive itself. I was able to pry of a magnet attached with Milliput, but I'm hoping they won't fall of with normal use. If they do, I'll super glue them.



Of course, one always mixes up too much Milliput (/Greenstuff)! I used the extra to finally try out a Blue Stuff mold I made a couple months back. The molds are not perfect (one's okay, the other pretty bad) and the casting added further imperfections, but I reckon they'll be fine for some terrain! I think I'll try to do the wheel mold(s) one more time, but then I really need to take the (plastic) wheel and get on building my final biker!

Those marines are looking good, I'm with you on preferring the MK7 helmet and bolter over the new designs. Those magnetised storage boxes are a good idea as well

 zahnib wrote:
Those marines are looking good, I'm with you on preferring the MK7 helmet and bolter over the new designs. Those magnetised storage boxes are a good idea as well

Cheers zahnib! I'll be going home next weekend, for a week's autumn break. Might make a couple more storage boxes, as well as try to magnetize the rest of my collection. It's not super urgent, as I still have a bit of room in my display cabinet, but nice to have for the future. GW's current models are so intricate, and often so large as well, that they don't really fit their foam cases anymore.

Neat storage solution mcmatilla. Bolting then in to place should make them pretty sturdy. Glueing metal and plastic that size might be a challenge! The blue stuff moulds seem as effective as what I’ve managed so far. I too plan to use some of the deformed bits on bases/terrain. Enjoy a week back home!

 gobert wrote:
Neat storage solution mcmatilla. Bolting then in to place should make them pretty sturdy. Glueing metal and plastic that size might be a challenge! The blue stuff moulds seem as effective as what I’ve managed so far. I too plan to use some of the deformed bits on bases/terrain. Enjoy a week back home!

Thanks gobert, the holiday was well enjoyed! And there's already another one coming

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Oh boy, it's been a while since I posted, apologies for that. Time to do some catch up! I have a couple new models to show you, but for the sake of neatly organizing the posts and not writing a mile-long post that no-one's going to read, I'll split the updates into a few posts. First of all, what's been going on?



As you might have noticed, my painting / posting has slowed to a very slow crawl. The main reason is that work has been taking quite a lot of my time. Even in the evenings, if I’m not working, I’m so tired that watching Netflix or YouTube is what I end up doing. And so I’ve noticed that I’m only hobbying during the weekends nowadays, which obviously slows my progress.

Of course, I did have that week’s break, but as I travelled to the other side of the country again, I decided that I’d just build, prime and basecoat a few new/old models. Hopefully that translates to finishing some models quicker in the future! I also magnetized the bases of my Underworlds collection.



So what does a man do when he doesn’t have much time to paint anymore? Buys a mountain of new minis to add to the pile of possibility of course! With the impending brexit and whatever it comes with I’ve been stocking up on cheap (relatively speaking) plastic from the UK. If and when there’s additional taxes and more expensive shipping costs to Europe next year, I’m covered! No need to buy any more minis in years! Of course, that never stopped anyone… Nevertheless, the latest additions to the queue are as follows:

-Primaris Intercessors
-Battle Sisters
-Skitarii Rangers / Vanguard
-Ork Boyz
-Poxwalkers (from Dark Imperium box)
-Flagellants
-Chainrasps
-Glaivewraith Stalkers (from Soul Wars box)
-3 Nightvault warbands[/list]

And that made-to-order Indomitus box arrived as well! Not to mention the previous backlog… But in any case, you might see a pattern here. Aside from completing my Nightvault closet collection it’s just basic troop models from various 40k and AoS armies. I find that often these most lowly of game pieces are some of the best looking models from their respective armies. These were pretty much all bought as painting and modeling projects, they won’t be painted as complete (game-legal) squads. The Intercessors, Sisters and Flagellants for example will be used to expand my “Imperial Cult” collection.



All right, now to write that post about Mollog and his entourage, and get some actual content back to this plog…

That’s a veritable haul of minis! Good idea to stock up on stuff that’s likely to see a duty applied. Shame you’ve not managed much painting, but I 100% get the too tired to paint vibes. Hopefully the Christmas period gets a chance to recharge your batteries

 gobert wrote:
That’s a veritable haul of minis! Good idea to stock up on stuff that’s likely to see a duty applied. Shame you’ve not managed much painting, but I 100% get the too tired to paint vibes. Hopefully the Christmas period gets a chance to recharge your batteries

Oh yes, Christmas/New Year's will be a couple of weeks of R&R! Probably not much hobbying though, as I'll be on the go again. Well, maybe I'll bring a few pots of paint along..

---

Okay, time for Mollog and his Mob!



I painted Mollog quite a while back in June, but didn’t have time to paint his minions. They ended up sitting primed until October, when I decided that it was time for them to get painted. I guess Bat Squig counts as my Orktober project?



As with Mollog, I pretty much followed the studio scheme, just altering the colors to be less purple. Because each of the minions has a different color scheme I painted them individually to completion before moving onto the next. This was great fun, and I once again tried wetblending and other more “freeform” techniques. This group was also a great exercise in how to tie the different color schemes together: even with the box art as reference I had to really think about the color choices. I actually ended up repainting the white on Spiteshroom, as the first iteration was too white! In the end I think I managed a cohesive unit, so I’m very happy with the result.



One minor thing that I kind of messed up was the bases, which ended up a bit lighter compared to Mollog’s due to too aggressive drybrushing. And speaking of bases, my word all those mushrooms took a long time to paint!

I've got one more finished model to show you, I'll be posting him tomorrow..

Great to see you're back posting again, I've restarted too after a long enough hiatus and it's been fun catching up with your thread.

Really liked your bikes from the previous pages, they look sweet!

You've got a good haul of minis in for post-Brexit times and Mollog's mob completed is fantastic! That set has always been catching my eye and should consider picking it up before it disappears to eBay.

Lovely Mollog and his Mob. Mollog's base is darker because he casts a greater shadow

They might have taken time but the mushrooms look great! Mollog and his buddys are still some of my favorites, who would have thought that a stalagmite could look both evil and adorable?

Good to hear from you.

Mollog and his friends are looking good! Lovely vibrant colors.

Oh man, hope it's not too late to do a final "cheap" order of minis

That is glorious painting on Mollog and his minions. I really like the smoke effect you have done and your work in tying the group together with certain spot colours is great.

Good luck in getting some more hobby time in. With Covid a lot of people have had a lot of extra spare time. Your work, like mine, seems like the opposite of that so I hope you are able to get more free time to paint.

It’s good to see Mollog back, and looking even cooler with his gang all done up too!

Thank you so much everyone for the wonderful comments! They really made my day!

Tyranid Horde wrote:Great to see you're back posting again, I've restarted too after a long enough hiatus and it's been fun catching up with your thread.
Really liked your bikes from the previous pages, they look sweet!
You've got a good haul of minis in for post-Brexit times and Mollog's mob completed is fantastic! That set has always been catching my eye and should consider picking it up before it disappears to eBay.

Much appreciated Tyranid Horde! I'll have to check out your stuff as well.
I was very happy with the bikes as well, even though they're somewhat cartoony with their flat colors. Unfortunately it seems I'm not going to get the third rider done this year, although painting has been started..

Arakasi wrote:Lovely Mollog and his Mob. Mollog's base is darker because he casts a greater shadow

Thanks a lot Arakasi! That's what I've been telling myself as well

amazingturtles wrote:They might have taken time but the mushrooms look great! Mollog and his buddys are still some of my favorites, who would have thought that a stalagmite could look both evil and adorable?

Heh, I knew these would be right up your alley! Cheers amazingturtles!

Ezki wrote:Good to hear from you.
Mollog and his friends are looking good! Lovely vibrant colors.
Oh man, hope it's not too late to do a final "cheap" order of minis

Thanks Ezki, good to be back! I'd hurry with that order if I were you!

ListenToMeWarriors wrote:That is glorious painting on Mollog and his minions. I really like the smoke effect you have done and your work in tying the group together with certain spot colours is great.
Good luck in getting some more hobby time in. With Covid a lot of people have had a lot of extra spare time. Your work, like mine, seems like the opposite of that so I hope you are able to get more free time to paint.

Much obliged LTMW! I'm glad you like smoke, I do too. I was a bit skeptical at first, but when I started painting (and looked at the studio model for some guidelines), it all came together better than expected! The red on the recesses is my favorite detail, and it took no time or effort at all!
I think my workload hasn't really been effected by Covid, I'm fortunate in that way, but there is quite a lot of it. Last week I decided to make a concentrated effort to build back some good habits, painting/hobbying a little every day being one of them. So far it's been a success!

gobert wrote:It’s good to see Mollog back, and looking even cooler with his gang all done up too!

Many thanks gobert! Hopefully I can get a game in with them during the holidays!

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Alright, so here's my latest finished piece, completed last weekend. In my opinion this is one of the coolest models of 2019, the Shrike Talon!



As with the Cabalist, I pretty much followed the ‘Eavy Metal color scheme with this model. One of the challenges with the scheme and with this model in particular is the separation of different black elements. Following the painting guide in the assembly instructions booklet (and looking at the studio models), I highlighted the feathers with blue and the hood with brown tones. I’m not sure if the colors still read as blacks, but I’m happy either way! I guess the biggest difference to the studio scheme is that I left out the painted, diamond-shape eyes from the hood. I get why they’re there in the original – to draw attention to the head, but I never liked them that much aesthetically.



I feel some parts of this model were painted a bit sloppily. As I mentioned in the last posts, I haven’t gotten quite as much painting done as I would’ve wanted lately. I noticed that this translated into less accurate painting. After a day or two I seemed to get back to the swing of things though, and the paint started to go where I wanted it to. As I said above, last week I made a conscious effort to get back to painting, and decided that I would at least put paint on my brush (if not the model) every day. Every time I did, I ended up painting for at least an hour! Let’s see how long I can keep this up…



Oh yeah, a small PSA: I’ve treated myself to some new electronics which might affect the photos on this here blog. I got a new Pixel 4a phone with that fancy camera software, which hopefully should lead to WIP shots that have much better color accuracy than before. And from the Black Friday sales I bought a new monitor to replace my previous, 10-year-old one. The important bit is that this new one has an IPS panel which is much better with colors than the TN panel in the old monitor. So, chances are that from now on the photos will be a bit less saturated, as I probably over-saturated everything a bit with the old monitor. Shouldn’t be a dramatic change, but just a heads-up if anyone notices it.

The hood still reads as black to me, the feathers less so - but I think the effect is great, and the separation of the "blacks" is probably more important than "reading as black". I really do enjoy your style of painting.

I just binged your whole thread. There are some really amazing paint jobs and conversions in here. Keep 'em comin'.

Oh and, "Semper Rodentia".

Amazing updates and great work on the Shrike Talon! He looks gorgeous, really love the feathers. Mollog's Mob looks so cool too, Batsquig and living stone are my favorites.

Shrike came out fantastic! I think the blue on his trousers helps me see the rest as black. Best of all they have a really cold aesthetic that rocks!

Snazzy looking Birdman!

Thanks again for all the kind words and sorry for the tardy reply!

Arakasi wrote:The hood still reads as black to me, the feathers less so - but I think the effect is great, and the separation of the "blacks" is probably more important than "reading as black". I really do enjoy your style of painting.

Thanks a lot Arakasi! I agree with you, the feathers are perhaps more of a blue, but the separation is the most important bit. And looking cool!
Heh, every now and then I've wondered if I have "a style".. Apparently I do!

KidCthulhu wrote:I just binged your whole thread. There are some really amazing paint jobs and conversions in here. Keep 'em comin'.
Oh and, "Semper Rodentia".

Many thanks KidCthulhu, and welcome to the blog! New models will come, slowly but surely!
Semper Rodentia!

Viterbi wrote:Amazing updates and great work on the Shrike Talon! He looks gorgeous, really love the feathers. Mollog's Mob looks so cool too, Batsquig and living stone are my favorites.

Much appreciated Viterbi! The feathers too quite some time to paint, so I'm glad it paid off!

gobert wrote:Shrike came out fantastic! I think the blue on his trousers helps me see the rest as black. Best of all they have a really cold aesthetic that rocks!

Cheers! You might be right about the blue pants! And cool to hear that you like the cold palette, that's what I was going for.

aku-chan wrote:Snazzy looking Birdman!

