Altansar Army Project

I'm sort of new to the Blog scene, and decided to post my Altansar Eldar project.

I've been modeling and painting WH40K off and on since about 1994, when I was 14. It's been more off than on, but that's been mostly do to college, early career, marriage, kids... well just life in general. I've been playing Eldar the whole time I've been playing, with bouts of Space Marines and tau thrown in.

I've played various versions of Eldar, focusing on a Biel-tan style, and then an Alaitoc style. Now I've decided to go with a Saim-Hann/Ulthwe mix. I saw someone come up with an army that they dubbed 'Shadows of Altansar', and after a bit of deep thought about the craftworld itself, it made a lot of sense to me. I'll go into this in a later post.

Right Off The Bat

So the first models that I'm going to be working on for my Altansar army is a small squad of jet bikers. The first thing that I wanted to do was tackle the base. I personally hate the clear plastic bases that the models come with. There is nothing stopping someone from leaving them blank and bare, so I'm taking it upon myself to use 40mm bases and give the models some character.



As you can see, I've already drilled out the holes for the clear flying base posts... but I have to say looking around online to know how big to make them was a pain. No one posted it (I will later on). Originally I was thinking of using piece of sprue cut out and painted to look like a large gem, a la Necron. It would give me something to do with all of those left-over sprues that you get anyway. Well, this or work on creating my own version of the cheapest Necron army ever (look it up, it's actually kind of cool to see it).



The problem is that if you want it to look interesting, then it can't be just a strait up and down post, you have to angle it a little, and then that would make ensuring everything else was lined up a pain. So I decided to go back to the clear flying base post.



As I mentioned earlier, finding out the sizes of the ends of the post proved to be a bit challenging, especially for someone who doesn't own a micrometer. And really, who does? But I finally managed to find out that the small end is 2mm, and the large end is 3mm. Being in the US, it's a pain to find thing in millimeters at some retailers, unless you plan on going to a specialty stop, and pay extra. I didn't have the time or money for that, so I had to convert to the closest available. Which turns out to be 5/64 for 2m, and 7/64 for 3m. These aren't exact, but they are close enough for my uses. 20 minutes, and Three dollars later I had my drill bits:



I find that these work really well, and if you are patient, and have a steady hand, you don't even really need a Dremol or pin vice to use them... at least I didn't. As for the Necron gems, I'm still planning on using them.

Also, here's a quick tip. If your sprue cutter has a flat side, with a beveled interior, as such:



Always try to cut your sprue with the same side facing the same way. Don't turn it. It'll let you get angled cuts on the tops of the gems while keeping the bottoms flat. This doesn't mean keep the cuts as strait as possible though. Angle your cuts for some variety.

Some WIP Picts





You'll obviously notice that the flash and sprue connections are still on the model (If you didn't notice, then I just told you). These aren't glued together. They are just pressed together (no blue tac needed), to see how the model would stand on the base once attached.

I hope you like it.

Comments, Criticisms and Questions are welcome.

Altansar! I wholly promote this, go for it! As far as I am concerned, Altansar are one of the better Craftworlds for background and story. The colour scheme can be pretty interesting too...

I dived back into 40k last year after several years completely out. Altansar were my first mini-project again. I look forward to seeing what you'll do!

Subbed.

Army Background And Explanation
Here are some ramblings and musings.


Current Altansar/Eldar/WH40K Fluff

The Altansar Eldar Craftworld was stuck in The Eye Of Terror for 10,000 years.

Eldrad Ulthran was one of the major commanders during Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade.

Maugan Ra entered The Eye Of Terror during the 13th Black Crusade and brought Altansar back to the materium.

The current location of the Altansar Craftworld is somewhere close to Terra. Some say it's parked right next to Mars.

The Altansar Craftworld got to its current location undetected by human forces.

The Eldar are closely tied to the Old Ones, The Necron's great enemy.

Altansar is sometimes referred to as the sister Craftworld to Ulthwe.

Personal Musing
Everything here is in no way canon. It's just personal speculation!

What commander in his right mind would send a force INTO the warp? Eldrad Ulthran, that's who. He knew they would succeed.

Why would he send in Maugan Ra? Because Maugan Ra knew what he was looking for, his own Craftworld.

How did Altansar survive 10,000 years in the warp? They would have to be concealed, hardy, mobile, ruthless, and concealed (Yes I'm listing it twice). Their psykers would have to be very strong willed to not convert Slaanesh.

What tactical advantage does Altansar bring? A Craftworld that is mobile and undetectable. They got to Mars without being noticed.

What corrupting presence from being trapped in The Eye Of Terror caused Altansar? Who knows. But I have some plans on this.

Why Mars? Void Dragon, anyone!

So given that, what does that mean about what I'm planning to build/field. What I want to do is show the forces of Altansar as if they are raiding mars after the initial awakening of the Void Dragon.

I'm planning on using the Necron Crystals on the bases to represent the Void Dragon's awakening presence.

I want the crystals to look as if they are bursting forth from beneath the surface of the ground.

Don't expect red painted bases. that would blend into the Altansar Color scheme too much. Instead I'm going to go for a reddish brown sand color, think Ochre.

To represent the corrupting presence of chaos, I'm going to paint a red pattern on the vehicles that look a bit chaotic in nature, while keeping the base color of the vehicles as black and bone white. The red will be a way to represent corrupted Wraithbone.

I'm actually going to be using 2 tribal fox tattoo pattern I found online, so on the larger vehicles (Wave Serpents), they pattern will form an image of foxes.

Why foxes? Read up on Nine-Tailed foxes (not the Naruto kind), as well as foxes in Oriental Culture. Eldar seem to have a bit of an Oriental feel to them, IMO.

The only thing that I'm stuck on is what color to paint the gems. I don't want green, since that's what the current Necrons use. I'm debating between blue, purple, red, or orange. Red and Orange might blend into the rest of the army and base, but might make sense for a Mars landscape. I think my choices are between blue and purple, for now.
Altansar Army

As for my desired force to begin with:

Farseer On Jetbike

3 Jetbike Squads of 3, some with a Warlock.

A Banshee squad in Wave Serpent

A Wraithguard squad with Warlock in Wave Serpent

A Squad of Dark Reapers

A Vyper Squad

A Wraithlord

I'm going to start with one jetbike squad, and the banshee squad, so that I can try and play a 200 pt, kill team game. I'll eventually add Maugan Ra and some additional Jetbikes on the back end. I was thinking perhaps a Harlequin Squad in Wave Serpent.

Now for some explanations. I'm sure that some people are going to question "Why the the banshees instead of striking scorpions?". Well the way that I see it, when you're in the warp, it's kind of hard to look to nature for examples of how to fight. So no scorpions, spiders, or hawks... for now. But Banshees should be OK. As for the Wraithguard and Wraithlord, these guys are the sister Craftworld to Ulthwe. An Altansar army has to have Dark Reapers, don't they?

Current WIP

So I figure I would continue to give some WIP shots with comments, even though I don't have much time for modeling and painting. So these shots will be incremental. I was hoping to do more but it seems that my modeling glue ended up drying out on me, so I have to add that to my list of things to buy.

I showed previously the sprue piece that would soon become the Necron Gems, here there are again. The first shot, is after the got cut, the second shot is after I took the time to file them down. I think they look pretty good. Now I just have to figure out what color I'm going to paint them.



As for the base itself, I finally managed to cut out the cork from the sheet, although I need to smooth out the rough edges.



As you can see I have them numbered to line up with the specific base I want to use them with. Below, I have one of them marked up, showing the parts that I want to remove, and how I want them to look, once I take a knife to them.



Here is how it currently looks with the base and post in place. Nothing glued currently, just stacked.



As I mentioned earlier, I was planning on gluing on the gems and the cork, and adding a bit of sand to the base, but fate had other plans for me. So now I get to go by new glue, along with the two new airbrush needles that I want/need. Given that it's raining here, I wouldn't have been able to spray primer anyway. It doesn't really matter much since I have 3 jetbikes that need filing and sanding.

While I was thinking about these bases, I realized that if I want them the represent Mars after the Void Dragon has awoken, then I'm going to need some stuff on the bases to help represent this. I was thinking of getting some Space Marine, and Imperial Guard items, and insignias. I also have a sheet of Imperial Aguilas from Forge World that I Bought a couple of years ago that I finally get to use.

Short Update

So it seems that I'm pretty slow going in my work. But then again, only having 30-45 minutes a day to be able to work on stuff will do that to you. Personally, right now I feel like I'm living in Seattle. Every time I think I might be able to get something primed, it's raining (I do the majority of my modeling in my garage).

So over the last few days I've learned a few things.

Elmer's glue can go bad. I had a bottle that I used for adding sand to bases, and now it's a thick paste. It barely even wants to come out of that little Orange cap.

Always stand up superglue when you store it. I bought a new bottle of Zap-a-gap, and though just putting the normal top on it would be good. It actually started leaking into the second bigger cap. At least I don't have to buy a second new bottle of the stuff.

WIP pictures

Here is my base after I finally glued the gems onto it.


Here is the cork that is going to go over the top of the base. I decided to add a few additional chucks, to simulate large pieces of cement rubble from when the gems emerged from the ground.


I decided to add a little bit of sand to help out the effect. In one of the pictures you can see that I was a little sloppy with the glue, and it got on to the gem. I'm going to have to clean that up before priming and painting.

And here is how things are looking at the moment. I think I managed to get the affect that I want.


I'm still debating how I want to point things. Since at this point Mars is mostly industrialized, I'm thinking I'll paint the cork to look like concrete, probably an orange or slightly reddish shade. Then I figure I'll paint the unearth rubble, and sand more of a reddish color, to simulate the original mars looks. I'm still trying to determine which color will work best or the gems.

Right now I'm leaning towards purple, but might still do blue. The image below is good inspiration for going purple. It actually gives a good inspiration for what the void dragon might look like as well.


I've seen a lot of people doing blue highlights on Grav-Tanks, so I might use that on the jet bike exhaust vents, that way I get both the blue and the purple, along with the mass amount of black and red that the bike will bring.

Anyway, as before, Comments, Criticisms, and Critiques are welcome (if anyone feels like posting any).

Priming Gone Wrong

So I finally took the plunge. After all of the bad weather I've been dealing with, I finally got some good weather. I took some time and primed the pieces that I have ready. I tried to make sure that I only had thin layers as I went along, but I think one of them wasn't as thin as I wanted it to be.

The bases ended up looking pretty good, with just a few places that will need brush primer for.



The front shield looked OK, just a little slight dimpling, but I think it's usable as is.



The real problem was with the bike itself. I'm not sure how well these pictures show it, but on the side wing, and one of the shuriken catapults, the primer dimpled up (orange peeled). It's not on too many places, so I'm wondering if I should strip it and re-prime, or just sand it. Personally, I'm thinking I might try sanding first, the orange peel wasn't too wide spread, and if it doesn't work, then I can still strip it.



I'll still have to use the paint on primer on a few places for the bike itself, once I'm done.

First Game

So I managed to play a small game this Friday. I figured I would write-up a small battle report, and some thoughts about the game. First of all, let me say that I haven't played 5th edition. I have the rule-book, but never got around to playing a game of it, so the rules didn't really stick with me. I'm probably a bit more familiar with 4th, so things that might seem profound to me, others might think are 'Meh'.

The game was 500 points against Blood Angels (Flesh Tearers). I was playing Altansar, with one slight adjustment. I didn't have enough Jet Bikes for 2 squads, so I had 1 squad of regular guardians.

I brought:

Farseer with spirit stones, runes of warding, doom, guide, and mind war.
Guardian Jet Bike squad (3) with Shuriken Cannon.
Guardian Squad (10)
Howling Banshees (5) no Exarch
Dark Reapers (3) no Exarch

a total of 496 points.

He brought:
A captain with plasma pistol and chainsword (I think)
An Assault Squad (5) Sgt with Power Fist
A Death Company Squad (5) all power weapons and pistols

From the get go I had a 2 to 1 body advantage, which I thought was good.

We decided to play the first mission in the book, which would allow us to use Night Fighting, Mysterious Objectives, and reserves. We ended up rolling to use night fighting the entire game. Neither of us used reserves. And only I tried keeping objectives.

We just placed some random terrain, and he won the roll for sides and decided to keep his side (more because he didn't want to move). I won the roll for placement, and made him place first. I didn't steal first turn though.

On the first turn he was only able to move, and didn't shoot (pistols were out of range), and he didn't run either. On my turn I managed to take out his Assault Squad with my Dark Reapers, and the Farseers Mind war. The howling banshees then didn't have anything to assault.

On turn two he assaulted my Howling Banshees, and my guardians. The Guardians died to the Death company, but my Howling Banshees survived against the captain. On my turn the Banshees killed the Captain.

On Turn Three he was too far away to assault my Howling Banshees, so he ended up shooting at my Jet bike squad. On my turn I moved my Jet bike squad to get an objective, but they ended up at a sabotage. My Banshees were able to attack the Death Company and managed to kill all but one, and then got killed in return.

On the Fourth turn he hid behind cover. On my turn, I shot at him, then moved my Jet bike squad to a location to draw out his last man. I figured once he killed my squad, hopefully I would have a shot at killing him with my Dark Reapers.

He did manage to kill my Jet Bikes, but wasn't able to consolidate far enough away from my Dark Reapers, who ended up killing him.

In the end I won, but at the same time we were both trying out some things that we probably wouldn't normally do. Plus there was a lot of looking up of rules, and playing this in ways that didn't follow how the rules should have been played.

For example, the first time I was in assault with my Howling Banshees, I was splitting out my pistol Attacks from my Power Sword attacks. I guess all of my attacks at the time counted as power attacks, including the pistol.

Also, at one point I was making snap shots (Which I love by the way!), and was taking hits with 4+ instead of 6+, and picked up my dice before I realized what I was doing. We didn't see what were 6s so I re-rolled. I think I lost 2 hits because of it.

In the end, I had a fun time with the new rules, which I really like. Though I don't think I picked the right table to roll for warlord, but i was doing it on the fly without really knowing what the optimum table for my play style was.



As always, any Criticisms, Comments, and Critiques are welcome.

Thanks.

