Cheers Metsuri, I am going to try out something different with it today. I have a lightbox set up but I still get the same issue with it, that despite the cameras settings and the lighting being static, the images vary massively. I think that I might be using too high an f number for it, so going to test that too

Sometimes I cant figure out why my camera wont focus correctly - I try everything and nothing works but then I try it again a bit later and it does! confusion. But the minis are looking great especially the colourful lizards. Any chance of an army shot before they are posted off?

Oh hell yeah, will have full shots of that army on a playing board deffo. Might actually get a photographer friend to do it for me though. This is the first army I will ever have painted in full and I don't want my crappy photo skills to ruin the documentation!

Amazing!
That sniper is awesome.
(One of the few "cool" IG models GW made!)

Steel Legion Sniper=SUPER FREAKIN AWSOME, I want one.

He's a Vostroyan Sniper model but converted to be used in the Steel Legion Squad

I think he fits in quite nicely


Painting is looking fantastic!!!!

Steel Legion FTW! They look really nice! I'd love to see an entire army of them painted in that scheme!

I think that would look pretty cool too, HF Izanagi. Loving the KH1 cloud conversion btw.

The slaans thrones rock is now finished, blue grey. Started on blacklining the gold areas to make sure there is a little contrast. The gold will be going on tonight and the karskin sarge will be based and primed. Will get some WIP shots of the throne as I go, camera was sadly out of battery last night.

OK, throne/palanquin thingy is well on the way now. Basic stone is done, gold base coat is done, next up is a medium thick devlin/sienna wash over the whole thing. Gold will be rehighlighted with more liquid gold mixed with a small amount liquid silver, then on to the vines and leaves

Undercoating the gold areas with blacklining was rather time consuming but gives it some nice contrast. Going to wash and then head to bed so I won't be ruined for work tomorow. We are having to leave 20 minutes early to actually get to work on time, there is black ice absolutely everywhere, to the point of being dangerous. I have not fallen yet but have slid slowly out onto busy roads :( Snow please? Sick of ice.

Are you in a Nordic country?

o_O Very nice work.

I like the idea of blacklining the gold. Did you use a micropen for blacklining, or paint?

what GW colours do you use in your browns and bones?

Ireland Just having a vicious cold streak here. Everywhere but Cork is under a couple of foot of snow for the last week but the sea seems to be keeping it at bay.

The blacklining is a black undercoat under all the gold areas, and where the gold areas will end on larger parts like the golden bases of the bone spires. The liquid metal is crazy hard to work with so leaving a bit of black showing underneath gives room to tidy it up if needed too, as any spill overs can just be blackened again.

Bone on the lizardmen is Menoth, 2 washes sienna unwatered, and then rehighlight of bleached bone/menoth. Bone gloves for the sniper are white primer with 2 coats devlin and bleached bone/skull white highlight.

Pretty much all my other bones are graveyard earth blended up to either bleached bone or all the way through to white and given a sienna wash.

The browns vary wildly, which in particular were you referring to?

Big fat frog!

The throne is looking good so far, Ifalna.

Cheers Iffy! That planquin is really looking great! I know you've been though this before, but I don't know where in the blog it is. Would you remind me who makes the liquid gold that you use?

Thanks,
Gits

One of the best points I find in the work I've seen you do, is the Eyes, I'm terrible at them and to see so much detail on possibly the smallest part of the model is incredible.

Have you ever thought about rice inking? (writing words on the head of a grain of rice) because I think you'd have the nack but seriously great work!

It's Vallejo liquid gold The silver is excellent too but my god is it bright. Will work very well as a highlight though control with these is very difficult due to their water like consistency.

Gitsplitta wrote:Cheers Iffy! That planquin is really looking great! I know you've been though this before, but I don't know where in the blog it is. Would you remind me who makes the liquid gold that you use?

Thanks,
Gits

Vallejo

Santobell wrote:One of the best points I find in the work I've seen you do, is the Eyes, I'm terrible at them and to see so much detail on possibly the smallest part of the model is incredible.
Have you ever thought about rice inking? (writing words on the head of a grain of rice) because I think you'd have the nack but seriously great work!

I always saw eyes as very important on models, they are something we subconciously look to first so I try to make sure they look ok even on tabletop standard troops. The skinks are easy as pie as their eyes are absolutely massive and gently domed. The Slann is going to be much harder, especially as I want to blend them down a bit. The Steel legion I wimped out on entirely. Their eyes are really tiny and you have the added horror of the mask below and the helmet above, meaning they are in a huge recess, it just was not worth the extreme hassle to get them done for those dudes, though if they were character standard or higher I would have tried as best I could.

Rice decorating, haha no I would not be suitable I would just end up writing tiny swears on them then bottling them and selling them to tourists.

P3 is nice, on a good note made 3 bottles of sloe gin

'Here honey, I got you some rice that some nice lady painted some motivational stuff on for you. No, really. Yes. look, get the magnifying glass. Right bring it over here. Now, look, see. It says.....it says....Ohh, Oh dear. No...no.. come back honey, I didn't know that's what it said'

Thanks, Ifalna... LOL, I think you're the ONLY one who actually likes that version (aside from me)- everyone digs the classic or advent children Cloud... which I do plan to create at some point... for a future gang... in I... Munda...