Thanks aku-chan!

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Okay, another pretty hectic week, which made me miss a couple of days of painting. But I've been chipping away at a couple of rats, so I've not been totally inactive!



They're in a pretty good shape, but sadly I won't be getting them done this year. And that means that in 2020 I didn't finish any models for my Astra Rodentia. Oh well, there's always next year!

My two week holiday starts tomorrow, but I won't have many days for hobbying. Maybe in the first week of the new year, I think I might start assembling my Indomitus box. I also intend to take a group photo of my 2020 finished models. I got to say, there are a lot less of them than I had anticipated, but I'm not too bummed about that. This year I've definitely painted my best models so far, so it's quality over quantity!

Good to see the rats back! I have to agree that your quality seems to be edging upwards of late. There’s been some really great models, I can’t wait to see the whole year in review pic

Those astra rodentia minis are already something to look forward to in 2021, the shoulder pads already look very cool!

Love those Astra Rodentia - they are cute as hell, in a bad way!

That Crow dude is amazing though. Great warband centrepiece model.

The crows look excellent. I'm raven about them!

Fantastic little gross rat-men! Whilst my inner Black Templar wants to purge them, I look forward to seeing more in 2021

Thanks for sharing

gobert wrote:Good to see the rats back! I have to agree that your quality seems to be edging upwards of late. There’s been some really great models, I can’t wait to see the whole year in review pic

Many thanks gobert! It took some time, but the group shot can be seen below!

Viterbi wrote:Those astra rodentia minis are already something to look forward to in 2021, the shoulder pads already look very cool!

Cheers Viterbi! They're coming along, slowly but surely.

Fifty wrote:Love those Astra Rodentia - they are cute as hell, in a bad way!
That Crow dude is amazing though. Great warband centrepiece model.

Hehe! Thanks Fifty! Yeah, let's see if I'll complete the Corvus Cabal. I pretty much bought the box for the big guy, and the rest for conversion fodder, but I have enjoyed painting them so they might actually end up as a whole warband. Eventually..

amazingturtles wrote:The crows look excellent. I'm raven about them!

Thank you very much turtles!

IGtR= wrote:Fantastic little gross rat-men! Whilst my inner Black Templar wants to purge them, I look forward to seeing more in 2021
Thanks for sharing

Much appreciated IGtR! Heh, I'm planning on painting a Black Templar or two this year, hopefully they'll play nice with the rat-folk. They're both faithful(ish) servants of the Emperor, in the end! Might have to put them on separate display shelves, just to be sure..

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Okay, time for the retrospect! Due to my minis being in two different apartments and being away from my own computer and Photoshop during the holidays I'm a bit late with this post. But better late than never, let's look back at what I managed to paint in 2020. Here's the lot:


As per last year, sorry for the image quality - my photography setup is still not ideal for big group photos..

All together they're 32 models. Quite a bit less than than I imagined I'd paint a year ago, but I'm again very happy with each and every model. And all my painted models still fit in my display cabinet! Just barely though, I think this year I've got to start moving some of the older ones to storage.

Here's a list of all the models above:
-Lieutenant Varras
-The Farstriders (3 models)
-Preacher with Eviscerator
-Uriah Jacobus, Protector of the Faith
-Poxwalkers (3 models)
-More Poxwalkers (3 models)
-Ork Boyz (3 models)
-SM Scout Squad (5 models)
-Bloodstoker and Bloodsecrator (2 models)
-Termagant
-Corvus Cabalist
-SM Bikers (2 models)
-SCE Lord-Relictor
-Mollog's Mob (4 models)
-Shrike Talon

As you can see, last year I painted mostly single models or very small groups of models. The only project with more than three models was the Scout Squad, and that was only five as well. 2021 might see a change here, as I intend to work on the Indomitus box during the year, but we'll see how it goes. Honestly, I've enjoyed painting single minis a lot, and I've certainly painted my best work this year, at least technically speaking. Picking a favorite is difficult, but I guess the top three would be Mollog and the two priests. The Ork Boyz and the Cabalists are up there too, though, and the Sentinel from 2019 still gives these guys a good run for the money among my favorite models!

Speaking of the Sentinel, my one regret for last year was that I didn't finish any new models for my Astra Rodentia. Whereas all my other armies/collections (Space Marines, Underworlds, Orks, Blades of Khorne, Stormcast Eternals) received some new models, and I started working on a few new collections as well (Imperial Cult, Nurgle, Tyranids, Warcry), the space rats didn't get any finished models in 2020. But as I showed you in my last post, the two ratmen I built last year are now on the painting desk and should be my first finished models of 2021!

So what happened with my Hobby Bingo? Unfortunately, as in 2019, I failed to score any bingos. It was a bit of a shame as it would've been rather easy to "sculpt something on a model" and "scratch-build a piece of scenery", but alas, somehow it just didn't come to be. Maybe this year though! I did complete one more square than previously, so it wasn't all bad. I'll keep trying this year!

Finally, thanks to everyone who has checked out this plog or has stuck around for longer, and especially to those who have taken the time to leave a comment!

That’s a great group shot and you’re right to e proud of each and everyone. I agree with you that Mollog is the standout, but the preachers have inspired a few models in my collection and one or two others’ i might expect. I look forward to more quality minis this year, especially to see what you do for the Indomitus box

The shrike talon is looking superb and it's definitely up there as a model I'd like to paint.

Great round up of minis, all are very impressive and I'm with you regarding Mollog, really great work on him.

Such a nice group shot, really cool seeing all the different color schemes. My favorites are still the mad preacher and the Astra Militarum officer.

Fantastic group glamour shot, and I look forward to seeing what 2021 brings!

Thanks for sharing

Fantastic work as always!
So many great models that it's hard to pick a favorite.

You seem to improve with every model you paint and each time they bring something new and cool to look at.

Hopefully you have a productive and a hobby filled 2021!

gobert wrote:That’s a great group shot and you’re right to e proud of each and everyone. I agree with you that Mollog is the standout, but the preachers have inspired a few models in my collection and one or two others’ i might expect. I look forward to more quality minis this year, especially to see what you do for the Indomitus box

Thanks a lot gobert! It means a lot to me to hear that I've inspired someone's work with my own.
See my humble beginning on the Indomitus journey below!

Tyranid Horde wrote:The shrike talon is looking superb and it's definitely up there as a model I'd like to paint.
Great round up of minis, all are very impressive and I'm with you regarding Mollog, really great work on him.

Cheers! If you end up getting your hands on a Shrike Talon, I'd like to see your take on him! A great piece to have in anyone's collection.

Viterbi wrote:Such a nice group shot, really cool seeing all the different color schemes. My favorites are still the mad preacher and the Astra Militarum officer.

Much appreciated Viterbi! I enjoy the colors as well. Lot's of reds, oranges and warm browns in 2020, hmm...

IGtR= wrote:Fantastic group glamour shot, and I look forward to seeing what 2021 brings!
Thanks for sharing

My pleasure! Thanks IGtR!

Ezki wrote:Fantastic work as always!
So many great models that it's hard to pick a favorite.
You seem to improve with every model you paint and each time they bring something new and cool to look at.
Hopefully you have a productive and a hobby filled 2021!

Thank you very much Ezki! Trying at least one new thing with each painting project has kinda been one of my goals. As well as trying to speed up my painting. Well, it seems I've succeeded in one of them, and colossally failed in the other.
Fingers crossed! You too!

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I started my hobby year 2021 by assembling a big bunch of Necrons from the Indomitus box. This was my holiday project - I was on the move and decided that I wouldn't bring my paints with me and instead concentrate on building and priming some models.



As you can see, I got all of the 20 warriors done, as well as their 6 scarab swarms. They're all built pretty much according to instructions, the only modification I did was to clip off the blades from the gauss rifles. I've never liked them visually, or even conceptually, and there'll be less to paint. Win-win! Finally, I also assembled one of the characters, the Plasmancer. Señor Skorpekh is cool and all, but for my money this floating dude is the coolest Necron model in the box!

My goal was to base these too and as mentioned, to prime them. As they're going to be basecoated with steel paint, I decided to buy the very expensive Leadbelcher spray and save myself some time. Unfortunately, my FLGS didn't have it in stock so the priming had to be put on hold. As I didn't have to hurry to prime the models, I left the basing undone as well. I'll continue working on these guys in a month, during my winter holiday.



But even if I didn't get the 'crons based, I did work on some bases! I made six new industrial style bases for my future Astra Rodentia models. Overall, I'm really happy with them, especially the two in the middle. Starting to get into real scratchbuilding territory! The bases might've used some more wires and maybe a bit of sand, but I ran out of time, and they're now primed (still have my black can). I'll probably add some texture during painting..

Okay, now to finish the pair of rats so that the bases will have something to stand on them! And obviously to paint the bases too..

Very nice bases.

Man, those bases look great. Can’t wait to see the Necrons all painted up too

Great work on the bases, I’m torn on how I want to base my Scythes and Necrons and thought about doing something similar as I’m tired of the blasted earth effects and crystals I see all over Necron bases. I thought a space station or facility corridor and deck plates like you have which reminded me of an old blog on here with great designs done by Brother Argos. Sadly he stopped posting after some medical issues many years ago. His work might give you some inspiration.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/331718.page#2189363

Great bases, always a fan of scratch built industrial bases, they're unique and you can do so much to tell a story with that style of basing, even if it's an extra bit of work.

EDIT: Thanks to Theopony for that blog, I'll be using that for some of my own inspiration!

Lovely bases, always fun seeing those before there's color on it.

Nice bases!

Shame you could not get that paint, but good that you were not in a hurry. Looking forward to see some progress on the Necrons. Should be interesting with your awesome metallic work!

Bases are looking cool too! All the details bring so much more to the models.

Thank you everyone so much for the kind comments!

Theophony wrote:Great work on the bases, I’m torn on how I want to base my Scythes and Necrons and thought about doing something similar as I’m tired of the blasted earth effects and crystals I see all over Necron bases. I thought a space station or facility corridor and deck plates like you have which reminded me of an old blog on here with great designs done by Brother Argos. Sadly he stopped posting after some medical issues many years ago. His work might give you some inspiration.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/331718.page#2189363

Heh, my Necrons will be getting the old sandy wasteland bases. Maybe red earth this time? But if I built each of them one of these industrial ones, they'd never get finished
And wow, that link is great! I browsed through it all and it definitely gave me some ideas! Have to try those "hole-in-the-floor" designs at some point.. Although a 25mm base might be a bit too small for them.

Ezki wrote:Shame you could not get that paint, but good that you were not in a hurry. Looking forward to see some progress on the Necrons. Should be interesting with your awesome metallic work!
Bases are looking cool too! All the details bring so much more to the models.

Well, if I had gotten the paint, then I would've been in a hurry to base the models for spraying, but without the can there wasn't any rush! I'll try again in a week, when I have my winter break. Might end up priming black and brush painting, as the LB spray stock hasn't improved...

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Okay, the first model of the year is finished and it's not even March! Sigh.. But here he is, a standard bearer (/fanatic) for my Astra Rodentia! (The other rat seen in the WIP photo before Christmas is also almost finished, just needs his radio pack - I decided I wasn't happy with the hanging handset and am going to change it up. In some way...)



He's been a long time coming, as I built the model nearly a year ago! I guess a big part of why he took so long to get painted was the banner. I had to come up with some kind of a color scheme, something to write on the parchments and then figure out how to do something like NMM on the symbols. The original idea was to also put on a graffiti-style text on top of the design ("Gutter Runners") to show that these rats have taken some other regiment's standard and made it their own, but I kinda shot myself in the foot with my chosen color scheme. I couldn't use yellow, white or red for the lettering, as it would've gotten lost and I didn't want to introduce any further colors like blue, green or pink to the model. Oh well, maybe I'll get to realize this idea on some other model.



On the whole I'm pretty happy with how the flag came out. The left side of the flag seems to be a bit lighter, I went a bit overboard with the dirt splattering on left side, and I clearly need a lot more practice with NMM, but as a whole I think the banner looks nice.