Quick Update

So I managed to take a look through some of my old paints, and I'm surprised to see that it looks like they survived storage, although they are a bit separated, so I'll be doing a lot of shaking. The benefit is hopefully I won't have to buy any.

Yeah me!

Interesting. I like how your bases are coming along so far

First Color

So it has been a while since I've painted anything for WH40K. I now realize why poeple tend to use a light colored primer. Either that, or I over thinned my paint. It's almost acting more like an ink, than paint.

As of right now, I've applied 3 layers or Graveyard Earth to the base, and it looks more like rich top soil, then the beginning of sandy cement.



I think the next time I take a crack at it, I'm not going to thin it at all, and see where that gets me.

Test in Patience

I want to give a quick thanks to those who have been reading the thread. It seems like I barely do anything on the model between posts, but I think that is mainly do to my time constraints. I normally have about 20-30 minutes after my wife leaves with the kids in the morning before I go to work to model a bit, and sometimes at work I'll work on something during lunch, if I'm not too busy.

I guess the one benefit of this is that what you see is more of a step by step display, rather than pictures after big chunks of work is getting done.

I hope that I'll have these guys done sooner rather than later.

Seeing Red

So I finally started work on the second base. I noticed that I had a lot of space on the frist base between the crystals and the bottom of the jetbike, so I decided to make these crystals a little longer. The only problem with them are the tips. I think I'm going to have to do a bit more filing on them. The initial cutout of the cork looks pretty good. All I have to do is add some rubble, and sand, and it'll be ready for priming (after I glue the cork down).



So went back over the base with Graveyard Earth. I didn't thin it out as much this time, and I think it looks pretty good so far.



I then put a layer of red ink on it. This is supposed to be Mars after all. I figure once I go back over it with Graveyard Earth, then Bleached Bone, it'll look like redish sand on Mars. Or at least that is the hope.

Current Musings

So I found myself able to paint for more than 15 minutes at a time yesterday. Because of that I wasn't actually able to get pictures of the base in between layers as I painted. The next time that I post, I'll make sure to get a picture of the base up.

Aside from getting the majority of the base completed (all that it needs is to work on the gems), I was able to put a layer of Chaos Black on the actual jetbike.

As for the Crystal. I know I want to go purple with it, but I just don't know what purple. I have both Liche Purple and Warlock purple (or at least whatever the new equivalent of those are). So either I can start with Warlock Purple and gradually go to Liche purple, with a white highlight. Or I can use Warlock purple as the base, and gradually go towards Codex Grey, with a bit of Scull White at the edges for highlighting.

The Liche purple is what GW lists as secondary color for their paints, but when I look at the picture of the dragon above, it uses grey and white.

Project List

So obviously, I'm currently working on a 3 man biker squad. And the sad part is that the majority of the 1750 army list that I want to create is unpainted. Heck, it isn't even primed and assembles.

So I'm debating on what I want to do next.

Howling Banshees (x10 with Exarch)
Farseer on Jetbike
Wraith Guard (x6)

For the basing on the HB and WG, I intend to use a single Necron Gem. I'm not sure how to deal with the Cork with the Minis though. Do I keep the flat tab at the bottom, or do I remove them and pin the models to the base. It makes me wonder if I should even use the cork at all.

If I go with the Farseer, I'm thinking of going the Centerpiece route with him. Since I want it to seem like Mars after the awakening of the Void Dragon, I'm was thinking of having a Cryptek look like he was emerging from the ground.

On A Completely Different Note

So I noticed that I haven't been getting much in the way of feedback. Please feel free to let me know what you think.

Thanks, stay tuned for some picuture tomorrow, and let me know what you think so far.

Thanks.

All Your Base Are Belong TO Us

As I mentioned previously, I did some modeling/painting this weekend. Here are pictures showing how things are coming along.

I know this is hard to see, but it's the current condition of the jetbike. Nothing has really been done to the bike itself, other than add a thinned out layer of Chaos Black. It helped fill in some of the areas that the primer missed.



Here are close ups of the base. I'm actually pretty proud of them. If you look at the previous entry, where I had applied red ink, it looked a little too red for my tastes.



To this I did:

A layer of Graveyard Earth, just letting the red look through.

A dry brushing of Bleached Bone.

A wash of Gryphonne Sepia.

It got the look I was hoping for. I looks desert-like but with a bit of red showing through from beneath.

After that I started painting the Gems. I obviously started with Warlock Purple.



A mix of Codex Grey:Warlock Purple for highlights (about 1:1). And a different mix of Codex Grey:Warlock Purple for higherlights (about 2:1).



Based on the highlighting attempt, you can tell that I don't have the steadiest of hands. Dry brushing works really well for me, as you can see in the earth of the base. Although, I guess the opposite would be that I'm not patient enough to use really thinned down paint and applying layer after layer after layer of paint, for very little results. It's probably something that I should work on.

I then added the OSL, from the Gems to the sand. I'm not sure how happy I am with it. From looking at it online, I think I have to paint the empty are of the base purple as well.



It's kind of funny. It looks a TON better in the photo then it does on my workbench. I'm not sure what to do. It seems to me that the OSL doesn't quite pop enough. I was thinking of using Liche Purple the next time for the highlights, and possibly for the OSL as well just to see what the difference between the two would look like.

Full Of Hot Air

Well, maybe not hot. I ended up going to 'The Depot' and picked up an air compressor pressure regulator, and an air filter for use with my Badger Air Brush compressor. Why is that... well, I'm planning on finally braking out my old Badger 200-20. Mostly for parts of the jetbike, but who knows, maybe I'll be able to start using it on bases and other models.

I have a new detail needle that I have to replace first, so we'll see if I can get that done tomorrow.

Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions? It's funny, I keep asking for them, but I never get any.

A Wrong Turn At Albuquerque

So I decided to go back to my base, and I tried changing the highlights from the grey to Liche Purple. I hated it. Luckily I was thin enough that I could go back over with grey. I then decided I would add in very thin highlights of pure grey. The only problem is that you can kind of see the Liche Purple highlights. I also painted the location where the gems meet the base.

Since I was complaining before that I didn't like how the OSL was working, I decided to go back over it, slightly more heavy handed with the paint. I have to say I actually like the results now.



I also tried to start on the bike itself. I was thinking about adding red to the bike in the form of patterned scales. I was planning on using the shadow blue as a background for the color. Looks like it didn't work out so well. I think I'm going to bring it back to black, and then just do the scales without a background shade to outline it.



As for the comments and criticisms, Keep them coming. Well I guess in reality I should say bring them.

I haven't read through everything, but I like that you're putting time into creating a backstory/fluff for your army. My friends and I do that for ours and it makes the game much more enjoyable. But you want some criticism, don't you?

My first question is why cork? I like the use of the 40mm bases, that's for sure, but personally don't like the cork too much. It makes the base look a lot larger than it should be, in my opinion. The gems, however, look great. My suggestion for those is make them WAY brighter. They don't look like they would be giving off too much light, but the OSL is a good start for sure.

Inspecting the latest pictures I can really see what you meant about the primer. Sucks that that happened :(. The pattern on the bikes should look really good once it's done. You plan on varying it though correct? (ie not the same pattern on all the bikes?).

That's about all I can think of for now. Hope it got your gears turning. And by all means if you're happy with how everything is that's all that matters. Realistically, who cares what anyone else thinks! They are your models

Just Talk

I want to first say thanks to those of you who are reading this blog on a regular basis. To Eiríkr and Myrthan, thanks for letting me know you're following along. At times I feel like maybe no one is, but then again, the view count keeps going up, so someone is definitely reading it. Thanks!

Anticitizen013, thanks for offering some feedback.

The reason that I decided to go with cork was to offer the base a bit of depth. It's texture is great for drybrushing, and I've seen some people use cork really well on bases to show stone or concrete slabs (granted I'm not at the level). While it makes the base look thicker, I tried to keep it within the 40mm outline. Granted I didn't round out the edges before painting, but it's something that I am thinking of doing going forward.

As for the gems. I'm not sure how to make them 'brighter'. Is it an issue of color choice, or do I need to try to incorporate some more patterns in the gems to simulate 'brightness'?

I have every intention of making the patterns on the bikes different from bike to bike. Chaos is after all chaotic, so having them be the same would seem pretty counter to the issue. I actually have a design that I'm using (I really should link it, and offer credit) that each bike is using a different section of.

I'm thinking I'm just going to have to mask off the pattern for each section and start airbrushing the pattern on, rather than trying my (shaky) hand at blending/shading.

Thanks for your feedback.

I will watch you now mate, consider me a regular

Totally valid reasoning for the cork. Perhaps I will lighten up to it when I see more of them together.

Also I think airbrushing the bikes will look awesome. Eldar tend to have large surfaces that are perfect for that, so I would personally recommend that.

For the gems, to make them brighter you could also airbrush them before you glue them on. I'll get a picture of my Emperors Children I painted and you could use those as an example as their armour is purple. They have a base of Chaos Black, the mid colour is Liche Purple, then Warlock Purple. Since they are CSM, I didn't feel the need for any additional highlighting, but to help give your gems the effect they may need, is perhaps line the edges with a 50/50 Warlock Purple/Fortress Grey mixture, then a little bit less with pure Fortress Grey, and finally tip the corners with Skull white. That should give it a bit of a brighter more glowy feel. I'll get a picture for an example, bear with me!

EDIT: So here's a picture of how I mean for the purple.

Perhaps rather than painting the gems first and gluing them on I just need to mask them, and paint with airbrush.

Thanks for the comment and example!

I really appreciate it. Wish me luck.

Short Update - No Pics

So I managed to change out my airbrush needle last night, and got it to work with some water running through it just as a test. I was happy with it for the most part, now I just need to calibrate the pressure on my compressor. It seemed like it was spraying really wide is I was using a fine needle. Then again, it was water so it might have been too viscus considering that airbrush paint is a little thicker than water even. I've always been told to think of the consistency of milk.

So with the airbrush ready (I hope) it was off to make the masks. I was planning on putting some masking tape on some wax paper so I could draw out the pattern I want, and cut it out with a hobby knife. I made it to the kitchen drawer looking for wax paper to find that we didn't have any.

So this plan is slightly sidetracked until I either buy new wax paper, or figure out another medium that I can apply the masking tape to before cutting it with the pattern I want (Glass might work, but that's just asking for a ton of trouble).

So I might be running to the grocery store today.

Better Late Than Never

I'm sorry for not posting in a while. I guess when you work for a company that does political polling; it gets REALLY busy just before a presidential election. With that said, this and most future posts will be a little shorter.

So I finally got around to getting some wax paper, and tried to sketch out what I want the pattern to look like. The problem is that it doesn't quite look like I want it to look like.



So I'm even thinking of scrapping this, and just going with a more simple pattern, that I might try adding some stippling on once I have the simpler mask applied.

As for the bikes themselves, I took them back to strait black, and then I'm going to apply the simple mask once they are dry. I did manage to add a second coat of brown to the seat, and start on the random area that will be under the shield.

Man, this is an awesome blog. I am stealing your crystal idea for my DE. I look forward to further updates!

Eureka

So I just had an epiphany about this mask.



I was originally hoping to use it to make a scale look to the areas, similar to this picture:



Instead of cutting it out to look like scales, I'm going to see about using a hole punch to take out the random shapes. Perhaps I can get it to look more like a string of spots, almost like a rash would look like (here is my having two children at or under 2 comes to the surface).

That is a great idea!

More Delays

So as of right now, I find myself unable to do much painting and modelling as I've been really busy with Work, and sick children and wife. Although I do have the masking tape with holepunches currently on the bike, it might be a while before I get around to actually airbrushing them.

Seeing that the set-up/teardown time involved with using the airbrush is so long, I was thinking of just using it as a normal painting mask, yet I fear that I might end up having some run under the mask in areas that it might not be too well attached to the bike.

I don't know what to do. Wait or brush paint.

Any suggestions?

Take your time and do what is more comfortable.

A Bit Spotty

Hello again. I want to say to everyone thanks for the suggestions and the encouragements. They really helped.

So I finally got around to doing some painting this weekend. I think what I did turned out great.

As for the process: I started with the masks in place using the masking tape with holes punched out of it (1/16th inch holes). rather than use the airbrush, I just penciled in where I wanted to paint. After I removed the tape, I was ready to paint. I started out with red gore, and just dotted the heck out of where I wanted the paint to go. Once done with the red gore, I moved on to blood red pin pricks in the middle. I think this gives the look of an angry rash with blisters in middle of them. I guess this could easily represent some chaos corruption (a mix of Khorne and Nurgle). All in all I really liked it. I just wish I has remembered to take an image of the bike assembled, and on the base.

Now all that is left are the Spirit Stone Gems, and the display for the control panel. I was thinking either orange or purple for the gems, and green for the display.





A tip for those using masking tape. The best thing to use to remove the masking tape adhesive residue... the actual masking tape itself.

I really like how much work you put into the back story of your army, and it's coming along nicely.

Consider me following

Wowza!

Huzzah!

So I just want to thank everyone who has been keeping up with this blog. It has managed to get 1000 reads. If you were one of them, thanks. If you weren't one of them, and are a new reader here, I still give you thanks for being here now.

As I mentioned in my last post, here are pictures of the bike on the base for a more complete picture of where things stand.




I have to say sometimes you miss some things that when you look at it on screen in a higher resolution, you notice. You might notice some places where I didn't cover the pencil marks that I laid down as a guide. I'm probably just going to go over them in black to cover them up.

I can't wait to get more paint on this thing. I can't wait to get the gems, the display, and a little edge highlighting done.

Learning Along The Way

So I've been doing all of this work with very little money invested. Or I should say very little money in the last year invested. Most of the paints that I've been using I purchased 2 years ago or longer. Some of it was given to me from a friend who had a ton of extras in certain colors.

I'm surprised how well the paint has kept. Granted, I took some precautions with the previous generation of Citadel paints to keep them smooth. I ended up putting about 3BBs in each of the pots with a few drops of floor cleaner (I can't remember the name of the brand right now) to help with mixing the paint when I shake them. But the paint itself has managed to stay wet, although a little thick at some times. The older generations (minus the screw top Citadel paints from 2/3 generations ago) seem to also keep very well, with very minimal drying.

