I've been painting miniatures on and off for about 18 years and has mostly been done on the basis of "that'll do". For a bit of fun, myself and Arakasi have started going to the Masterclasses being put on by GW to see what we could learn. The first one was the Tank masterclass, which covered transfers and vehicle weathering (more details in my guard blog). All of it great fun and very useful for my Guard force. So when the opportunity came up to attend the 'Eavy Metal one last weekend we jumped at the chance.
Forgeworld clearly want things to look good on the tabletop and fairly realistic with lots of weathering, chipping and stains while not taking forever to paint it, which fits my current style nicely, but wasn't all that great for doing one off figures or special things for other people.
The Forgeworld guys were joking that if Eavy Metal ever did a masterclass it would take all day to paint one jewel. By lunchtime we'd done the white leg and nothing else... so they weren't far off! Each of the figures on the Greatsword box cover took a day... and that's their basic standard. A character would have between 3 and 5 days solid painting done on it... for a competition you'd be expected to spend even longer. If you've seen Eavy Metal miniatures in person, the highlights are over the top and don't always look all that realistic. The reasoning behind this is quite clever when you stop to think about it. When you take a photograph, the colour contrasts are toned down slightly so the extra level of highlights are there to counter this.
So what did I learn from the weekend? Basically I need to practice lots and take my time. I've always looked at the WD articles and meant to go back and give them all a try, but never do. On the long drive home from Nottingham I decided that as I don't really need another army and that I'm excessively fickle, I should actually take the time to go back and re-learn how to paint from the ground up.
Currently I just make up things as I'm painting, so the lighting is never quite right, so the other half of this re-learning experience is to research things properly, so expect lots of reference images to go with the painting.
For a starter image, here's what I did on the masterclass. As you can see, we didn't actually get to finish the model as there was too much to go through. Mine is ahead of most though as technically we skipped red... I was just messing around while waiting for the Eavy Metal guys to carry on. I think it's come out nicely though and, surprisingly, matched the recipie they suggested using. It needs some more contrast to get to their standard though.
The black slashes in the white leggings just look wrong and should have been dealt with as shadows... still. Lesson learnt and filed away for next time.
I think the first thing to look at should be shiny black armour so I can do some more of this figure.
I took a look at your gallery. You have forgotten more about painting than I have ever learned. While I understand and respect your desire to achieve the highest standard you are capable of, you are already "sitting at the front of the class" so to speak.
That was an interesting read. I actually have wondered what it must be like to sit with people that paint at that level. Now I have a better idea, albeit via 3rd party.
Subbed because I'm interested in seeing where this goes.
You actually beat me to a write-up by 4 days. When I saw this just now, I was scared I just doubled up on your post! Looking forward to seeing where this goes - may even follow along in practice and not just in spirit - depends on how my Orks progress I guess (BTW - Your Great Sword looks *much* better than mine!)
Interesting thread i also agree your painting standard is awesome in particular your vehicle weathering(damn you)is top drawer.Its refreshing to hear a skilled painter admit they still have lots to learn,cinsider me subscribed.
Have to say I prefer non-'eavy metal style of painting - probably for the reasons you stated - takes a lot less time and looks better/more realistic in the flesh.
Though it would be interesting to see you paint the same model in 'EM and your normal style so we can get a better idea of where the differences lie
I apologise to all 5 readers for forgetting about this thread! Thanks for all the compliments
It's time to resurrect it as I'm starting to get too many painting questions over in Panic's Pimp my sorcerer thread.
The original plan to start re-learning with black armour went out the window when I joined Panic's competition and my pet inquisitor started coming together. I need to set up my lightbox somewhere at home properly so I can take lots of step by step photos as I'm going without having to rely upon natural lighting
First up we've got the WIP photos/evolution of my Inquisitor:
And here's the first photos of paint
Imperial Monkey was asking how I did the eyes to make them look bruised. I started off with the scarring, which was thinned Dark Flesh. After this were a few layers washes of Dark Flesh, Gryphonne Sepia and Leviathan Purple. What's not really visible in that picture is the red/purple wash on the lips and a red wash on the nose. They were probably a tad too subtle.
Simply adding a little bit of purple wash in the eye sockets adds a bit of life to the face.
I quite like Silver's idea of comparing my old style with the Eavy Metal style. I've plenty of guard models kicking around that need painting... so I guess that can be added to the list of projects to do.
So what's on the schedule so far?
1) Finish the inquisitor
2) Try and finish the Hybrid that I'm also doing for the competition... though this one is doubtful as there's still loads of greenstuff work to do (photos tonight)
3) Finish Gits' GMS Marine. It's nearly done... I just need to do the weathering on him
4) Finish Graven's GMS marine... it's about 50% done
5) Finish the Secret Project
6) 1/48 scale Spitfire for my dad. This should be a nice little project doing a historical paint scheme. It also means I can revisit all the weathering techniques and (hopefully) airbrushing
7) Compare and contrast Old style Vs Eavy Metal style Guardsmen
8) ... pick something from my Scorpions or Guard to build. There's plenty of half finished items in both armies
I managed to get more than just the gold done last night, which probably says I'm not doing the gold enough justice...
Sorry about the shonky photos, I just thought a quick update was in order
The gold is an attempt at the MNMM (metallic non metallic metallic) style used by the Eavy Metal team:
Shining gold/scorched brown mix
wash with Gryphonne sepia
blend back up to shining gold
blend up to shining gold
paint watered down scorched brown into the shadows
paint watered down scorched brown/black into the deepest shadows
finish with very thin Mithril silver highlight
When I scrolled down to the first picture of the Inquisitor I actually went "ooooh" out loud The painting on the robes is fantastic and subtle too! Nice.
Sadly, the light is actually doing me some favours in those photos as the sun was coming straight at the model... I'll try and do a lightbox update over the weekend so you can actually see what's paint and what's actual shadow
Somehow I missed the gold pics the first time, then only on my iPhone... now that I can see them better - it is coming together really nicely! For some reason it reminds me of a Greatsword though...
As I promised, here's a better photo of the Inquisitor so far.
There are a few things I need to sort out:
1) Staff colour. Most likely brown, but this may look dull compared to the rest of the model
2) The psycannon. More metal might look out really boring, but I can't think of anything else...
3) scrolls. I need to find a very thin pen to start scroll work.
4) Sword. Metal or glowing blue?
5) Eventually weathering the robes
The Hybrid is still being worked on, but I'm not sure he's going to be finished for the competition... the greenstuff is taking too long to cure.
Next up is Gits' GMS so far. I really need to finish this and Graven's soon as they have been sitting around half finished for ages!
And finally, because I need some advice on colours, I can reveal a Sekrit Project I've been working on for Arakasi. He's plotting to build a Dark Eldar army at some point in the future with a really interesting theme, but I'm not going to reveal that to you as that's his sekrit. I joked that his Scourges should be painted like canaries, but when I got home our local wildlife provided some excellent inspiration. My only issue is that I can't work out what colour to paint the guns. Black looks boring and other colours would out of place next to them... bone is about the only colour I can think of. What do you lot think?
Nice progress! I don't think the black is a good choose for the trim marking of the =I=s cape thug. The cape being fairly dark to begin with, I think you'd be better going towards lighter shade than the base. A golden hue perhaps.
Genius! What a great way to improve one's painting. I'm also very impressed with the way you put together the Inquisitor. Did you ever describe how you made that happen?
If you are trying the gold freehand on the robes I'd suggest a mix of shining gold and bronzed flesh for the base coat.
I used that mix on the banner on my rogue inquisitor from UKGD 2006. The addition of Bronzed flesh dulls the shine and makes the paint cover far better.
Subtle highlights can be made adding shining gold and mithrill to the mix.
If you are great at fineline stuff you could go for a black pattern with thin golden borders towards the red background colour.
Thanks for the encouragement, it's nice to see some of my inspirations reading the thread and commenting
monkeytroll wrote:For the DE guns how about leaving them black but ading extreme highlights in a blue or turquoise?
imperial monkey wrote:bone weapons on them would look great!
I'm not a huge fan of the Tron look, so I think I'm going to stick with the bone idea for now. I need to put together a test model first though so I can try it out in safety without having to repaint parts of these guys. I'm wondering if a white base with thin washes might be better than starting off with a beige and working in the shadows and highlights? Much like Migsula's style... or if this will just look out of place with the thicker colours of the current paint job?
JB wrote:Did you ever describe how you made that happen?
I didn't list the parts for the inquisitor, no. They are: Chaos Sorcerer body & chest plate; Grey knight power armour left falchion and hand; grey knight power armour psychic hood; grey knight power armour staff; grey knight power armour armourless head; forgeworld space marine bionic left arm; Cadian grenade throwing right arm; Cadian hostile environment flamer fuel tank (on his back); empire general's cape; forgeworld RT era bolt pistol and various sundry pouches, seals and gubbins. There's very little in the way of chopping, other than getting rid of the chaos symbols and making the cloak and psychic hood fit... it all went together nicely. The only greenstuff was around the top of the cape to blend it in properly.
matrim wrote:And i hate to be this guy, but the helmet on the base of your inquisitor has a mould line running down the side Dont hate me!
There's no hate, I'd spotted that in the photo too. The actual mould line was shaved off, but there is a tiny crease in the model to one side of where the line was, which I hadn't spotted before undercoating. I'll go back and fill that in, or add some more battle damage
jrn wrote:If you are trying the gold freehand on the robes I'd suggest a mix of shining gold and bronzed flesh for the base coat.
I used that mix on the banner on my rogue inquisitor from UKGD 2006. The addition of Bronzed flesh dulls the shine and makes the paint cover far better.
Subtle highlights can be made adding shining gold and mithrill to the mix.
If you are great at fineline stuff you could go for a black pattern with thin golden borders towards the red background colour.
Thanks for the tips. The gold on the main armour was mixed with Dark Flesh to start with; I'll give Bronzed flesh a try on the cloak and see how it differs in coverage. I'm not that great at freehand stuff, but it's something I need to try and learn... so what better place to try it out. I'll try your suggestion of thin gold lines either side of the black as that would certainly make the current pattern pop a bit more.
Inquisitor - awesome. The reworked robe shadows (white) look much better. Have you toned down the red highlights as well? It seems to match the white in effect - which looks balanced - great in my opinion! Gold and metal is looking really good too!