As for the rest of the model, there wasn't much that was different from the other Astra Rodentia I painted before. I painted on some wood grain to the banner pole, which was more successful on the left side, and glazed Skrag Brown on the yellow hazard stripes, which looks really nice. One new trick I tried with this model was to use a brush and a toothpick for the splatter effects, rather than a toothbrush and my thumb. Much more accurate! I also used AK's Ultra Matte Varnish on all the non-metallic areas. It can be used with a brush straight from the bottle and works really well. Maybe a little too well for my liking..

Okay, so new year and a new bingo card! Maybe this is the year to complete at least one bingo? We'll see. I count this model for the "technique you haven't mastered".



As a bonus, I though I'd show you the finished bases that I've made for upcoming Astra Rodentia reinforcements. There's the six bases I showed unpainted in the last post and a seventh one (with the T-pipeline and chain) that I built and painted ages ago for my last couple of rats. I'm pretty happy with most of these - the only one giving me pause is the one with the knife. The floor ended up looking too messy - not an unlikely scenario in the real world, but I'd like a little more definition. I might end up repainting it before using it.

Love the banner and the ratman that's holding it! I think the dirt and mud splatter looks good and not overdone, it's always a bit grimy in the grim dark future!

Nailed those bases as well.

If I was an Abhuman, I'd be more careful carrying banners with 8-pointed stars on them It's a beautiful banner though, so I can't really fault'em!

Great bases, and I don't think the knife-base is overdone.

I must say I find working on separate bases very relaxing and rewarding, perhaps more so than the miniatures themselves! Do you find similar?

Thanks for sharing

That is a very snazzy banner!

Great work on Ratty Banner guy, he’s certainly been worth the wait. The glaze on the hazard stripes works really well as does the nmm on the banner

Banner rat is magnificent, great job!

Oof, almost two months since last post... Thanks for all the kind comments everyone and sorry for not replying earlier. This year my focus seems to have been elsewhere (work and another hobby), and I haven't painted all that much. But more on that later!

Tyranid Horde wrote:Love the banner and the ratman that's holding it! I think the dirt and mud splatter looks good and not overdone, it's always a bit grimy in the grim dark future!
Nailed those bases as well.

Thanks man, I'm glad you like it!

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:If I was an Abhuman, I'd be more careful carrying banners with 8-pointed stars on them It's a beautiful banner though, so I can't really fault'em!

Haha, you might be right! It's a thin line between dedication to the Emperor and heresy...

IGtR= wrote:Great bases, and I don't think the knife-base is overdone.
I must say I find working on separate bases very relaxing and rewarding, perhaps more so than the miniatures themselves! Do you find similar?
Thanks for sharing

Thanks! Yeah, I have similar feelings. At least on "normal" bases (not some elaborate diorama ones) everything is easy to get to and you don't have to stress about being neat and accurate. The reason why I don't do it with all y models is that I want to have flat contact points for my models to stand on. So if I'm doing a largely sandy base, I'm gluing down the model first. I don't want it to be "hovering" over a large grain of sand. But these industrial themed ones are perfect for painting separately!

aku-chan wrote:That is a very snazzy banner!

Cheers!

gobert wrote:Great work on Ratty Banner guy, he’s certainly been worth the wait. The glaze on the hazard stripes works really well as does the nmm on the banner

Much appreciated!

Viterbi wrote:Banner rat is magnificent, great job!

Thank you very much!

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Okay, so long time no paint. I was pretty much out of the hobby loop for more than a month, but I've been getting back on track during the last week or two. Here's a Vox-caster for my Astra Rodentia, finished way back on my winter break. I'll try to make another post tomorrow(-ish) for my current WIP project...



As I said in my last post, finishing this guy was delayed because I didn't like my original scratch-built handset on the vox-pack. So I pulled it out and replaced it with one from a Skitarii backpack. I was instantly much happier with this one, I think mostly because the "connector" between the pack and the cable. And the much more detailed handset doesn't hurt either!



Painting-wise, there's not really much to talk about - very much the same process as with the rest of the rats. I'm chuffed with the white checkers on his orange cowl, I did those one square at a time without the help of a grid. And I meant to paint the vox-pack's speaker as brass, but should've gone with a more yellow, golden color as now it ended up looking like rusty steel. No matter though, looks alright!



Now that I'm starting have quite a collection of these Astra Rodentia (almost a full squad's worth, hehe!), I thought I'd take a groupshot of them. Even with their mishmash of colors and equipment, I think they look like a cohesive group! For future models, I think I need some more guys with brown/gray armor, so that the sniper and vox-caster won't look like they're special..

Wooooow!!!!, mind blown, amazing work, extremely talented.

Those space rats are great! Love the colours and weathering.

Rats looking fab and a great rag-tag little squad going on

Thanks for sharing

Really digging the group shot. And love all the different cloth colors with their scarves (?). Looks a bit, like they raided a washing line along the way

A stellar return and that group shot is awesome!

Awesome rats, can't wait to see more!

That is a wonderful collection!
These guys really ought to be an official kit!

Oh wow, these are great! I like how they still look like legit Imperial troops while being gruesome ratmen at the same time, very 40k.

By the Emperor, a huge thanks for all the comments! Really made my day!

Clouds wrote:Wooooow!!!!, mind blown, amazing work, extremely talented.

Thanks a lot Clouds, and welcome to the plog!

RobertsMinis wrote:Those space rats are great! Love the colours and weathering.

Cheers, I'm glad you like them! And thanks for taking a look!

IGtR= wrote:Rats looking fab and a great rag-tag little squad going on
Thanks for sharing

Thanks! My pleasure!

Viterbi wrote:Really digging the group shot. And love all the different cloth colors with their scarves (?). Looks a bit, like they raided a washing line along the way

Haha! That's more or less what I was after Though it's getting harder and harder to come up with new designs/patterns. Maybe the Skaven-y triangles? Or the classic "white-with-red-hearts-undies"...

gobert wrote:A stellar return and that group shot is awesome!

Much appreciated gobert!

Guardling wrote:Awesome rats, can't wait to see more!

Thank you very much Guardling, and welcome to the plog! I'm currently all out of assembled space rats, but they'll pop up again, hopefully before too long.

Ezki wrote:That is a wonderful collection!
These guys really ought to be an official kit!

Cheers Ezki! That would be neat! Maybe something like the ratlings or the ogryn. But, from the cost point of view, buying a box of plague monks and two boxes of cadians probably isn't too far of from what 20 new cannon fodder figs would go for...

MobileSuitRandom wrote:Oh wow, these are great! I like how they still look like legit Imperial troops while being gruesome ratmen at the same time, very 40k.

Much obliged! Yeah, it's really nice how the bits go together! And thanks for taking a look at my plog!

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I've been trying to get my hobby mojo back and during the last couple of weeks think I've got it! I've had a lot of fun painting the first couple of models from the Indomitus box: two Necron warriors and two scarab swarms.



Now, I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not the most imaginative of artists, and the paint scheme on these guys is no exception. I was pretty close to going with the default Necron speed-technique of wash/drybrush/done, but when I saw Trovarion's tutorial on "easy 9th edition Necrons" I knew I had to try them out! Trovarion's own take on the scheme was right up my alley - mostly neutral colors (steel, brown, cream) with one bright and bold accent color (orange). I wonder what the dynasty's called... Trovakh?

Trovarion Miniatures' Necron painting tutorial:

I actually started the models by painting up the bases. The bases I made for the Necrons are once again wasteland-style, but I wasn't sure on the color. I tried a reddish brown and my usual bone-recipe, and while both of them work (and are surprisingly close to the Necron's paint scheme), I'll go with the reddish ones. At some point I might experiment with some orange washes or pigments to make the bases more vibrant, but I think this is my starting point!

A note on making the bases: the idea was first to just do my default "sand and stones/skulls"-type of wasteland bases, but as I had more time during my winter break I thought I'd add "just a couple" of details to suggest a battlefield surrounding. In addition to rocks and skulls I put on various pipes, steel beams and barbed wire. I also had the idea to put on some left-over Necron arms and Space Marine helmets, but forgot about them.. I'll do those with the bigger character models! But all in all, I'm very pleased with the bases. I think I got a good mix of different textures and details (maybe a few too many pipes if you think about it...) and they didn't take all that long to make.



Painting the actual models was pretty relaxing, and for the most part didn't require much accuracy. Two basecolors (steel, cream), some dark brown chipping applied with a sponge, and then a lot of selective washes. After those a few quick highlights and painting the glow-y bits white (a mix of ink and paint makes quick and smooth work of this). Finally quite a lot of layers of orange fluorescent paint and a tiny bit of red (the normal kind) to finish the model off.



I'm mostly very satisfied with the result. More importantly, I enjoyed the painting process, which is great as I now have quite many Necrons to paint. The OSL effects are not quite there yet (which is fine, it was my first try), but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it after a couple dozen models... I've now actually finished the four WIP models in this post, and started working on eight more warriors and one scarab swarm. The bases are done and the metallic basecoat applied. I'll see if I can finish a couple more models during the week, before posting some showcase photos for you guys.

Gorgeous warm colours! The brown dirty cream is beautiful.

Cool scheme, the cream and orange work well together. The weathering really sells that they are ancient machines

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Gorgeous warm colours! The brown dirty cream is beautiful.

gobert wrote:Cool scheme, the cream and orange work well together. The weathering really sells that they are ancient machines

Thanks guys! Yeah, it's an effective color combo!

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Okay, another kind of post today. One of the reasons I’ve been a bit less active with the Warhammer hobby this year is that I’ve been preoccupied with another hobby of mine – computers and gaming. I’ve been building a new computer for myself, and after quite a long while of buying parts and assembling and tweaking, I’ve finally finished the build for the time being. And just to make sure it’s appropriate(ish) for the plog, it’s a small form-factor PC which makes it quite a bit tinier than the average mid-tower



Due to the current situation in the world, the PC part market has been in a sorry state for quite a while now, especially with processors and graphics cards. Because of this, it took me around three months to get my system up and running. I started buying parts on Black Friday last November, and got the final bits ordered (the GPU and some other stuff) at the end of February. Not an eternity in the grand scheme of things, but certainly a far cry from just going to a webstore and ordering all the parts when you feel like it.



Assembly was rather simple for the most part, but I did have to do some rotary tool alterations to one piece. Ended up working just fine! I might try to further clean up the interior at some point, but it’s not hugely important right now. I got the system running pretty much inaudibly under light loads, and even under demanding workloads it’s tolerable. It does run pretty warm though, but that’s to be expected with such a small case.



I’m also really enjoying all the wireless peripherals I’ve acquired for this setup. My headset, mouse, keyboard and the Xbox controller are all wireless which helps cleaning up the desk and allows mobility. I have to plug them in for charging every week or two depending on the use, but it’s not so bad.



Games are running great for the most part (1500+ fps in Doom! ) and to be frank they have been drawing me in lately more than painting. While you don’t get the same tangible results from gaming as you do from painting up a model, some instant gratification is fun every now and then! But yeah, as I said in my last posts, I’m slowly getting back to painting as well. I’m making progress with the rest of my first Necron squad, as you might’ve spied from the first photo in this post.

Great work all around, I love how you are able to make subtle chipping that looks extremely convincing and really adds texture without overwhelming the model.

Excellent!

Those Skaven Imperial Guard are seriously amazing. The conversions are excellent, the painting is excellent, the weathering is excellent, the freehand is excellent, even the photography is top tier. Just wow...

I just had my kids watch the Secret of NIMH recently (first time I had seen it since the 80s) and seeing these large, intelligent rats is making me think of it. Maybe the Secret of NIMH is how it all started and 38,000 years later you get rat-men in space?

EDIT: I did not include the bases in my list of "excellents" above because they were so good, I figured they had to be bought. I just went back and see they are also scratch-made. Another excellent. This unit gets 5/5 stars from me!

Necrons are looking great, can't believe that is a quick scheme The chipping is what really makes the models, they really look like they've been awakened after their million year sleep.

arhurt wrote:Great work all around, I love how you are able to make subtle chipping that looks extremely convincing and really adds texture without overwhelming the model.
Excellent!

Thanks a lot arhurt, and welcome to the plog! I'm glad the chipping looks alright, it's done by sponging and I'm still kinda getting a feel for it. Sometimes I push too hard and make too big of a chip/blob, but with these guys I try to call them "happy accidents" and work with them rather than paint over them and try again. It's good that I have many models to practice on, haha!