The only paint that I have that I'm not sure how it's going to work out in the long run is my old Vallejo paints. The bottles look to still be liquid, although separated. But it seems that when paint collects in the tips, it dries out, and makes it hard to get any out. Or at least that is what happened in the one bottle that I decided to try out.

But given that I'm not wanting to spend too much money on my little projects, I'm hoping that a well used paperclip will take care of any blockages.

Patiently Waiting

So it's been a while since I've last posted. And this is due to a few things.

One is work. The last few weeks my workload has been immense, resulting in working through lunch, and late nights.

Second is weather. With living in the US mid-west, winter is cold out here. And since my modelling/painting area is out in the garage, it makes for a less than desirable place to work.

Third is the incoming holiday season. My wife loves the holidays, and any good weather days have been spent putting up Christmas lights and other such tasks.

Current Activities

With all of that being said, I haven't been completely idle here.

Last week, during Hurricane Sandy, I tried to do a little painting. Unfortunately, the pigments in the paint that I wanted to use had settled to the bottom of the bottle, and no amount of shaking was loosening it. I was basically working with dirty water, which is fine if you're into wet blending. I am not. Thus I have to buy that particular color again.

I've been doing a lot of reading and watching a lot of videos as well. One of the things that I've been coming to the conclusion of is that I don't have the right air brush for the work that I want to do. So, I've been looking at getting a new one (cheep). On top of that are supplies, like little dropper bottles, so that I can thin out GW and Vallejo paints to the consistency I need/want.

Here is what I've found:

From Zenithal Airbrushing, OSL and Snow and Ice Tutorial, subject - Grey Knight they give what looks like a good option of a cheap airbrush.

I've also looked at getting these tips and droppers. The only problem is the $10 charge for small orders, thus you have to find the balance of a number of droppers for cheap, while dispersing the $10 additional charge. I was thinking of getting 20 droppers to start.

Too bad you cannot find a middle ground with those drippers. Do you have anyone else that may be interested in working with you on it?

Well, at 30 cents each (17 for the top, and 13 for the bottle), and the $10 across 20 make it an additional 50 cents, so 80 cents each total.

In reality, it's not that bad. That's about $16 for 20 of them.

Granted, that still excludes the S&H and Tax.

I'm liking the corrupted wraithbone idea. Good to see the other damned craft world getting a little love.

So they end up being a buck a piece? not too shabby imo.

Hey! This has been really fun to read through your creations and musings. I tried what you were doing with the crystals and I can't believe what an awesome and easy a detail it is!

I've liked Altansar since Eye of Terror, rock on!

Keep up the great work!
T-

Very cool painting, I'd like to see more!

Wow, that jetbike looks incredible! Love the spots. As one improvement, try to blen the spots more, and as a personal tip, if you want 'black' go for a 1:1 of red:black. IMO looks much better. You can change the red for anything, though!

And A Partridge In A Pear Tree!

So it's been a while since I've last posted; a lot to do with life, weather, and the holidays.

So this time around I tried out a few new things, the first of which was a wet palette. I actually went to my LGS, and saw that you can buy one... for like 12 bucks. I decided to take Chris Borer's fiscal approach to Wet palettes.

It's interesting what you can do with a generic paper towel, a piece of parchment baking paper, and an old Chinese food container. It was pretty interesting using it. The paint didn't dry out while using it. It made mixing the mid-highlight color later on pretty easy, since I only needed a little and it didn't dry out on me. And clean-up was a breeze, just throw out the paper. Granted, I might not be able to perfectly match the mid-highlight color.



So with that out of the way, I decided to continue on with painting the spirit stones on the bike. If you remember, I previously tried painting them with some old Vellejo paint. It didn't work out so well.



So I went to my only LGS and found that they no longer carry Vellejo. They now carry Reaper Minis MSP. After using it, I'm not sure that there is any difference between the two other than the fact that Vallejo paints tend to bubble up when you open them. I ended up going with my original plan of Jade for the gems, and I highlighted them with Pale Olive (I guess also called swamp green).



The head on image didn't turn out so well, but I couldn't take another picture since my camera's battery SUCKS. I finally got around to buying a replacement for it today. But you can tell where I ended up painting off of the stone in a few places, where I'll end up having to clean it up.

Learnings From An Idiot Painter

So a few things that I learned this time around:

* Do not mix mid-highlight colors with a 7 dollar brush, when a 1 dollar brush will do. It really messed with the brush, but at least it didn't ruin it.
* Jade looks like a really good choice for the Gem Color. I guess simple color theory works: Reds with Greens, Oranges with Blues, Yellows with Purples.
* Having your painting station outside in your garage, in a place with cold winters, sucks!
* A wet palette doesn't mean that you don't need to thin down your paint.

Ah, a fellow Eldar from Altansar I see. I'm also in the midst of an Altansar CW army build. Interesting take on the paint scheme. I do have one question, what black are you using or how are you applying it, as the the surface looks 'gritty' ?

Look forward to seeing more.

I think that the main issue with the black was the primer that I used. It ended up bumpy like that. I was just too lazy to actually take the time to sand it smooth.

I used Army Painter Primer... probably about 3 to 5 years old. Over that I applied some thinned down GW chaos black.

Thinking about things some more, I realized that I forgot something on my list from above...

* A wet palette doesn't mean that you don't need to thin down your paint.

My paint actually was too thick while I was applying it to the stones. So I need to remember to thin it down more next time.

Looking good so far.
Will follow this with interest.

Happy New Year!... Delayed

So it's finally after all of the Holiday seasons, and birthday for me. It's been a while since I've last posted, and I really haven't done much in the way of work on any of my army. I did get a couple of things for Christmas/birthday, and I've solidified how I'm going to go about trying to convert a few future pieces.

On the "OOO, Look what I got!" front:

* I got a new airbrush. Because of the cold time of year here where I live, I haven't had any time to use it, but I'm really excited for when the weather finally warms back up.
* I also got a seam scraper. So in reality, I should be modelling in the winter, to prepare for the spring when I can start painting again.
* I still have to make an order for the paint bottles, so I can start getting everything ready while I wait.

On the "Hmm, how about I try doing this" front:

So I have this Wraith Lord in my garage, waiting for me to start working on it, but I've been at a loss as to how to model it. I liked how the golden demon striking scorpion Wraith Lord turned out, and I wanted to do something similar:



For the longest time I was trying to figure out how to set it up to look like a Howling Banshee, but for some reason, any pose that I could thing of would have to be leaning forward to look like it's running, and wouldn't be very stable and probably a bit fragile. I would prefer that my model wouldn't fall apart/over if a slight breeze hit it.

Then it finally dawned on me what to do: Wraith lord Dark Reaper. I'm planning on having it loaded with an Eldar Missile Launcher, Bright Lance, Flame Thrower, and Sword. I'm thinking of taking the Missile Launcher and Bright Lance, and fashioning them similar to a dark reaper tempest launcher, then attach the sword to the front to look like a scythe coming from the front of the weapon. Kind of like a huge version of Maugan Ra.

I think I'm going to have to break out that seam ripper and finish off the other two bikes, and move on to the Wraith Lord.

As always, Comments, Questions, criticisms are all welcome.

Cool! Like the Maugan Ra idea.

For a minute I thought 'That's your Wraithlord... And you're gonna change it?'

lol

HAHA!!!!

No that is definitely not my Wraith Lord pictured! Nor is the Golden Demon that it won.

A Delayed Birthday Present

So as a delayed birthday present from my wife this year, I got to go play a game of 40K while she watched the kids. Amazingly enough, I don't get to may games in. I actually missed all of 5th edition. So before the small game that I posted about previously, the last game I played was using 4th edition.

I ended up playing against Ork with Tau allied. He was a tournament player, using his tournament army. I on the other hand build a list in about 5 minutes using army builder. I didn't stand a chance, and the game was so one sided after 2 rounds, I conceded.

I have a few pictures that I'll see about getting posted, when I have time.

This got me to thinking about what I want to bring to the table, and what I should be doing. My errors for this game started before we even started the first round. My deployment was bad, and I forgot to buy a psychic power for my warlock.

I know my first error in the game was going towards him, and his 2 mobs that were coming at me, but then again, I wasn't used to be a shooting player, without rangers on the board. His two mobs decimated my Wriathguard, Howling Banshees, Striking Scorpions, and Storm Guardian, His shootas, took out my Dark Reapers, and one of my Wave Serpants. It was slightly humiliating.

BUT...

It was fun, and I ended up making a new friend, who's pointed me to a few places to read up on what changes I can be making.

I've thought about everything from what I brought to what I did. I'm hoping that next time I'll do better, but I really need to think about it. That and realize that I really shouldn't be playing against tournament players.

As far as my army is concerned. I'm thinking of finding a way to add in Harlequins. We'll see.

Sigh... I Hate The Cold!

As usual, with my work station out in the garage, I haven't been able to get much work done. But I have been able to get several projects out of the planning stages, and into the 'buying this and that' stage. The first model I've been getting out of the planning stages, is a bit of a kit bash (I think that's what it's called).

I have this idea that the Eldar of Altensar are a bit angry. How you would feel after being trapped in The Warp for ten thousand years. I figure that would be really angry. Almost Dark Eldar angry... but not quite. So I was thinking that for my main Farseer, I would mix and match a few pieces from Dark Eldar, and some from Normal Eldar. Here are the two figures that I'm planning on mixing together:

and

I'm planning on using the arm with the singing spear, and the head off of the Farseer, and putting that on the body of the Medusae. I've already cut off the arm, the chains, and a few of the spiky doodads.

The only problem that I really have is that this is my first experience with GW Finecast Resin. I HATE THE STUFF. A lot of bubbles, and some of the detail just isn't there. I see a lot of green stuff, putty filling, and sanding in my future.

The other fun thing I'm going to do is make this model on a small round base, and make a second larger base that it'll fit into that'll have a jet bike mounted on it. That way I can use the same model with jet bike or without. I know it's the lazy man's way out of modeling a Farseer on jet bike, but this way I can use the same model for either/or (I like the idea of versatility).

My other project is going to be more complex. I'm going to be making a remodeled Maugan Ra. 1) It's one of my favorite characters, 2) What is an Altansar army without one, 3) It seems like the guy is getting a lot of love out on the tournament rounds, so I wouldn't mind a different looking one.

I already have the original one painted up... From almost 20 years ago... it was actually the first GW model I bought, and painted. From that one I would need the backpack and Maugetar. I would then take the following model as my based, cut off a lot of unnecessary stuff, and use a lot of green stuff to build it back up to looking like Maugan Ra... with some armor missing.



I'll post images of the in progress Farseer later this week... I promise!

I'm liking the Farseer idea a lot, may in fact copy it. But the Maugan Ra one is a little random, based on the model you are making it from. None the less change is good and shall be watching.

Well, the Maugan Ra remodel is going to be a bit time consuming. There is going to be a lot of stuff from that model which is going to be coming off. The wing, the sword, the weird bat thing, the cloak from the back, the spikes on the armor.

Then I have to build it up some of the Maugan Ra armor on top of what's left. I want to keep the main shoulder that still has a shoulder pad on it, but modify it to be the big skull thing that Maugan Ra uses.

Right now my dilemma is if I want to have him holding the Maugetar one handed strait up, or one handed out to the side at an angle.

Probably straight up and leaning forward to the side(if you know what I mean) rather then to the side. Looking at the stock models pose, it may help keep the forward motion.

Finally... An Update!

So I finally got around to doing some modeling today. First of all, I found a few things that made me happy. First, I found an additional Shuriken Cannon Jet-bike upgrade. Actually I found a bike that already had Shuriken Cannon upgrade. So I now have two bikes with it. One I just recently put together, and one that might be about 10-15 years old.



I finally got around to finishing the construction of the second base. I think it ended up pretty good. I added more sand inside of the crater where the gems are coming out.



Farseer construction

So here is the look of the base for him. Same thing as the rest of the army. You'll see it with some sand on it in a few pictures below.



Here are all of the parts for the Farseer. As I mentioned earlier, I cut off the right arm of the Medusae to change it out for the one holding the singing spear. I haven't done anything with the head, and I don't think I'm going to. Well, obviously I'm going to clean it, mold lines and flash and such.



I didn't take much in-process picts, but here are two series. The first set shows the current progress, partially assembled, sand glued down, waiting for green stuff in a few spots. Mostly in the chest armor right where the left arm connects to the body. I decided not to do anything about the look of the left foot, but in truth not too many people are going to pay attention to that.



In this second set, it's just the same as above with the head placed on top... not glued on.



So all I need now is some warmer weather to get some priming done.

Gaming News

So I played in a team game yesterday. 2k points each. 8k on the table. I brought a Wraithguard Deathstar list, with Tau allies. Didn't bring Eldrad, so I didn't have that third Psy power. It was fun and great, and we got handled. It was close during the first two turns, before they got into assault range, and ripped us up. it was fun though, lasted about 5 hours of fighting.

I've been really liking the Deathstar with the Tau allies, now I just need to learn how to play them well, and figure out how to set up the rest of the army. I haven't tried the war walkers yet, but I'm starting to lean towards using them. I really like the Jet-bikes, but I keep using them wrong. I keep forgetting that I can't shoot and turbo-boost in the same turn, it's one or the other.

My other problem was figuring out how I would bring the Tau to Mars, Fluff-wise. Then one of the players gave me the perfect reasoning. Eldar are always looking into the future.

"Oh, the Void dragon is waking... we're going to need some help here. Who's available??? The Tau... Hey Tau, do you want to help out over here, for the greater good of the galaxy... Yeah, we said greater good... Oh, you need a ride? We have these webway portals, if you need a lift."

I know it's a bit cheesy, but it makes sense to me.

Now I just need to wait for the new Tau codex to come out, Before buying new models. The rumor I've heard is that it's coming soon, right before the new Eldar codex. Please be true!

One thing that I failed to mention, is that instead of using the rounded 'cut' method on my bases, I'm changing to the uneven 'tear' method.

That Farseer looks great! You'll definitely want to add a squad or 2 of Warwalkers. 24 S6 shots (from Scatterlasers), especially when guided by a farseer are pretty deadly. If you're bringing Tau allies, however, you may be shooty enough. You should look into Harlies and an Avatar or other fisty options to shore up your CC soft spots.