Definitely digging the Slaan throne, any idea what colorscheme you're going to use for the guy and his little pal?

The slann looks great!

How much snow do you guys have in Ireland? I am hoping for some here in the U.S.A. this weekend.

_Tim?

Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:The slann looks great!

How much snow do you guys have in Ireland? I am hoping for some here in the U.S.A. this weekend.

_Tim?

*hijacking your question*
Don't know about Ireland but in Sweden we got lots.

Over here in Sheffield, UK, we're still recovering from last week's snow.

I'm really not looking forwards to heading to work this morning.

Still no snow and it is now 6 degrees, so likely no chance of it!

Weekend was mega busy but the palanquin is near completion bar some extra work on the little snakes and frogs + finishing the bone : ) Will get pics up asap. Slann is taunting me but I don't want to start on it untill the throne is all finished D:

Sarge is based and primed.

if I commision you to paint dark elves Morathi for me, is there any way that I can pay you that doesn't involve me getting a credit card?

Probably not, as the post office no longer accepts vials of blood for mail shipment :(

CalasTyphon216 wrote:if I commision you to paint dark elves Morathi for me, is there any way that I can pay you that doesn't involve me getting a credit card?

You can add money to a paypal account directly from your bank account, but it takes 1-2 weeks for all the security checks and stuff to get done.

Great looking stuff as always, Ifalna. Did you ever get a chance to see if the liquid gold paints rust when mixed with water?

Also, more futurama please!

I think it would be possible through paypal with either a bank transfer or maybe a prepaid for top up credit card, but I am not sure!

I have mixed some gold with regular water and the only result was it failing to stick to the model, sorry :( Seems it won't be an easy way to weather without powders/stippling.

Slann is coming along great, his skin and ears/eyes are done, he still needs all his nubbins like teeth, jewelery etc to be finished and then a final tidy up, but you can see the basic idea of him now.
Palanquin is in the very final stages, just some final highlights and touchups to be done. Little skink attendant is also in the nubbin stage.





Really loving painting this dude, I tried a new technique for his skin to try and make it look as natural as I could, but the model itself is rather lumpy and pitted, especially in the recesses. Very tempted to gloss varnish him, frogs and toads are rarely matt.

Coming along beautifully Iffy, think your gloss varnish idea has merit.

Gloss would give him a nice slimy look. Good for frogs, bad for toads. Guess it depends on weather you want him to look dry or slimy.

You can dilute gloss varnish a bit to tone it down, I've done this on occasion with reasonably good results.

You could add some dots to his back, toads usually got that I think, maybe in a darker version of his skin?

Can't really do much with the back as you cannot see it at all once the model is assembled, but I was thinking of bringing all his warts up the same way as his ear spots for some extra blue to break up the red. Think that would work out?

Yeah, but then you lose the uniqueness of the tympanum... how about bringing them up to the yellow/gold of the underbelly?

Looks great , like the bone effect.

That is awsome.

I'm going to be wierd and suggest darkening the arts rathr than lightnening them. Maybe sown to a red-brown?

Look awesome. The bone looks particularly well done. I'm gonna go on a limb here and guess that this model is based off of Jabba the Hut.

Looking great Iffy, I'd go with Gits' idea of diluted gloss, or possibly satin for the finish. Warts would look better worked up to yellow or down to brown, think you want to keep the blue fairly unique, again as Gits suggests

The Slann looks great and will stand up nicely from the rest of the army with the red paint job. Nice contrast between him and the natural looking palanquin. The bone parts look really nice.

The green vines are very muted and not really visible behind the Slann they need a hit of highlight to bring them away from the grey of the stone like the leaves.

Vines are all actually dark brown with green leaves, the bad lighting is hiding them. My own fault really, I can't justify setting up the lightbox for WIP pics, specially with 2 cats who seem to be under the impression its a new toy for them to get into!

Slaan + Sarge updates. Both nearly finished now, Slann needs teeth finished and gold silver tipped, sarge needs his camo and all wiring etc finished + some washes, just waiting on some feedback from the owner before I continue.

Sexy Kasrkin Sgt. Very nice job Ilfana.

How did you set up the Photographs?

I found an old Makeup mirror I forgot I had that diffuses a very soft white light around the rim, so I tried it out just with a black felt background and it did a nice job of providing contrast without having glares.

Still prefer using the lightbox with some daylight bulbs though!

Excellent work Ifalna. Truly.

Cheers Gits. He is the first model I tried to paint an expression on which was a lot of fun. He is only meant to be tabletop but I spent some extra time on the face as he is a lone figure, not part of a unit or anything.

That has got to be the best paintjob of that particular sarge that I have ever seen! The facial hair and his expression really make him pop out. Great work on the lizards skin, it is very realistic. Keep it up

I concurr, the face on that sarge is just wowness.

that face actually looks real

great sword too, very well blended for a metal.