The Riddle of Steel wrote:Those Skaven Imperial Guard are seriously amazing. The conversions are excellent, the painting is excellent, the weathering is excellent, the freehand is excellent, even the photography is top tier. Just wow...
I just had my kids watch the Secret of NIMH recently (first time I had seen it since the 80s) and seeing these large, intelligent rats is making me think of it. Maybe the Secret of NIMH is how it all started and 38,000 years later you get rat-men in space?
EDIT: I did not include the bases in my list of "excellents" above because they were so good, I figured they had to be bought. I just went back and see they are also scratch-made. Another excellent. This unit gets 5/5 stars from me!

Wow, that's high praise indeed Riddle! You're making a grown man blush! But seriously, thank you and I'm glad you like them, they're one of my favorite projects as well.
Huh, I'm not sure I've ever seen NIMH... Maybe as a kid, but don't remember it. Might have to check it out...

Viterbi wrote:Necrons are looking great, can't believe that is a quick scheme The chipping is what really makes the models, they really look like they've been awakened after their million year sleep.

Cheers! Well, quick is a relative term after all! It is for me, or at least feels like it (which is most important). I haven't clocked it, but I think it's something like 2hrs per model, at least for now. Totally worth it for the result, in any case!

Liking the direction where you are heading with the Necrons!

Yeah the PC market is in a bad spot right now. Been building a couple of computers for friends over the last year, and especially acquiring the GPU at a reasonable price poses some difficulties.
Liking the small case and you have done neat work with it! Boy do I love neatly stacked sleeved cables!
Should be pretty quiet with those Noctua fans?

Video games tend to temp us away from painting, but that's not a bad thing if you enjoy it!
You could always buy a slower hard drive and paint during the loading times!

You say you are not the most imaginative of artists but I think this blog proves otherwise.
Regardless the execution of the scheme on those necrons is phenomenal, I really dig them.

Those Necrons look great, the colour scheme is excellent and the result is pleasing to the eye. I'll have some Necrons incoming with the new Hachette magazine and have been contemplating just going for a speed paint or going for something a little more involved.

Your PC is tiny! It's unfortunate the way the PC parts scene has gone, I'm just lucky I was able to source parts in mid-2020 to build my rig, I can't imagine the cost of it now to be honest, and it's only a mid-range PC. The beige fan made me audibly say "oooh" and the cable management is mighty impressive, puts mine to shame!

It seems an excellent computer box.

The scarabs look inspired with orange glowing eyes! The color works for the necrons in general but i really, really like it on them.

Ezki wrote:Liking the direction where you are heading with the Necrons!
Yeah the PC market is in a bad spot right now. Been building a couple of computers for friends over the last year, and especially acquiring the GPU at a reasonable price poses some difficulties.
Liking the small case and you have done neat work with it! Boy do I love neatly stacked sleeved cables!
Should be pretty quiet with those Noctua fans?
Video games tend to temp us away from painting, but that's not a bad thing if you enjoy it!
You could always buy a slower hard drive and paint during the loading times!

Cheers! Heh, that "neat stack" of cables was more of "just stuff them in for the time being". Ended up quite nice, I admit, but not much effort was spent on them. I'll probably add a 2.5" SSD drive, which will add some more cables, might try to further clean up the power cables with some zip ties. I've set the Noctua case fans and the tiny fan to be inaudible. The one on the CPU cooler occasionally ramps up and produces some sound/noise, but with my use it's not often. Overall I've gotten the computer to run inaudibly under light load and quietly under heavy load, so I'm super happy!

I know you jest with the HDD, but still, never again!

Two Spartan wrote:You say you are not the most imaginative of artists but I think this blog proves otherwise.
Regardless the execution of the scheme on those necrons is phenomenal, I really dig them.

Thanks a lot Two Spartan, and welcome to the blog! Regarding my imagination, I don't really have many/any original color schemes, they're pretty much all borrowed from someone else. Not that I consider it a huge sin or anything. But I guess there's other things than the color scheme when it comes to creativity. In any case, I'm glad you enjoy my work!

Tyranid Horde wrote:Those Necrons look great, the colour scheme is excellent and the result is pleasing to the eye. I'll have some Necrons incoming with the new Hachette magazine and have been contemplating just going for a speed paint or going for something a little more involved.
Your PC is tiny! It's unfortunate the way the PC parts scene has gone, I'm just lucky I was able to source parts in mid-2020 to build my rig, I can't imagine the cost of it now to be honest, and it's only a mid-range PC. The beige fan made me audibly say "oooh" and the cable management is mighty impressive, puts mine to shame!

Much appreciated! If you're not in a big hurry to get the Necrons done, I'd really like to see the "more involved" version!

Yeah, getting a GPU would be a nightmare right now! I guess I'm rather fortunate in that I only overpaid for the GPU, and saved at least that amount on other parts that I bought during Black Friday. Heh, nowadays Noctua makes black fans as well, and I've seen some weirdos buy them too. I mean, how are people going to know it's Noctua if it's not beige?

amazingturtles wrote:It seems an excellent computer box.
The scarabs look inspired with orange glowing eyes! The color works for the necrons in general but i really, really like it on them.

Thanks a lot turtles! I'm digging the scarabs as well. For a while I was debating whether to go for a metal or cream shell for them, I think cream was the right choice!

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I've finally managed to complete the Necron batch! I haven't painted a complete squad in ages, but here goes, the first 10 Necron Warriors and their Scarab Swarms from the Indomitus boxed set.



These guys were an attempt at a good-looking speed paint and I think the project was a success. While it took me close to two months to finish these (ouch), I only managed to paint on weekends, and not even all of them. In total I probably spent 2-3 hours on each of them, but the process felt pretty quick. I noticed a couple of places where I might be able to streamline it a bit for the next batch of models, too.



I'm not going to go in-depth on how these guys were painted, as I already talked about it in a previous post. Of course, all credit for the scheme goes to Trovarion and his tutorial!



Compared to the two original test models, I think I managed to get pretty similar results with the eight following models. The one thing I have to pay attention to with future models is that I overshaded the sides of the heads a bit with the "production" models, the test models look better. Not a big problem, and I'm not going back to fix it, but I'll try to do better with the next ones. There'll be plenty!



I got to cross off another square from this year's bingo card: paint a model from a faction I didn't already have painted models for. Oh boy, the year is half-way through and I've just got two squares! Not only that, the total number of finished models for the year is 15! 2021 hasn't been too productive for me...


...and it probably won't get much better any time soon. But I've got reasons! I got a new job starting in August as a teacher. And not a substitute either, this is a permanent(-ish) job. I've got a week left at my current gig before the summer holiday, which is exciting! I'll probably be able to do some hobbying during the two months off, but of course there's plenty of spending time with the missus, our families and friends. Also, we'll have to move, once again, during the summer.

But, I've got even bigger news than the new job! Or, smaller, depending on your point of view... Me and my wife are having a baby boy! We're about half-way through with the pregnancy, his estimated time of arrival is in mid-September. So, quite a bit (/everything) is going to change in a couple month's time, but it's something that I'm very much looking forward to. Here's hoping that I get myself a tiny painting buddy in a few years

Congratulations mcmatilla! A little one changes everything, and for the better imho... once you look past the sleep deprivation, nappies etc. Hopefully you’ll still be able I find some time for hobbies, and that quiet PC should help not wake the baby!

Necrons look great, the orange glow is really fantastic and works so well with the other colours. Having also had a slow start to 2021 hobbies, I know how good it feels to get a decent number of minis completed in a batch.

All the best for the rest of the pregnancy and beyond!

Wow, congratulations mcmattila!

The necrons are looking good. Hard to believe they were painted that quickly.
I like the sinister glow in their eyes and the weapons look really cool!

Congrats on all the real life news! Enjoy the the summer holidays once they arrive!

And great looking Warriors, they are really menacing as a whole squad marching towards one.

gobert wrote:Congratulations mcmatilla! A little one changes everything, and for the better imho... once you look past the sleep deprivation, nappies etc. Hopefully you’ll still be able I find some time for hobbies, and that quiet PC should help not wake the baby!
Necrons look great, the orange glow is really fantastic and works so well with the other colours. Having also had a slow start to 2021 hobbies, I know how good it feels to get a decent number of minis completed in a batch.
All the best for the rest of the pregnancy and beyond!

Cheers gobert! Yeah, a quiet PC's good for the baby too, haha! Though, the hum of the old computer occasionally helped me have a nap!
Hopefully we'll both have some time to pick up the pace before the end of the year!

Ezki wrote:Wow, congratulations mcmattila!
The necrons are looking good. Hard to believe they were painted that quickly.
I like the sinister glow in their eyes and the weapons look really cool!

Thanks a lot! Yeah, the painting still takes time, but with the results you could call the time spent "efficient". I feel I got some hits and misses with the glowy bits, some of them work better than others. But I think I was improving with them, so hopefully they'll be even better/more consistent/faster to do next time.

Viterbi wrote:Congrats on all the real life news! Enjoy the the summer holidays once they arrive!
And great looking Warriors, they are really menacing as a whole squad marching towards one.

Much appreciated! The holidays have now started and I'm back home with the wife. While there's a lot to plan and arrange regarding the upcoming move and the baby, we're really enjoying our time together!

---

After finishing the Necron Warrior squad, I switched to build mode. Other than some basing work, I hadn't built anything after the New Year's, so it was about time! Not that I had painted a huge lot, either, but that's neither here nor there... Anyways, I've now got three more rats queued for painting and joining my Astra Rodentia force. Also, I built a disembarked Imperial Guard (Sentinel/tank) pilot.



The three rats that I built were some more specialists: a shotgunner, a plasma gunner and a medic (inspired by Pomander Cask's medic model). The 'gunners got different body armors, to reinforce the idea of a ragtag group also in modeling in addition to painting. Of course, rules-wise the plasma rat could be used as a Scion. I'm pretty happy with each of them, though there are a few nitpicks. The biggest of these is the weapon sling on the medic. I practiced greenstuff sculpting but this wasn't one of my better attempts. Still, it'll probably stay like that and in any case it'll hardly even be visible in photos



From the rear you can see some of the equipment I once again stuffed on their belts and backs. I think it adds a lot of character to the models and also helps to blend the body and the legs together (though there's not much to hide - the join is really clean). One bit I'll note is the backpack on the plasma gunner. The Scion bodies have big square slots in their backs, and my original plan was to fill it with putty. Of course I forgot to do it when filling the other gaps, so I thought I'd hide the slot with equipment instead. As the original Scion backpacks were used for my Space Marine Scouts, I grabbed a resin one from Kromlech. I got two of these as a freebie a long time ago (the other's on the Astra Rodentia sharpshooter, see the "scouts" link), and they fit really well. They even have camo cloaks strapped on like the Scion packs! Still, I made a slight modification: the original had a couple of grenades and a canteen hanging of the backpack - I cut these off and changed them to GW bits. It's not a big change (the GW parts are just slightly larger), but I think it keeps the aesthetic closer to a GW model this way.



Then on to the Imperial Guard pilot. As I have quite a lot of IG leftover parts from making the Rodentia, I thought I'd use some of them for a one-off "marker" model, kind of like Lieutenant Varras. I imagine his ride got destroyed or disabled and he was injured in the process. After bandaging his arm and fashioning a sling he's looking for a way back to a friendly outpost. The bits are mostly from the Cadian Command Squad. The head and the holster are from a Chimera, I think. I thought of a neat trick with the holster: after removing the pistol handle I carefully cut under the holster flap to make it curl a bit, like it was open. I'm sure I wasn't the first to come up with this, but I think it's pretty cool! The model still needs basing, probably similar to the ones on my Necrons. The paint scheme will most likely be Steel Legion inspired.

I'm claiming another square on the hobby bingo with the medic model. It's the "sculpt something on a model (other than gap filling)", and while the weapon sling is so shoddy I feel a bit guilty about this, I have to score squares where I can! Might have considerably less time for it soon!


Finally, I've made some hobby acquisitions. Yesterday I received a package from Japan, containing a Tamiya pin vise and a side cutter. I'm yet to give them any real action, but I tried them on a piece of sprue and they're definitely an upgrade over the Army Painter pin vice and Citadel cutter that I'd been using before. I've also bought a pair of X-acto-type knives with #11 blades to see if I like them better than retractable Stanley-knives. And finally, for my birthday my wonderful wife surprised me with "something small", which turned out to be the new Ghazghkull Thraka model! That thing's huge, I tell you!