So it looks like I ended up getting a bit of a mention on Second Founding. Yes I did play against one of the guys from the pod cast, and lost to him... but I had a great time playing.

http://www.secondfounding.com/?p=1211

He mentions my army at about 1 hour and 4 minutes into the podcast, but I would suggest listening to it all. I did

The farseer turned out well, its slightly off scale with between the helmet and the body. Otherwise nice job Insacrum.

Hows the other one going, or is it started ?
I'm Currently working on making Maugan Ra a ride, its going well so far. Some greenstuffing coming up so dreading that as my skills at that are hit and miss.

I haven't actually started on Maugan Ra. I'm a little scared to start it, to tell the truth. I know it's going to entail a ton of work.

Some nice stuff going on here

A Warm Day... And Other Stuff!

So we finally had a nice warm weekend up here in Northern Ohio. It meant I finally got around to modeling... and priming. Though not exactly what I originally thought I would be priming. I want to focus on getting my Farseer done, but I seemed to have misplaced my greenstuff. Which means I was forced to start on Maugan Ra. I was actually happy with the amount of progress I got done.



I managed to get the wing off pretty easily, but now I have a stump where an arm should be. And after looking around at the model a bit, I still have to figure out a way to get a Shuriken Cannon in there. Granted I also want to add in a few other things, to make him look more Eldar, then not. Right now he is more not to me.

I want to file down that fur at the top of his cloak, but keep the cloak. I really liked the cloak, but I might have to modify it in order to get the Shuriken Cannon to fit. But I think to avoid that, I'm going to be doing some chopping on the Shuriken Cannon. I want to find a nice gun that I can put under the left arm that's going to be sticking out, so his gun will kind of be pointing out.

Other than that, I managed to take a lot off of the model that I didn't want, without doing to much damage to the model. Although I'm still not happy with the head currently.

The other thing that I'm not sure about, I want to cut out that chunk of rock that his Right foot is currently standing on, and rebuild it using cork and a Necron body on the front. I want to keep the shape and look the same, but just make it fit in more with my current bases.

Right now my modeling is going to focus on the Farseer, Maugan Ra, and 10 bases for my Wraithguard.

Can Black Be A Prime Number?

So like I said, I did a little bit of priming. I'll show you some picts before I tell you want I'm working on.



I'm sure you noticed that these are parts that going into some type of grav tank. The last time I played, I ended up proxying in a Night Spinner. I might not have done the most damage, but I loved it. Now I have a problem though. In my army, I'll be running 3-4 Heavys.

Night Spinner
War Walkers
Wraithlord
Dark Reapers

So I think the order, in terms of which I want to use, will end up being War Walkers, Night Spinner, Dark Reapers, Wraithlord. I'm thinking that I might model up my war walkers to look like Wasps, so that if I'm ever in a situation that I can use them as such, I can. I saw this done by finnan here, about page 9 or 10. It looks really good, and I have no problem stealing another persons idea (We all do to some point). I just won't have the forge-world engines sticking out the back.

So I've contacted my local gaming store, and he's going to sell me just the top turret of the night spinner/fire prism, so I don't have to buy the whole tank, since I don't need the whole tank.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Not Quite Finished!

So a quick update. I just picked up the Night Spinner/Fire Prism turret. Half the tank, for half the price. I also picked up some dark eldar items with the intension of getting them into my new Maugan Ra.

I think I have figured out my arm issue, and it came from somewhere I didn't even think about before. I'm going to see if I can use the arm from the Medusae that I previously cut off, and saved (Save everything people!!!). I just have to pin it in place, and then scupt up some green stuff around it... Once I find my green stuff.

Which means my projects currently stand at:

2 Eldar Guardian Jet Bikes - 1 unassembled, 1 needs primer
1 Eldar Farseer - Assembled, Needs Green Stuff
1 Maugan Ra - In peices, Needs Green stuff
1 Night Spinner - Part Primed, Part still on sprue
10 Wriathguard bases - just round peices of black plastic
1 War Walker - In the box

Also, expect a pict later of the current progress of Maugan Ra's Base.

In other news...

So one of the things that I have in my garage are Space Marines. A ton of them. Mostly still on the sprue, some primed, some with a bit of paint on them. I never got too far into them because my mind always shifted where I wanted to go with them.

I like the Dark Angels, but terminators are expensive. I liked the idea of a leader who used jetpacks, with a possible honor guard, or command squad using jetpacks, but I didn't like the Blood angels fluff too much. I wanted to go pure Vanilla marines, but I didn't like the troop choices, and now in 6th troops are key.

It took me an Aha moment last night... Allies! I could take Belial, for some terminator love, and also use Blood angels. I could fluff it away that it is actually one army, but the rules let me use Terminators and Jump Pack squads.

Here is what I was thinking at 1500 pts.

DA:
Belial
Deathwing Command squad/Apothecary/Champion
Deathwing terminator squad x 5
Deathwing terminator squad x 5
Nephilim Jetfighter

BA:
Captain with Jetpack
Deathcompany x5

so I have 2 HQ, 1 FA, 3 Troops, for 1500 points. all for 22 models, and 1 plane. The only thing I would possibly change out is the Jetfighter, but I don't know what for.

The other funny thing about this list, is it can all deep strike. I kind of like it... I know I'll get massecred if I try to use it, but it'll still be fun.

I like the idea of having them be a DA successor chapter. Since I want to run the fluff as one army, I was thinking of treating the Ravenwing of this chapter as jump squads, rather than bike squads.

I'm thinking of going with Angels of Reclamation. Half Green and Half Red, similar to Angels of Redemption, or Angels Sanguine.

Well, I promised you pictures of Maugan Ra, and here they are.



I've done some additional work on him since these pictures were taken yesterday. I want to do a little more before I post some more pictures.

Enjoy, and as always, Questions, Comments and Suggestions are always welcome.

oh shet that jetbike is coming out pretty fuq'n swell, good job
that farseer conversion, FUQ'N SWEET, i just hate how static the farseer models are, it would appears you do too
it would also appear that ur not a fan of the reaper models as well, their just so outdated its not even funny, ur maugan ra looks pretty damn awesome right now, keep it up, maybe add a pointy stick bursting out of that crons chest or neck or its face melted off or soemthing, it would look better that way

And So It Continues.

So I have been steadily making progress on Maugan Ra. There are certain parts of it that I like, and other parts of it that I don't like. You can take a look at the model so far before I go into what I have done, and what I like and what I don't like.




So far I have take the time to get the form of the majority of the model done. Most of it is pinned, without gluing so I can take it apart as needed for filing and sanding purposes. I'm pleasantly surprised with the look of the Maugetar, I just have to add in a little bit of GS in order to get the Shuriken Cannon to meld better with the DE Cannon that I'm using as the part he's holding. As of right now, I can still choose to flip the blade that is hanging down, but I currently like it as is. Obviously the thing looks huge on him, but most heavy weapons do. Yes, I know it's not technically a heavy weapon, but it's just semantics at this point.

I've done a bit of mold line cleaning, but I need to do more. I managed to file down the horns that were pretty prevalent on the Vampire model, but now it looks pretty good. There is still that hole to fill in on the back of the armor, but I want to get all of the main model filing done before starting in on the green stuff.

The proportion of the right arm doesn't quite match up with the left arm, but unless you pick up the model, you don't really notice it. I need to file down a lot of the cloth that is currently on the arm, and I'll probably have to build up some muscle mass on it afterwards using GS. The back of the hand has also seen some better days, having a few bubbles from the resin. Oh well, just more for me to fill in.

I really want to get rid of the fur on his back, like I've previously stated, but I don't know if I want to put a bit of a Dark Eldar back there, for some extra texture, or use some more of my spare parts to create something that looks like a backpack. Either way, the fur is going to be gone. This will at least help get a head to fit on their, once I choose one. I'm thinking I might want to add a back fin thing, like from the Eldar guardians.

The base looks a little empty. I'm thinking that I'm going to take the Necron gun, from the now dead warrior on the base, and put it there. Perhaps even find a way to make it look like it used to be attached to the dead warrior. I'll probably add some object source lighting when I get around to painting. The pylon that he's standing on needs to thicken up around where it meets the base. I'm thinking a little extra cork there, or some other items might help it out. It obviously doesn't have a Necron Gem in it yet, so I might find a way to get one sticking out of there. More OSL for me when I'm painting.

If anyone cares about what parts are currently used in there:
- The Winged Vampire Count is the main body.
- A Necron Warrior on the base.
- The arm from the Medusae model that wasn't used in the Farseer.
- The gun or cannon from some Dark Eldar vehicle sprue. I'm not really sure from what though. In the codex it looks like a Disintegrator Cannon.
- The Shuriken Cannon from an Eldar Falcon Grav Tank, or Vyper Jet Bike.
- The Blade from a Dark Eldar Hellion.

As always, Question, Comments, and Suggestions are welcome.

A Pictured Update

So I've gotten around to doing some more work on Maugan Ra (pictures below). I've done a ton of filing and sanding. Most of the fur at the top of the cape on the back is gone. I'm still debating on whether or not to add a backpack of some type. I have a few options available, but don't know if I want to use any of them. The one thing I think I'm going to change is to make it look like the Necron is rising out of the ground, rather than look like it's dead at his feet. A little bit of cork around him, and some sand should help. Overall I'm really happy with the work so far... I just don't want to screw it up by adding some green stuff and screwing it up.







This was something that I decided to get a bit of a start on. These are the bases for my Wraithguard. I've actually done a bit of work on the Wraithguard as well. I have to say, cutting and filing off flash and mold lines from pewter SUCKS BIG TIME!!! I've gone through all of the bodies. I still need to get all of the heads. Then it's cutting off the tabs at the bottom and adding pins. It's all going to be time consuming since I have 10 of the pewter ones, and not the resin ones.



As always, Questions, Comments, and Criticisms are welcome.

Thanks for reading.

The gun that guy is wielding is impressive, but at the current pose seems impossibly heavy for him to wield. Perhaps change the barrel length? or make the party he holds on to smaller? Mostly the barrel length is what makes me question that hold. Or the best solution is a shoulder strap.

Well, the assumption that I'm going with is that it's normally wielded with two hands, but he is currently holding it with just one.

I guess I should add a second handhold onto the gun to make it more obvious.

Thanks!

A Few Tests.

So I'm home sick today, and managed to take an hour to do some painting. Nothing to extensive. I didn't want to go too long and end up having to go away and let the paint dry before I could use it. Plus I just wanted to do some test items done.

Below you'll see two canopies that I've painted. I started with a Snakebite Leather, and then layered up with Bleached bone. I was happy with the one on the right, except for the top. I want to use it more than the one on the left. I guess I'll have to paint over the top again.



Here are some pics of a Fire Dragon Exarch. this thing is old... Really old. This was before I realized that I should remove flash and mold lines. You can actually see a big piece of metal that I should have removed at the bottom of the firepike. The red was already there, but It's the grey that I added.

I wanted to see what it would look like because I want to use the grey as a base for all of my Eldar foot soldiers. It's just codex grey with a black wash. I need to go over it again with more codex grey to highlight it up.



It's too bad that the light is so dark on these pictures... it kind of ruins the quality a bit.

The idea for the Eldar troops is that they will all have grey cloth underneath their armor, and the armor will all be different depending on the Aspect.

Fire Dragons will be bright red
Scorpions will be green
Howling Banshees will be bone white
Dark Reapers will be black or purple
Swooping Hawks will be light blue
Dire Avengers will be dark blue
Warp Spiders will probably be brown
Guardians will be dark red

Into the future.

So I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm kind of excited for the future release of the Tau Empire. In higher point games I have been using a commander, 2 broadsides, and a group of fire warriors. I'm liking the look of the new broadsides, and the commander comes with the cyclonic ion blaster (overcharge anyone?).

My only problem will be the cost to get all of the models that I want.

As always, Questions, Comments, and Criticisms are welcome.

In A Wasp Nest

So I'm pretty sure that I mentioned this already, but I decided to try my hand at making my own Wasps. I in no way, shape, or form take any credit for the idea of this wasp... it all goes to Finnin, which I believe I mentioned in an earlier post.

It was an interesting process, I felt so bad cutting up the wings on an old Viper Jet Bike, but hey, I don't use them that much anymore. I'm planning on pinning the weapons so perhaps if I'm really desperate, I can use them as either a war walker, wasp, or viper, as long as I'm not trying to mix and match.

The initial installation of the wings was pretty smooth, but one of the wings has a permanent bend to it, so it looks a little off compared to the other wing. but overall they look pretty good.



The only problem that I ran into was when I tried to get the wings onto what I will call the hips (where the legs would be attached on a war walker). it seems that the fenders collided with the wings, making it not come together. I ended up fixing this with an extension that I created from a piece of sprue. I figure that in the location where it'll be, it won't be too noticeable.



Here is a look at it with me holding it together. I don't have any blue tac so I can't really do it justice, but I think you get the gist.



As always, please leave your questions, comments, and criticisms.

Thanks,

A Quick Update and Speculations

So it's been a while since I've had an update on my Altansar. It's mostly because I have been really busy at work, and at home. It happens. The only thing that I've really been able to do is work in filing, pinning, and finishing the bases for my Wraithguard. I still have to work on attaching their heads, but I'm sure I'll get to it.







As for my other projects, right now my Farseer is out in the garage with it's first layer of primer drying. The Wasps are in my box, still unfinished. Maugan Ra is also in my box. I decided against doing any green stuff on my warlock.

As for Maugan Ra, I'm not sure that I'm going to do much more on him right now. I've been reading a bit on the Eldar rumors, and if what they say about the Autarch and howling banshees is true, then I'm not going to be using Maugan Ra too much.

Most likely my HQ choices are going to be a Farseer of some sort, and a Howling Banchee Xentarch. Lucky for my I have 20+ Howling Banshees in my boxes in the garage. I'll just mean a ton of basing and priming and painting on my part.

Personally I'm not sure what to expect from the new Eldar models that are rumored to be coming out next month. And I'm hating the wait.

From what I've read, I'm thinking of picking up the Black Warden. I'm suspecting that this character is going to be a replacement for Eldrad Ulthran (Since he's currently dead in the current timeline). I'll probably get the Howling Banshees Xentarch, and one of the new Tanks. I'm thinking that a bigger tank, that also works as a transport, is going to be for Wraithguard.