Great karkskin , the face is very nice . can i ask what colours you used on his face ?

Tallarn flesh base, then a heavy flesh wash. Next highlight was pure tallarn flesh leaving only the areas I wanted darker uncovered, then a few more highlights or varying mixes of Bleached bone/tallarn painting on the different shades.

Eyes were painted last which is something Ive never done before, and the hair is a base of chaos black and tallarn flesh, with a highlight of the same mix with extra tallarn.

Thanks for the indepth answer and mini face painting tutorial Iflana .

I though I had already commented on this but it seems I must pressed the wrong button - I like that man - his sword is my favourite bit - although I agree that his face is wel painted too.

Sword blending awsome -

The sword was cheeky, I got this stuff from vallejo called metal medium. I had no idea what it was, I just had a slot to fill on my 11 bottle order and it sounded cool so I got it.

What it turned out to be was a bottle of metal paint, same consistency as GW paint. It looks like white when you paint it on but it is actually metallic. You can add any colour to this and it turns it that colour metallic, so his sword is just that with chaos black being blended down. So cheeky!

Also, it finally snowed. We got about 2 inches, but this morning it was nothing but packed down ice so walking 3 milles to work was really scary. Hopefully me more tonight so it won't pack down as much.

Sound sinteresting. Might have to see if my FLHS can get me some of that. Thanks for the tip Ilfana.

yeah that souns like something to bear in mind

Slaan looks good, but I'm afraid the big frog gets overlooked due to the sarge's face Excellent work, that metal's pretty cool too, may have to look into that.

The Slaan and the Sarge are just super! Thanks for the tip on painting the sarge and the metal medium from vallejo. We got a few inchs of snow here in southern maine today with no rain this time so it looks like a white X-Mass here. I cant wait to see what you paint next!

This is looking very tasty indeed. On an unrelated note, I'm planning on trying a bit of dettol stripping, as advocated by you in the past: any advice?

I found with the dettol that the number one rule is to not add water anywhere near the model till you have removed nearly all the paint.

Soak it in a sealed container untill the paint "expands" off the model slightly, then just take it out, hold it over the sink, and start scrubbing with an old toothbrush. The paint mostly slides off, but if you were to add water it would get really sticky and nasty. Once it is nearly all off, you can then rinse everything off the model in one go Worked a charm for me!

Thanks for the great feedback so far everyone. I am starting my 3 day weekend tonight at 11, and also going onto nightshift for Christmas untill Feb >< Means a lot of time for painting though, so looking forward to it

I like the vibrant colors on the Slann, he will really stand out on the battlefield. The Vallejo medium sounds interesting; have you tried adding anything other than black paint to it? Adding green might make a pretty nice effect if you eve need to do a poisoned blade.

_Tim?

Just read through the entire blog and learned a tonne, thanks so much for the effort that has gone into it. Entertaining to read, too.
Excited to get to painting my stuff and try out some of what I've seen (it all looked fairly doable, which is nice- sometimes I look at what people do on blogs and I just quail at the thought of attempting it myself! )

i have been gone for some time (from this thread), but when i get back all I see is amazing stuff! that stormtrooper looks extremely boss, very very good!

Ouch, sorry for the lack of updates peeps, Ive not disappeared or died, I am just swapping onto night shift again ( just finished my first 11 hour shift, christmaseve/day :( ) and it means I am way too shaky to use a brush at the moment.

Should be fine in a couple days when my sleep patterns shift again and I will have tons of time spare once I move onto the proper 9 hour night shifts

Hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas day, I'm off to bed, hah.

Has had? It's only just started hasn't it? Then again I've been sleeping off switching shifts myself

Not gaming related but safety related Don't want you to fall and hurt your self now
http://cozywinters.com/ice-cleats/ice-cleats.html?utm_source=msn&utm_medium=ppc&utm_campaign=Ice%2BCleats

Everyone should have a pair - well everyone north of the subtropics


Automatically Appended Next Post:
and south of em too - showing my northern hemisphere prejudice there

All done with the Sarge This was a lot of fun to do and it felt great to try and paint it from an image, though I did alter the piping to be dark green as I am a rebel.







Made this little urban base for the Emperors champ, but want to see if the owner likes it before its finished off.



Finally, the slaan is done too but it turns out the palanquins bottom slot is completely wrong and goes into the model at a massive angle, so If you mount it the palanquin looks like its swerving off.. I dont think Im going to be able to drill out a new slot for it so Ill see if the owner might be able to sort it himself as I assembled the rest of it anyway Tomorow and the rest of tonight is the slaans base, some salamanders, and starting the emps champ at character standard.

Awsome work on the camo pattern on that SGT.

Looking forward to see what you do with the Emp. Champ.

Thanks Wolfshadow

Disaster just struck. I went to start on the salamanders and it turns out all 4 are the bodies with missing front left legs, but all the legs that came are back right legs, so theres no way to actually stick them on or paint them without them being legless. Typical! haha. Contacted the owner, might just leave them out and finish the last few templeguard for the army instead.