Good job with the new rat guys! Especially the shotgun fellow is looking menacing.

Liking the pilot. You rarely see vehicle crew without their vehicles.
The holster trick seems to be simple yet very effective!

Looking forward to see that Ghazkull painted in the future. Betting it will look gorgeous!

I like the paint scheme for the Necrons, really effective. Look forward to seeing more of these.
The new AR conversions are great too

Great builds, always got to see more Astra Rodentia in the works!

Ezki wrote:Good job with the new rat guys! Especially the shotgun fellow is looking menacing.
Liking the pilot. You rarely see vehicle crew without their vehicles.
The holster trick seems to be simple yet very effective!
Looking forward to see that Ghazkull painted in the future. Betting it will look gorgeous!

Thanks a lot Ezki! Yeah, disembarked crew models are not too common, surely because they don't feature in the rules, but I thought it'd make a cool project for some left-over bits.
I'm looking forward to Ghaz myself, still need to finish (sub)assembling him and building the base. Hopefully the heat will let off a bit soon so I can start painting him (or anything..).

Maharg wrote:I like the paint scheme for the Necrons, really effective. Look forward to seeing more of these.
The new AR conversions are great too

Thank you Maharg! I think so too. I still have a couple of specific ideas for rat models, we'll see when those see the light of day.

Viterbi wrote:Great builds, always got to see more Astra Rodentia in the works!

Cheers Viterbi! Yes it is, and I'm very happy with these ones!

---

So far in 2021 I've only been working on the 40k side of the hobby, so it's high time that I got some AoS in the mix. I have a few half-done/started models in my to-do pile and thought that I'd try to finish some of them during the summer. Amongst them were the three Stormcast Prosecutors from the AoS starter box who are now done!



These guys took surprisingly long to finish. The largest part, the armor, was of course quick and easy, but the wings, gold and the "magical toilet paper" took hours to do.. That's probably down to inefficient workflow, but it's the way I've painted this army and I'll stick to it. I think the reason these were not too enjoyable to paint for me was that this was a "paint by numbers" affair, there's no freehand designs, battle damage, bare faces or any other more freeform stuff, just neat painting. I tried to speed up the process by not going back to fix mistakes, instead using the next paint to cover any slips. There's still some around, but I tried to remind myself about "tabletop standard". The good things are that the end-result is still pretty nice and I've only got the Lord-Celestant to do and then this army is probably finished!



So yeah, I'm happy that they're done and I'm just one model shy of completing this army. For the hobby bingo I'll use the Prosecutors to claim the "to-do-pile"-square. They've been built and primed since 2018 and I started painting them more than half a year ago, so I think they're well qualified. I think I have a small chance of scoring one complete bingo this year, so I try to set myself up for success. For the monster, I have two candidates: Ghazghkull Thraka and the Lord-Celestant. Hmm.. If I really get a move on I might be able to finish at least one of them before the end of the year.

These guys are gorgeous!
The metal turned out great, and the time you spent painting the wings really paid off.

Projects that only need neat painting and don't leave much room for playing around might sometimes feel like a slog.

The sculpts aren't GW's best work, but I love your color scheme, the vibrant red on the wings is great! And very cool, that you now only need to paint one model to finish an army, I never had that feeling

They might’ve been a slog, but they look fantastic! The wings are a real highlights, certainly worth the effort. Good luck finishing the last mini to complete the force

Ezki wrote:These guys are gorgeous!
The metal turned out great, and the time you spent painting the wings really paid off.
Projects that only need neat painting and don't leave much room for playing around might sometimes feel like a slog.

Thanks! Ironically, the wings were supposed to be much more white with just a slight red tint, but I didn't thin down the Contrast paint enough and the wings ended up bright red! So the time spent on tediously painting the wings white was probably all in vain. But the end result is pleasant anyway, and that's all that matters!

Viterbi wrote:The sculpts aren't GW's best work, but I love your color scheme, the vibrant red on the wings is great! And very cool, that you now only need to paint one model to finish an army, I never had that feeling

Cheers! Yeah, I thought the two guys with the smaller wings were alright(ish), but the leader with the huge ones was annoying to paint, and the dimensions are very unwieldy, not to mention the model falls over easily.

Now that you mention it, the feeling of almost finishing an army is a first for me as well!

gobert wrote:They might’ve been a slog, but they look fantastic! The wings are a real highlights, certainly worth the effort. Good luck finishing the last mini to complete the force

Much appreciated! The last mini might be some ways off still, but I am looking forward to it! I think I need to paint something more organic first though..

---

Apologies for slow responses/updating yet again. But let's do a WIP post for a change! I've finished (sub)assembling Ghaz. That's not very interesting of course, there's no conversions or anything, but perhaps someone gets a kick out of seeing the base before paint!



I decided against making the base any taller, as the model is already quite a monster, but it needed something more than just plain sand in addition to the sculpted bit. The main extra features were half a barrel left over from the Astra Rodentia Sentinel base and one milliput cast of a wheel half. I had to cut down the wheel as well so that it would look natural buried in the ground. I used a saw, but man it took a while! I need to get some kind of a mini vise in the future, so I don't have to hold small bits in my hand while sawing.

This was also the first time using AK's texture paint ("dry sand"), which I used to cover most of the plain base. I'm not sure if it was any faster than with PVA and sand, but at least it gives some different texture to the base. I also sprinkled on some sand here and there for an extra measure.



Finally, in preparation for the upcoming move I've put together three more storage cases with metal bottoms. With that I can claim another bingo square. Now I just have to magnetize a hundred or so models..

Hoooo boy, I've missed so much! Congratulations to you and your partner on the baby, I hope they arrive smoothly and everyone is healthy. The Astra Rodentia group shot is amazing, such a characterful bunch of amazingly painted and converted models. And that banner is
Your necrons are also looking really great. I like how orange seems to be a reoccurring spot colour throughout a lot of your models, gives them a sense of unity even though they are from different forces. Ghazghkull's base is looking great, I look forward to seeing him painted up!
And nice Dan Case A4! I just finished building a SFF PC as well. I backed the Thorzone Mjolnir on Kickstarter a couple of years ago and it finally arrived just last month! I had the same thoughts regarding the Noctua fans, if they aren't beige how will people know what they are?!
Hope you've been well

 zahnib wrote:
Hoooo boy, I've missed so much! Congratulations to you and your partner on the baby, I hope they arrive smoothly and everyone is healthy. The Astra Rodentia group shot is amazing, such a characterful bunch of amazingly painted and converted models. And that banner is
Your necrons are also looking really great. I like how orange seems to be a reoccurring spot colour throughout a lot of your models, gives them a sense of unity even though they are from different forces. Ghazghkull's base is looking great, I look forward to seeing him painted up!
And nice Dan Case A4! I just finished building a SFF PC as well. I backed the Thorzone Mjolnir on Kickstarter a couple of years ago and it finally arrived just last month! I had the same thoughts regarding the Noctua fans, if they aren't beige how will people know what they are?!
Hope you've been well

Thanks zahnib, great to see you around! I and the missus have been well, and the baby's coming along as he should!

Heh, yeah, orange has been sneaking on to many of my models, it seems. It's a bit weird as it's a somewhat tough color to paint, but I just like it as a spot color so much! I'm actually going to do Ghazghkull pretty much according to box art, but replacing the reds with oranges. I already painted the barrel on the base orange! (I'll post some WIP photos soon..)

And damn, I'm a bit jealous about that Mjolnir! It's a beautiful case and I very briefly considered it as well, but it was a bit too steep for me..

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A quick post today to show you a model I started working on – a Space Wolf Grey Hunter.



Now, I’m not going to start an army of Space Wolves, this will most likely be a one-off. But this one’s a bit special for me, as it will be in honor of our firstborn, due in around two months! My wife actually gave me the idea, as she asked if (or what) I’d paint baby blue for our baby boy. A great idea, I thought, and after giving it quite a bit of thought (I thought a blue-skinned cherub would’ve been too macabre and a grot might’ve sent the wrong message..) I realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to paint a second edition-inspired Space Wolf!

I spent quite a lot of time planning and building the model, but I’m happy how it turned out. Most of the build time went into “refurbishing” and attaching the second edition bolter on to his arms. I still have a couple of these bolters from one of my first kits that I bought, and I thought one of them would complement the second edition paint scheme really well. To be honest, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t ever use them on anything, as they’re showing their age a bit, but after seeing OSJC using one for his Space Sharks I knew I had to borrow the idea! Obviously, the scale is better for primaris marines, but it’s not bad for mini-marines. The conversion is pretty simple, if a bit time-consuming: the main body from a second edition bolter, the hand, magazine well and the nub over the barrel from a mk7 bolter and the magazine from a mk3 one. As the body of the gun is quite a bit thicker than the modern ones, I had to do some cutting with the hand. The anatomy is not the greatest, but will do.. As for the rest of the model, it’s pretty much a standard mk7 tactical marine. I don’t have many Space Wolf bits, but found an appropriate head for him at least (is that Paul Sr. from American Chopper?), and to top the model off I gave him a mk3 chainsword. Kinda looks like a furry tail!



I'll use this model for the "conversion" square in the hobby bingo.

Good to hear you're all doing well, exciting times ahead!

Orange is a colour I don't see all that often on minis but it really pops and you've definitely nailed it so keep with it! Looking forward to the Ghazghkull WIPs.

The Mjolnir was definitely a bit pricey and after seeing some early reviews I wasn't feeling too good about it but since I've had it its been great. Really nice build quality and thermals seem to be good.

That Space Wolf is looking great! Such a lovely idea for your wee boy. And that old bolter works really well! I think the scale is perfect and you've done a great job of 'modernising' certain parts. Look forward to seeing him painted up

 zahnib wrote:
Good to hear you're all doing well, exciting times ahead!
Orange is a colour I don't see all that often on minis but it really pops and you've definitely nailed it so keep with it! Looking forward to the Ghazghkull WIPs.
The Mjolnir was definitely a bit pricey and after seeing some early reviews I wasn't feeling too good about it but since I've had it its been great. Really nice build quality and thermals seem to be good.
That Space Wolf is looking great! Such a lovely idea for your wee boy. And that old bolter works really well! I think the scale is perfect and you've done a great job of 'modernising' certain parts. Look forward to seeing him painted up

Glad to hear your build is working fine!
Yes, orange models, let alone armies, are definitely pretty rare and that's a shame. I guess it's because there aren't any "mainstream" orange color schemes, and the color is not very forgiving to paint with. But I suppose the scarcity makes it pop even more!

---

Okay, first progress report on Ghaz. The base is now pretty much finished, though I might adjust some things after I've attached Ghazghkull on top. Painting this was very enjoyable, as bases often are as you can just drybrush most things and don't have to be super neat. I did have a bit of trouble choosing how to paint the marine helmet so that it fits the overall color scheme of the whole model, but finally I settled on painting it as a Revelator. That's the first and most likely the last mk.X helmet I'll paint in this scheme! I'll probably paint the face and the iron gob next, trying to ease myself into the bigger, more intimidating parts..



Also a peek at my desk. I started painting the Rodentia models along the base, as I could use the same colors. Their robes are now done. The scarabs are currently only missing their lights, so I might get them finished today!



In the last two evenings I also magnetized my entire 40k and AoS collections (Underwolds was already done). Something like a 120 models, amongst them some WIP models like the Necron Warriors. There were a couple of models that didn't fit my magnetic cases (the Lord-Relictor was just a few millimeters too tall ), but fortunately I've got a Citadel foam case for those.

I finished Ghazghkull's face today. Well, there's one or two things I need to fix, but for the time being it's done. And I'm very happy with it! Again, color choice caused some hemming and hawing, but in the end I chose red, orange and blue for the wire bundle on his head.



I've also done some work on the iron gob, basically the basecoating. As you can see, the scheme will be pretty much the box art but with orange instead of red.



As for the Necrons, I got the Scarabs done. Pictures will have to wait though, I'll try to finish the Plasmancer and do the photographing in our new home after the move.