Git's GMS Marine - looks like the extra long purity seal could use some more blending - though you may not be finished? Just not as smooth as your other work - especially his helmet!
Scourge - Oh dear I'm still nowhere near finishing something for you for the Nobz and now this? And so much progress too! Glad they aren't canaries They are looking exceptional - your work has really come along leaps and bounds
Arakasi wrote:Inquisitor - awesome. The reworked robe shadows (white) look much better. Have you toned down the red highlights as well? It seems to match the white in effect - which looks balanced - great in my opinion! Gold and metal is looking really good too!
The red got another coat of red wash, which helped; but I think a lot of the highlights were light reflections as it's a bit shiny at the moment. Using the light booth has improved the colouring immensely. There's still some reflection on the red that shouldn't be there, but it's better than it was. Hopefully a blast of varnish at the end will sort that one out.
Arakasi wrote:Git's GMS Marine - looks like the extra long purity seal could use some more blending - though you may not be finished? Just not as smooth as your other work - especially his helmet!
Yeah, I know. That's one of the main areas that keeps bugging me. I've tried about three times now and each time it's just as bad. The other problem area is the eyes...
Arakasi wrote:Scourge - Oh dear I'm still nowhere near finishing something for you for the Nobz and now this? And so much progress too! Glad they aren't canaries They are looking exceptional - your work has really come along leaps and bounds
If it helps, think of them as a very late birthday present... or an early christmas one
Glad you like them. They were almost painted as lots of different hunting birds, but we have 5 Red Kites that come over our house... so it felt right, even though Kites are scavengers rather than hunters.
Yggdrasil wrote:Wow, love the GS on the Hybrid...You took classes in sculpting too, uh?
Thanks. Apart from the bottom of the sleeves, the green stuff is just blobby bits to bulk him out to where I want the cloak to actually be. Sadly sculpting isn't one of the classes that they have done yet... I might have to suggest it though as it could be fun. Sculpting was always one of the things I hated at school...
risewiththefallen wrote:Just wondering how do you paint white like that??
Lots of patience
Once I've got these three lots of models (and Graven's long overdue Star Scorpion) done, I would like to go back and write up a few tutorials on the different colours as I try to solidify in my mind how these things work; hopefully speeding up the process at the same time. I'd also like to go and try out Migsula's painting style too as it's so eye catching.
Speaking of tutorials. Can anyone suggest a decent plastic kit (or combination thereof) that includes plenty of skin and/or large areas of fabric good for freehand practice? I've had a quick look through the various units available from GW and none really meet the combination. High elf archers look useful for fabric and freehand practice, but there's not much skin available to practice on. For skin, the Chaos Marauders or Ogres look to be the best options... but none of these are *nice* models (imo), so I'm not likely to be inspired to practice on them...
endtransmission wrote: Speaking of tutorials. Can anyone suggest a decent plastic kit (or combination thereof) that includes plenty of skin and/or large areas of fabric good for freehand practice? I've had a quick look through the various units available from GW and none really meet the combination. High elf archers look useful for fabric and freehand practice, but there's not much skin available to practice on. For skin, the Chaos Marauders or Ogres look to be the best options... but none of these are *nice* models (imo), so I'm not likely to be inspired to practice on them...
Er...Witch Elves? Flagellants?
Edit to add Ogryns to the list of possibilities...and of course the Giant!!
Last night saw a major bout of insomnia, so Mr Inquisitor is ready for weathering on his cloak and robes... they are far far too clean! I'm just waiting for the camera battery to recharge and I'll upload the WIP shot of a very clean looking Inquisitor.
I was thinking of following Migsula's example and keeping things secret until the end of the competition... but I'm impatient to move on to the next thing. If I don't take the photos and put them up in the +PMW+ thread I'll forget.
Speaking of the next thing... I realised this morning that I know exactly which kit suits my painting needs. The fabric requirement for the kit was to try out my freehand painting... what better thing to try skin tones and freehand on than a unit of Slayers?! I had my eye on the Avatars of War Dwarf Berserker kit when it was announced, but I don't play fantasy. Now I have an excuse, with the added bonus of the kit having lots of things to learn NMM on as well.
As promised. My battery finished charging, so here's the update photo. Zoom in for a much better view of it all... the image is *big*.
the Red and the sword are both, currently, gloss. Hence the light reflections... not much I can do about that now unfortunately. After tonight's weathering it will be going back to satin. I just need to work out the most realistic way of weathering the robes...
That inquisitor looks fantastic! The Scourges look super cool, although they don't look evil enough to be dark eldar... Have you settled on a color for the guns yet? I wanted to suggest prey animal colors for the guns... like the hawk after it caught it's lunch... mouse colors, rabit, snake, smaller birds... I know it doesn't narrow it down much but I thought it would look cool with the already awesome hawk paint job.
I'd also like to second the Micron pen recommendation. Those things are crazy small.
Thanks for the Micron pen recommendation, I'll be ordering one of those in a bit.
I'm pleased with the Scourges, so I'm glad everyone else likes them; especially Arakasi
I think the weapons are going to be bone, but if I'm feeling very very confident I may try some faint osl on the bulbous bit on the weapons... maybe. Although after last night's work on the inquisitor... I'm not sure that's a great plan.
Speaking of which... here's an update from last night. Can anyone spot what's wrong?
Spoiler:
Don't do transfers on 2 hours sleep. I'd been using the vertical folds and the bottom of the cloak to centre it and carefully getting it into the folds, that I didn't notice that it had shifted from the middle until *after* I'd used varnish to stop it peeling off.
It doesn't help that the cloak appears to be wider and taller on the right side. This isn't really noticeable until you try and place something onto the cloak and take a step backwards... there's just something unnatural about how it's flowing and it's overall shape.
I either need to work out a design that can go to the right of the aquila to make it look like it's supposed to be off centre, or repaint the damn cloak...
Hmmm... some more thoughts on the Scourge. My first thoughts for the guns is the same yellow you are using for their beaks and feet, like another form of claw.
The blue looks a little out of place to me, but extending this to the guns might work as well...
Interesting ideas, I might have a play with potatoshop and see which one looks better.
The blue bits needed to be something not orangey-reddish-yellow as they needed to stand out a bit. If there's a different colour that you'd prefer, just shout
Ah - posted at almost the same time - I missed your update
I think the issue I have with the blue is it is too bright compared to the rest of the model - perhaps a darker blue would work? (rather than sky blue) This could also be taken to the weapons (you didn't want black...)
I agree - I think the cloak looks off! You would think the middle would come straight down from between his shoulders! I guess you could try an inquisition I or a number or a skull to the right...
I'm not sure if adding more design to the cloak will improve the situation, or make it look even worse?
I've been trying to reverse engineer the cloak in my head and it would be one weird shaped piece of fabric to make that cloak. It might be better to try and redo the bottom part of the cloak to cover up the eagle and return it to it's pre-transfer state. At least it wasn't particularly obvious that the cloak wasn't right then.
Still. My problems pale into insignificance when compared to Baiyuan's entry into the other PMS group. A dodgy can of spray seems to have knackered his stunning conversion :(
Barring seeing it in person and changing my mind, I'd say leave it as is. It's centred to how the top falls. Just be choosy on the angles you photo/display it from
Sadly I can't do that. Normally I'd agree, but I've spent so long on this and had so many encouraging comments from people that it's annoying me to have something on it that *needs* hiding.
Feels odd for us to be talking about this here when we're talking about work on skype at the moment
Would it be feasible to tatter up the left side of the cloak a bit, make it appear as if the eagle was in the centre before an edge got torn off in a scrap?
Good progress mate! It's a lovely model. I wouldn't worry too much about the transfer - it's one of those things that bothers you and most people will miss altogether.
I love the gold and the shade of red and the sword is nicely done.
As one key suggestion for future you might consider, I would steer away from using pure black anywhere on the model except in complete shadow areas that are also dark, or perhaps on a reflection on the sword. So no black paint other than as a wash anywhere else. This makes a big difference in realism and feel of the model. It's something I think eavymetal doesn't understand.
On this model, I'm not so keen on the shade of his cap/hood. I think a few washes to make it darker, more leathery would be good. It looks like the shade on mild-chocklate for me. Maybe that's my bias, as I like 70%+ chocolates
I'm also not a fan of the SM helmet on the base. It looks wrong to stay there like that and not tilt over and detail like that takes away from the beautiful model itself.
But yes, very very nice model - these are just some suggestions from a critical guy.
And all very gratefully received, thank you! Critical is what I need at the moment as it's the best way to learn what not to do in the future.
Sadly you're both about an hour too late for the cloak... it's been redone and looks a bit smoother this time around; so it's not all bad. Next step is to add weathering powders to dirty it all up again.
I might see what I can do about the base as it lets the whole model down... but I'm not sure if I can get him off it at this stage of the game. The first lesson I learnt while doing this was that I really really need to not stick the model to the base before I've finished painting it.
Other than the original black undercoat, I don't think there's actually anything black left on him. Or did you mean the undercoat too? Trying a white undercoat is on my list of things to do as I've long been an, admittedly silent, admirer of your work for ages. Now I'm in an experimenting mood it's time to give it a go
On a different note, I tried making the blue on the Scourges darker and introducing it onto the weapons... oh dear. Another failure... The blue looks awful when placed right at the front of the figure. I think the weapons are going to be pure bone, possibly with grime and moss growing on it to tone it down a lot... not sure yet.
Lesson 1. Don't put the model on it's base before painting
Lesson 2. Plan the base properly, rather than shoving things on at the last minute
Lesson 3. Try and plan colours up front so you don't have to work it out as you go.
The transfer doesn't look too bad...besides, on scale terms you should be looking at it from arms reach (minimum) and it probably won't look as bad from there.
Massive update ahoy!
This weekend I've managed to complete a number of partially done items as well as a couple of servitors.
Item 1. Pimp My Sorcerer It's been a long journey, with a few false leads, but with only a couple of days left I'm going to have to leave him like this as I don't have the time to do any more. The cloak has now been repainted 3(?!) times as each incarnation has had something go wrong. Attempt 1 I put the Aquila in the wrong place. Attempt 2, the weathering went wrong... attempt 3 is what you see before you. I'm not 100% happy with the shading and detailing on the cloak, but it's still vastly improved over the first attempt.
Item 2. Gitsplitta's Great Marine Swap This has been in the works for an absolute age. There are things I'd do differently were I to do him again, but I'm happy with the effect. the basing has been left so Gits can make him fit into his existing squad.