Edit: Oh wait, no, they are just stupid looking legs. Phew

Not come across your blog before and have been enjoying 23 pages of some pretty stunning minis. Inspirational stuff

Looks great finished - the little camouflage flashes really help to add a touch of the funk to an otherwise quite gritty grim dark mini

That sergeant looks amazing Iffy. You outdid yourself! I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that there's nothing you can't handle when it comes to painting. Very dramatic. Just a perfect match for grim-dark 40k.

Looks great Iffy! (Although i think you missed the sergeant's stripes on his right thigh )

The same thing happened to my Slaan's palanquin, i think the mould must be deteriorating (sp?) or something!

unfortunately a lot of the older metal moulds do get worn down and start breaking
one of the reason gw makes new plastic ones and also makes new metal characters every now and then

Ahhh I have indeed missed the stripes! That will be sorted soon

Whites done on the Character standard Champ, they always take so long. Not as many layers as the shrike and Korvydae, but still a lot! His edge highlights will be shadowblue again the same as before on my black armor. Metals are just started.



For anyone who has PM'd me recently, Ill get back to you once I reach work tonight

Looking lush! Love your take on urban basing too. Cheers for dettol tips. Slainte!

WHat exactly is that base... I think its cork, but how did you do itÉ

It's cork tiling broke into small pieces by hand, then glued on top of other pieces to make an organic rock effect. More than 2 layers of it can be added to look the most like rock, but I left it at 2 to leave the surface flat. You can also glue on some sand to the lower areas to make it look a little more realistic.

After the glue has dried, you just prime and paint it as you would anything else It's extremely light and can also be drilled into for pinning which I have done with this guy.

looking forward to seeing how this next one turns out!

Slann and Champ are now both finished to character standard ( standard 2 ). Both images are maaaaasive so make sure to zoom, or you can see the fullsize pics in the links below the gallery pics


http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2011/1/4/169621-Lizardmen%2C%20Slann%2C%20Slann%20mage%20priest.jpg


http://images.dakkadakka.com/gallery/2011/1/4/169625-Emperor%27s%20Champion%2C%20Space%20Marines.jpg

Tomorrow is 4 Salamanders to the same scheme as the Slann. Busy busy! Really happy I've finally sorted out my lighting and camera to not absolutely murder my colours, the Slann at last looks as vivid as he does in real life. Very happy.

Oh yes, and I found this old dude in an old army case. I think he was from my first year of painting. I seem to have been a hella lot more colourful back then, but messier Chaos sorcerer I think?

Wow!

Excellent job on that emporers Champ.

Spectaular, if muted higlighting, very clean white.

The Slann look very good, the pics are a bit messed by the compression though. I would love to see some individual pics instead of the collage.

The emperors champ look like he could use another set of extreme highlights, but it might be caused by the background. Good, clean and natural paint job on him too.

His highlights were a bit muted out by having to lighten the image slightly to not obscure detail, the final highlights are un mixed shadow grey So quite strong blue.

Sorry for the lack of updates, I am indeed working away, night shift is just slowly killing me :( I had two days weekend I just came off but I don't even really remember them, I had to catch up on so much sleep! Salamanders are done, just basing them at the moment and finishing off the bases on a previous skink unit. Painting has become dependant on if I am awake and coherant enough to actually get some done when I get back from these horrid shifts.

Nice stuff! I still cannot get over how nice the slann's skin is.

That sorcerer is from your first year of painting? Wow! If you think he is messy I don't know what you would call my old marines

Pfft, you should see my first Nurgle Chaos warriors.

Various splattered on green shades drowned in brown ink and way too wet drybrushing. They are horrific, and not in the good Nurgly way.

I'll settle this argument once and for all.

My first painted model:

Awesomesauce!! With extra lipstick even!!

Gitsplitta wrote:Awesomesauce!! With extra lipstick even!!

Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick #654 - Ravish Me Red to be exact.

Nice job on the Kasrkin, I was worried when I first saw the pic scrolling down you would go with the GW traffic cone orange, but you chose a muted and appropriate color that really changes the character of the model.

Awsome SOB. Looks like she might like a bath, a relaxing and rejuvinating dettol bath. Or are you keeping her to remind you that we all come from ever so humble beginnings? I wish I had my first mini too its fun to look back.

When I first looked at her I thought she had one huge eye in the middle of her forehead!

Nice work on the Slann and Emp Champ. The former works really well as bright orange frog

Hey awesome work. You mentioned "banner" - have you thought of using some etched brass for the banner. I am not very good at painting banners and find that this is a neat little trick. very easy to do and very easy to paint.

An example of etched brass Chaos Symbol.

One of the 4 finished salamanders Tabletop standard.



And a colour line test for a tabletop Eldar army. I personally love this kind of ott Tron-esque highlights, but as always, its down to the owner! He will have more Dark turquoise nicknacks and silver trinkets.





How did you do the banner, Lord of Death?