Ghazghkull's looking gorgeouuuuuus! That face is awesome, love the believable green fleshy look you've got. And his base is great, the blackened crater is a nice touch

Really cool idea with the Space wolf and yeah, the blue cherub would have been the wrong mini

And amazing work on Ghazkull's head, all those details look glorious!

I’m looking forward to the Space Wolf, he’s a neat idea for your new arrival. Good luck getting him sorted ahead of the deadline!

Ghaz is already looking fantastic too, the orange is going to look amazing in him.

zahnib wrote:Ghazghkull's looking gorgeouuuuuus! That face is awesome, love the believable green fleshy look you've got. And his base is great, the blackened crater is a nice touch

Cheers! Yeah, the paler, desaturated greens and some red glazing seem to work great for a "natural" ork skin. I also really like the black crater, and it was super simple to do: just heavy drybrush of black and a very light drybrush of Dawnstone. I got the trick from one of the Codexes/White Dwarfs/Citadel paint books from circa 3rd-4th edition.

Viterbi wrote:Really cool idea with the Space wolf and yeah, the blue cherub would have been the wrong mini
And amazing work on Ghazkull's head, all those details look glorious!

Thanks, much appreciated! Hopefully the rest of Ghaz will live up to his face Then again, it's all about "faces and bases"..

gobert wrote:I’m looking forward to the Space Wolf, he’s a neat idea for your new arrival. Good luck getting him sorted ahead of the deadline!
Ghaz is already looking fantastic too, the orange is going to look amazing in him.

Thank you! Yeah, the Wolf has been a fun project. Well, he did suffer a "minor" setback when I went to prime him a week ago. The white spray had gone bad or the nozzle was clogged or something, which caused the paint to come out super speckled/grainy/dusty. I had the good sense to stop spraying when I noticed it. I managed to brush and scrape almost all of the grains off the model, bought a can of Corax White and reprimed the model just now. Thankfully he seems to be fine! I'll start working on him tonight.

---

Sorry for the vox silence once again. It's been quite a couple of weeks as me and the missus moved to a new town. Everything's slowly finding its place and perhaps most importantly I've got the painting area set up. Yesterday I finished my first model in the new home: the Necron Plasmancer from the Indomitus box!



As I've probably mentioned once or twice, this is probably my favorite Necron model from the box. He's like a techno Cairn Wraith, many of which we've seen from the INQ28/blanchitsu community. I painted him sort of as a treat after finishing the Warrior squad earlier in the spring.



The painting was largely the same as with the Warriors, I just used thinned down Contrast paint for the black bits instead of multiple Nuln Oil washes. There were of course a couple of things which do not feature on the more basic troops, mainly the power weapon and the ribbons. I didn't really want to use gold for the ribbons, but I think I got just about enough variation on them with the small gradients. In hindsight a few cream colored squares could've looked cool too, as with the hidden ribcage and no gun case the model features very little cream.

The power glaive was a first for me and I pretty much tried to copy the light placement from the boxart, just with orange instead of green. It ended up a lot brighter than the green one, but I suppose it's an okay first attempt. I think I managed to keep it looking mostly orange instead of red or yellow, and more or less in keeping with the other orange lights. I wasn't too concerned about smooth blending as I'm trying to keep these relatively quick to paint. And in any case I've got plenty of models to practice with!



I've also finished another trio of Scarab Swarms. I didn't use the previous ones as reference, so the lights ended up a bit lighter. I think they look good though, I might even prefer these ones as the OSL is more subtle.



In the interest of claiming every hobby bingo square I can, I'll use the Plasmancer for "completely paint a unit before using it on a battlefield". Feels a bit like cheating with only one small model, but it does count as a unit!

Congrats on the new digs, the Plasmancer was a great start for the new hobby space. The blade looks really cool as do all of the OSL orange spheres.

 gobert wrote:
Congrats on the new digs, the Plasmancer was a great start for the new hobby space. The blade looks really cool as do all of the OSL orange spheres.

Thanks man! I'll post a pic of my "office" when I've emptied/hidden all the cardboard boxes Yeah, I guess the Plasmancer and specifically the power blade was very fitting: a new place, a new technique!

---

Just a quick WIP pic on the Space Wolf. I've worked on him for a couple of days, and while I didn't manage to finish him, I'm not that far off.. The armor's pretty much done and everything other than the head has been basecoated and washed. I'm definitely over the "ass-phase" of the model! The rest of the paintjob should be the fun bits! A bit of edge highlighting, freehand, the face and the base. Hopefully I'll have time to finish the model next week - this was my last day of summer holiday and work starts tomorrow.

Your Plasmancer and scarab swarms look great! The rusted metal looks especially ace on the floaty fella. Also your Spacewolf is looking super crisp. I know I said it last time but that old style bolter works so well!

Superb work on the space Wolf, his armour looks mighty smooth. The mix of volumetric and edge highlighting has worked really well. Great stuff!

That Necron guy is awesome, you got the glowing parts of his staff down pat.

Where can I find that blank hobby bingo card again? I think I am finally ready for that sort of motivation.

zahnib wrote:Your Plasmancer and scarab swarms look great! The rusted metal looks especially ace on the floaty fella. Also your Spacewolf is looking super crisp. I know I said it last time but that old style bolter works so well!

Thanks again zahnib!

gobert wrote:Superb work on the space Wolf, his armour looks mighty smooth. The mix of volumetric and edge highlighting has worked really well. Great stuff!

Cheers gobert! Yeah, I'm not quite ready to go full-on NMM style painting, but the hint of volumetric shading/highlighting does wonders!

Theophony wrote:That Necron guy is awesome, you got the glowing parts of his staff down pat.
Where can I find that blank hobby bingo card again? I think I am finally ready for that sort of motivation.

Much appreciated Theo! Sorry for the late response. The bingo card(s) come from Rob Hawkins. He's got two versions: 2018 and 2020. I'm currently working on the latter.

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Last weekend, after a week or so of painting, I finished the Space Wolf Grey Hunter that I built in honor of our firstborn, due in a month or so.



The whole model was built and painted around the idea of "baby blue", and as WH40k already has an excellent baby blueish color scheme on the Space Wolves, I thought I'd make a model out of it! (read more about the build on the previous page) The main color of the armor has changed somewhat during the years, from a blueish gray to a more neutral one, but I tried to go for a second edition look that in my mind is quite iconic with its happy, bright and bold colors. Of course, I did mix in some more modern elements like the base color scheme and some minimal weathering of the lower legs to tie the model to the base, but overall the goal was to paint the model very cleanly and neatly.

Unfortunately, painting the model started with almost ruining the model, as the automotive can of white spray primer I tried to use had gone bad and the model was blasted with gritty paint. Thankfully I didn't spray it on too thickly and was able to brush and poke almost all of the unwanted paint specks off the model. I then bought a can of Corax White which, while expensive, worked perfectly. After the priming the painting was enjoyable if a bit time consuming. I'm not in a hurry to paint any more Wolves in this scheme, but I'm very happy with how this one came out!



For the armor I followed another tutorial on Tale of Painters (thanks Garfy!). It uses the same basic paints as in the Games Workshop's guides, but is lighter. The process was also a bit different than the default basecoat-wash-layer-highlight, so I got to try my hand at recess shading a Space Marine armor. I don't know which is faster, all-over wash and re-layering or just recess shading, but the recess shading didn't feel too tedious. I kinda have a hankering to paint some other marine scheme with this method! Maybe get that "walk of the legions" project going! If nothing else, I'm sure my brush control and edge highlighting skills would improve.

I spent quite a bit of time on the face, trying to incorporate some color on it - a bit of red on the nose, cheeks and ears to suggest a colder environment and a bit of blue-gray on the eyelids for that weariness. I think the face could still use some more definition, but it's good enough for now! I was also happy to be able to use an old water transfer on the left shoulder pad - the decal comes from the same box as the bolter. It took quite a lot of decal softener to get flat on the pad, but I think it came out great in the end!



The only thing on the model I'm not super happy about is the freehand on the chainsword. I thing the triangle motif is more appropriate for the Wolves than the hazard stripes, but with the orange shading on the yellow the sword reminds me of cartoon tigers! Oh well... Let's call the model done and get back to Ghazkhull.

Great job Mcmatilla! He came out fantastically well imho. The highlights all round are great, the yellow on the shoulder pad is, we’ll head and shoulders above my Wolves! I might need to check out The tutorial you posted. Hopefully mini-matilla likes it when he’s old enough!

What’s the walk of the legions? Painting one of each? I’ve been tempted by that with my RTB01 haul

 gobert wrote:
Great job Mcmatilla! He came out fantastically well imho. The highlights all round are great, the yellow on the shoulder pad is, we’ll head and shoulders above my Wolves! I might need to check out The tutorial you posted. Hopefully mini-matilla likes it when he’s old enough!

What’s the walk of the legions? Painting one of each? I’ve been tempted by that with my RTB01 haul

Thanks as always gobert! I got to say, your Wolves were one of the inspirations when I was researching the paint scheme - your models showed up quite a lot when googling for 2nd edition SW schemes. I was pretty close to painting the bolter on my model yellow, but went with black in the and, as it featured in the original box arts.

You gave the missus quite a chuckle with "mini-mattila" You might've just nicknamed the little one!

And yeah, walk of the legions (or march, I seem to have misremembered) is painting one of each legion/chapter. I've seen a couple of these projects and love the idea (for example kizzdougs' 30k project and Galef's 40k one). I even have plenty of mk3/4/6/7 plastics to get the project going, but nothing has materialized so far. Might be a good project soon when my hobby time gets more limited though.

Thanks for the BINGO link again. Stupidly I saw I had it saved already in my favorites tab on my IPad . Anyway, I just printed it out and am laminating it at work to be able to have "For the Future!!!!"

Your commemorative Space Wolf tunered out great! The weathering is a nice touch to the traditional scheme. I didn't see the tiger tail until you pointed it out I hadn't heard of decal softer until a couple of weeks ago, nice to hear you having some success with it.

Theophony wrote:Thanks for the BINGO link again. Stupidly I saw I had it saved already in my favorites tab on my IPad . Anyway, I just printed it out and am laminating it at work to be able to have "For the Future!!!!"

No problem! Happens to each of us Oh, you're going old school with the printed card! Nice and tangible! I've used a photoshop file and my Wacom drawing tablet for the writing.

zahnib wrote:Your commemorative Space Wolf tunered out great! The weathering is a nice touch to the traditional scheme. I didn't see the tiger tail until you pointed it out I hadn't heard of decal softer until a couple of weeks ago, nice to hear you having some success with it.

Cheers! Decal softener is a huge help. I wont put decals on any non-flat surfaces without it, helps especially with the larger decals (like this wolf head). I guess people have all sorts of tricks to get by with just water, but if you're using decals I recommend getting some setter and softener.

mcmattila wrote:

zahnib wrote:Your commemorative Space Wolf tunered out great! The weathering is a nice touch to the traditional scheme. I didn't see the tiger tail until you pointed it out I hadn't heard of decal softer until a couple of weeks ago, nice to hear you having some success with it.

Cheers! Decal softener is a huge help. I wont put decals on any non-flat surfaces without it, helps especially with the larger decals (like this wolf head). I guess people have all sorts of tricks to get by with just water, but if you're using decals I recommend getting some setter and softener.

I might have to pick some up when I finally get back to my Ultramarines army. I remember trying to get those transfers onto curved shoulder pads was not a fun time

Oof, a couple of weeks have flown by once again! I've slowly been making progress on Ghazghkull, trying to get at least an hour in every day. And mostly succeeding, too! Still, he's a big fella and will still take a while to finish...



I worked on the black highlights on the arms tonight, getting through most of it. I'll probably do the rest when I've assembled the model - I'll then have a better idea of what's "up" I'm pretty happy with most of the work, but I think the highlighting on top of the carapace is too agressive (/looks like TRON). I'll try to tone it down in the weathering stage.

A quick pic of the latest Astra Rodentia rats. They've taken small baby steps since they last appeared in a photo.



And lastly a pic from my new "office/studio". I now have room for two big desks! I've got the IKEA display cabinet and a bookshelf full of White Dwarfs right behind me and lots of cabinet space for the hobby stuff. I set up my old desktop computer on the back desk before work began mostly so that we could play a couple of games of KF2 with the missus every now and then, which has been really fun. So far, haven't had to do much work at home, but at least the space is there!