But in all reality, I think I'll have to pick up the Codex, and then a few models kits at a time after release (Once I know what I want).

That Maugan Ra conversion is brilliant so much better than the current GW one. He actaully looks scary now. are you going to give him the skull helmet anywhere on the model?

Young Logan

Thanks for the praise. Right now the work on the Maugan Ra conversion is on hold. I'm waiting on the Eldar Codex coming out soon. Right now my HQs are probably going to be a Farseer and a Howling Banshee Exarch. So I'm going ahead with painting the Farseer, but I'm holding off on MR for now.

Plus I'm afraid that my GS skills are going to ruin it.

So it looks like the internet is exploding with picture of the new Eldar models. I'm liking the look of the Wraithguard. I'm definitely getting the new Ranger IC, as well as the Spiritseer, but I can't justify the price on the wraithknight.

I think the one troubling thing that I'm noticing is that I'm going to have to rebase my older Wraithguard already. It looks like the new pictures have them on 40mm bases, instead of 25mm.

Here's hoping that I can re-purpose them for those 20 Howling Banshees that I'm planning on running.

So I finally started being able to take a lunch at work, and do some painting on my break. Here are two images to show what's going on with my farseer.



All I have right now is a black primer/base coat, with some graveyard earth to block out which I'm planning to build up to red. I figure that putting down a brown coat will help make the red go down smoother, since red on black can get a bit splotchy.

On a separate note, I also managed to take off the bases on the Wraithguard pretty easily. Just need to get the Howling Banshees ready, as well as make 10 Terminator bases for the Wraithguard.

Thanks.

I'm back, this time with more work on my Farseer/Spiritseer. I know I'm not going to pick up either of the new figures for the Farseer or Spiritseer, so I have no problems with working on this model.



I got the red over the brown, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out. You can really tell the difference with not having the brown down first, if you look at the feet.

As of this point, I put down two coats of red gore with a wash of nuln oil, and one coat of dawnstone. I still need to add a second coat of dawnstone before washing that with nuln oil as well. Then I'll go back over the raised portion with their original colors, and most likely a highlight.

Thanks for visiting.

Farseer WIP 3

Well, here is the next set of WIP pictures of the Farseer. I'm a little late with posting these pictures since I've already added to the singing spear and hand. I've also glued on the head.



Right now all I have left is to finish up the base, color the head rune, and pick out some of the gems in green (head and chest minimum).

I'm liking the look of the powered hand. I stole the idea from the new codex cover. I also added some edge OSL highlights, but they look a little drastic on camera. I think they look better in person.

New Releases

As for the new releases that are coming out, right now my order of purchasing is probably going to be: Codex, Illic Nightspear, Hemlock Wraithfighter.

I'm not sure about the Wraithknight... more from a dollars standpoint, not from a coolness, strength on the battlefield standpoint.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'm not sure if you guys are tired of seeing my WIP pictures or not, but here are some more. Please feel free to give any feedback that you might have:



Thanks!

That is one bad ass farseer you go there you does look suitably angry. the osl effect is a nice touch too makes me look like hes charging his laser and gonna cast mind war or something.

Well, from the looks of things from the Codex Leaks, it's most likely that my Howling Banshees are going to be staying in the BattleFoam when I play. I had such high hopes that the Autarch Paths were going to be a real thing, but now it looks like it didn't happen. No Banshee Troops.

What's probably worse, is that the Banshees might be fast, but they are still going to die in waves trying to get into Melee. Although from the looks of things, Striking Scorpions got a ton better. Starting tomorrow, it'll be time to do some playing around to see if I can figure out if I can make Howling Banshees viable in the army I want to field, instead of using Scorpions.

well i hope it will be awesome when it drops good luck finding a list to play that is always the hardest part about this game

WOW!!!

That's all I have to say about the new Eldar Codex... "WOW!!!" I don't know what I was expecting, but overall I am very happy with how thing turned out for the space elves. Sure I'm kind of sad about how things turned out for Howling Banshees, since I have 22 unpainted ones sitting in my boxes in my garage now, but oh well.

I played a few games this past weekend, and in doing so, pulled out a few figures that have been collecting dust on them. I finally opened up two boxed up Wave Serpents and used them. And Loved Them!!! I also broke down and picked up Illic Nightspear. I'm still trying to figure out how to properly use Illic, but I had fun with the rest of the army none the less. Right now the base of my army is as follows:

Illic Nightspear
Spiritseer
Guardian Defenders in tricked out Wave Serpent, with warlock.
Wraithguard in tricked out Wave Serpent
Jetbike Squad
Rangers
Striking Scorpions
Warp Spiders
Nightspinner/Fireprism
Imperial Bastion

Right now I'm debating between the Fireprism and Nightspinner, and I'm leaning towards the Nightprism. Barrage just seem to suit my play style more.

Since this is a Painting and Modeling Blog, Lets get to that part.

I ended up creating my own Imperial Bastion from scratch using a few posts on Dakka as inspiration. I'll have to take some pictures of it and post it, but suffice it to say, it's made out of cardboard. The guys I played with seemed impressed with it, especially since I got to play-test using it, without having to shell out $50 for one.

Since the new Wraithguards are now on 40mm bases instead of 25mm bases, I ended up taking the previous bases off of my Wraithguards, and putting new 40mm bases on them. I'll get pictures of this up as well. I'm planning on taking the previous bases and use them on my guardians seeing that I'm planning on bringing 10 of these guys in a WS in every list I build.

Since I'm planning on using at least 2 Wave Serpents, and 1 Nightspinner, I've been trying out some color schemes, trying to figure out what I like. Below are the results of what I've tried. As for the lines, I'm liking the blue the most, but I was so wishing that the washes would have made the green or red look better. The purple part is blue with a red wash.



Now that I think about it, I might go back over those sections with actual green and purple to see what those look like before I keep decide. On the one picture you can see lighter panels on the far wing of the tank chassis, but I didn't like the way those ended up looking for the top, but they did give me a few good ideas for what I want to do for the bottom of the tanks. Right now for the top, I'm going to go with Chaos Black panels with Codex Grey edging.

As for the Illic model, there are a lot of things that I like about it, but a few things that I don't. Since the man is supposed to be a Necron fighter, I think that fits in well with the army background that I was going for, so he seems perfect to bring. I just want to paint him to be Altansar instead of Aliatoc. I just hated the look of his head, so I decided to give him the head of a guardian, rather then the one he came with. This actually plays well into the Altansar theme, since in the new codex, they make mention that the Eldar from Altansar don't take their helmets off anymore. I should try to see if I can find a ranger head for him instead, but I think I like the look of the guardian head that I'll keep it as is. See below.



The other thing that came to me about the figure is the piece that he's supposed to come standing on. To me, the curve of that stone work looks eerily familiar. Can anyone say Necron Destroyer. I'm in the process of getting one in trade from a friend of a friend of a... you get the point. I'm thinking that I can chop of piece of the body off and make it look crashed and damaged, with Illic standing on that instead of the stone work he currently comes with.

I have to say, I'm thoroughly impressed with the model and the lengths that GW has gone to make sure that it we aren't dealing with an large amount of damaged spots (flash & bubbles). The largest issue I had was having to bend the gun barrel straight. Nothing that a bit of really hot (not boiling) water couldn't take care of.

Anyway, it looks like I have a lot of pictures that I need to take for you guys.

As always, thanks for reading, and please leave any comments, criticisms, or questions.

Back to the World of Painting.

So I finally took the time to not only paint, but to also take a ton of pictures of it... and I do mean a ton. I was able to scrap the ones that I didn't like and have kept the best of the best (Lucky you!).

First up is the Imperial Bastion that I scratch built. Mind you this isn't a completed item, in that I have no fire points, nor Heavy Bolter emplacements. One of he guys I was playing with this weekend thought I could make it into an Eldar building, but I was thinking an Imperial building with gems sticking out of it. But that'll be after the fire points and Heavy Bolters.



It actually comes in three parts: Base, Column, Battlements. If I wanted to, I can take out the column, and it'll still stand tried and true.

I finally managed to finish my Farseer. Now I just need to pick a color for the part of the base under the cork. Purple might be one option to go, but so would blue or green.



Along with the Farseer, I got a little work done on Illic. I managed to get his body primed, and start painting up the head. First are two group shot with the Farseer, then individual shots. Since I'm painting him up to be a member of Altansar, instead of Aliatoc, I'm thinking of giving him a different name for when I play. I'm liking Buanna Solanum (Reaper Nightshade).

That might make sense: a former dark reaper, who chose to go the path of the outcast. I might have a good story for him... A little known reaper who escaped with Maugan Ra, but soon afterwards, chose the path of the outcast, but is now reunited with his craftworld, along with Maugan Ra.



The back is nothing special, but I figured I could show it.



I'm actually pretty proud of the glowing eyes going on with the head. It's too bad that Illic doesn't have night vision or the green glow would make a ton of sense. The only problem with the pictures how well they show the imperfections fom my work. That line on the right side of the helmet is killer, but at least it's not too bad. I think this example will work pretty well with the rest of the body.



As always, keep your comments, criticisms, and questions coming.

Thanks,

Everything is looking good in my opinion. There is however a mold line on that Eldar head on the side.

Yeah, that's what I was referring to when I said that the line on the right side of the head is killer.

Illic Picture Update.

I don't have much time, so here is a picture update of what I'm doing with Illic. Once I have more time, I'll write up what exactly I did.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
So here is the start of my paint-up for Buanna Solanum (Illic Nightspear).

So one of the things that I wanted to do with my model was have the gun be dark in comparison to the rest of the model. The Jacket is going to match the base coloring that I used in my Farseer. The gloves and chaps are going to be the grey coloring on the robes of the Farseer. The armor area is going to be crimson. Those three main area are going to be lighter, so I wanted to go with a darker tone on the gun.

In the recent How to Paint citidel miniatures book, there is a section that describes painting black marble with blue veins, in the tomb kings section, and I decided to do something similar, but in a green. I think it came out pretty good.

First I started with a base of Dark Angels Green. I don't know what the new color is, since I was mostly using old colors. Over that I dry brushed, and edged it in Snot Green.

Once that was done, I washed the area with Thraka green to tone it down a bit. Once that was dry, I did very thin highlights with Reaper Mini's paint Jade Green. It's kind of somewhere in between Goblin Green and Moot green with a little scorpion green mixed in (at least that is how I would describe it. After that I gave it one more wash of thraka green.

I've just started on the red area. It's started with Scar Red from Vallejo paints. I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to be their version of scab red. Over that I have a nuhl oil wash.

I'm planning on going back over it with scar red, and then a bit of blood red. Once that is done I'll give it a red wash to help bring the blending together.

After the red, I'll keep working from the inside out, so I'll probably do the Jacket next. I just have to figure out what I want to do about the Camo pattern. Given that this is supposed to be Forge-World Mars, I have to be thinking Urban Camo. I was thinking of doing something in a three circle theme, with a mini purple dot in the middle of one of the Circles, something to tie it into the Necron gems popping out of the ground.

Perhaps instead of circles which are more organic, I should go with triangles which seem more industrial. Maybe one small triangle, partially within a Large Triangle, and then with a purple dot somewhere within it.

for my Altansar army are supposed to be green. I wonder if I can do the gems in purple since pathfinders are outcasts?The last part will be figuring out the intricate detailing. Part of me wants to do it in green to tie it to the gun, but Spirit Stones

A Challenge From An Unlikely Source.

So for father's day this year, my wife got me a gift certificate to my local gaming store, which I was thrilled with. It gave me a reason to buy the new Crimson Hunter/Hemlock Wraithfighter. I didn't want to spend the money on the Wraithknight, even though everything that I ready about it says that it's a beast. The only problem overall was my wife's reaction.

It's funny how much our life mirrors that of the Big Bang Theory, since her reaction to my over-enthusiasm was to ask what this toy plane does. I started to talk about the game, but was quickly interrupted and she changed her question to asking what does it do after you place this thing on the table. After which my enthusiasm was more tempered since the answer is, "It just sits there, until I move it."

The other thing she asked was how long it was going to take me to put it together an paint it, while reminding me of another model she had purchased for me. When I first met my wife, I wasn't playing or painting WH40K, but I was trying to get into building normal, Testors models. That experiment didn't go well, as I lost enthusiasm for it.

But to get back on point, what is has done is light a fire under me, which means that I'm once more shifting my focus. This time from Illic and my troops to this 'toy plane'.



So to start, I've got a start to the base. As of right now, I'm going to have about 4 Necron gems sticking up, from about 3 places. The one thing that I'm going to add is part of a wing from a Necron Doom Scythe/Night Scythe to the base made out of Plasticard. I didn't know if I wanted to make it look like it was shot down, or coming out of the ground, but I think in this case, since I'm planning on using the Crimson Hunter version of the plane, I'm going to go with making it look shot down.

The other thing that I want to do with the plane is magnetize it so that I can use it was the Hemlock Wraithfighter if I want to instead of as the Crimson Hunter. I've already ordered the magnets, and those should be in my hands within the next two weeks (fingers crossed). I'm hoping to have a lot of updates as I work through the building and painting of this. But for right now, I just have to have part of it ready for use by Sunday for a game. I'll just have the base manageable, with the bottom of the plane itself ready for use so that I know where to measure from.

As always, any comments, criticisms, and questions are always welcome.

Thanks,

Crimson Hunter Base

So I've started on the Crimson Hunter base, and I think I have a lot done. I started with getting the Night Scythe parts cut out. I decided to go with using Plasticard to make the Night Scythe, mostly because I'm trying to be as cheap as possible, and I didn't want to have to by an actual Night Scythe for this. In order to pull this off, I found a pretty good picture of a Night Scythe from the top down, and edited it so that it would be about 6 inches across when I printed it out. It's pretty hard to find out how wide that thing is on the net without being able to measure it, but I think 6 inches was a good approximation.

After that it was merely taking the time to trace it onto some Plasticard, cut it out of the Plasticard, and then file the edges smooth. I decided to be a bit tricky with how I glued it down, to make it look like crashed paneling. Other than this, I just added the 4 Necron Gems.



After this, it was only a matter of adding some sand to the areas between the cork, and around the downed Night Scythe wing. I'm thinking of adding some more layers of sand around part of the Night Scythe wing, in order to make it look like it crashed and pushed the dirt and ground into a pile in that area. I think it'll help make it look more realistic.