WOW
Cant wait to see how these eldar turn out

Sure they will be super though, just like my Imperial Guard and Emperors Champion

Great stuff Iffy, then Emp Champ is looking fab and the colour test is making me want to bring out my Eldar for a dettol bath and repaint.

Haha, Smurf, let me know when they arrive and if they exploded or not They left Dublin yesterday so they should be very nearby now.

Lenny, cheers! Wait till they are finished before passing judgement though, I could decide on a nice polka dot scheme instead.

Also, does anyone know the name of the model this is based on? Looking to get one myself and create a mini Brock too.

The salamander, IIRC is basically a walking flamethrower right?

I like the look. Very nice. Also liking the highlights on the Eldar dude.

Yes, they spew flame afaik Theres 2 that look like the above, and 2 that are a darker red with brighter random scales, but they all have the same blue fins. Ill get a group shot when they are based up as you can't see his cool little face here.

Ifalna wrote:Haha, Smurf, let me know when they arrive and if they exploded or not They left Dublin yesterday so they should be very nearby now.

Lenny, cheers! Wait till they are finished before passing judgement though, I could decide on a nice polka dot scheme instead.

Also, does anyone know the name of the model this is based on? Looking to get one myself and create a mini Brock too.

That's just a bunch of average Catachan bits with some greenstuff hair. The knife is from the Scout Marines sprue.

Really nice shading on the Sally's fins, excellent work! oh and the elder he's very inspirational, whats the arching flaming stuff made form and where did you find it if it is a product?

Santobell wrote:Really nice shading on the Sally's fins, excellent work! oh and the elder he's very inspirational, whats the arching flaming stuff made form and where did you find it if it is a product?

Star Wars: the gift that keeps on giving. The flaming stuff on that model is courtesy of Star Wars action figures' force lightning, as seen yonder:

"Your faith in your friends will be your undoing.!!"

Brother SRM wrote:

Ifalna wrote:Haha, Smurf, let me know when they arrive and if they exploded or not They left Dublin yesterday so they should be very nearby now.

Lenny, cheers! Wait till they are finished before passing judgement though, I could decide on a nice polka dot scheme instead.

Also, does anyone know the name of the model this is based on? Looking to get one myself and create a mini Brock too.

That's just a bunch of average Catachan bits with some greenstuff hair. The knife is from the Scout Marines sprue.

very correct. awesome model though.

I'm loving that Eldar. Can't wait to see more.

Lt. Coldfire wrote:

Star Wars: the gift that keeps on giving.

See, you really should have just sent me 100 of him with eldar heads. Glorious!

Did some bone detailing on Trondar and basic metals. Im leaving the lightning on these for now untill I see more of the army finished so I can choose a colour that won't just get lost in the rest of them





I also made it home just in time yesterday morning. Sun was splitting the rocks, but I did not notice the sky till I was indoors and just missed the downpour. Oh the joys of living on the coast

Haha, by now those figures that come with the "force power" lightning thingies may cost a fortune due to collectors. The ones I used I bummed off of my nephews. LIKE A BOSS. Nah, actually they were the ones who offered them to me. At first I wasn't so sure about it cause they looked a bit cheesy, but now seeing the model painted up and the lightning primed, it's pretty badass. And that's not even one of the better looking ones! I love the way it's turning out!

Aye they actually look pretty good I was worried the primer could cause issues with them but it just softened the plastic slightly and covered well. Going to do this dudes gems on his coat and star on another tonight.

This particular one did not have many details, the others have nice coats and facial markings, so they will be great fun

Very nice Eldar model, very Tron-esque! Hope the customer likes him the way he is.

_Tim?

I', really looking forward to these eldar - Havn't seen any eldar for a while. I miss those cone headed hedonists

The Eldar are looking great, love the darker look. Very smooth painting.
The banner was made by bending / cutting the etched brass into position, trying to force it to wrap around the different ridges.
Then super glued into position and painted. (Paint = Chaos Black deliberately making fine slash type effect around etched brass leaving a white circle around the brass. Red Gore on symbol, Badab Black wash over everything. Codex Grey drybrush over Chaos Black section and Blood Red drybrush over Red Gore section).

3 more just about finished bar the metals, needed to take a break so figured it was a good pic taking time.
I rethought some of the colour scheme and felt that the "bone" would be better if I warmed it up in colour a bit and not dull down the turqoise, and I think it does look better now. I went crazy with the gems and they are all different variations of turquoise and blue instead of all being identical

I've learned 2 things about these today.

1: They are Eldar, not Tau as I have spent the last 3 days calling them.

2: They have amazingly lopsided faces, which I hope is down to a dodgy mold but not likely as the rest of the heads are symmetrical.

I spent a bit too long for tabletop quality on the one with robes as I was trying out different bone colours and turquoise blends but hes a bloody lovely model.

Looking nice!

I do like the bone and turquiose combo.

Your very good at those edge highlights. o_O

Very pretty indeed, and a really interesting highlight on the black. Stealing that forthwith!

Great stuff

I'm with graven, really interesting interpretation of highlights on the robes... have to remember that. White is crisp and clean as always!