Nice work on Ghaz

New work area looks like a good setup, but way too clean for me .

Ghazghkull is looking great, those checkers on his claw are super clean! Nice desk setup as well, always good to have White Dwarfs close to hand for inspiration and a display case to keep you motivated

Theophony wrote:Nice work on Ghaz
New work area looks like a good setup, but way too clean for me .

Cheers Theo! I'm sure I'm not the messiest of hobbyists, but even so it's enough for my wife to consider my working area a "garbage dump"!

zahnib wrote:Ghazghkull is looking great, those checkers on his claw are super clean! Nice desk setup as well, always good to have White Dwarfs close to hand for inspiration and a display case to keep you motivated

Thanks a lot! Yeah, White Dwarfs are a great source of inspiration and I love the physical form. I don't often follow tutorials from them, but if you look closely you can see WD#453 open on the table with a masterclass article on Ghaz. I've borrowed some paint recipes from it, and having a reference on which bits to paint which color is nice. And yeah, that display cabinet really does motivate! I think I've spent hours looking over my old models. I get great joy out of my (relatively) little collection!

---

Alright, a quick PSA: I'm a dad now, minimattila is here! Around a week ago my wife gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. After a few days in the hospital we came home, everyone safe and sound. It has been an interesting week full of learning new things and a little less sleep than what I've been used to!

I guess it goes without saying that my rate of finishing models is going to take a hit. Of course, I've been saying the same thing for years now, so there's a chance you'll not even notice! I'll have to get used to a new daily rhytm with a lot more responsibility, and try to sneak in some hobbying whenever I can. Before the birth I was a bit worried about how I would feel about not having a lot of time for my own hobbies. But I got to say, after the baby arrived my hobbies haven't seemed as important as they did. I'm sure this will change eventually (), but for now I'm getting a real kick out of taking care of my wife and my son. Of course, miniatures are still on my mind and I'm slowly trying to get that ball rolling again. Today I wrote the boy's birthday on the bottom of his commemorative Space Wolf! Yeah, the day ended up being a day of national mourning for some, but a familial day of celebration for us!



I'll also show a picture of Ghazghkull and where I left him before we had to leave for the hospital. The arms are not glued on yet, I think I'll add a couple more things before attaching them permanently.



As you might remember from a couple months back (or the previous page), the face and the base are already pretty much finished. For the sake of completeness, I'll put them here in spoiler-tags:


So yeah, less painting and more peepee, poopoo and one adorable tiny human in my foreseeable future!

Congrats on the arrival of minimatilla, that’s great news. It’s a big upheaval, but they’re well worth it!

Ghaz is looking great already, hopefully you get a bit of time in between nappy changes to get him finished

 mcmattila wrote:


Alright, a quick PSA: I'm a dad now, minimattila is here! Around a week ago my wife gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby boy. After a few days in the hospital we came home, everyone safe and sound. It has been an interesting week full of learning new things and a little less sleep than what I've been used to!

I guess it goes without saying that my rate of finishing models is going to take a hit. Of course, I've been saying the same thing for years now, so there's a chance you'll not even notice! I'll have to get used to a new daily rhytm with a lot more responsibility, and try to sneak in some hobbying whenever I can. Before the birth I was a bit worried about how I would feel about not having a lot of time for my own hobbies. But I got to say, after the baby arrived my hobbies haven't seemed as important as they did. I'm sure this will change eventually (), but for now I'm getting a real kick out of taking care of my wife and my son. Of course, miniatures are still on my mind and I'm slowly trying to get that ball rolling again. Today I wrote the boy's birthday on the bottom of his commemorative Space Wolf! Yeah, the day ended up being a day of national mourning for some, but a familial day of celebration for us!

So yeah, less painting and more peepee, poopoo and one adorable tiny human in my foreseeable future!

First up congratulations, glad everyone is healthy (if tired!). I went through the exact same thing when our first was born. My modelling pretty much stopped dead in it's tracks for a month (a model I was working on in the run up to the birth was literally just left abandoned on my desk Mary Celeste style) as we got used to our little tyke. After a month or so as you say a rhythm sets in and you get to know what works in terms of down time (ie not a lot!) I found on my nights to do late night feeds I could sneak in a hour or so painting between feeds in the precious time everyone else was asleep. I pretty much painted up the entire Start Collecting Astra Militatrum in that time plus a Handley Page O/400. Either way hope you manage to find what works for you when you are ready. Plus looking after the little one is the most awesome job.

Amazing work on the Ghaz, that klaw is looking fierce.

Congrats mcmattila, enjoy the time and make peace with not getting the sleep you need for the foreseeable future

Congratulations mcmattila! I'm glad you are all doing well

Dont you worry, the models won't disappear anywhere. Trust me, I have experience in letting some of them gather dust for a decade before painting

Absolutely loving that Ghazghkull already! So neat highlights.

gobert wrote:Congrats on the arrival of minimatilla, that’s great news. It’s a big upheaval, but they’re well worth it!
Ghaz is looking great already, hopefully you get a bit of time in between nappy changes to get him finished

Cheers! So far I've gotten some painting in almost every day, so I'm hopeful!

Tallonian4th wrote:First up congratulations, glad everyone is healthy (if tired!). I went through the exact same thing when our first was born. My modelling pretty much stopped dead in it's tracks for a month (a model I was working on in the run up to the birth was literally just left abandoned on my desk Mary Celeste style) as we got used to our little tyke. After a month or so as you say a rhythm sets in and you get to know what works in terms of down time (ie not a lot!) I found on my nights to do late night feeds I could sneak in a hour or so painting between feeds in the precious time everyone else was asleep. I pretty much painted up the entire Start Collecting Astra Militatrum in that time plus a Handley Page O/400. Either way hope you manage to find what works for you when you are ready. Plus looking after the little one is the most awesome job.

Amazing work on the Ghaz, that klaw is looking fierce.

Thanks for sharing your story! At least for now there's no rhythm to speak of, but the little one luckily sleeps quite a lot, and often around 3 hours at a time, so I've gotten some painting in almost every day. Today we started practicing bottle feeding, so those late night feeds and that painting time in-between might be close!

Viterbi wrote:Congrats mcmattila, enjoy the time and make peace with not getting the sleep you need for the foreseeable future

Much appreciated! So far we've been sleeping quite well actually! I'm sure it'll change at some point, but for now the paternity leave has definitely been enjoyable.

Ezki wrote:Congratulations mcmattila! I'm glad you are all doing well
Dont you worry, the models won't disappear anywhere. Trust me, I have experience in letting some of them gather dust for a decade before painting
Absolutely loving that Ghazghkull already! So neat highlights.

Many thanks Ezki! Heh, I'm not afraid of the models disappearing! If anything, Im worried that if I leave them be for enough time, they'll multiply amongst themselves!

---

So yeah, since the last post I've managed to paint for around an hour every day. Ghaz is coming along, and I made a quick painting detour and basecoated the next Necron Warrior squad silver. Here's a couple of pictures of Ghaz, I've worked on the backpack engine for the last couple of sessions. He's still not glued together, but I think I'm coming pretty close to that point!

Congratulations mcmattila! That wonderful news, glad to hear everyone is safe and healthy as well I imagine it'll be a huge adjustment, but as others have said, well worth it. And don't worry, if the hobby has to take a backseat for a bit we'll still be here when you come back to it. As will your minis. Though by the sounds and looks of it you're hobbying hasn't slowed down at all!

I really miss having my White Dwarfs to hand, they are currently all packed away waiting for a shelf to call home And I very much look forward to having a display cabinet of my own one day, would be so nice to see all your work out on display.

Ghazghkull is looking amazing! The power pack especially is looking really good, love the worn effect you've got on the metal. Looking forward to the next update (whenever that may be)

Glad you’re getting some rest and hobby time at the moment. You’re certainly making the most of your hobby time with Ghaz

zahnib wrote:Congratulations mcmattila! That wonderful news, glad to hear everyone is safe and healthy as well I imagine it'll be a huge adjustment, but as others have said, well worth it. And don't worry, if the hobby has to take a backseat for a bit we'll still be here when you come back to it. As will your minis. Though by the sounds and looks of it you're hobbying hasn't slowed down at all!
I really miss having my White Dwarfs to hand, they are currently all packed away waiting for a shelf to call home And I very much look forward to having a display cabinet of my own one day, would be so nice to see all your work out on display.
Ghazghkull is looking amazing! The power pack especially is looking really good, love the worn effect you've got on the metal. Looking forward to the next update (whenever that may be)

Thank you very much zahnib! Yeah, it's been an adjustment alright, but so far I feel everything has gone really well. We'll see how it changes when I go back to work the day after tomorrow...
Oh yeah, having space for a bookshelf with all my White Dwarfs as well as a display cabinet for my models, not to mention a permanent painting station is a real privilege! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you!
I like the worn power pack as well, though I was a bit concerned that compared to the (so far) relatively clean armor it stood out a bit. But hopefully I'll fix that soon in the weathering stage!

gobert wrote:Glad you’re getting some rest and hobby time at the moment. You’re certainly making the most of your hobby time with Ghaz

Thanks gobert! Yeah, still feeling good and energetic even with a couple of nights with less sleep. Progress has been steady with Ghaz, and I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to finish him during Orktober!

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And Ghaz is now glued together and standing on his base! The paintjob is also mostly done sans the weathering. There's still a few hours of painting ahead, I think, but I couldn't resist a quick photo of him. It's great to finally see him assembled, it's a freaking awesome model and probably some of my best work, if I say so myself!

Congratulations on the newborn! Hope the first month has gone well!

Ghaz is looking fantastic, love that orange colour on the armour, nice edge highlights too.

I think you’re right, Ghaz promises to be your best mini yet. That must the joy of parenthood for you . The crispness of the highlights and smooth blends are certainly white dwarf worthy, get submitting him to Warhammer community!

Ghaz is looking marvelous already, really excited what weathering will do to finish the amazing paintjob!

Looking so tasty already!
This might definitely be one of your best work, like you said yourself. Can't wait to see him after the final touches.

Whoo, two weeks have whizzed by! I went back to work after my last post and didn't have any time for painting during the week. This week has been the fall break, so I've had some time to paint. Not much, but just enough to finish a model...

Olthannon wrote:Congratulations on the newborn! Hope the first month has gone well!
Ghaz is looking fantastic, love that orange colour on the armour, nice edge highlights too.

Thank you very much Olthannon, and welcome to the plog! The first month (and a half now) have gone well. The boy wants to be carried around all the time during the day, but for most nights he's let us sleep comparatively well!

gobert wrote: I think you’re right, Ghaz promises to be your best mini yet. That must the joy of parenthood for you . The crispness of the highlights and smooth blends are certainly white dwarf worthy, get submitting him to Warhammer community!

Hehe! That might be it! Cheers gobert! Yeah, I've been thinking about submitting some of my photos to White Dwarf, this might be the time!

Viterbi wrote:Ghaz is looking marvelous already, really excited what weathering will do to finish the amazing paintjob!

Much appreciated Viterbi!

Ezki wrote:Looking so tasty already!
This might definitely be one of your best work, like you said yourself. Can't wait to see him after the final touches.

Thanks a lot Ezki! There were quite a lot of "final touches", but I got him finished in the end!

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WAAAAGH! I've finished my Ghazghkull, appropriately for Orktober! If I'm only going to finish one model this month, I can think of no better one than him. I got the model as a birthday present from my wife and started working on him in June. So yeah, it took quite a while to finish (to be fair, there were a couple of other models in between, as well as some other distractions), but I couldn't be much happier with the finished model! I think it might be my best work yet!



There were quite a lot of firsts and otherwise experimenting with this model. The biggest one was the black armor with multiple edge highlights, but using glazes to alter colors for fades and weathering were pretty new to me, as were the subtle OSL effects. Not to mention that this was the first model to be completed after the birth of my son!



For the color scheme I tried to replicate the studio scheme. As Ghazghkull is a legendary Goff character I wanted him to keep the black armor, but I also wanted him to tie in with my "orange orks". That's why I replaced the red accent color for orange on my model. I also used the same recipes that I'd used on the boyz for the skin, cloth, leather, and of course the wasteland base.