Once I'm done with the sand, this should be ready for priming!

Question, Comments, and Criticisms are always welcome.

Thanks,

Argh and Blart!

So I finished the base for my Crimson hunter yesterday. There isn't enough of a noticeable difference where I would have posted an image. The only problem is that I forgot to take it home so I could prime it to start painting it. So without anything do to on the base for the crimson hunter, I started to cut a few of the pieces off of the sprue and cleaned them up. I have the pieces for the cockpit, cut and ready for sanding or gluing.

Since I didn't have much to do with the Crimson Hunter, I decided to put a bit more work on Illic Nightspear. All I managed to do was to finish up the red armor, although I was a little sloppy in places, I didn't mind, since I'll be painting over that. So All I have left on him are the grey leathers, the brown/camo coat, and the miscellaneous trinkets. I think I'll do the trinkets next.

Here is where he stands as of now. I took the pictures from a few different angles, as well as used the camera flash in one, and some overhead lighting in the other.




Let me know what you think.

Also, WOOT on 5000 views!

Thanks,

All your work is looking great, I particularly like your concept for the Autarch, my one annoyance about him is he looks anorexic xD His waist is way too small for the rest of him, other than that, awesome!

All your bases... and what not.

So I managed to get a game in this weekend. My friend who has been playing Tau a lot lately decided to bring his Orks this time.

It was a fun game, and I almost managed to pull off a draw, but it ended up being a win for him by one victory point. Looking back on things, I should have been more strategic with final positioning (If I had placed my Crimson Hunter in his deployment I might have had linebreaker), but it was a close fun game, and one that I didn't concede him the win late in the game. I liked having the Crimson Hunter, but it came into play too early, as I went first, and it came out on turn two, so it was looking for flyers, and there were none. Although my Farseer managed to not die for 2.5 turns worth of close combat, I just need to remember that he gets two attacks, not one. As fun as that list was to run, I think I'm going going to go back to using Illic Nightspear, and Imperial Bastion.

The other cool thing about the game is that I got my Necron parts that I traded my unused SM dreadnought for. Below you can see my test fit of Illic on the Destroyer's torso/abdomen (what do they call that part on insects?).



I think it's going to look awesome, and I haven't seen anyone else try to do the same thing. A Necron hating guy standing on a Necron. Here are pictures with Illic blue tacked onto the finished base. All I need to do is add sand, and prime it (goodbye copper, sorry).



I did managed to get the Crimson Hunter's base primed as well, so I'll probably working on 12 bases simultaneously (Illic, Crimson Hunter, 10 Guardian bases).

As always, questions, comments, and criticisms are always welcome.

Illic Update

So I've been working on Illic a lot lately. For some reason my brain wants me to finish it. So here is a picture of it.



I've finished the gray parts of the model, and I added the first two coats of brown to the duster. Overall, even though the model is very neutral in its color scheme, I think it still has pops here and there. The base is mostly done, and all I need to do is paint up the gem. If you look at his foot, you'll see that It tends to stand away from the base, so I'll need to glue that down when I'm closer to being done.

I still need to put in the color for the sword and pistol. Part of me wanted to do a darker brown for them, but then I think it'll blend into the duster too much. I think I also have to add a little metallic highlighting to the exhaust of the destroyer on the base, but I'm not sure if it'll detract too much from the actual model.

I have a feeling that I'm going to end up having to touch up a few of the gray spots, where the brown is bleeding into it, but that should be the worst of my issues on this model.

As always, question, comments, and criticisms are always welcome.

Illic Finished?

So I got a ton of work done on Illic as of yesterday and today. I glued him all together, and did a lot of the fine detail work on him.




The one thing that I'm not sure about is whether or not I want to add a camo pattern to his cloak. If I decide to go against the camo pattern, then I'll just need to seal him with matt and gloss varnish.

I'm pretty happy with the model overall. I tried a couple of new things, especially going pretty extreme with the highlights in order to help it stand out on the gaming table. I think for an HQ, I'm liking the look and detail. I hope I don't go this drastic when I'm working on Guardians.

Doing the camo would look fine.

I would also have to determine what Camo pattern to use.

I'm going to vote 'no' for the camo - I think it looks great as it is now, and I would worry that the camo would be a bit too much and too busy for the model. You've done a really good job on him - really liking the headswap, it's very appropriate, and would hate for things to go wrong at the last stage.

I always worry about camo on minis because it'd be REALLY fiddly to do all the highlight on those seperate areas of colour, and if you don't, it'd look flat compared to the other forced highlights, especially if, as you say, they are quite extreme highlights on the rest of the model - it might look unfinished. Part of being an artist/designer is knowing when to stop, and I think you've reached that point.

The green on the base rim is really distracting, and is taking attention away from the model though - black or brown?

I was wondering about the green on the base. Part of me liked it, making it easier to see where the base was, but I was wondering about the distraction as well. At the time I decided to leave it as is, because my lunch time was running out and I couldn't change it.

I also did the same to the Farseer, so most likely after the weekend I'll try changing the base on the Farseer to brown to see how it looks.

Thanks for the advise and criticisms.

For a Friend

So a friend of mine was asking me about how things were going on a few of my projects since I haven't updated anything here in a while. I've managed to get a few shots of the cockpit and the fuselage of the plane. The cockpit actually looks pretty good. It looks even better through the canopy (which I haven't shown here).



I took a tip from a modeling magazine on the canopy. It was looking pretty ragged, and scratched up, and you could barely see through it, but a little bit of Future Floor Polish and the thing is shiny and see-through. I might have to give it another dip in the polish, to take care of one last little scratch. For those of you wanting to keep the canopy see through on your Eldar vehicles, I would definitely recommend using Futures to get rid of scratches.

A Little Something

Here is something new I started on today. I'm not planning on getting much more done in the immediate future. I just wanted to have something basic that I could use in a game this weekend. My intention was to make a diorama piece, that would combine well with Illic Nightspear. Illic Nightspear would be in the foreground with the Wraithlord standing behind him. I also have a plug piece created, for when i'm playing, I won't have to worry about there being this big emply hole in the base. I'm also going to use more of the destroyer on the base, to tie the two together.



Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

brown base for Illic

Brown Base, and pink sight lenses.

Also matt finish over the whole model, with gloss finish on the gems and the sights.

it all ties together really nicely - the red is nice and strong, but doesn't overpower, and considering you have quite a lot of red and green it's not clashing, nor does it look too Xmas-like! Good job, you should be really pleased with it.

Truth be told, I love it. One of the best models I've ever painted. I just hope I can keep it up with the stuff I'm currently working on. It's weird but it just seems easier with smaller models compared to the crimson hunter. Then again, since he is an HQ, I shouldn't feel so bad if my troops don't look as good.

The release of the lizard men has given me a great idea for how I'm going to do the red on black that I first did on a jetbike. I should test it on one oft other models first though. Perhaps I'll redo the jetbike.

Papercraft

So I had a nice weekend, getting to play two games, both against my Tau friend. He changed up his list somewhat, bringing a Commander Farsight list, with Tau Allies. WOW that list is impressive. He won the first game, and I won the second game. I only won the second game because his Warlord was still in reserves when time ran out. I came away with some very interesting thoughts about what I have been bringing into games recently.

1. As much as I like Illic Nightspear, he sucks on the battle field. The guy needs to be able to fire his gun more than once a turn, or his weapon should have been master-crafted, twin-linked.

2. Rangers are way to squishy, with all of the ignores cover that Tau can bring.

3. Scorpions need to stay off the board... I think I need to figure out a replacement in my army for them. I have yet to get them into CC.

4. I need to bring a lot more high strength weapons. Most of my weapons were strength 6, which does nothing against 13 armor. More Brightlance and more Wraithcannons.

5. The Wraithlord could use some extra wounds, but seems cheaply priced. If I had my Spiritseer close by, I could have used his renew psychic power.

6. I really like the Wraithlord and Wraithknight. I'm probably never going to buy an actual Wraithknight, but I did get some compliments on my 'scratch build proxy'. I'm not sure if it is actually tournament legal per-say, but I'm not using him in a tournament.



I just took an image from online, printed it out so it was about 9 inches tall, mounted it on a bit of cardboard that attaches to a flying base. Worked well as a proxy even if he is only 2D. And I didn't spend $115 US on it for just one game. I'll probably keep him around in case I want to use him again later.

Looking Ahead


With that in mind, I think I'm going to be bringing the following as standard:

Farseer
Spiritseer
2 squads Wraithguard in wave serpents (ScL, ShCn, Halo)
Crimson Hunter/Hemlock Wraithfigher (I like the Crimson Hunter, but I keep getting him in on turn 2 :( ).
Warp Spiders
Wraithlord

Possible add-ons:

Nightspinner/Fireprism
1-3 Jetbike squads with Shuriken Cannons
Guardians in Waveserpent with Warlock/Dire avengers in Falcon Grav-tank
Warwalkers/Vypers
Wraithknight

Other than the list, I really need to focus on making better tactical decisions. I think my deployment could have been better, since my Spiritseer wasn't able to spirit mark anything after the first turn. I should have had more wraith stuff close to him. In the first game I made a wrong decision with my Wraithknight in focusing on the Riptide standing in front of him, rather than going for the troop squad hiding in some ruins to his side. The thing was a beast and took out a tank in nothing flat.

I'm thinking with as much wraith stuff as I'm bringing, I need to look into the rules of the Iyanden book, at least until they get a book out for Aliatoc and make Illic and his rangers/pathfinders better.

On a painting/modeling note: I should see how well the Spiritseer will look instead of Illic on the Wraithlord base.



It doesn't look to bad, but I think I still like the look of Illic on the base. Oh well.

As always, any questions, comments, criticisms are welcome.

Progress

Here is a quick post with progress shots of my Crimson Hunter/Hemlock Wraithfighter.



The base is coming along nicely. I don't think I thinned down the bleached bone enough as it's streaky, but a few more thin layers should fix that. The bottom shot is kind of a before shot, comparing it to the after shot of the top. The top is the part that I'm not sure about. I'm thinking that it looks better in comparison to the previous way I was doing the effect:



But I'm not sure how I feel about the amount of it on the plane. I have a feeling that I need more of it, bigger swaths of it, similar to the nose of the plane.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

A Realization!

So I've been busy with my son's upcoming birthday, and I haven't had any time to put paint to models. I have a ton of models in the pipeline that I want to work on, but right now it's just been sitting at my desk at work. I can't do anything with them, since I've been having to go places during lunch in order to get stuff prepared for his party.

The one thing that has been nagging me has been my crimson hunter's paint job. The current pattern that I have on it just wasn't sitting right with me. I had rushed putting pencil onto the hull of the model, and now the pattern that I painted doesn't sit well with me. I think I'm finally going to go through and start over. I know it sucks having spent all that time putting it on, and now having to start over, but I would rather do that, then have a paint job that I didn't like. Luckily, I didn't put any pattern on the underside yet, so I only have the one side to redo.

On the flip side, with all of the traveling that I've been having to do during lunch, I managed to make it to my local gaming store, and do some more trading (I love that he does that), and picked up a few things for my army.

First I got A box of Dire Avengers. I think in a big enough game (1850 to 2000), I'm going to start running these guys in a Falcon Grav Tank. I'm just debating on whether or not to pull out a guardian and use him as an Exarch, so that I can have 6 Dire Avengers once I'm done. Obviously the Exarch will be slightly different, but I can live with that.

Second, I picked up the new plastic Eldar Farseer. I was thinking of running the Iyanden Codex suppliment in games, and I might have the need for a second spiritseer model if the points are high enough, so I was thinking of using him as a second Spiritseer. The main reason that I got him instead of the actual Spiritseer is because I hate the look of the Spiritseer (someone really screwed up in green-lighting that concept artwork). Plus being plastic rather then resin doesn't hurt either.

Third, I got two additional metal Warp spiders, to round out my squad to 8. Yes, I know it's not a full squad, but 8 is a round number... it's two circles, one on top of another.

Once I'm able to get some paint onto some more models, I'll get you guys some pictures. To bad it probably won't be until next week, as I'll be busy doing birthday stuff until Monday.

Thanks,

I actually like your jet, but I know how you feel on the whole restart deal. I have done that.


Anyways good job on the model pick ups!

Ps, happy b day for your son.

Here is what I picked up:



It seems that I forgot that I also picked up a weapons platform for my Guardians. I don't know if i'll ever use it, but now I have it if I do. But for $11.75 out of pocket (as well as the trade stuff that I wasn't going to be using), I'm pretty happy.

I'm working on the base for the Farseer/Spiritseer, so that I can have him as the diorama piece with the Wraithlord.

Insacrum wrote:
Papercraft

So I had a nice weekend, getting to play two games, both against my Tau friend. He changed up his list somewhat, bringing a Commander Farsight list, with Tau Allies. WOW that list is impressive. He won the first game, and I won the second game. I only won the second game because his Warlord was still in reserves when time ran out. I came away with some very interesting thoughts about what I have been bringing into games recently.

1. As much as I like Illic Nightspear, he sucks on the battle field. The guy needs to be able to fire his gun more than once a turn, or his weapon should have been master-crafted, twin-linked.

IIRC, Illic is BS9, which means he gets to re-roll his failed "to hit", and BS9 means it's then on a 3+. Not "master-crafted" per se, but close to it anyway... I however agree that he's not the best around... His "special" rules rely too much on luck to be really anything more than frustrating... I guess you'd be glad if you had taken down a Riptide or a vehicle with a 6 on the to-wound / penetration roll... But it statistically should occur no more than once per game, as he gets one shot per turn (as you said...)...

As for the fighter, I liked your scheme that way, but... If you feel like you need to do it all over again, then it's probably the best thing to do !!

 Yggdrasil wrote:
As for the fighter, I liked your scheme that way, but... If you feel like you need to do it all over again, then it's probably the best thing to do !!

In reality, the paint will look very similar to what is already there, just the patterning will be different. It'll end up with more red than what it currently has, but the technique will be the same.

I hope that explains what I want to do.

Also, I've been dry fitting the Farseer/Spiritseer base. I have everything for the base set, I just need some sand, and then I think I'll prime it this weekend.