Looking really nice. I hate it when I am told to paint up a very nice figure to a lower quality then what the figure deserves, so I can relate.

_Tim?

looking really good!

whats a "get up and grow"? you have one opposite your house... Did you really think these were tau? shame on you!. Mug will be first fired tommorow. Then hopefully glazed on saterday and ready for transport sometime next week

Its a, eh, reputable tradestore for the home growing of perfectly legal flora.

Its just been pointed out to me that one of the farseers is missing the top of his staff! His arm was broken off when I took him out of the box so Ill go for a search and stick it on asap Poor wee guy.

Ifalna wrote:Its a, eh, reputable tradestore for the home growing of perfectly legal flora.

Its just been pointed out to me that one of the farseers is missing the top of his staff! His arm was broken off when I took him out of the box so Ill go for a search and stick it on asap Poor wee guy.

Hahahaha the chain store in New Zealand that also deals in "Reputable products for the home growing of perfectly legal flora" were raided recently by the police... Imagine that... Dozens of arrests... Imagine that ^_^

One of my Mandrakes had a broken bit as well. But that's the reason I got them free so I can't complain to much...

vent wrote:

Hahahaha the chain store in New Zealand that also deals in "Reputable products for the home growing of perfectly legal flora" were raided recently by the police... Imagine that... Dozens of arrests... Imagine that ^_^

One of my Mandrakes had a broken bit as well. But that's the reason I got them free so I can't complain to much...

I have no idea how this one is still going. Its been there years, it has detailed tiling all around it of the leaves of a specific perfectly legal flora and no one has said anything. It's quite funny when you think about it A lovely little shop too if you do actually just want to grow fruit and veg and dinner herbs.

These dudes are in amazingly good shape considering they came overseas Damage Ive found so far is one broken arm and a couple of snapped off lightning effects of a different kind fo the ones these have. Nothing terrible at all.

The eldar look great. The robe is very nicely done. The color is so nice!

His floaty machines white section is actually pretty nobbly, I need to fix that up when I get home from work. Amazing how photographs show all the problems with a mini that you can't see by just checking in hand :S

Bone splat on his robe too Hnnrgh. The greeny turquoise with black and bone is a scheme I saw on some Tyranids a long time ago and remembered, its turned out quite nice and very very quick to do considering the main colour is just primer Really looking forward to getting their metals finished and doing the other 5 in the unit, though Im still wondering what do to about their power effects. Any colour I choose now could turn out to clash or not be noticeable when the rest of the army is done, so as much as I want to get it done, I have to be patient for now.

Lizardmens bases are all finished and they are all packed away One salamander had a small cat related incident and lost his head, but that's sorted now. 10 Saurus to go and all done. I've had them so long now, but they are lowest priority so I've been lucky to get so many done in between commissions I figure.

Everything looksreally good Ifalna!

Can we get a run-down on the edge highlighting of the black please??

What type of black paints do you use on the Eldars Ilfana?
it has a nice gritty feel to it, it seems?

Highlights are slightly thinned hawk turquoise followed by either a direct edge/highpoint highlight of near 1:1 Hawk turquoise and white. I'm using vallejo glossy white as it gives a more solid feel to anything I use to mix it with. Its a really strong colour that looks near neon over black, so I found using it sparingly and not across the entireity of the original turquoise kept it under control.

When I'm using it on the character standard figures I would have a second 2:1 hawk to white highlight in between the final and original to help fade it in better.


The black is good old GW black primer thats been layered with a slightly thinned mix of chaos black and a tiny speck of midnight blue.

Busy weekend.

Airbrush + compressor found and on their way in the mail, sorted out some ebay auctions and updated+altered my site 3 more farseers near completed, taking a break to eat something to get rid of hand shakeys. Will update pics of them as soon as they are all done.

Also got a new camera set up and a way nicer image editor then I previously had, no more loss of colour or sharpness/warmth while changing image size etc Super simple Orc I did up recently to practice a cartoony style -

Looksvery nice! Nice and clean style.

Thanks for the black highlight run-down, I used it recently but with less of the Tron brightness and it turned out great!

Glad things are getting aligned for you Iffy. Hope you find good uses for the airbrush, I did. I love that ork... they just look good a bit more cartoony I think (kind of their nature) and that's just such a fun figure. Pretty realistic job on the boar though. Like it!

You're amazing Ifalna! I ran into your blog here in a google search and had to become a member of Dakka so I could follow it. I've learned a lot by reading it and wanted to thank you.

I was wondering if it would be okay to PM you with an Eldar colour scheme and possibly get a quick explanation/walkthrough (ie, step 1, step 2,...) of how you'd do it in your table top quality? Its perfectly alright if you'd rather not and/or don't have time.

Thank you so much!

Great job on the Boar Boy...not that I'm surprised

Super quick pic without proper lighting just to show how many are done now, starting on the last 2 + the very last 10 saurus tonight I have 4 days off work to swap back onto day shift so its a very nice time to paint.





That flying base thing seems a lot older than the rest

Arkeus, thanks very much! Very glad you enjoyed my blog Definitely PM me and we can have a chat about the scheme.

wow they look cool - like a posse of silver surfers. I dont remeber eldar having hover boards back in the day - only eldar would be such show offs "look at me I'm an eldar and I can balance on this board doing 100mph and exectuing a 360 flip' which makes it even funnier when they fall off of course. Reminds me I've got loads of eldar sitting around...

Nice work Iffy, very striking.

Weety, that is exactly why they rock. Look at them, shooting magic out of swords while wearing dresses on hoverboards, they don't give a feth. We should all aspire to be as freaking cool as these dudes.

Gits, cheers. They aren't on par with amazing lime green tanks with yellow and red decals being driven by super space men in Mantis armour, but thats the level of awesome I am hoping to aim for ;D

My Compressor arrived yesterday and is currently at my feet at my work desk. It is a lot bigger than I assumed it would be. In a shockingly random twist however, Aldi's special deal this month is.. a 150 psi air compressor for €30. Amazing timing Aldi, cheers. The one I bought is much higher quality but I am going to get an Aldi one anyway as a backup, can't go wrong for that price with a 3 year warrenty

Posting of photo updates was somewhat delayed by Alcohol and friends visiting, but should have them up tonight once I get home and can upload.

LOL Iffy... I remember being young once. Large pieces of my misspent youth were delayed by friends and alcohol.

Thanks for the compliments, but your blog has been directly related to my improving painting technique... you are truly and inspiration, more so in that you're giving of a skill you use to earn money. Few professionals are that generous.

Sorry I haven't commented in so long; I have pretty much burned the candle at both ends, and after they blocked Dakka at work my non-painting-semi-free-time went away!

I really like the turquoise and bone scheme you have there. Some of the robe highlights seem a bit too hard to my eye though; the farseer looks like she has spikes down there instead of a skirt. You have a hard limit on the blending you can do though, so it is understandable. Probably why I should never really paint for other people

As to the pig, I gotta say I LOVE the pink on his snout and ears. If I look too long, all I see are mold lines ( ) but that pink snout is just great, and pleases me out of all proportion.

Guilty as charged, Wehrkind. If I am doing something for display or sale I make sure they are cleaned up. I got lazy with the piggy as he was just for fun, he just ended up looking nice Haha.

Lizardmen army are off to their owner tomorrow, will get shots of them on a table before I say goodbye. Today I tried out my airbrush for the first time, and all I can say is holy feth.

Extremely technical, getting the paint thinned correctly was so confusing, and I tried multiple thinners ( glass cleaner) till I was eventually happy, only to have the flow stop. Spent about 30 minutes cleaning the needle and interior as I had read about before realising I had turned off the compressor so it was not auto refilling ¬_¬ Trial and error continued and I got these done to tabletop in 5 hours total, which is freaking awesome time for me.





The eyes are ruined, something I have learned from. I should have done them before doing the helms and masks but I for some stupid reason left them for last, so they are very basic as I risked ruining the helms paintjobs :( Happy with the rest though, especially as I managed to get an ok result with the first time airbrush considering everything that could have gone wrong. Going to do gradients next, I like the idea of multi colour fades on the harliquins

My hands are completely blue now. Need to get some gloves till I get better airbrush control.

edit: FLOCK. FLOCK EVERYWHERE.

Those Hawks looks beautiful! Espeically for a first time aribrushing! I can only imagine what you can do with some more practice.
Did you have issues gluing the wings 'cause mine just wouldn't stick very well.

These arrived in perfect nick so the owner must have done a very good job! Only one is missing a wing and he is currently sitting on my workbench looking sorry for himself. I'm going to try and pin it in place as the original bond is broken now.

Bigges problem I had with these was their inability to stand. Look Eldar, I get you are graceful and light on your feet, but standing on pointe on one foot ALL THE FREAKING TIME means you have balance issues as a metal model. They kept trying to fling themselves off the table.

Gitsplitta wrote:LOL Iffy... I remember being young once. Large pieces of my misspent youth were delayed by friends and alcohol.

A good time to bring out my old photo album... hummm


I have added some clay to some of my more unstable figures, under the base of course. Its a little easier to balance the weight where you want it than adding a a solid weighted peice underneath....suggestion

....Wow, that is amazingly blended on the commander, what colors did you use to make that turquoise?

reapers look top notch , the blend ireally suits them , you are very good at your colour choices Ifalna. i dont think i have seen those models before, the skulls look more chunky than i remember.

Those reapers are ACE! I love the other unit of Warp Spiders, by the way, esp. the "derp" one. Really, you get better (if that is possible!) every time I look here.

_Tim?

How did the other unit of elder aspect warriors go?

Like that helmet on your melta gunner there, where is that from? Also the reapers look great

Oh my god, so many replies, I'll get to them all at the bottom!

I finished the Character standard (tier2) Sternguard. Overall I am happy with him, but I ran into some problems I didint expect at all.

Firstly, as I started on the main mini I asked myself how I was actually going to make him look higher standard and I drew a blank. He is mostly black, the mini is a basic infantry model with barely any detailing, and blurred detailing where it is done, the only colour bar his metals and shoulders were the edge highlights and could I really make them look a whole tier better?