For the black armor and the metal bits I followed the recipes from "Painting Ghazghkull" article found in White Dwarf #453. That involved some paint mixing (purple-ish highlights for the armor and a brownish basecoat for metals), which was interesting and not all that scary in the end. Just for the convenience though, I'll probably be using paints straight from the bottle for my future black armor highlighting needs. But yeah, I'm loving the final result! While painting, I thought that the highlights on black looked a bit too much like TRON, but when the model's all together the armor looks black as it should. The highlights are a bit too chunky in places, but I'll improve my highlighting game with future models!



The orange presented me with a peculiar challenge that I hadn't really noticed before: orange is a color that doesn't have a lot of tonal range. There is no dark orange like there is dark red, for example. Dark orange is brown! In the 'Eavy Metal version the power klaw (and the glyphs) are dark red, but I didn't want mine to be brown. I had to leave these bits more vibrant so that they would read as orange, so in that way the studio model is stronger compositionally, but I did try to punch the highlights on the iron gob so that they would draw the eye towards the face.


Ghazghkull towering over the boyz.

Weathering was done by glazing various brown tones on the crevasses and the lower parts of the armor plates. Scratches were painted pretty much only on the freehand patterns, otherwise I ended up relying on the modelled damage. I considered doing some sponge weathering as well, but in the end I left it out. Mostly because I thought the model looked great already but I was also feeling a bit of painting fatigue.


A lone Space Wolf about to be pooped on.

There are still quite a number of things that I could improve or add to the model, but I'm calling it done. Seriously, I think the more time I spend painting a model, the more I notice places where I could do better if I spent the time! My original goal was to give this centerpiece model the paintjob it deserves, but it's not a competition piece so I'm not sweating over every tiny detail. I'm super happy with how it came out and proud to have painted such a big, initially very intimidating model! Next up, something much smaller!

Last but not least, I'm one square closer to scoring that elusive bingo. Ghazghkull qualifies as a monster, which means that I only have to build a piece of scenery before the end of the year! I've been thinking about going into build mode for a bit now that I've finished a major painting project, so maybe I'll have a simple piece of scenery in my hands before too long!


And oh yeah! I updated the orruk in my avatar to this more recent ork! And found out how to change my "rank" to something other than "Regular Dakkanaut"

Lovely work - well done!

Sweet Ghaz! He’s a corker! Definitely your best work to date, it’s not possible to spot a flaw (other than Makari being missing, though I see he was nearby at some point ). The fade on the orange/black checks is just lovely, using that technique could give you more tonal range for the shades/highlight in future imho. The glow on the light on his backpack is amazing, it has a real energy about it. We look forward to seeing what scratch-built terrain you come up with to finish that bingo

Honestly awe-inspiring

It's the Great Ork King umie smasher Charlie Brownpants .

He looks great. Awesome work my friend.

Sadly my work blocks the images, and I only get to see him on my phone's tiny screen.

Ghazzy looks absolutely bloody wonderful! A triumph, and awesome that the colour scheme translated over so well

Thanks for sharing

Now that's a great finishing job on Ghaz. Love the freehand graffiti on the pillar behind him And the detail on the space marine helmet lenses are mental for base decoration

Thank you so much everyone for the kind comments! Once again you've made my day!

Arakasi wrote:Lovely work - well done!

Cheers Arakasi!

gobert wrote:Sweet Ghaz! He’s a corker! Definitely your best work to date, it’s not possible to spot a flaw (other than Makari being missing, though I see he was nearby at some point ). The fade on the orange/black checks is just lovely, using that technique could give you more tonal range for the shades/highlight in future imho. The glow on the light on his backpack is amazing, it has a real energy about it. We look forward to seeing what scratch-built terrain you come up with to finish that bingo

Thank you so much gobert! Yeah, Makari is still in the to-do pile, but at least he's primed so there's a chance that he'll show up before too long. He should be a lot quicker to paint than Ghaz, that's for sure! I like the OSL effect on the backpack too, but that might've been just beginners luck. The lights on the gob are not as successful (not as visible either..). Haven't started on the terrain yet, but I've got some ideas. Whatever it'll be though, it's going to be a small scale project.

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Honestly awe-inspiring

Many thanks Gwyn!

Theophony wrote:It's the Great Ork King umie smasher Charlie Brownpants .
He looks great. Awesome work my friend.
Sadly my work blocks the images, and I only get to see him on my phone's tiny screen.

Thanks Theo! Heh, at least the pictures should be sharper! Everything looks good shrunken down!

IGtR= wrote:Ghazzy looks absolutely bloody wonderful! A triumph, and awesome that the colour scheme translated over so well
Thanks for sharing

My pleasure! Yeah, I guess the color swap was a success!

Viterbi wrote:Now that's a great finishing job on Ghaz. Love the freehand graffiti on the pillar behind him And the detail on the space marine helmet lenses are mental for base decoration

Much appreciated Viterbi! The pillar looked so bland before the graffiti, I decided to try my hand at tagging. Tried to do the classic(?) "Kilroy was here" with the picture and all, just with Makari. Of course, as I didn't look at the Makari model before starting, I forgot that he has horns in his helmet Oh well.. And the original idea for the helmet lenses was to have them dark ("lights out"), but they looked unfinished with just a dark blue basecoat. Honestly, the highlights took just a minute!

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A week ago I started building some models, and continued working on them this last weekend. It seems my hobbytime is now limited to a couple of hours in the weekends, so progress is slow. But yeah, some classic WFB/AoS models and a trio of Imperial cultists / Cawdor gangers.

First the Wightking and the Cairn Wraith. The Wraith is built as per instructions, it's a brilliant model as is. The king is reposed a bit, I tried to replicate Maxime Corbeil's take on the model. I don't think I quite succeeded, but it's fine. I've been thinking about trying a "blanchitsu" paintjob on these models, but that might be a while off, as the weather's getting colder here and after the move I don't have a garage to do indoor priming anymore.



Then the Cawdor models. The ones on the left and right have minor conversions, I think they're very good models out of the box. On the one on the left, I changed the flail for a Chainrasp sword, and for the one on the right I tried to sculpt a flaming rag on the bottle for a more classic Molotov cocktail look. I'll see if I can make it look like something with paint

The guy in the middle is a bit more involved: I swapped the flamer for a revolver and the head is from the Flagellant kit (superb heads and some nice accessories in there, even if the rest of the kit is shoving its age). I kitbashed / scratchbuilt the banner, and while there are some problems, I'm pretty happy with it.

Ooooh, interested to see where you go with both of these. My pile of shame has both sets of models!

Thanks for sharing

The Undead ones are really fun to paint, I did the Cairn Wraith last year for my Warcry Nighthaunts and painted the skellie for my friend who uses him as a vampire in our Mordheim games. Should be fun to see what you will do with those!

How did I miss Ghazkul's grand reveal?! He looks amazing and I 100% agree with gobert, get those pictures in the mail to GW, you'll be on the front page of Warhammer Community in no time. Love the graffiti on the base and the whole colour choice works so well with the light base and dark armour *chefs kiss*. And the fade with the checkers on the power claw, so so good.

Look forward to seeing your terrain and those undead minis coming together.

IGtR= wrote:Ooooh, interested to see where you go with both of these. My pile of shame has both sets of models!
Thanks for sharing

No problem! I'd wager that these guys have been pretty popular, and hence can be found in many of the piles!

Viterbi wrote:The Undead ones are really fun to paint, I did the Cairn Wraith last year for my Warcry Nighthaunts and painted the skellie for my friend who uses him as a vampire in our Mordheim games. Should be fun to see what you will do with those!

Cheers! Yeah, I remember seeing your Wightking! It reminded me of how cool this model was and was almost enough to dig mine out of "the pile"

zahnib wrote:How did I miss Ghazkul's grand reveal?! He looks amazing and I 100% agree with gobert, get those pictures in the mail to GW, you'll be on the front page of Warhammer Community in no time. Love the graffiti on the base and the whole colour choice works so well with the light base and dark armour *chefs kiss*. And the fade with the checkers on the power claw, so so good.
Look forward to seeing your terrain and those undead minis coming together.

Thanks for the high praise! No worries, the plog's still here I haven't had much time lately for writing or reading others' plogs, let alone painting. Yeah, I still haven't sent any photos to WarCom, but maybe now's the time as I have Ghaz's little buddy painted as well! Getting featured in White Dwarf would be a dream fulfilled, but there's no chance of it happening before I send them some pics!

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It has been a while! After Ghazghkull I had an urge to build something (more on that soon, I hope), but it also made me want to paint all kinds of models. Painting time being at a premium these days, I decided to work on something small so that I'd have a chance to finish before the holidays. It started to look like this would be a close one, but I got Makari finished!



I think I started working on him around a month ago, but only got to work on him during some weekends. Still, I've put at least five hours of work on him, which is probably more than a model of this size should take. I enjoyed every bit of the occasional hobby getaway, however, and am very happy with the end result!



As with Ghazghkull, I followed the studio scheme pretty closely, just replacing red with orange. The one notable omission are the white dags on the banner flaps. I left them out partly as it cut down the painting time (though not by much, I reckon), but mostly because I don't like them that much. For pretty much the same reason I changed the yellow glyph a bit: I didn't like the tiny black-and-white dags, so I used a "bad" glyph transfer instead. The rest of the glyphs are also transfers; I thought about freehanding them, but transfers were the faster option.


Makari with my old metal grot. The proportions of these guys have changed!

I used quite a bit of glazing on the model, much like with Ghaz. The big horns are based with silver and colored with Nazdreg Yellow and Guilliman Flesh. The white skull is glazed with Basilicanum Grey and the bone with Snakebite Leather. I even used some OOP Bloodletter for Makari's nose!



I'm using Makari to claim a cheeky square on the bingo card: paint a unit with unique markings to be your general's retinue. I suspect this isn't quite what the original intention of the square was, but I'm saying it counts! I tried to mirror some of the color scheme elements on Ghaz to Makari, such as the orange to black gradient, orange teef and white skull, yellowish bone and the use of blue as a very tiny accent color. Of course, much of it is down to following the studio schemes, but when the end result works, it works! Honestly, painting Ghazghkull and Makari has been a superb exercise both for learning painting techniques and color composition.

I think this was good practice for the eventual Zarbag's Gitz (or Rippa's Snarlfangs), but as much as I'd like to start painting them they're yet unprimed and I don't know if I'll be able to spray them before spring. Of course, it's not like I'm running out of things to paint! I think I've got a couple dozen models in various stages of completion, so with the hobby time I manage these days, I'm probably set for next year as well

Makari is looking just as good a Ghaz! I’m not sure where you’ll be spending 5 hours on him as he already looks way beyond my standard! Each time I look at either of them I see something new to admire. Speaking of which I see you’ve changed your Orkish eye colour from red to yellow, looks good

 gobert wrote:
Makari is looking just as good a Ghaz! I’m not sure where you’ll be spending 5 hours on him as he already looks way beyond my standard! Each time I look at either of them I see something new to admire. Speaking of which I see you’ve changed your Orkish eye colour from red to yellow, looks good

Much appreciated gobert! Based on your comment about finding new details, I take it that I've achieved the "display" quality level that I was aiming for And whoops, I had phrased the sentence about time spent on Makari wrong, I meant that I've put at least five hours on him, not that there's still painting to be done. The base rim's painted black, so that's a finished model
Regarding the eye color, that old grot is actually my only ork model with red eyes (disregarding the ones painted in my teens..). I borrowed the yellow eyes from the same source as the pale green skin and orange armor, Amy Snuggs. I also like the look, somehow fits better than red on this skin tone. Though it might not be a fair comparison, as if I recall correctly, the red eyes on the grot are only single paint, no highlight of any kind.

You know it's not cool to take the box art / studio picture and post it in your own plog right?

Jokes aside, really good work!
From the weathering on the banner to the reddish nose tip, top notch!

The red noses are what takes it from "that's really good" to "this is canon what Makari looks like now."

Ezki wrote:You know it's not cool to take the box art / studio picture and post it in your own plog right?
Jokes aside, really good work!
From the weathering on the banner to the reddish nose tip, top notch!

Haha! Well what if you slightly adjust some of the colors in post processing? That's fine right?
Much appreciated Ezki!

Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:The red noses are what takes it from "that's really good" to "this is canon what Makari looks like now."

As far as I know, grots and other goblins are supposed to have red noses Thank you very much Gwyn!