As for Illic, I think the mastercrafted part works on to wound rolls... but I'm probably wrong. [Just looked it up. Yep, I'm wrong.] I just think that the guy needs something that allows him to reroll failed to wound rolls.

So I Might Have Lied

I originally said that I probably wouldn't have any time for modeling or painting with all of the work that I've been having to do for my Son's Upcoming Birthday party. I was wrong, and I managed to get a bit of modelling done on the Wraithlord, Images below. Right now this guy is in a few pieces out in my garage drying some black primer.



I was trying to go for a bit of a dynamic pose, showing the start of motion, but not a full sprint. I also wanted a wraithglaive, but I didn't want to use the standard (AKA boring) stock "hand gripping sword" provided. I tried to be as clean and crisp in my cut as possible. Also, in the process of test fitting the paperclip that was going to join the pieces together, I found that I was using the wrong size bit in my pin-vice. Now with the bit that I have, I don't have to worry about forcing the paperclip into the hole, and possibly splitting the plastic.

Yay me!

What I showed above was a dry fit version of what I hope the final pose will be. I also took the time to fit in the base that I'm going to be working on for my new Spiritseer (Farseer) that I just got. Sorry, no photos :(. I might have to turn the arm that is holding the singing spear, but it should work to make sure that neither of the two models are hitting each other once the Spiritseer is on the Wraithlord's base.

If you have any question, comments, or criticisms, please feel free to post them.

Thanks, as always!

So I seem to be at a bit of a dilemma. I just received a bonus check from work, and I'm torn between getting a Wraithknight ($115) or starting a Farsight Enclave allies detachment ($50 FS & $65 CS). They both cost the same as far as money goes, while the Farsight team would be slightly pricier game-wise.

Any suggestions?

After discussing things with a friend, I think I'm going to to with the Wraithknight. Since I'm not all that sure about how to kit out a Farsight Enclave, or how it would work as allies with Eldar, I'm going to stick with the WK, and perhaps playtest Farsight later, and see if I want to use him.

So I now have a Wraithknight in a box that I'll eventually get around to building, but there is something that I'm noticing about it. When I look around online, no one has gone out of their way to give the thing a pose other than just standing or running, which seem to be poses that are easily made with the model as is. Not many people have gone out of their way to make it look different (as far as my perspective goes). With that, I think I've found the pose that I'm going to try and mimic with mine.



Since I'm planning on using the suncannon/shield, and scatter laser, I think this pose should work, having the shield in front of him, actually trying to shield himself (what a novel concept), with the gun aimed out as a sniper rifle.

Too bad I have so many other things on my plate before I get around to this one.

Realizations!

So I realized something the other day. As much as I have been modeling and painting things, I have 1 figure done that counts as a troop choice in my army. 1 jet bike compared to two HQ units done. I think I need to put some of the other things that I have going on the back burner and focus on getting my troops done, so that I can actually field a properly painted army. I need to focus on the things that I'm going to be using game in and game out.

That includes 10 Wraithguard (old school), 5 Dire Avengers, 10 Guardians, 4 jet bikes, 2 jet bikes with Shuriken Cannons. I sometimes swap between the 5 Dire Avengers in a Falcon Grav Tank, and 10 Guardians in a Wave Serpent, so I'm not sure which to focus on there, but it’ll probably the Avengers. I also sometimes take either 1 or 2 squads of jet bikes. I also sometimes take a squad of rangers, but I already have those painted from my olden days, so nothing to do there.

So, even though I know what I have to focus on, here is what I have been getting painted and modeled. Below is the base for my second Farseer/Spiritseer; the one that I will have on my Wraithlord. I dry brushed around the runes on the base with snot green, and highlighted them with Jade green, in order to make it look like he is drawing power from it. Perhaps I can call that the Wraithstone Forge that I'm planning on using.



I've also gotten around to doing a lot of work on the actual Wraithlord, with his legs attached to the base. I have to do a bit more dry brushing with the purple, and pink. I don't think that the pink is popping enough off of the Necron gem, like it does with Illic Nightspear.



I've actually also started on building my Wraithknight. It's glued in certain placed, pinned in others, and stands up pretty when on its own. All I have are the legs build, just like the Wraithlord. I ended up having to buy new primer, since I ran out of my old GW primer. It's great having a new can. I'm looking at several nicely primed models: Wraithlord Torso, Spiritseer, and Wraithknight base & legs (I'll try and get a photo or two of it up).

In the end I'm actually really happy with how the models look, I just need to do a better job of photographing them, to make them look better on screen for you guys. As always, critiques, compliments, and questions are always welcomed.

As Promised:

Here are images of my pose of the Wraithknight. I've very tempted to paint the whole thing silver and call it a day.



I was very tempted to not even do the different pose, until I saw someone else online do a change to the legs. Normally the legs kind of look like a dogs, in that they bend from the back, if you switch them around, you get a normal bend, like a humans.

Thanks,

Farseer/Spiritseer 2

So I've noticed that I haven't been posting as often as I want to. I guess I need to take more pictures of what I'm working on and posting my progress as I go. Below is my progress on my second Spiritseer, or Farseer. Since I'm planning on running a few games with the Iyanden rules, I figure that by having this one still standing on the glowing runes, I would have that count as the Wraithforge Stone.



I've also change a bit how I'm doing the red. Instead of putting down a layer of Graveyard earth first, I've switched over to using Khorne Red base. Also, instead of using an old bottle of Gory Red (Red Gore) from Vallejo Game color, I'm now using Carmine Red from Vallejo Model Color. It isn't doesn't have as much of an orange hue as Gory Red (Red Gore), but it still a vibrant red that I can use to highlight the Bloody Red (Blood Red). It's a more subtle highlight, but I really like the end result.

Next I'll be working on the grey cloth. I'll probably put some purple OSL on the front, for the purple necron gem, and some green OSL on the back for the Wraithforge Stone.

As always, QCC are always welcome.

Thanks,

WIP: FS/SS2 - 2

Here is the next batch of pictures from today's work. Not much change in an overall sense. I managed to get a lot of depth onto the gray skirt, as well as add it a good amount of highlighting and OSL from the Gem and the Wraithforge Stone. I'm progressing to where I want to model to look. I'll be getting some washes on the Singing Spear soon, and then also working on the rest of the small packs, pouches and trinkets.



I'm planning on playing a game this weekend against a Tyranid player. We decided to play one of the new missions that are in the Iyanden Codex Supplement. I had to monkey around with the list that I wanted to bring, in order to bring Prince Yriel. I also decided to include a squad of Harlequins in order to bring the special Shadowseer.

I'm hoping that this will be a fun game!

This is all greatness! Altansar best craftworld. Subscribed!

 BladeTX wrote:
This is all greatness! Altansar best craftworld. Subscribed!

Thanks for the praise.

Great. Now I have to rethink my farseer color scheme.

Thanks a lot.


And great job, btw. Seriously, it looks really cool.

WIP: FS/SS2 - 3

So I think I'm almost done with the body of Farseer/Spiritseer 2.



I think I'm most disappointed in the result of the spear tip. I used Drakenhof Nightshade, and while it looked really cool at first, once it dried, it lost a bit of its 'Umph!'. It also doesn't look as good as the spear tip of Farseer 1. I think I'm going to end up redoing the spear tip, and not use the Drakenhof, but use a glazed electric blue. I really want that spear tip to pop. The rest of the body is awesome though.

Here is a little blast from my past. These are obviously some old metal harlequins. I think my painting of them is circa 1996 - early 1998.



I'll be using them in my game this weekend, with the addition of a dark reaper exarch to represent a death jester. From left to right you have a Shadowseer with lightning claw and laspistol, a Flamer with powerfist, A H-Kiss with shuriken pistol, and a Powerfist with shuriken pistol. Obviously, tomorrow they won't have those items. It's amazing to think how far I've come in my approach to painting in almost 20 years.

Thanks for ready, and as always keep the CCQ coming.

Battle Report

So I know this is a Painting and Modeling Blog, but every once in a while I actually manage to play a game. Yesterday I played a game using the Iyanden Codex scenario: Return of Yriel. It was interesting playing against Tyranids, when my list had 33 models total, while the Tyranid player had 108.

For the first two turns I only had 3 models on the board: 2 Wave serpents (both carrying a squad of Wraithguard, and a Spiritseer), and a Wraithlord. I was debating on whether to have the Lord initially out there, or the Knight. I decided on the Lord, so I could deep strike the Knight into play on turn 3.

I ended up setting up the two tanks with the Lord between them in one corner. While he had almost his entire deployment zone filled. Since I had to wait for half of my army to come in on turn 3, I decided to play stay away, and just keep the three model group just within range of the weapons they were carrying (24 inches).

Turn 1A: I moved into initial position, and focused fire on a Tervigon. I got first blood, and one kill point.

Turn 1B: He moved forward, and wasn't able to cause any damage. My Wave serpents managed to Jink off all damage.

Turn 2A: I decided to move a little and Take out the majority of a gargoyle squad.

Turn 2B: Hey managed to get both of his reserves in, and tried to deep struck a Trygon behind my tanks. Luckily he scattered to their side. He also brought in another squad of Gargoyles. He did cause a glancing hit and a penetrating hit on one of the Wave serpent.

Turn 3A: I tried deep striking my Knight, but he mishapped, and couldn't come in this turn... sucks for me. On this turn, the Wraithguard made an appearance, and destroyed the Trygon (distort for the win!) I also cause a lot of damage to the two Gargoyle squads, leaving one in the first squad, and more in the second squad.

Turn 3B: He managed to destroy one of the Wave serpents, and kill off some Warp Spiders (but not the whole squad). His assaulting of my Wraithlord with both of his gargoyle squads did not go so well. The first squad was destroyed due to overwatch. The second squad lost combat, and was destroyed due to sweeping advance.

Turn 4A: At this point I managed to move my remaining Warp Spiders into his deployment (simply because we didn't have much time left and I wanted line breaker). I also killed off a squad of Termigaunts.

Turn 4B: He was in the hole at this point, and needed to make up a few kill points... given the low number of models in my squads this was actually possible. Unfortunately, he only managed to destroy the second Wave Serpent. The warp spiders, had 1 man remaining who made his save. The Lord had 1 wound left. And the Knight only took 1 wound. Yriel never even got out of the falcon he was in, with his squad of dire avenger wound takers.

In the end, I had Linebreaker, first blood, and neither of us had slay the warlord. Final score 7-2, I won.

Only my second win playing with Eldar in Sixth Edition. I think if this game had gone on to 5 or more turns, I would have had an issue with squads of Wraithguards being in close combat, and he would have managed to get someone into my deployment zone. I think I won this game more because of a time constraint, and effective early strategy.

I think I'm learning a lot on how to play this army effectively, but I also haven't won against an army that has had a 6th edition codex upgrade. I'm sure if I play against my Tau friend again, I'll have more issues to deal with. Plus, I wouldn't be using Yriel (although maybe I should look into using him just to see what he can do).

FS/SS2 WIP 4

Here is the finished Farseer/Spiritseer.



He was really fun to paint, and only took me about 6-7 hours to do in total. I think my painting of infantry is getting faster, while at the same time keeping good tabletop quality.

With all of the games that I have been playing something interesting occurred to me: I have no units of troops painted. The main part of everyone's army now a days, and I don't have any of them done. Sure I have 1 Jet Bike almost complete, but a Jet Bike does not make a squad, or an army.

So right now I have decided that the Wraithknight and the Wraithlord, are officially on the back-burner. In their place, I have these guys to work with.



You should remember them... they just now have new 40mm bases, Instead of the original 25mm bases I had previously. It'll be interesting doing 10 guys at ones. I might do it how some of the other painters I read do it, and only work on 3-4 at a time. As of right now I have all 10 of them primed, and ready to start on painting the bases.

Along with them, I'm still going to finish building and painting the crimson hunter. Sooner or later, I'm going to come home and say "TADA!" to my wife, just so she knows that the father's day gift that she got me, did get finished. Right now I have most of the parts to make him a crimson hunter out and magnetized. I just have to add a few more magnets in order to make sure that I can still swap it to a Hemlock Wraithfighter.

For now, enjoy!

Weekend Work

So I have a few updates and a few insights that I learned this weekend.

First I'll start with the insights. I found out that working with magnets is not as easy as I first thought. Especially when the magnets don't line up perfectly, and then you have to remove them and fix them. I ended up doing a lot of Dremolling on my Crimson Hunter's tail fins this weekend. I was not happy in having to do so! But now they fit perfectly on the model, and are easily removable. All I have to do is get the inclination to set up the Hemlock Wraithfighter parts.

The important thing that I learned his morning is the importance of cellophane wrap (CW)! I'm not sure how many of you modelers out there prefer to use Zap-a-Gap, or some other form of CA+ glue, but I do. I decided to try something to keep my fins from accidentally sticking to the plane while getting the magnets to stick to them. I laid down CW where the fins would be going, put down the magnets, then glued the fins to where the magnets were seated. Interestingly enough, the glue didn't stick to the CW. So while the magnets were firmly held by the fins, the CW peeled right off, leaving just a little bit of excess glue for me to clean off with a razor/file/sandpaper.

On to the updates. So I've decided to start a new army this weekend. It's actually been on my mind for a while, and I just decided to go ahead and do it. I have a friend who might be buying a lot of my Space Marine stuff off of me, but I'll have a lot of it left over that I'm hoping to be able to trade in at MLGS and get a few of the pieces and parts that I want for the army.

I'm not going to give you any clues yet, you'll just have to wait and see what I'm cooking up, and be completely flustered with what I'm doing until I finally reveal what it's going to be.

On top of that I decided to offer up my services to the my friend (the same one from above) to paint His new army's General. I'm doing it as a belated birthday present to him. I have the model on hand, and just need to do a bit of cleaning on it, as well as add some sand to the base, and then I'll be off to prime the little sucker. It's going to be a Space Marine Chapter Master for the Mantis Warriors. It has 5 right arms, a jump pack, a normal backpack, a left arm with Shield, and a standard. It should be fun painting up something a little different then Eldar for once.

No pictures today, but I hope you enjoy the little tidbit about the CW.

Until next time, keep the CCQ coming (I don't feel like I get enough of them).

Thanks!

Teaser

Here are some images of the new army project that I talked about in my last post.





Have fun guessing what I'm building!