I got to work anyway and just focused on him one part at a time. The helm was really difficult, one of the eyes is slightly miscast and the vent on top does not actually open like on the other normal marines, so I do need to repaint on a black square to make it look like it has an opening. His armor edge highlights have about 4 layers more than the tier 1 ones, but it's very subtle what with the base colour being black, and I am worried it is not that noticeable.

What I tried to really bring out the detailing with was the neatness, fineness of the lines for the edges, and detaling on his nicknacks like pouches, grenades etc, but some casting issues made that really hard. I hope he does look like he is higher quality than the norm, I think he does, but that could very well be the exhaustion talking. His gun is just metal for the moment as I was not sure where the owner would like it blue, so I am just waiting on feedback for that and if he wants anything else changed Hopefully he likes it in which case the other 4 will be painted to this scheme, but hopefully minus the helm issues and with some more options for detail.

So in a nutshell, unhappy with the helm, happy with the rest. Click for big

WillFrost wrote:I like the theme to, the bone looks better than the usual white.

There is so much white in this army already that the bone really did call out to me as I started working with it. The "intended scheme" had the bone as a deep golden brown with bone highlights, so I was going to wash it down and rehighlight but stopped and worked it back up to a lighter bone instead

Gitsplitta wrote:They look beautiful Iffy. No offense to Cold Fire if he prefers another scheme... but the black, bone and red really exemplify the historic Dark Reaper color scheme and your execution is extremely good.

Thanks a ton Gits, your imput is appreciated as always! He gave the O.K for these so they are staying as they are for now, thrilled as I really love them. The black/bone/red combo is one I am going to store away for something in the future. Can't help but think it would make some really interesting Khorne Chaos warriors/knights. Hmmm..

Bitz_Addict wrote:
How did you get the yellow to look so smooth?

Thinned paint and a lot of patience. You can cheat with certain colours though, foundation paints when mixed with normal paints and thinned still give amazing coverage, so for instance with these I did the yellow ( darksun?) foundation as the base, then mixed that into bleached bone and some thinner for each layer, so it stayed smooth, had lovely coverage, and blended well I generally use actuall thinner like the Vallejo variety instead of water, but that's mostly just because I have it on hand and have grown used to using it.

medabee wrote:....Wow, that is amazingly blended on the commander, what colors did you use to make that turquoise?

The turqoise is an OOP GW paint, something nightshade, I don't have any but I actually found a vallejo game colour that is the exact right match which is called Foul Green. It's a lovely light turqoise with a hint of yellow. The shoulderpads were basically just this mixed with black and white to various shades and layered on, starting with it and chaos black as the base, then brought up layer by layer to foul green with a touch of white. It's really subtle but the slight shading is there, which looks nice I think. I sometimes wonder if I spend way too long layering to get way too subtle an effect, it can't really be good for time efficiency

neil101 wrote:reapers look top notch , the blend ireally suits them , you are very good at your colour choices Ifalna. i dont think i have seen those models before, the skulls look more chunky than i remember.

Thanks very much! If you want to see amazing colour choices though, check out Weetyskemians blog here http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/315548.page she has some of the most mind blowing yet perfectly coherant schems I've ever seen in there

The skulls are indeed mega chunky, but I think it adds to their charm. The helms look almost like samurai helms to me, they are great.

Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:Those reapers are ACE! I love the other unit of Warp Spiders, by the way, esp. the "derp" one. Really, you get better (if that is possible!) every time I look here.

_Tim?

Thanks a lot Tim, but you are still miles above me for the title of biggest improvement in the shortest time, I absolutely love your latest termie wip, can't wait to see him finished.

Miss Dee wrote:How did the other unit of elder aspect warriors go?

Which ones? If it was the fire dragons, that was actually two units I painted as one due to being a silly billy. Will eventually get markings on them to differentiate them.

TheChronoTrigger wrote:Like that helmet on your melta gunner there, where is that from? Also the reapers look great

The helm is a resin bit I think, so are the eagles on the backpack. It's really nice but has some problems, one of the eyes is miscast slightly and the vent at the top does not actually open at the front, but other then that I really like it too. The others all have different helms, going to look great when finished!

TheChronoTrigger wrote:Like that helmet on your melta gunner there, where is that from? Also the reapers look great

Ifalna wrote:
The helm is a resin bit I think, so are the eagles on the backpack. It's really nice but has some problems, one of the eyes is miscast slightly and the vent at the top does not actually open at the front, but other then that I really like it too. The others all have different helms, going to look great when finished!

I do believe that the head on the melta-man is from the Ultra-marine honor guard box.

medabee wrote:I do believe that the head on the melta-man is from the Ultra-marine honor guard box.

True story, I believe: http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440271a&prodId=prod1050236

Thanks for plugging my blog!! Your compliment is well received, but I think you are pretty damn great yourself (nothing like a little mutual smugness). The Models are perfectly executed, beautiful to look at and you are winning!