Item 3. InMyGravenImage's Great Marine Swap Graven's marine has been in the works almost as long as Gits'; which is embarasing. Thankfully he's now done and I ave to say I never want to paint another white marine again! This is my first real attempt as OSL from the plasma gun. Comments/suggestions for future attempts would be gratefully received as some of it doesn't look right. I hoe that's the right size base Graven?
Item 4. Arakasi's Late Birthday/Early Christmas present Earlier in the thread you saw the WIP shots of Arakasi's Red Kite inspired Scourges. Well, here's the finished flock. Again, basing mostly left so Arakasi can make them fit into his own army when it gets done.
And finally. After crossing all those bits off my list, I decided to pick a couple of random models from my Guard and do some long overdue updates. I wasn't really in the mood for normal troops, so here are two servitors. They were an interesting experiment with skin tones as I needed to do raw flesh as well as necrotic flesh. I think the blue one came out really really well, especially for only 3 hours start to finish. Pulp at the Reading festival is obviously great painting music!
*phew!*
That's a pretty big update and a lot of work for two evenings!
Looking at the cream servitor there are a few things I need to touch up/fix... so maybe he's not finished after all :(
Heh. Not sure why they were being ransomed. They aren't any more
I think my next job is to finish off Sevrin Loth and Chaplain for my Red Scorpions as they have been partially painted for almost as long as Git's marine and are *nearly* finished. There's no hope of me getting the Genestealer hybrid finished for the Pimp My Sorcerer competition, so he's going on the back burner for a while
monkeytroll wrote:Good work, that's a nice update.
The ex-sorceror looks thoroughly pimped, maybe a little touch of dirt on the outside of the cloak?
Thanks. It was trying to add dirt on that made me have to repaint it a third time... as I don't relaly have any spare time between now and the deadline I'm afraid the outside is going to have to stay clean. Maybe it's made of the same material as The Man In The White Suit?
Time for another painting update I guess. If you've not been following Panic's Pimp My Sorcerer thread... Shame on you! Go read it now. While you're at it' go read the other Pimp My Sorcerer thread too as they posted final images yesterday and all of them are masterpieces. god only knows how they will pick a winner out of that lot.
Speaking of winners... It seems my Inquisitor won Panic's competition. This made me grin all day, so thank you to all those people that voted!
Anyway. After finishing all the bits in the last update, I decided it was ok to buy something new as a treat. I have no real use for him, but the ogre fire belly has been calling to me ever since I first saw the model. Not only is it a great figure, but there are some very challenging painting subjects on it. D you want to know the one major down side to this model?
It's finecast... This meant I had to return two of them before I got one that was fixable... And I'm finding bubbles or missing pieces of the model as I sit here painting it. There's also a slight oddity that parts of the model appear to be rather porus... Areas that looked ok before priming are now showing loads of tiny bubbles, or a rough surface that seems to suck up paint. Very not happy, given the price. Unfortunately I can't return it again as I've already filled in holes, stuck him together and started painting. Ah well.
For this guy I'm followin g advice from two painters who seem to know what they are talking about. Migsula suggested using a White undercoat; check. I'm also trying out CMDante's skin tutorial to see how it comes out. I'm typing this out on the iPad, so photos of the putty work and painting so far will have to wait until tomorrow. One thing I will say though... CMDante's suggestion to use Dheneb stone as the base skin tone looks much nicer than elf flesh!
Love your work , your painting is super duper , those scourges are looking amazing , and i have to say i think your entry in the pimp my sorceror comp was my number one with a great conversion full of character and a stunning paint job.
As I mentioned the other day, I bought an Ogre Firebelly to paint and had an absolute nightmare of a time getting one that was "fine".
The first two models had masses of holes under the legs as well as very obvious detail missing on their fronts, such as part of the pendant missing. After opening my third box the poor guy in the shop was getting frustrated and there were other customers queueing... so I caved in and took the third one. I really wish I'd just asked for a refund as the amount of work it took to get this far is disheartening. Below you can see the extent of the filling in that was necessary.
The split of parts for this model is interesting, but leads to some tricky situations piecing it together. The head, left hand and fireball are all one piece, which should lead to a really nice fit... except if you attached the hand, the head was miles away from the neck!? Fitting this piece involved careful pinning/gluing of the hand and then gentle application of heat to the flame until I could get the head around to roughly the right position. Then I had to rebuild the neck...
I'm sure I could have bent the flame around a bit more, but the head's position was looking a bit awkward by then, so this seemed like the better option. Besides which, the fit between head and neck wasn't all that neat, so it would have needed filling anyway. The left wrist needed some filling in as well because the join wasn't particularly smooth.
Then we move onto the right shoulder... which really looked strange with deep crevaces all the way around the shoulder that no amount of filing would have solved... so there goes some more filler. By the time I reached the bubbles under his legs I was starting to get a bit fed up with it all as there were lots of smaller bubbles around the groin area.
When I Started to paint the model I started to notice that Id missed lots of tiny bubbles in the wrapping around his legs as well as a massive bubble in his ear... so to say I'm fed up with him is an understatement.
I'll be taking a break from him while I try out skin tones on the Avatars of War slayers that just turned up. Hopefully I'll feel better about him when I return...
Onthe plus side, I can highly recommend Dheneb Stone as a base skin tone... it looks far more realistic than any of the actual flesh colours!
migsula wrote:I really like the servitors mate! Great job
thanks. I'm really pleased with those. They may have to go into the inquisitor's retinue at some point. I also need to pick up two more, one for a savant and the other for a Sister Dialogous as the robed body is perfect for both
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Yggdrasil wrote:Wow, it's impressive the amount of bad cast reports there are with the new Finecast products...
Makes me want to avoid buying them, even though resin is much easier to work with than metal...
[edited for removing triple post]
I know what you mean. I'm thinking of sticking to plastic and FW resin from now on. It's not as if I actually need any of the Guard finecast stuff anyway. It's just a shame because the Firebelly is a gorgeous model...
On the plus side, the Avatars of War Dwarf Berserkers arrived and I can happily report that the kit is stunningly nice with loads of variations possible. The plan for these is to use them to test lots of different skin tones for some tutorials. There's also plenty of skin there for tattoo designs as well. If there are any left over, I might make a couple of Squat survivors
So. I'm sooooo overdue with any updates on any of my blogs... and I've also somehow agreed to partake in the Waaaaaaagh Dakka too. Doh!
Anyway... I was reading CommissarHarris' Death Korps blog and came across one of this posts on speed painting his platoons using washes, which inspired me to give it a try this evening. Turns out it was worth giving it a go... this weekend I'll be undercoating my platoons and seeing how far I can get watching Machete
I've had three days holiday... which has led to a massive update over in my Guard thread... but I've also finally made a start on my entry to Waaaaagh Dakka.
Yygdrasil suggested we start a Cybork Kommandos squad that, for some odd reason, think they are Red Scorpions. They are also chemical weapon specialists, so I've gone for a burna that's more like a chem-thrower instead. After undercoating him, I realised I put the shoulder pad on the wrong arm... it was supposed to cover up the massive chunk missing in the right shoulder. Doh!
Hoooo boy. Next year is going to be fun!
The 40k6th Edition rumour thread has the calendar of events for the first half of next year... this includes a list of all the Masterclasses they have planned.
As you know, we've been on two of these already and they are great fun. Pricey, but fun. The events for next year are:
January 21st - Eavy Metal Masterclass
February 11th - Warhammer Forge Masterclass
March 10th - TBC
March 31st - Realm of Battle Masterclass
May 5th - TBC
June 2nd - Sculpting Masterclass
WD has the January Eavy Metal masterclass listed as Dark Eldar Wytches. I'm not sure this one is worth attending as it's unlikely to cover anything that wasn't done on the Warhammer one we did... other than different colours.
I'd expect the Warhammer Forge Masterclass to be a gribbly monster. It wouldn't surprise me if this coincides with the release of the second Masterclass book too as that's supposed to be monsters. Alternatively, it could be the "Paint a battle force box in a day" that the guys talked about on the Tank day. Either could be fun... I'll have to keep an eye on WD to see what they are planning on painting
The June Sculpting masterclass also sounds really really good. Definitely going on that one, even if Arakasi has left these shores by then.
I wonder what the two TBD ones will be... hopefully dull ones that I don't have to go to
No real painting updates on anything as I've either been snowed under with work, or been on holiday... but there are a few painting things that I wanted to discuss anyway.
This month's WD has a limited edition tin with two Kolinsky sable brushes, two pots of clear matt wash and a tiny painting pamphlet in a tin. It all looks really nice, but the price seems a little steep at £31 as these are Windsor & Newton Series 7 brushes, which are about £9 each on Amazon. I can't say I'm surprised at this coming out as we were given W&N brushes on the Eavy Metal painting course earlier in the year and one of them let slip that GW would be releasing them at some point, but not in what format. I can safely say that at £9 it may be expensive, but it's worth it as they hold/release paint much more effectively than cheaper brushes.
WD also has an advert for the Warhammer Forge masterclass that I was curious about... not so interested now as it's a Stonehorn. While it's a nice model, I'm not sure I'm going to get much benefit out of that class... Roll on the sculpting masterclass in June though!
I really need to finish off the WaaDak Ork as he's well overdue... at this rate Yggdrasil will be back home and able to do the squad before I get past the undercoat. I just can't pluck up any enthusiasm for him...
On a slightly better note, I picked up a large pile of Dust Tactics in the Swap Shop section today, which included a Premium set of the new Core edition, so I can have a look at how these have been painted as a base for approaching the rest of my now rather large collection. Expect a separate thread when I get to those...
I've just started a small side project as part of my Dad's christmas present...
It's been years since I last made an airfix kit... dear got it's awful quality... the parts don't seem to line up/fit properly and the separate wing tips are much thicker than the actual wings... I nearly gave up on this thing, but I'd started... so I'll finish it. It makes you appreciate how nice most of the GW plastic tanks are
That's the plan, yes. Then I need to get a nice display box made in the framing shop... hopefully with glass front and back with a couple of small perspex rods to mount the plane on.
The spitfire is now officially abandoned as a project... the kit is real pain to work. There are so many gaps that need filling and pieces (such as the wing tips) that are too fat compared to their neighbour parts that I'm losing large quantities of detail and you can still see where there's been work done. Fed up with it... so it's being put away before I throw it away. If you're tempted by a Spitfire kit... avoid the Airfix 1/48 scale Spitfire Mk.IXc/XVIe. I'd be interested to know if anyone has found a nice Spitfire kit as the interwebz seems to think they are all a bit wonky, needing 3rd party add-ons to fix something wrong.
Anyway. Next!
I'm not attempting to learn NMM on Coteaz. Something is wrong... but I can't work out what. Any suggestions to improve it will be gratefully received. I'm thinking too much black is still visible for a more silvery suit of armour that I want
I don't know, it looks pretty good to me (which probably just means I shouldn't be giving advice anyway ) It *may* just be the effect against the starkness of the white undercoat on the rest of the model, or the lack of details at this point. Hopefully more qualified minds will weigh in with something useful!
Hopefully!
I tried a wash of blue over the skyward facing parts and brown over the floor facing parts to see if some very basic reflections made any difference... it's an interesting effect, but doesn't really improve things much. For silver it might need more light grey and white, with black only in the darkest recesses, but I'm not sure.
No photos sadly as my camera battery died and I can't for the life of me remember where the charger is. Doh!
I think Arakasi is correct here, I love the way it looks, but atm it looks like you have an awsome black wash over the white. But i belive it will look right once you cover the rest of the white on the model
I am by no means the most qualified critic but I guess I have a little advice for your Coteaz model. You need to keep the lighting source consistent. It seems like the light hitting the left arm and the right arm are coming from different angles. Also, you need to go completely to white and black on each armor panel. The legs need to achieve a true white and a more consistent pattern of light striking it. The light should have a similar pattern to the left arm. You need a defined horizon on the chest panels. Basically, what you did on the left arm was perfect, you just need to recreate that effect all over. I know this is long and rambling but I guess my best advice would be to go on CoolMiniOrNot and study some other NMM Coteazs people have done, it should help you get a better idea of your light sourcing and how the reflection should look.
Hi!
I tried some senmm myself some time ago on a converted blood bowl orc. I think it turned out not too bad. In my experience it was very important to have really soft and even blendings. I think the main issue with your nmm and senmm is, that you have to hard blendings if you know, what I mean. They look nice, but you should use the middletones on a bigger area and use the strong colors (black/white, white/blue) only on the very edges.
Maybe you can see what I mean better by looking at my orc, even though I used green/blue for some parts and had a darker metal for the main armor, but you should get the point
I hope I was of some help and you don't mind my english
I don't mind your English at all. It's far better than my German
I've decided that using a rather pricey model to "learn" on is a st00pid idea, so I spent today finally piecing together some of the Avatars of War dwarf berserker so I can run a series of experiments with skin, tattoos and NMM. It's a really nice kit that I would highly recommend to any dwarf players. Now I just need to wait for a nice day to undercoat the blighters.
Oh dear. It's been a long long time since I last posted in this thread. *Rise up from the depths you beast!*
Much as Arakasi hates me painting stuff for his armies, I made him yet another model for his (as of yet) unbuilt Dark Eldar. One thing I should have done before giving it to him was actually check the photos I'd taken of it though... this isn't a particularly good one and doesn't do it justice.
Having said that, I almost didn't give it to him as I'm not sure the colours are particularly cohesive... I was experimenting with things over the 3 months it took to paint. Lucky for him, his present came with a second, unbuilt one as the first one I opened was missing one of the arms (hence the one above only having three) and netted a free replacement. I didn't think this was a massive problem though as I was planning on converting it anyway...
I forgot to bring in photos of the other things I've been painting recently, so I'll update again tonight.
Myself and Arakasi are starting to introduce DalecDec and his son to the joys of gaming. They own Dreadfleet, Lego's Heroica and the 40k starter and seem to be enjoying them all, so I started thinking back to the games that really got me interested when I first started, with the aim of tyring to get them interested in a game. the ones that stuck in my head were HeroQuest, Advanced Heroquest and then the master game... Warhammer Quest. I had a look around at the currently available options for today's generation and none of it looks quite what I wanted as there's little to no character development in any of them. I used to enjoy seeing the Quest characters evolve with some very light rp elements between adventures. I also found my old copies of Deathblow magazine yesterday too.
This got me thinking... I'm getting bored of Guard at the moment and really don't want to start a new army... but would like a project that offers plenty of scope for conversions and paint schemes, within set boundaries. I'm thinking I might start piecing together an updated version of Warhammer Quest that I can teach DalecDec (and Son) with. I can then create resin board sections as well, which could be fun. More random thoughts on this later as I sort my head out. I do need to find all the rules and cards though :/
Random is good bro. You might even consider making pieces you can cast and sell, given what FW are up to just now with notadvancedspacecrusadehonestguv...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh, and really like the contrast of tones on Deldar, too, btw.
inmygravenimage wrote:Random is good bro. You might even consider making pieces you can cast and sell, given what FW are up to just now with notadvancedspacecrusadehonestguv...
You can be certain the thought has crossed my mind over the course of this afternoon
Though having just been through and looked at what I'd need to buy, I'm not sure of this WQ plan after all...
In other, more random news, here's the start of my Aleph Sophotech. Geez these Infinity figures are fiddly... I can hardly see the fiddly pits to paint them!
So. Question for you... keep Infinity in here with any other random (non guard) bits and bobs that I paint, or a separate thread just for the Infinity stuff?
[update]Arakasi kindly pointed out that I'd forgotten to point out that I've split the Infinity stuff out into it's own blog[/update]
I've been doing some work on Warhammer related stuff recently (Over here...), but took the time to start painting the 25th anniversary Imperial Fist model over the weekend. He's looking a little bit grainy as the paints were thinned a little bit too much, next time I"ll try thinning down with proper thinner and gloss varnish. When they get released, I'm going to try that shiny new blue washes to try and level it out a bit. Still... he's certainly one of my better marines to date.
Speaking of which, I started piecing together the bits of another GMS Marine for Knightly. He wants a standard bolter marine with an auspex. It's just a pile of pieces at the moment, so no photos of him yet...
Washes over a black/white zenithal undercoat are certainly the best way of approaching marines as it looks more natural than the edge highlighting you see on the boxes.
Hey endtrans! Just found your thread. If I may comment as an owner of one of your minis.... you need to learn how to paint about as much as I need to learn how to eat pizza.
I think the thing I need to learn is how to paint *consistently*. Sometimes models come out really well, other times... not so much. You lot don't get to see the failures
I also want to get the hang of things like nmm, mnmm and osl. None of them seem to be working quite right so far.
Next time I will post them for your delight. I also think you're right... the Infinity stuff should be back in here, rather than off in it's own thread. Next time I do an update related to one of those... back it comes. It's like a yo-yo thread
I still need to get my lightbox setup working properly so I can get regular update photos without having to rely upon daylight... I bought some high power led desk lamps that one site suggested should be powerful enough. They may be quite strong, but when you try to diffuse their light with the sides of my lightbox... it diffuses too much and everything goes pear shaped. I think the next experiment is these LED lights without the lightbox, to see if I can get them working... otherwise I need to go back to the drawing board and buy yet another set of lamps :/
The ones Yakface recommends in his article... can I find them in a hardware shop near me? Can I heck.
I understand the principles of photography, but for some reason I can never get a miniature photo that I'm happy with and can't for the life of me work out what I've done wrong. I even had a friend (who teaches photography) come around to double check I was doing everything right and she couldn't get it right either. We're blaming the lights...
So. What do you lot use to take photos of your models?
I've since moved on to a larger light tent so I can photograph larger groups of figures... but Solar_lion has my old set up now, so you can ask him how he likes it. I thought it was a great little set-up.
I replaced my bulbs fairly quickly too. Found a couple of LEDs then supplemented them with a regular light shining down through the top of the box (a desk light on an arm). That seemed to work pretty well.
Trick is getting the white-balance right. It's best if you can get your camera to spot-meter automatically before each shot.
I obviously just need to spend a lot longer playing around with it to find the optimal setup for my house. I think one of my problems is that the room lighting is casting a slightly different colour over things, so they look weird, even with proper white balancing before hand (and again during the photo editing stage).
My main problem is not having anywhere in the house big enough to leave the tent up all the time, so I'm limited to times when I'm not using half the kitchen worktop for cooking or casting new bases/tiles etc.
Yep, that's a big deal. Especially if your light is marginal to begin with. I'm lucky in that I've got a room just for my gaming stuff or whatever... so my light tent is permanently set up in the man cave.
Tonight's update is a brief look at Knightley's Red Scorpion for the Great Marine Swap
He's a basic tactical marine who will, eventually, have an auspex in his other hand. I won't be sticking the other arm on until after he's been painted
So, the latest WD arrived this morning and I stopped to read the full page advert for the Golden Demon Masterclass (OSL, NMM & freehand*) just as my significant other walked past.
"Oh, that looks good. Are you going to go?" She asks
"It's expensive and I'm going up 4 weeks prior to it for the sculpting masterclass"
"So?"
"..."
Well. It looks like I've got a pass** to go (*YAY!*), but as Arakasi viciously abandons us... gets deported returns home to Oz a few weeks before hand I'll be all on my lonesome. Does anyone fancy joining me?
* These are three things that I've been trying to master on my own without much success, so it'll be interesting to see how things could fare with some hands on tuition. I'm highly unlikely to sit down and dedicate a full day to learning these things on my own.
Given that OSL is part of their remit I can't see how they can wrangle Great Swords in as the base model this time around. Both the Sculpting one this coming June and last year's Eavy Metal masterclasses included full boxes of Goldswords with the ticket price. It doesn't say what models they will be using for this one though. The advert includes a Grey Knight, a Dark Eldar and one of those fancy-schmancy Blood Angels with wings
** This probably means I shouldn't spend tooooooo much at Salute though
The WD article is already tempting me to give them a go. I like the idea of red, white and yellow that cover smoothly. Some of the new shades are really nice too (at least in print).
I'm intrigued as to what the drybrush colours would be like watered down a bit. I think I need to go have a play with them in our local store.
I had a look at the cost of buying the full set and had a minor heart attack
On a different note, I also spotted the character painting competition the GW stores are running on the 24th of April. I think Mr Inquisitor is going to be making an appearance
It feels a bit like cheating, but I'm going to post the same photo in two of my threads as there are different things I want to discuss about them.
I mentioned that I've been trying to get the hang of NMM before. Last night I had another go on the Chaos Warrior I'm painting for my WQ rebuild thread.
It looks better than the nmm attempt earlier in this thread and some of it is looking a little rough in the photo. I didn't notice that last night, which is annoying!
It's getting there, but still not quite "it". I know I've not gone up to white for the absolute highlights, which might be part of what's wrong, but I can't decide.
Ideally I want the weapons to look like they are worn and used, but not abused. While he may worship Khorne, I think he retains a sense of honour and cares for his equipment, so it's going to be worn, but not filthy, rusty or covered in grime
I found an interesting article on NMM today that I might have to give a go. I thought it'd be worth linking it here as someone else might find it useful too:
Thanks guys. I've not done anything to my guard for a while... I really should do something for those as I'm supposed to be playing Arakasi in June and we were both supposed to have our forces fully painted (like that's going to happen!)
1) Base coat Mechrite Red
2) Paint the shaded areas with a 50/50 mix of Mechrite red and scorched brown
3) Paint deeper shadows with a 25/75 mix Mechrite red and scorched brown
4) Paint the deepest shadows with 50/50 mix of scorched brown and black
5) Paint some of the highlighted areas with a 75/25 mix of Mechrite red and vomit brown
6) paint tiny lines of a 50/50 mix of Mechrite red and vomit brown on as the highlights.
I'm currently trying to decide if I want a white edge highlight to make it look like gloss armour, or if it's fine the way it is.
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inmygravenimage wrote:Loving the work on them pendants. Maybe it's the pic but the axe is coming across as less successful?
That's supposed to be the shaded side of the axe, but you're right... in that photo it's not so great. I guess some more work is needed along the bottom edge of the blade.
Here we go. This is a much better picture of what's going on. Last night I added a bit more light grey to the outside of the axe blades, which seems to have improved them no end. I'm much happier with them now
Good luck finding Mechrite red... apparently the new base red isn't the same at all. I need to pick up a pot to see if the technique still works as well.
wow! this looks really amazing!
Way better than your first attempt! really like it! Just one little thing occurs to be a bit off for me... The fact that the axe is damaged, but the painting doesn't really show it. Imo it would look more realistic, if you added a few scratches near the sharp edge of the axes, but still, really liking it! keep going
oh and by the way, how is it with the new colors, are they an improvement in covering or basically anything? And how is them compared to the old ones, is the difference huge or is it okay? I'm especially wondering about the orange... if anyone knew something I'd greatly appreciate it!
Good point about the scratches, I'd missed that, thanks!
I've not tried the new paints yet... I'm trying to resist blowing lots of money I don't have by buying the full set to play with. Wayland Games is taunting me with it's discount bundle... Damn you Wayland!
Then again, if I take the cost of the GD masterclass, hotel, petrol, food and the inevitable FW orders on the day, it's cheaper to buy the paint bundle, plus a few decent brushes and just practice more. Hmmm....
well that obviously is quite the offer! Still, I doubt it is worth it. Assuming you already have a decent collection of paints, you will already have "almost-equivalents" to most of the new ones... I would rather pick some colors and maybe add more later... though maybe I spent more money on paints that way than I would with just buying the set.... your choice afterall haha
For learning, there are a few very awesome blogs out there, where you can learn a lot, basically for free, but learning from a teacher still is better. Again, your choice haha
I've enjoyed the masterclasses I've attended so far (FW Tank weathering and Eavy Metal) and I've got the sculpting one in June to look forward to for that hands-on tuition.
The main thing I wanted from the GD masterclass was NMM and I seem to be slowly getting the hang of that one on my own anyway...
Just as you posted that, I found the spreadsheet that I did of all my colours... time to see what holes I have in the collection.
On a paint related note, I'm looking at updating my spreadsheet a bit to suggest alternatives for when I run out of a colour, but I need a bit of help with one of the cells. Do we have any Excel:Mac 2008 gurus reading? If I have the hex/rgb value of the paint in a field, I'd like to change the cell colour to that value so I can quickly compare colours. I can find VBA to do it, but that's no use to me on a mac :/
Model looks good- the blending on the red armor into the dark is particularly striking. I assume the head isn't finished? And for the axes, the NMM I say fits, especially if you're going for a weapon made of iron. It doesn't shine out like a steel or (insert mythical weapon material here), but it looks good, especially since I have ZERO NMM success despite multiple previous tries.
No, the head isn't finished by a long way. Originally I wanted it to be a bone mask, but I'd forgotten the horns and fur at the time... so i'm probably going to repaint it to be something else, more sinister to allow for nice horns
I got to have a brief play with a very limited (6 colours/washes/bases) in the new GW range. they claimed that the white, red and yellow Bases would coat over black... I can't attest for the yellow, but the red certainly goes on more consistently than Mechrite red; unfortunately I don't like it. It's too bright for my pallette and I never really had any problems with Mechrite's coverage, especially after switching to white undercoats. I'm not sure if it was just the pot I had access to, but the white still needed a few coats straight from the pot to give a nice clean coat.
I'll probably pick up some of the new range as and when I run out of colours; though Vallejo is still winning in terms of paint quality for me; not least because I like dropper bottles.
On a different note, the Chaos Warrior is coming along nicely
Automatically Appended Next Post: K. Tonight I thought it was about time to do some painting on Knightley's GMS Red Scorpion. I really need to get this lightbox situation sorted :/
Over on MajorTom's thread of Golden Awesome a couple of us jokingly threw around some ideas for an Inquisitor and her retinue. I think I now hate WhaleMusic as the idea has now firmly loaded itself into my brain and won't let the **** go.
Here is a brain dump either a) stops it bugging me, or b) makes it actually happens. One of the two will happen... who knows which
So. Inquisitor Dorothia Gale - Female inquisitor; blue/white armour; possibly a bustle/skirt a bit like PDH's Inquisitrix, but not the spiky armour.
Her cybermastiff - The mastiff from the FW enforcer model.
Stannum, a Contemptor dreadnought from a custom chapter, The Bleeding Hearts, carrying a large axe. Mmmmm Contemptor. I've coveted this model since it came out, but never really had a valid enough reason to buy one... until now!
I'm not sure bout this one. Whale suggested Lufgt's model, but it just didn't fit the theme (Have you guessed it yet?). I'm trying to think of something in the Imperium that could be considered cowardly. I was originally thinking of a Deathwatch Blackshield (chapterless marine that has joined DW in shame for something), but it's not immediately obvious what he stands for. The other option could be a penitent engine, but that doesn't really fit with the diorama theme I was thinking of (more on that later)...though it could certainly fit the theme nicely.
There were various ideas thrown around for this last one; suggestions were either a daemonhost or ragged guard... but I think a servitor would go with the "wants a brain" theme.
Diorama: What could be better than Inquisitor Gale landing in her droppod (South Wind), with some little silver* legs sticking out from underneath it. I was thinking of having them all climbing out of the drop pod, but there's not going to be space for the Contemptor (plus it doesn't fit with the theme), so the companions should probably go elsewhere on the diorama.
Guessed yet? Yup. The theme is the Wizard of Oz
I'm trying to decide if I make a small diorama, or if I try and work the theme into an Armies on Parade board. Either way I think it'd be fun to work on this slowly and patiently over the next year for GD 2013. I don't hope to win anything, but it'd be funny to see if it gets a mention anywhere on the web.
If I went for the Armies on Parade board, I'd need to turn this retinue into an HQ and 2 troop choices... There is scope for more Oz themed members of Inquisitor Gale's retinue from the books, but I'd have to go with the "counts as" Coteaz route, which makes the Scarecrow/Penitent Engine tricky. Any ideas?
* Why silver? The original books had the wicked witch wear silver shoes, not the ruby red ones from the films.
You could always bring back "squats" as a troop choice, those munchkins gotta be on there somewhere.
If you make a Space Marine cowardly lion you could go with either a True-Scale Space Marine or a Terminator, that way you could use this very fitting shoulder pad from the Forge World Astral Claws kit.
No, they are Elites. And I'm not including ratlings as munchkins :p
Automatically Appended Next Post:
monkeytroll wrote:Hmm, some kind of arco-flagellant in place of the penitent engine maybe?
Arco-flagellant would work too; I'd forgotten them! That means the plan for a GK list is still on the cards if I can spread the characters across two three man henchmen squads to support Inquisitor Dot
Arakasi may well see his munchkins after all.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
d-usa wrote:Well, the lion is actually brave in the story though. He just feels cowardly and doesn't realize how brave he really is.
But I see what you are saying.
Maybe you can include Ciaphas Cain into the mix as the Lion
That is true about the lion, I'd forgotten that they all did actually already have what they wanted, they just didn't realise it. I still don't think a Space Marine fits the bill though... Maybe I need a guardsman hiding behind some scenery with a fur cape or something? Oh! The Empire General kit has a head with a lion helm! Perfect.
He reason I suggested Huron was he has the claw weapon and a nice lion on his shoulder pad. Wasn't thinking in astral claw colors, and likely dropping the banner though.
Remember for aop, the force doesnt have to be foc legal, just have the hq and 2 troops, which could be an inquisitorial warband.
This morning I was trying to work out what to base Inquisitor Gale off. Ideally I'd like her to be shorter than everyone else, but not ratling short, to make her look more youthful as if she's a prodigal inquisitor that has shot up the ranks.
Also, which branch of the inquisition? Do you see Gale as Hereticus as she's fighting witches, or Xenos because she also fights off monsters?
I was wondering if I should also include that GK character who gets the ghostly terminators as body guards. He could be the Wizard of Oz and the Ghost Knights could be painted up as living emerald statues (now there's a painting challenge and a half!).
The board is also shaping up in my head, I just need to work out dimensions and stat sketching it. But... obviously we need the yellow brick road running from corner to corner, but there are two options:
1) Fighting in the ruins of the Emerald City
2) Defending a bridge over a river, with one side all bright, clean and flowery... the other side full of mud, shell holes and twisted trees
The Witches will obviously be chaos worshippers; probably making one of them Slaanesh and the other Tzeentch (though which one gets killed by the drop pod?)... so the terrain could be starting to mutate and deform into weird parodies of things; which could be interesting as well.
What does the FW Enforcer mastiff look like? I've not seen it (and am kinda interested anyway as i need some dogs as bodyguards for my Guard commander), sorry to distract from the brain dump, but this does sound pretty good! I;m interested.
I'm assuming you want to stick to GW figs, so I'd say the Mordheim and Escher ranges are probably good places to start, although I can't think of a specific example off the top of my head.
Hereticus seems more logical, but if she was xenos then vespids could stand in as flying monkeys
I did think that the monkeys could be Raptors or Scourges, depending on if I went Hereticus or Xenos. For female parts, there's also bits from the Dark Eldar ranges. I'm just trying to think of a female GW model that is shorter, more child like.
I think I'm going to be out of luck and just assume this is Gale later in life.
Tin man and Toto are now ordered for collection at Salute
I hate my brain so much. It's now decided that if this one is good, there's also Inquisitor Liddell, Inquisitor Lord Clayton and Rogue Trader Dakkar and their respective retinues. Any guesses who they might be?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Imperial Monkey wrote:What does the FW Enforcer mastiff look like? I've not seen it (and am kinda interested anyway as i need some dogs as bodyguards for my Guard commander), sorry to distract from the brain dump, but this does sound pretty good! I;m interested.
The Enforcer and his pooch can be found here. Beware, he's their event only 40k model this year
Clayton gets a jokaero and a disciple, Liddel gets a whole menagerie, mainly muties I'd guess, what does Dakkar get apart from a cool sub? Far too long since I read it, can't recall his crew.
I was thinking of the youths in Mordheim and Necromunda, slighter build than average.
Elite Tin Man - Venerable Dreadnought w. twin-linked Auto cannon & DCCW
Troop Henchmen group 1
- Fyter, the Tin Soldier - Acolyte w. power armour, bolter, power sword (Iron Hands Marine with all 4 limbs bionic)
- Cowardly Lion - Warrior Acolyte with carapace, cowering behind cover with hotshot lasgun
- Scarecrow - Servitor with Heavy Bolter
Henchmen group 2
- Tik-Tok - Acolyte w. Power armour, storm shield, power sword
- Toto - DeathCult Assassin
- Jack Pumpkinhead - Daemonhost
Droppod
That's not going to be much on a 2x2 board... I think I might need to add in Mordrak and his Ghost Knights as the Wizard and some guards, just to fill in some space!
Maybe, instead of a drop pod, a landed storm raven? Might be easier to model the dead witch. Just thinking ideas.
Remember you can take liberties with the force, there was one GW showed on the site that was a UM force with storm ravens. Should be an interesting force for sure.
Just as well I ordered the FW show models last week... it seems they don't have enough for Salute due to high demand and production issues! I would guess they are delaying any pre-orders for the models so they have some to actually sell on the day, but get to the stand quick!
I just got home from Salute in London with a pile of loot... possibly more than I should have bought, but I came home with spare cash... so it can't have been that much really, can it?
Going to Salute was great as I got to actually look at lots of the model manufacturers that you see on the forums. I don't know about you, but a lot of the ranges don't look that great in the photos you see on the sites. But when you see them in person, the detail is much better and you can see how they scale up compared to other ranges... which makes me happier to buy online now, especially from Heresy as I've always been put off by their site. BaneLegions are another one that falls into this category... the photos on their site are good, but really don't do the models any justice at all... the detail on them is beyond belief at times.
I had a great time, though next time I definitely need to drag DalecDec and his son along too as I spent most of the day wandering aimlessly around watching bits of games rather than trying to play some. I did, however play a game of 7TV when I first arrived. This was one of my main reasons for going as BrookM has been talking about this for a while and it peaked my interest. 7TV is a system that allows you to recreate TV shows form your childhood on the tabletop. The demo game I played was called The Beat and involved DCI Skelton and his bobbies trying to stop a gang of thugs from escaping the dockyard in a typically Sweeney-esque way. I got to play the thugs as I happened to be standing on that side of the table. Despite almost all of my team being captured, I managed to complete my objective of getting someone out of the docks, so I won... against a 6 year old and his dad. I tried to lose... I really did.
Anyway. I enjoyed it so much I've now got the books and plan to try and introduce DalecDec and son to the joys of it as the model count is tiny.Speaking of the books... they were very reasonably priced and amazingly good quality prints. The writing is also hilarious. It's well worth picking up if you want a fun little game to play along side more tactically deep systems like Infinity. Can't wait to have a go.
The other system I liked the look of was Freebooter's Fate a fantasy pirate skirmish system that uses cards instead of dice in an interesting twist. It looked like fun, but quite slow to play, even though there were only 5 models per side in the demo. I watched for about 20 minutes and they only finished one turn. Granted, neither person had played before... but it was taking a while... so I decided not to dive in. One new system for the day was plenty thankyouverymuch.
Zinge and Anvil Industries were sharing a stand, so it would be rude not to go stock up on ammo feeds, power cables, pistols and bionics for the AoP project. Forgeworld had my pre-order all ready with the Contemptor too, so the Tin Man and Toto are now mostly sorted. BaneLegions also contributed towards the Warhammer Quest project by offering 20% off their Minotaur models, so I figured it would be rude not to buy them while I was there
The last bit of shopping was from a company called Model Mates who make weathering liquids and sprays, rather than powders. I had a bit of a play on their stand and ended up buying a few of their small pots to play with. They are a pre-mixes solvent and dye that you can paint directly onto a model in order to weather it; brushing off a bit before the solvent evaporates. Once it's dry, you can pick it up without any of the dye coming off, unlike weathering powders, as there isn't enough water on your fingers to start to affect the colouring. However... if you wet a brush/tissue/whatever you can begin to manipulate the dye at any time afterwards; even months later if you want to. Thin coats of spray varnish will put a permanent fix on the dyes once you're done. They also had a rust effect that looked awesome on the tanks they had as demo models... I can't wait to give these a try. I'll make sure to post photos here when I do. The aerosols will definitely be purchased when I get around to the big boards and would be a great way to quickly weather a lot of tanks.
Oh. I forgot to mention a very cool looking 10mm system that was being previewed too. It's called Dropzone Commander. All of the miniatures are resin and I don't think there was one model that didn't put the other 10mm sci-fi stuff available today to shame. Sadly there don't seem to be many pictures online, only the ones looping on their holding page... and they don't do them any justice what so ever.
They did have one ship that looks exactly like a Reaper from Mass Effect. Want! Their buildings were stunning too... one to look out for in July I think.
I also forgot to mention Dwarven Forge who make and sell pre-painted dungeon tiles and walls. They look quite nice, but dear god they were pricy. I'm glad I bought those molds to cast my own!
Rust looks interesting. The stained area around the two patches - was that just teasing it out as it dried or a natural artifact of the process?
Warrior looks mighty fine
Automatically Appended Next Post: Rust looks interesting. The stained area around the two patches - was that just teasing it out as it dried or a natural artifact of the process?
The rust paint is from http://www.ModelMates.co.uk, you just paint it on and *tada!* insta-rust tht looks much better than trying to paint it with GW colours or rust powders.
monkeytroll wrote:was that just teasing it out as it dried or a natural artifact of the process?
Ah, nice spot. I'd initially painted a large area with the rust to see how it came out. I then attacked that area with a damp tissue, which allows you to remove some of the dye, giving you a faded look. After that I went back and did a couple of large blobs and created the running effect with a wet brush.
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Gitsplitta wrote:Put em up and lets see them together!
I'll take a picture of them side by side tonight after I put the finishing touches to him. Using the Chaos Warrior does mean I need to rebase him on a square base though... I'm using round ones for Warhammer Quest
In the end I entered my Inquisitor from the Pimp My Sorcerer competition for the GW Hero competition.
Unfortunately the voting is taking place on Facebook, with very very crappy photos. Go help vote up my poor inquisitor who's photo is so dark you can't actually see him properly :(
Automatically Appended Next Post: hey endtransmission... you could always return the favor (wins me a realm of battle board)
http://www.facebook.com/GWMorningsidePlaza (for shane please )
The photos weren't my fault. The shop manager decided that as not many people had come to the shop, he would take photos on his phone and let people vote on farcebook.
Thanks for the votes guys!
@Rogue Wolves - I assume you wanted a like on the Empire troops? Why are all of the models in that album half painted?
^every 2 weeks we have a competition, first its building, then its painting, so even though you cant see my conversions thats what it was for...
Yes that is the correct photos, but my GW has posted a poll instead, so you would have to check shane on there, thanks for the vote!
Here's a question for you all... have any of you ever come across anyone that has painted an entire figure so that it looks like a gem? Or more likely, seen anyone that has painted a gen stone that isn't a simple shape like the eldar gems?
The reason I ask is that my idiot brain wants me to paint up some Grey knight terminators as if they were big emerald statues for the Oz diorama... I hate my brain sometimes* :/
I'd forgotten about that sphynx, though he's possibly more Jade stone than emerald. I was thinking something along the lines of the gemstone in it's tail. The figurine is a great reference point though, thanks!
I guess GW wouldn't be all that happy if I were to recast a box of Grey knights in green transparent resin and then submit them to one of their own painting competitions would they?
Ooooh I've not seen his stuff before... that's pretty!
Thanks, that's food for thought. Last night I'd almost decided to just go with the standard Grey Knight armour, but lots of flowing green robes... now I will have to have another think and practice
I've just been through his gallery. I've seen some of his stuff before, mostly the large Tau flyers and Necron monolith. I'll have a look at his thread later; thanks!
I'll keep the VGC colour in mind, thanks. For now I need to go back to the 3 projects that I can't show you yet *annoying!*
One is for next weekend and two are for the weekend after :/
Then I need to finish Knightley's GMS Scorpion before I can even think about coming back to this diroama or my neglected Guard or WQ blogs. Where's that spare time when you need it?
The Forgeworld photos really don't do the model justice, it's really really nice to paint as there's so much definition in the muscles (in a good way, not a GW Minotaur way)
I'm not overly convinced the osl on the eye and the brain implant are working very well though. Any ideas how to fix it?
Looking at the eye a bit more, I'm thinking there's probably too much light above the eye and that it should probably be more shaded in that area.. not sure though.
Oh and there are three brands on the dog. There's the inquisitorial sign on his left shoulder, the number on his right flank and an eagle on his left flank... though you can't really see the eagle all that easily
With the eye (can't really make out the brian implant...) the OSL seems to consistent from close to far away from the eye - almost like a glow patch. It should be lighter/more translucent at the edges. Try feathering some skin color back into it?
Wait - is that just the metal skull I'm seeing? If so, scratch that - I have nothing to add
bizzarely it does get lighter and feathered towards the edges, but it's not showing properly in those photos... I guess that means there needs to be more feathering done to soften it as it goes.
The metal skull is only on top of the head, so the blue/green area around and in front of the left eye is supposed to be OSL as is the stripe above the non-existent right eye
Well, I was so blown away by how awesome he looked that I hadn't noticed the osl issue till you mentioned it.
To me, it looks like the glow goes a little too high up on his head. Maybe if you did some fairly heavy feathering up top? (feel free to ignore me, I haven't successfully done osl myself yet...)
The glow above the left eye was, I think, what's been bugging me about it too. I'll darken that down tonight and see how it's going. I think it also comes too far down his nose as it is going to be in daylight
Pup looks great endtransmission. You've done a great job of bringing out the muscle definition and as other have mentioned, the brands really add to the overall look. The OSL is a bit off, I would suggest doing his exposed skull area in a metallic, and then doing your feathered glow to about 3/4 to the edges of the metallic skull. This way, there will be good contrast and separation from the eyes, glow, skull and surrounding fur. Right now the skull and eyes look to be the same colour from the photos. You can also pick a more contrasting colour such as red so that it stands out more.
I'm attempting to do all the metals on this diorama as nmm, so the skull is already supposed to be metal. As for the glow, I'd avoided trying to use red as I didn't want to give him an evil look. If anything, it should be an emerald green to tie into the theme, rather than the turquoise... but I was lazy and didn't want to go upstairs to get the right colour.
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DijnsK wrote:@endtransmission
hows the learning curve been soo far?? if you wanna have some good tips that new how to paint citadel miniatures book is really good!
I've had a look through the book and didn't really find anything I don't already know from the older WD painting articles and the Masterclass last year. I'm also not a massive fan of this new style of painting tutorial that they are doing in WD as sometimes there's just too much of a jump between stages that it doesn't make sense. In this case the pictures aren't worth a thousand words. The Masterclass book was useful... this one. Not so much for me.
The main tips I will give to anyone is to learn glazing... and patience. Everything is much easier with thinner coats of paint
*phew*
I never thought I'd finish my entry for the Infinity competition, but it's finally entered. There are bits I would have liked to do better (like the photo!) but I've run out of time. It will be interesting to see how the voting goes next week.
I missed the update on the cyber dog... awesome, mate! This is right up my alley, I really hope Hope turns out that good, once I finally finished the conversion.
Baiyuan wrote:I missed the update on the cyber dog... awesome, mate! This is right up my alley, I really hope Hope turns out that good, once I finally finished the conversion.
I'm sure Hope will be even better!
I've redone the osl and it looks better. I'll post some photos when I get a chance... which won't be this week as I'm cataloging an infinity collection that I acquired with some friends... massive is an understatement.
Just had a look at the current scores on the painting competition. ouch! I really really really* need to look at getting the lightbox set up somewhere permanently as I'm failing badly thanks to a naff image. Again :/
* Yes, I lknow I keep saying this... it won't stop me moaning
If my *guess* at your entry is correct, then I don't think it's *just* your naff image (I agree with MrMerlin's assessment). Though, I wouldn't be surprised if it looks a lot better in person... - and if not, I know you can do better
If my guess at your faction is correct, it took me a bit to determine which I thought it was, as I had to work backwards from which it wasn't
Of course, this will all be null and void if my guess is wrong...
Don't worry - I'm not winning any prizes except perhaps pride vs heartserenade We all have something to strive for in the next one!
So which one do you think it is? MrMerlin's comment for mine is really glowing
Not that I'm complaining too much as there are significantly better ones in there... I'm just frustrated that the photo isn't the best and that I ran out of time.
step 1: Does my model have a nice butt? If "no", choose another model.
step 2: Does my paint job accentuate/emphasize the nice butt? If "no", strip and re-paint.
Well I voted for the one I think is yours, amongst others, butt notwithstanding. One thing I feel with this contest is that, whilst some of the painting is impressive, it's overly mecha and not to my taste.
Knew someone would pick on that straight away Overly mecha, by which I mean excessively stylised - to my taste, I stress. But, hey, there's a reason I don't play infinity :shrug:
Must be a recognizable character (or at least bear a vague resemblence ) to one of the "characters" from a Godzilla/Mothra movie... or you could extend it to all of Kaiju I suppose.
You could do monsters... special human or humanoid characters... whatever. Leave it pretty broad so a wide variety of people can participate! I've got one human character I'd love to do... Not to mention the monsters...
I'm gonna have to work throught this whole thread from the start methinks, the Mastiff looks amazing I keep looking at mine and thinking where do i start! (I look at the skin wolf with the same dread!)
Looking forward to seeing what comes next!
Tomorrow we are off to a steampunk weekend in Wales to see some friends, drink beer and listen to some rather spiffing chap-hop.
After that little diversion to set the mood... my wife wanted a steampunk-y contraption to go with her outfit, but I couldn't think of anything particularly great until we saw a sonic screwdriver in Toys-R-Us. Some greenstuff, watch bits and a raid of my bitz box it came out looking something like this:
Sadly I've run out of time, so the supposedly leather handle doesn't look all that leathery... hopefully she'll be holding it, so no-one will notice. hopefully!
This was given a spray with a very bright brass coloured gloss paint and then treated to a couple of coats of that ModelMates weathering liquid. Between each layer I attacked it with a damp tissue to clean up some areas; finally I washed parts of it with a very watered down hawk turquoise for that tarnished effect. I've spent 2 weeks modifiying the screwdriver and about an hour painting... the ModelMates stuff certainly added to the effect as GW washes weren't sticking to the base coat at all.
When I get home I need to finish a GMS swap that's overdue...
@ gits: we also get team GB Lego. Cos the uk is occasionally awesome.
@endtrans: See if Shipton Bellinger's hawking his wares. Solid oak USB sticks with brass detailing - amazing stuff. And remember: steam punks are stupid, throw coal at them.
Now the voting is all done on the Infinity competition (Well done to everyone!) here's my model. I'd like lots and lots of criticism on this please as I know I can do better...
I'm going to get the ball rolling on things I can see wrong with it.
1) The brown cloak looks boring. I thought about adding some camo patterning on it, but it was getting too close to the deadline to risk it.
2) The green armour is too close to the green skin and could do with more of a contrast in colour.
3) The photos aren't great, but it was 3am at the time and I needed sleep
4) There are a few messy bits where highlights on the leg plates leak into the shadows of the plate below it. Also, there's a bit of white under one of the eyes that shouldn't be there...
Having said that, I'm really pleased with the nmm on the rifle; though that doesn't show brilliantly in the photo...
As far as criticisms go you've hit almost everything I can see. The only thing I would add (which might be the picture) is that if the red on his leg is osl from his gauntlet-thing, it appears to be a little too orange.
Otherwise, it's a fantastic looking model! That nmm is fantastic!
Your model (as well as a couple of the other ones in the competition) have convinced me to play Infinity (or at least buy $200 worth of models).
The rocks could for certain look like some more highlighting/shading.
The green flock looks a bit naff, what about some more interesting vegetation like some tall straw grass or branches or something.
I like the skin but definitely do something with the details on the cloak could look a lot better but saying that I do like the mottled leather look. The skin looks fine I would try no to touch it but like you say more of a contrast with the armour, maybe change the armour colour entirely to something far more catching and possibly brighter.
ceorron wrote:The green flock looks a bit naff, what about some more interesting vegetation like some tall straw grass or branches or something.
Thanks! I was going to add some of that brass ivy to make the pillar more interesting, but forgot to order some in time... doh! The flock was a last minute addition to try and add a splash of green, but it failed... sadly there wasn't time to change it...
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spyguyyoda wrote:As far as criticisms go you've hit almost everything I can see. The only thing I would add (which might be the picture) is that if the red on his leg is osl from his gauntlet-thing, it appears to be a little too orange.
The osl on his leg looks fine in real life, I think it's one of those camera oddities with red not showing up properly unless everything is absolutely perfect with the lighting.
spyguyyoda wrote:Your model (as well as a couple of the other ones in the competition) have convinced me to play Infinity (or at least buy $200 worth of models).
That's a high compliment, thanks! Give the game itself a try, you'll be pleased. If some friends hadn't just started 40k, I'd be switching to it as my system of choice; I just find it a much more intuitive system to use.
I think that your entry is good well painted fig and as you asked for some feedback I'll try to give some constructive criticism of how you could improve. These are of course my opinions on the painting/ presenting entries and as such matters of taste
As you already said there is general lack of contrast in the fig, most of the fig is green and the difference of armor and skin/ cloth is lost in the pics. I think that the figure would have looked better with another color used as skin. The face is a bit lost under the cloak and as eye looks for it as one focal point of the fig the end result is a bit restless with the fig without natural focal point in the main picture. The red eyes help making the face focal but otherwise it is left a bit too much in the shadows.
The base is a bit too massive compared to the fig. It creates another problem with balance in the entry as there is not enough detail on the rocks. The rocks are painted in so strong color that they take attention from the fig, the entry would have benefited from more modest base or one painted in more subdued colors.
The selection of colors, like you said yourself is a bit problematic. This a problem with the fluff of the figure and the nature of this contest. On the other hand you have infiltrating insect(?) warrior, which should be painted in natural subdued colors and on the otherhand you are trying to paint a striking entry to catch jury's eye in competition. It can be done, but it is more demanding than getting a naturally flashy fig to work. In addition your entry would have really needed more detail on the cloak. Some texture or more variation on the tone would have made it a lot better.
The last part is the picture itself. I think your entry would have looked a lot better with another back ground color than white. The green areas look a bit washed out and for example blue back ground would have made the fig look better. Also as the entries are presented with smaller pics in the first phase you could have been better of with just two or three pictures of the entry, I would have picked the top two and perhaps some details from the pictures in the bottom row.
Overall I like your entry and would give him 8 on a scale to 10, with some improvement in the areas I mentioned above you could easily achieve a grade better. You have the technical part of painting under control and I think that the improvement from now on comes from the composition of the fig and combining the techniques to create atmospheric and striking figs.
To address a couple of the points though. The base I had him on is actually smaller than the base decoration that he comes with; I did fail to decorate it enough to make it look like an overgrown piece of rubble though, so the base isn't great.
I purposefully tried to leave the face in shadow so that he looked like a sneaky camo type. Next time I think I need to pick something bright with more scope for making it pop
endtransmission wrote:The base I had him on is actually smaller than the base decoration that he comes with; I did fail to decorate it enough to make it look like an overgrown piece of rubble though, so the base isn't great.
I checked the studio pics and the base decoration looks lighter, not so massive as what you did. The effect that the Giraldes has achieved on the studio model is something that is worth checking out in terms of color usage. The colors on the base are desaturated and the colors on the actual fig are purer, which is just the opposite of what you have done. This play with colors is something I have tried to study for a while now, with Massive voodoo and Angel being my mentors.
endtransmission wrote:I purposefully tried to leave the face in shadow so that he looked like a sneaky camo type. Next time I think I need to pick something bright with more scope for making it pop
I agree and this is what I tried to discuss with you on the fluff of the fig vs. demands of competition piece. This is a problem for me too, as I like to go with understated and natural look. It bit me in the bottom on this competition again, but no so much as last time so I think I'm slowly learning.
Again I like to highlight that these are small things on the whole, I think that your entry was one of the top entries and was seriously under appreciated.
I do not need a fantasy army. I do not need a fantasy army...
It's been a nice couple o days holiday so far. Yesterday we went to the zoo, saw baby lemurs and then went to a midnight showing of Promethius. Today I am sitting in a comfy leather arm chair in Bugman's Bar at GWHQ, waiting for Arakasi to turn up for our weekend of 40k and sculpting masterclass with a nice burger.
I've just been around the museum and gazed longingly at some of the absolutely gorgeous studio armies (and some not so great ones by the Hobby team using the new painting techniques they have in WD). Sadly this has made me want to actually do something with all those Empire bits I have kicking around... Not least because tomorrow I get yet another box of goldswords at the masterclass... This will take me up to enough bits for 30+ greatswords and a few other units! I both love and hate this place. So much inspiration, yet too much inspiration at the same time.
Tomorrow's masterclass will be teaching us sculpting by converting a greatsword into an undead warrior. I now want to look at making an unread empire army... It doesn't help that I do not play WFB and don't particularly want to start either. Anyone want to pay me to build them a vampire counts army made with hordes of dead empire troops?
I would consider paying you to make me some skeleton skaven.
I'm converting my (lots and lots of) skaven into zombies...but I think that whether or not it works will be up to the paintjob. Skellies are much more difficult, though.
Undad skaven sounds like an ace idea, but unfortunately I think skeleton skaven are a bit beyond me at the moment. Good luck with the plan!
I guess I'm the world's biggest idiot. I'm already doing that Warhammer quest project and have lots of the bits anyway, so I can make them without needing to start a new system. Duh! sometimes I'm thicker than a vey thick thing.
On an unrelated note, the cabinets are currently missing all of the WFB warriors of chaos, high elves and daemons armies as well as the tau, ultramarines and 40k chaos marine and daemon forces
If anyone sees the devil ice skating this afternoon... That is my fault and I apologise. somehow I just managed to pull off a massive victory against Arakasi! out of 1500 points of guard I managed to lose two platoon command squads, 27 basic grunts and the turret off a chimera... All he had left were two empty trukks, 7 boys (fleeing) and 7 nobz (fleeing). Still in a state of shock...
The sculpting masterclass yesterday was so worth while. Not only did we get Aly Morrison, as advertised, but we also got Trish and Aragorn Marks, one of the newer sculptors here who used to do a lot of the Rackham work as well as some of the Hordes miniatures. It is interesting to see that each sculptor has a very different approach to making something, and uses different tools; most of which they have made for themselves... seeing Aragorn sculpt an awesome head in about 15 minutes was unbelievable... As was his real chain made from pieces of modelling putty... Link by link so that it worked as a proper chain just because he could.
Yeah, it was great. I'll try and post some photos of my end model later. The main things we were taught was fur, chain mail, chains and cloth Alon with the different properties of different sculpting materials.
They are trying to work out what would go into an advanced sculpting course next... God help us all.
I'll try and type up what I can remember later when I get home. Bug mans bar is calling
It was a good game to be sure - just couldn't touch that armour. At least I won the first game - which you should have been able to win too
Oh - only 6 Nobz running (only 6 to begin with) - and it was nice to see all my newly finished Orks out on the table (yes, that means the Trukks didn't survive too long...) getting picked off by Guard firepower - not...
Arakasi has already written up a great overview of the masterclass, so I'm not going to redo all that here and now. I think I've a few different notes, but I need to double check those at a later date. Instead, here's what I made on the day
Thanks! I'm fighting the urge to build a full VC force now. It's not like I actually play, or ever intent to play, WFB... but I've so many ideas of things that could be done for it that it's not funny.
Over the last couple of days I've realised I have far too many projects on the boil (in my head) and need to actually consolidate or discard some. So... here's a list of what is running around in my head:
1) Finish my last GMS marine
2) Finish my purchased Imperial Guard
3) Inquisitor Dorothea & retinue - Armies on Parade board
4) Warhammer Quest (flooring, monsters and heroes)
5) Vampire Counts army in Empire uniforms
6) Infinity - Aleph
7) Infinity - Nomad
8) Infinity - PanO
9) Carry on learning to paint
10) Learn to sculpt
11) Start making lots of bitz for conversions and sell them.
12) Paint my Dust tactics forces
13) Paint everything else I own...
14) Go to Adepticon in 2015 (nothing like a bit of forward planning there!)
15) Build a gaming table in the attic
16) Paint Sedition Wars miniatures
That seems like far too many things to contemplate and really needs to be culled a bit. On the plus side I actually own almost everything I need to do all of them (which is scary in itself!) with the exception of the WQ monsters and heroes.
So. How to trim this down to a more reasonable size... Unfortunately the Armies on Parade board is most likely going to be dumped in favour of just creating the inquisitor and retinue for use in my Guard army as Apocalypse allies. I'm thinking of also parting with a load of miniatures/game systems that I'm not likely to paint or play, which will reduce the bits kicking around and taunting me a bit. Wants and trades will go up in the DCM forum in the not too distant future as I sort through everything properly.
Points 10, 11 and 14 also merge nicely into one, more easily managed list as my aim for 2015 is to create a kit that allows me to make all of the infantry for the proposed UKDCM team theme, as well as fleshing out my Guard even more... like I need more Guard!
Point 5 is going to be culled down to making 5 Grave Guard for Alfndrate and limiting my other ideas to just WQ usable units. Kind of a shame as I had grand plans to convert the Celestial Hurricanum into a Mortiis engine. In my head it was awesome
This brings us down to:
1) Finish my last GMS marine
2) Grave Guard for Alfndrate
3) Finish my purchased Imperial Guard
4) Inquisitor Dorothea & retinue
5) Warhammer Quest (flooring, monsters and heroes)
6) Infinity - Aleph and nice Infinity models
7) Carry on learning to paint; write mini tutorials as I go
8) Sculpt British Empire IG pieces for Adepticon & build an expeditionary force
9) Paint my Dust tactics forces
10) Build a gaming table & terrain in the attic (Attic not ready for table yet) - On Hold
11) Paint Sedition wars miniatures (Doesn't arrive until September) - Oh Hold
If you see me try to start something that isn't on this list... you have my permission to shout at me. Big time!
At least 1, 2, 4 & 6 look reasonably self contained "small" projects That would bring you down to a more manageable 7...
3, 8, 9, 10 and 11 at least seem to have end goals, if somewhat far out ones
That just leaves 5 & 7 as the never ending open ended projects...
Maybe you should separate the as such - short, medium and long term projects - where the long term ones probably need sub projects in the same categories
I'd hate to go through this for mine at the moment...
Don't feel bad...here's everything I thought of in the last 2-3 minutes...there's probably stuff I'm forgetting...
1. Assemble and paint Beastmen
2. Assemble and paint Space Wolves
3. Convert and paint Skaven Zombies
4. Paint Legion of Everblight
5. Paint Menoth
6. Finish assembling then paint War Pig (Minions) army
7. Finish assembling and painting Daemons
8. Sell off my Grey Knights
9. Stop writing GK lists so I CAN sell them...
10. Paint Combined Army (and assemble the horror that is the Anathematics model)
11. Paint Nomads
12. Don't buy any more Infinity armies until I convince everyone to start playing it...
13. Paint WotR Mordor
14. Paint WotR Dwarves
15. Paint WotR Elves
16. Start PLOG so maybe I'll be motivated to do these items...
It's been a while since I posted any pictures... so just to show that I am still slowly working on things...
First we've got a WIP shot of a Marine for Knightley. I'm pleased with the white helmet so far, though the photo does seem to indicate that the shading/highlights on some of the grey armour is too subtle. You can also see the start of the osl for the scanner
And then we have three WIP shots of some Grave Guard... possibly for Alfndrate if he likes them. The plan is to add some greenstuff bits to them to make it all look a bit more ragged... but you get the ideas
I've also pieced together enough new guard to finish the full 5 infantry squads in a platoon, rounded the number of spares up to allow for the minimum Whiteshield and made enough spare troopers for all my heavy weapon squads as well. Should be impressive to see an almost full platoon on the table. Now I just need to make 30 more whiteshields and some special weapon squads
I'm not happy with the chest piece or the terminator honours on the shoulder pad... but the moulding on both is really difficult to work with... one os so fine you can hardly see the detail, the other is so blobby there is no detail :/
Nice work, endtrans. I really like the pose of the marine, with one knee on the rock. That's a nice touch. For the white on the helmet, is that just white with a sepia wash?
I really like your grave guard, too. I'm tempted to get some greatswords and skeletons myself!
- white undercoat
- Paint thinned VMC Silvergrey in the shadowy areas, leaving about 50% of the helmet pure white
- Paint some sepia wash into the recesses of the Silvergrey areas
- Paint another thin layer of sepia wash in some of the darker areas of the silvergrey once the first layer is dry
- Paint a 50/50 mix of Sepia and black wash into the very dark areas of the shadows.
The trick is not to wash the area as you'll cover up areas you want to remain pure white, but to slowly build up the shadows
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Rogue Wolves wrote:nice grave guard... and speaking of guard, how goes the IG?
Guard have been on the back burner for a while, but this morning I undercoated about 24 more infantry to try and finish off the full 5 infantry squads and minimum sized Whiteshield squad for my first platoon. After that, I need to clear off a couple of other smaller projects and then I can move onto the planned second platoon