I made a few purchases today. I picked up a box of Warriors of Chaos; A Valkia the bloody finecast; 10 40mm bases, and 14 bike bases.

I'm really hoping to have a lot of fun with this army on the table top.

Birthday Treat

So I'm going to be diverting here for a bit, as I'm working on a birthday present for a friend of mine. Below you will find the beginnings of a Mantis Warriors Chapter Master.



I started out by blocking of the Green with Dark Angels Green, And the Gold/Yellow with Graveyard Earth. I filled in the yellow (there isn't that much of it), and started filling in the Muddy Olive green over the DA Green. Once I get the green and the gold finished, the whole model will get a wash of Devlan Mud in order to darken it, and give it a dirty well-fought look. I still have to figure out what to do about the base, but I have time to figure that out. I'm thinking of using grays for the Aquila.

As for the new army that I'm building/built. I'm using the Warriors of Chaos models to create a 'counts as' Dark Angel Ravenwing army. I played it twice this past week and I had a lot of fun with it. I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do about my playing of them to be more competitive. I was way to eager to get into Assault with them. So I need to fix that urge in my game play.

Thanks, as always, for any comment, criticisms and questions.

Chapter Master WIP 2

So here is the next look at the chapter master that I'm painting.



I finished painting on the Muddy Olive, and then painted the necessary areas with Burnished Gold. The aquilla on the base got a coat of Mechanicus Standard Gray, before the entire model got a coat of Devlan Mud. If I had a big enough pot, I probably would have dipped the entire thing.

Next I'll do a bit of dry brushing to smooth out the green, and yellow, and then do some highlights on the gold and green before moving on to the details that are on the model. And I still have to take care of the heads on the base. I wouldn't be surprised if I had this model finished by the end of the week. Then it'll be off to do all of the weapons and backpacks on the guy.

Thanks,

Chapter Master WIP 3

Go Speedpainter! Go!

Well, I got a ton done today, and I almost wanted to keep going and finish it, but lunch time only lasts so long.






I have 2 different angles going on here, so you can get an idea of how everything is looking. As of right now, I think all I have left to do is finish the glowing eyes, and the red on the Purity seals (same color), and then put down some mithral silver on the skulls on the head and belt as well as on the head spikes (iron halo). I might have to do the same with the pipes at the knees, and maybe add some nuln oil to the joints, to give them a deeper, darker look.

I think the guys is coming along quite nicely. After this it's on to his weapons/backpacks/shield.

I really hope that my friend enjoys the end result of this.

As always, all comments, questions and criticisms are welcome.

Thanks!

Chapter Master WIP 4

Either Space Marines are a lot easier to paint than Eldar, or I'm getting faster at painting. Here is the finished body of the Mantis Warriors Chapter Master in 3.25 days.



And to think that if this had the arms and backpack, I probably still would have been able to finish it today. Next up is the jump pack. Now to look into getting that exhaust glow just right.

Thanks,

Chapter Master WIP 5

So one of the things that I love reading are step by step breakdowns of how someone painted something. Seeing a person's techniques in action helps me to see what I can change and how I can attempt to do something similar. In that vein, I decided to give a shot at doing the same thing while painting the Jumppack and Storm Shield of the chapter master that I'm working on. Perhaps this will give my friend some ideas as to what he can do if he wants to try getting the rest of his space marine army to look like this guy.

1. 2. 3.

1. Nothing too thrilling in this first picture. Just the pieces primed. My friend used P3 primer to do this. I like GW, but I might have to switch if I can save a few bucks but still get a nice solid smooth coat.

2. Here I added the first two sub-base colors. I call them sub-base, because really I put them down so that my base colors don't go directly to black. I feel that this helps to hide the streaking, make them harder to see. I've used Dark Angel Green (Caliban Green) and Graveyard earth. I did leave the skulls black, because I'll actually want it that way when I get around to painting them a silver color.

3, Here are the first base colors. P3 Sulfuric Yellow, and the old Burnished Gold. I say old, because it's in one of the old flip top pots from 10-15 years ago. The old GW pots and paints rocked. Why they changed them, I'll never know.

I know you can see the streaking and the mistakes, but a good (thick) coat of Devlan Mud will hide all of that. The only step before washing them all in DM is to paint the green with Reaper MSP Muddy Olive.

As I go, I'll make sure to take pictures and describe what I'm doing.

Thanks as always to those who read. Please feel free to post. Let me know what you are liking and what you aren't liking.

Thanks.

Chapter Master WIP 6

4. 5a.

4. Here I've added in the Muddy Olive. I had to do it in two coats in a few places to get rid of the streaks, but I was able to cover up the mistakes on the Burnished Gold.

5a. Here I've washed the entire pieces in Devlan Mud. This picture shows it still wet, but it offers a pretty good idea of what it's going to look like finished.

All I need to do is dry brush the green, add in some highlights to the yellow and gold, and take care of the silver skulls, and these pieces will be finished.

On a side note, I've been thinking about adding Tau back into my Eldar force. I know I've been flipping back and forth on that front, but I really like the look of it. As of right now, I think I've decided on using Farsight Enclave, and adding in a Commander with drone controller, a Crisis suit squad, and 8 gun drones. Any suggestions on the load-out of the suits... other than the drone controller?

Thanks

I'm liking how that Chapter master is coming along. Also loving Illic nightspear. Keep it up

Hello Again!

So it's obviously been a while since I've had time to post here. Most due to the holidays and a lack of having time to do anything. It seems that that isn't an issue any more. As for the Chapter Master, I finished him a while ago, and just had to do a few of the extra weapon options. Unfortunately, I only got to doing the normal backpack, and a power sword for him.



From what I can tell, the owner of the model really liked hit. He used him successfully to beat me down with him.

Aside from that, I've finally taken the plunge and started buying some Tau figures to supplement my Eldar. In reality, I've started picking up pieces and parts of crisis suits in order to model up, and eventually play the Eight from Farsight Enclave. I currently have 7 of the 8... in boxes, or other forms of assembly. I'm only missing the new commander finecast model. I've actually have the modeling of O'Vesa completed, primed, and started painting him. I'm not sure if I went the sane route with him, in that I have a lot of the model magnetized in order for easy transport and assembly. You'll see me painting him in pieces, and showing the steps at certain points. Below are WIP assembly, and painting.



I know, I know, what about my Eldar. Well, I'm still in the process of painting it all, and I've purchased a few more models for it. I can't remember all that I've listed as having purchased, but I've been slowly painting as I see fit to play certain aspects of it. And it's funny, but at 1850, I could run a list that had 1 riptide, and 2 Wraithnights, and have all the models for it. Not all of them assembled and painted, but I have them.

A crazy bit of post

So I've continued working on O'Vesa. Here are some step by step shots. These are from a while ago, I've since finished the leg, the pelvis, and the upper torso (no shoulders or arms yet). I'm sure I'll keep posting.



First layer of Ironbreaker



Second Layer of Ironbreaker



Khorne Red



Wash of Devlan Mud over Ironbreaker

--- Other things ---

One of the things that I have been dreading lately has been painting all of these bases. In truth, it's just the first layer of brown that pains me. I think I'm going to take a flyer, and try out the armypainter 'leather brown', since it's supposed to be close to graveyard earth; the first color I use.

On top of that, one of my local gaming shops is planning on doing an escalation league. Not the rule book, but a league where the points you play with increases. The first month will be 250 (1 HQ, 1 Troop min).

I was thinking of one of three lists:

1 Farseer
11 Guardians
3 Jetbikes
250 total

1 Farseer
10 Guardians
3 Jetbikes (catapult upgrade)
251 total

1 Farseer
5 Dire Avengers
1 Vyper (Scatter Lazer, Shuriken Catapult, Halo-Field)
250 total

My friend suggested, but I don't own the Weapon Batteries:
1 Farseer
10 Guardians
2 Vaul's Weapon Battery (Vibro-cannon)

Right now I'm really leaning towards the one with the Vyper. If I get someone playing witha rhino, or some other transport vehicle, I need something that can puncture the AC 11+. Granted, the weapon Battery can do it too, but then I have to purchase them.

New Tricks

So I have some pics from another project that I started, but as of now have already put to the side (I seem to start a lot of things!). Some of you might remember the base from a previous post. Yes it's a juggernaut, but I'm not planning on painting it the usual red and bronze. So far, I'm showing the final model. Then primed. Then the first colors on both the model, and the base. I've finished the first color on the model, but I can't tell if this picture also includes the Sepia watch or not.



I've made a little progress on O'vesa as well:



I remember talking about wanting to pick up Army Painter Leather Brown for my bases. Well, here it is. I've sprayed them, and them went ahead and dry-brushed bleached Bone, then washed with Devlan mud. The purple gems really pop on them.



I've also started painting up my Dire Avengers. That guy who is still black is my answer to complaints I've seen that the box only comes with enough parts for 4 DA & Exarch, or 5 DA. Well, with the use of three magnets, I can do both. The plan is to do them, and then the Vyper, to get my 250 pts. I will then do the 10 guardians, and 2 Vaul's Artillery for a second possible 250, but also be able to merge them, and include a Wave Serpent, to get the 500 army. I'll probably drop the Vyper at 500 though.

Batch Painting Troops

So I actually got around to finishing more models. Here is a WIP and Final shot of my now finished Dire Avengers.



I have to say having them finished brings a great sense of accomplishment. Personally, I know I could have done better with them, but I'm painting for the table top, not the judges stand. I think that's one of the main drawbacks to batch painting: eventually you're going to let some things get through the QC cracks that you wouldn't normally if you were painting one model at a time. Overall, I'm quite pleased though.

Now it's off to paint some Vaul's Weapon's battery, some Wraithguard, and/or a wave serpent since I'm focusing on things for my 250/500 point squads at the moment.

As always Comments, Questions and Criticisms are always welcomed, and actually encouraged.

Thanks!

More Batches!

So I've been continuing with my batch painting. Now that I've got my Dire Avenger's (Sans Exarch) finish, I've moved on to painting my Wraithguard. Below are some WIP shots.



I've since finished the bodies and only have to do the heads. Part of me is starting to wonder if these look too Saim-Hann. I'm hoping to paint the majority of the head Black will bring it away from Saim-Hann, and make them feel more Altansar.

Playing, again!

I finally got some time to play some games today. One game against my usual friend, and another doubles game. I'm finding that I'm still making some minor mistakes. My deployment cost me a bit the first game, and his dice cost me the rest (He was rolling really well).

I actually didn't do too bad with deployment in my second game. And this time my opponent's dice were working against him. I have a feeling that If I actually had time to finish that second game, we still would have been in control of winning it.

I'm close to being done painting a few possible army options for playing next month. After the Wraithguard, I need to focus on painting a Wave Serpent.

I'll try and get some picture up of the finished Wraithguards, and more frequent WIP pics.

As always, Comments, Questions and Criticisms are always welcomed, and encouraged.

My only suggestion is to add more than 1 purple crystal to their bases. It looks too contrived with only one and always in the same spot. Asymmetry is the way to go.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
My only suggestion is to add more than 1 purple crystal to their bases. It looks too contrived with only one and always in the same spot. Asymmetry is the way to go.

Thanks for the suggestion. I was going with 1 gem on the 25 mm bases for non-HQ models. Then on the 40 mm bases, I was adding in 1 gem, plus some sort of Necron piece. And then for anything bigger than that, it's really whatever suits my fancy.

Wraithguard

So I've finished the Wraithguard. I think they turned out pretty good. First up is a WIP shot:



Now here is a rotated view of one of them. The only thing that I'm questioning is if I want to put a gloss coat on the black heads or not.



Here is a group shot of one of my 250 point army list (1 HQ & 0-1 Troop).


I have a second list that I'm really liking, that involves a Spiritseer or Autarch, 5 Dire Avengers, and a Wave Serpent. So in order to field that, I'm going to be painting up one of my Wave Serpents. If I get that done in time, I might even work on painting up an Autarch. I feel like I'm running low on primer, so I might have to pick one of those up.

I'll show a WIP of the Wave Serpent next time.

As always, CC&Q are welcome and encouraged.

Image Dump and New Project!

So this first part is basically an image dump of two things I've been working on or have completed. I'm sorry that two of the pictures sideways.

First is a set of 6 objectives for use in the new maelstrom missions. Each of them has a socket to hold a dice so as to remember what Mysterious objective it ended up being. I've already finished painting the six of them, I just don't have a picture of the finished product.



Secondly, here are a few WIP pictures of Wave Serpent number 1. Right now I feel like there is too much red in there, and I want to bring in more grey as either a stripe/chevron or as a craftworld symbol.





I've managed to play a few games of 7th, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm having a lot of fun with it. It's a league that I decided to join to get some experience with new people, and the new rules. It's an escalation league, starting at 250 pts and going up from there by 250 each month (No tanks or MCs for the first two months).

I know people are going to rail against me for doing it, but I'm now summoning daemons along with my Eldar. It kind of sucks because now I have to buy figures for a 4th army now (Eldar, Tau, Dark Angels [Warriors of Chaos], Daemons). My main problem is figuring out what to do about a Bloodthirster. I don't want the Forgeworld model (Too Expensive). Part of me is thinking of scratch building one, but another part of me is thinking of using a daemon prince model, counts as.

Along with the league, they are also doing a monthly painting competition. The first month is supposed to be Special (named) Characters. I decided to go with Orikan the Diviner. The finecast model comes with so much flash on it (top picture), I thought it would take me a week to clean it. It didn't (bottom picture).



Hopefully I'll have this primed tonight, and I'll be able to start painting it tomorrow. I'm planning on taking a lot of WIP pictures and chronicle all I do, and how I do it. I have until early July to get this done so finger's crossed. Also, since I don't actually play Necron, I'm not sure if I should keep the model, or sell it once I'm done. If I keep it, it'll just end up being a piece on a display board in the future.

As always, questions, comments, and criticisms are welcome, so tell me what you think.

Thanks,

Orikan Started

Not much to say here, I'll just let the images do the talking. Let me know if you have any questions, comments or criticisms. Thanks!

Primed / Together / Size Comparison:



Leadbelcher / Beastial Brown, Bleached bone drybrush on base, Gryphon Sepia on base / Leadbelcher 2 (scarabs on base) / Burnished Gold: