Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Looking great! The blue highlights on the black armour look fantastic.
Much appreciated! Yeah, blue is one of the nicest colors to highlight black with, gives such a clean, cold look to armor.
gobert wrote:Sweet paint job on the Templar! The highlights look pretty spot on to me and the Mk3 helmet suits the chapter really well. The size comparison with the priest is really cool, properly sized as you say! I think painting shoulder pads separately sounds like a winner to me
Thanks, glad to hear it!
Viterbi wrote:That's technically correct - the best kind of correct Love the side by side of the Templar and the old priest sculpt. Looks amazing and the chainsword connect both minis to the same universe.
Hehe!
I also thought about the chainsaws. It's funny how they're pretty much the same size, but while the priest needs two hands to operate his, the giant Templar can use his single-handed.
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After painting the Black Templar I got the urge to paint some more Primaris. Luckily I had one started; he's now painted up in my Revelators color scheme.
This model was built at the same time as the Templar, and as discussed previously, he's converted a bit and is a mix of Firstborn and Primaris Marines. I'm very proud of the helmet modification, and now with paint on it you can actually tell what's going on.
As he's not a part of my existing army (of mini marines), I painted him a bit differently. I wanted to practice painting volumetric lighting rather than just edge highlighting everything once or twice. It took a bit of back and forth to get the shadows and highlights looking appropriate (ish), but I'm very happy with the result. My goal was to get the armor looking matt, not reflective with the extreme value contrasts of NMM. I think I managed to pull it off pretty nicely, and the gray armor reads more or less as Dawnstone, which was the target.
In addition to paying attention to the volumes, I tried a couple other new things as well. The first was a new recipe for the gold bits. It requires less paints, is more pleasant to paint and, with the additional contrast, looks better too. Needless to say, I'm very happy with the method and will be using it for all future Revelators. Previously I had been using Auric Armour Gold in the recipe, which is just a terrible color. I mean, is it just glitter in transparent medium? I think I can toss the pot now...
The other new thing was subtle weathering of the armor. I've noticed that I often go a bit overboard with weathering. Not necessarily in the sence that it would ruin the model or be unrealistic, just doing more than what I set out to do. This time I paid more attention to it, and again, think that I managed pretty well. There are areas that are really nice and some places that are not so good, but overall I like the effect.
Comparison of Revelators painted at different points during my hobby journey.
Huh... Now I feel like painting more Revelators. Funny how inspiration (/hobby-butterflying) works - it doesn't really matter what I paint, I end up wanting to paint more similar models. I even have a few Revelators models started ages ago that need finishing. But of course, for whatever reason I'll probably end up picking something different for my next project...
To finish off this post, I'll claim another bingo square with this model: "incorporate a technique you haven't mastered". Volumetric lighting and the weathering both count, as I've still got a looong way to go before I start to approach "mastery" in either.
[spoiler]
The keenly-eyed among you might notice there's another new filled square in the card. More on that later...
Great work with the volu... vulo... new lighting painting method The mini looks great and the visor is ace! Althoug it might also mean that a man of iron is posing as a marine
Love the latest two marines. As a diehard fan of the templars, I must say that he is my fave!! But am also a fan of trying to reverse-engineer the volumetric highlights on his brother
Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Wow that lighting is super cool, I'm also feeling inspired by it!
Many thanks! I think that's as high a compliment as anyone can get!
Viterbi wrote:Great work with the volu... vulo... new lighting painting method The mini looks great and the visor is ace! Althoug it might also mean that a man of iron is posing as a marine
Mind... Blown! Cheers Viterbi!
IGtR= wrote:Love the latest two marines. As a diehard fan of the templars, I must say that he is my fave!! But am also a fan of trying to reverse-engineer the volumetric highlights on his brother
Thanks for sharing
Much appreciated! I'm actually having a hard time on deciding which of the two I like more.. But, good news for you is that there's a bunch of Templars coming up. At some point in hopefully not too distant future...
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Huh... In the last post I said that felt like painting some more Revelators, and I actually ended up doing so. Right away! Odd... But here they are, two mini marines painted much more simply than the Primaris of the last post.
I've previously said that I don't much enjoy painting this scheme anymore. Happily, I had done a large part of the annoying work (carefully layering Dawnstone) previously, so now I got to start with the more fun stuff. Doing just a single highlight on just the upper edges of the model was pretty quick, the metallics were fine and using Contrast paints instead of washes felt like a good call. The yellows were annoying though... Always seem to get some grit in the paint, and don't really understand why.
Painting the sergeant's face was the most rewarding bit. Modern Space Marine heads are always a treat to paint - expressive, very well defined and relatively large - and this applies especially to the Primaris ones like on this model. Once again I added some color to the face with thinned-down Carroburg Crimson, but I also tried doing stubble. This was just (very thin) Drakenhof Nightshade, and it worked out really well! I think it's about the best face I've painted. I'll keep on practicing with the glazes on future heads, and I think the next step will be some tattoos.
The other bit which I thought was successful is the glow effect on the power sword. It was done by glazing with a couple of blue paints and white. I probably should've gone even thinner, but I think the effect is convincing enough.
These two marines are not yet part of a larger squad, just two models I liked the idea of and kitbashed. If you know your Space Marine markings, you'll see they're the beginnings of a Tactical Squad, though when I'll get to making the rest of the battle brothers is anyone's guess. First I'd have to get some more running legs!
That face is absolutely stunning! The stubble effect really works.
Painting faces is something that I always dread and should really try to practice more. Actually anything with skin is scary. But your work inspires me to keep on practicing!
Yellow is a good looking color, but darn annoying to paint.
You pulled it off well nevertheless!
Ezki wrote: Very nice work mcmattila!
That face is absolutely stunning! The stubble effect really works.
Painting faces is something that I always dread and should really try to practice more. Actually anything with skin is scary. But your work inspires me to keep on practicing!
Yellow is a good looking color, but darn annoying to paint.
You pulled it off well nevertheless!
Thanks a lot! I can definitely relate to your dread of painting skin, it can be intimidating. But after watching some tutorial videos and giving it a few tries I've come to enjoy it, it's a nice change of pace from armor panels. As I said, space marine heads are great for practice! I still haven't really done female faces myself, and I believe they'll be more challenging than male. Not only are they smaller, you have to be smoother too. But I guess I'll get to try that when I crack open my Battle Sisters squad or one of the Underworlds teams...
As for the yellow, it's really quite rough in person, but my camera seems to hide some sins I think I need to replace my yellow pots, the paints are all goopy and I need to do some reviving every time I use them...
Sweet mini marines! The fade on the Sgt is stunning, I’m with Ezki on feeling the dread! I like the sound of Primaris heads being bigger and easier to paint, but they won’t look as good as you’ve managed
Much appreciated, and thanks for stopping by muette!
gobert wrote:Sweet mini marines! The fade on the Sgt is stunning, I’m with Ezki on feeling the dread! I like the sound of Primaris heads being bigger and easier to paint, but they won’t look as good as you’ve managed
Cheers! Hey, my first attempts at painting heads/faces weren't much to write home about, but now that I've painted, I don't know, a dozen, they start having a bit of life in them. It's just practice!
Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:Amazing job on the head, and good advice with the washes.
Thank you very much!
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Between recent painting projects I've been building a lot of stuff in preparation for the "priming season", which has now finally arrived! I'll show some of these models in this post.
First up, a couple of Orks. Both of them are something of a bucket-list model for me. The one with the shoota has an OOPWHFB Orc head, which I've always loved but didn't get to buy before it got discontinued. I finally acquired it from eBay, probably for a bit too much money... The big shoota gunner on the other hand has a custom helmet (inspired by a Meganob head). I tried out brown stuff (less sticky than the green), and practiced sculpting a bit. I sculpted the visor shape first, let it dry and then drilled the holes with a pin vise. To finish the helmet off I added some bolts from a plastic rod.
Next up, it's on to the Indomitus box and its Space Marines. These guys will be painted as Black Templars, something like my test model. I've converted these character models slightly with parts (mostly) from the new BT upgrade kit. The Chaplain I left unchanged as I felt he's an excellent model as is, and wouldn't be improved by doing a headswap or adding more accessories.
The Bladeguard Veterans and the Lieutenant were likewise built according to instructions. Superb models, though I'm a little concerned about painting the eye lenses on a couple of the models, as the heads pretty much had to be glued on with the rest of the model. The shields however are not glued on yet, should make painting much less frustrating. As a final note, drilling the barrel on the Volkite pistol took some effort, but I think I managed it well enough.
Then it's on to the Necron side of the box. No real conversions here either, the only thing I did was to clip the bayonet off of the Warden's gun, as I did with all my Warriors. The models are shown mainly for their bases, especially on the Reanimator. As it's supposed to be a repair machine of sorts, I thought I'd use the Necron corpse, originally meant for the Primaris Captain's base, here.
Speaking of bases, above you can see some Imperial cultists / Cawdor. The models themselves have been done for quite a while, and shown here previously, but I finished their bases only recently. The standout features are the resin books and candles I got from Greenstuffworld.
The final group of models is a set of 10 Poxwalkers. Nothing special with these ones, they're all stock, but they've been zenithally primed. I used Citadel cans this time - expensive, but they haven't let me down so far (knock on wood), and seem to be a bit smoother than the automotive ones I've used. I'll be painting the models with Contrast paints and some additional highlighting, like my previous ones, but this time I'm planning on varying the skin tones and cloth colors a bit more.
To finish up this post let's return to the hobby bingo card. This is anachronistic as I've already shown a more recent version with one more square, but let's do it anyway... The ork helmet visor scores me the "sculpt something on a model" square. Fairly unimpressive as sculptures go, but it's something more than just gap-filling, and I'm very happy taking these baby-steps in my sculpting journey.
Oof... Six-ish weeks of radio silence again, sorry! I've been on vacation for almost all of it, but it turns out with the baby it's not what it used to be I haven't been completely idle on the hobby front, however, just neglected the blogging...
Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:A good line of models coming up, excited to see what you do with them!
gobert wrote:Lots of exciting projects coming up mcmattila! Looking forward to seeing them develop.
Cheers guys! Let's hope I'll get some of them finished before next summer
Viterbi wrote:Great selection you've got their, let the priming season begin!
And damn, those Cawdor look nice. I'm building Orlocks right now, but these could well be a second gang.
Thanks Viterbi! Yeah, I can recommend the Cawdor, one of the coolest kits from GW. Incidentally, the Orlocks are probably my second favorite Necromunda gang, aesthetically speaking at least
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After building and priming all those models shown in the last post, I promptly went on to paint something different. So now, more than a year after building and priming them, I've finished painting Zarbag's Gitz. In this post I'll show you the two squigs, which I painted before the rest of the warband, and in a day or two I'll show the actual Gitz.
These two angry red balls were fun to paint, and quite quick as well, with so few elements to them. I tried some new recipes on these, mainly on the red skin and the teeth/bones. I shaded the red with Contrast paints, Blood Angels Red on one and Flesh Tearers (FT) on the other. Not much difference in the final product, FT provides a bit more contrast. Otherwise the process was the same. I used a flesh tone for highlighting, which was a first for me.
I wanted to try something different with the teeth as well, especially to provide contrast between the giant bone and the teeth on Bonerakka. I took inspiration from the studio models and tried Rakarth Flesh (RF) as a basecoat, shaded very carefully with thinned Nuln Oil. Highlighting with Pallid Wych Flesh (PWF) finished off the teeth. The bone was likewise RF, but shaded with Seraphim Sepia. I then layered with Flayed One Flesh and highlighted with PWF. Finally, I glazed on some color with a mix of Reikland Fleshshade and Carroburg Crimson. Very happy with the result!
One final note about painting the details: the brands on the squigs' sides had me scratching my head for a bit, but happily one of my go-to sources, Tale of Painters, had me covered. Stahly has painted this warband very nicely and provides recipes for most of the colors, including the scarred flesh. Also helped with the mouths! I didn't get mine to look quite as nice as the reference, but that's fine.
I'm also sneaking in my hobby bingo card, as a week ago I built two new magnetic storage cases. The construction was exactly the same as the previous ones, so didn't feel the need to post a picture of them. But with those, I should be set with storage for quite some time!
Much appreciated muette, very chuffed with them also!
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And here's the whole gang! When I initially started painting the gobbos I thought they'd be pretty quick to finish. Once again, I was wrong
The main inspiration for the paint scheme came from a classic Adrian Smith painting of Night Goblins. The main take-aways were the blue, black and red robes, as well as the freehand patterns on the hoods. My colors are obviously quite a bit more vibrant and cartoony than the artwork, but I've noticed I like my miniatures like that!
The robes were finished pretty quickly, and painting a rough fabric texture by hashing is always fun. To contrast the robes I tried painting the skin smoother. While the light green paints have pretty bad coverage, I'm once again really happy with how they came out.
Then it was on to the details, of which there were many. Each model also seemed to have their own special things, which made batch painting difficult. But that's not to say I didn't enjoy it! Even painting all the rope textures on the net was quite enjoyable, relaxing even. There were a few details which were a bit more intimidating (those involving blending), but once I started doing them they all came out great! It was funny actually, at first Drizgit da Squig Herder was my least favorite of the bunch (the mushroom on his mouth doesn't really work for me), but after painting the fire effects he's one of my favorites.
I quite like the bases on this warband, they have various small details that add to the narrative of the group. I actually started this painting project with the bases, something I don't often do. As painting the bases was mostly drybrushing, I thought I'd have to repaint a lot less if I started with them (looking at Zarbag and those mushrooms!). Of course, I then had to lightly drybrush the bottoms of the robes after finishing the models, but thankfully that went without issues.
I've got one regret with this warband, and that's not doing gap-filling properly. Thankfully it's not (very) visible on the photos, but especially on Zarbag's cowl it's raining on my parade a bit, after painting him up so nicely. Painting-wise, there's one or two things that I could've improved or added, but as fun as they've been to paint, it's time to start working on something new.
I also get to cross off another square on the bingo card, this time it's the "warband for a skirmish game".
Last week I started working on a new model, and continued with green! This is a Primaris Dark Angel, decked out with bits from the DA upgrade frame, mk3 and mk7 kits, standing on a scratch-built base. The armor and some of the details are pretty much done, so he's in good shape, but there's still lots to do with the face, gun, metals, some OSL, decals and such... I should have him done by the end of the month, and will write a bit more about the model then.
Spectacular updates mcmatilla! Those gobbos are delightful, a great paint job and capturing all the fun details. Even the bases are full of em, the skull in the puddle is cool but the squashed snotling is my favourite! The fire on the base, cauldron and poker are really great too.
The Dark Angel is looking promising already, his armour looks almost shining.
gobert wrote:Spectacular updates mcmatilla! Those gobbos are delightful, a great paint job and capturing all the fun details. Even the bases are full of em, the skull in the puddle is cool but the squashed snotling is my favourite! The fire on the base, cauldron and poker are really great too.
The Dark Angel is looking promising already, his armour looks almost shining.
Much appreciated gobert! Yeah, the details on these guys are cool, and it was fun discovering them when painting the models.
Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:I love the high contrast Dark Angels, you don't see that often, it's a nice change!
Cheers Gwyn! It does look good, but it did take quite a bit of work (at least for a first-timer...). I actually followed a Tale of Painters tutorial for most of this. Garfy's got a whole army of these guys!
Viterbi wrote:Love the warband, so much vibrant colors and excellent work on all those small details So much character on every mini.
Many thanks Viterbi!
Ezki wrote:Great work on the gobbos! The various colors really make them look joyful just all around awesome!
Thank you very much Ezki!
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Alright, the Dark Angel Intercessor sergeant is done. It's also a bit of a special model, as it's the first one I've entered into a painting competition. More on that at the end of the post...
For the longest time I've had an idea of painting an example of each of the 18 original Space Marine legions, or their 40k equivalents. Not much has happened with the project, other than the retro-scheme Space Wolf. But now I've taken a step forward with a Primaris version of a Dark Angel. As I said in the last post, the model is built with a mix of bits from Intercessor, mk3 and mk7 bits, as well as the DA Primaris upgrade set. Going forward, I'd like to customize the rest of the Primaris Marines in a similar way, but that depends on if I can find some good deals on the chapter upgrade bits.
For painting the figure I mostly followed a Tale of Painters tutorial, but added some extra highlights and a bit more volumetric highlights. The goal was to have a well defined model with high contrast edges á la 'Eavy Metal, but also explore the volumes a bit more. Now, while my edging is still waaays off of the gold standard, I'm getting more confident with it, and am very happy with the final look. Painting the volumes was also interesting and a learning experience, as I did quite a bit of back-and-forth adjusting the tone by glazing and layering.
While most of the model was painting the armor - a paint-by-numbers affair - I did a couple of freehand details as well. The main one is the company marking on his left knee. As this is just a one-off, I picked what looked to be the most complex one, the 4th company. I got to say, painting it would've been a whole lot easier if I'd kept the sword separate. Would've also helped with the backside of the sword... The other detail was the "Caliban" text on the left shoulder. I'm still struggling with doing an interesting font, something other than just block letters. Maybe I should practice on paper first? Anyway, good enough I say.
For the markings on the right shoulder pauldron I used transfers. They were from my stock of vintage 3rd edition era Space Marine transfer sheets, from back when they came with more than just Ultramarine markings. The decals still work fine, but the film on them seems to be pretty thick and MicroSol doesn't seem to get all the wrinkles out of them. I ended up scratching the wrinkles off very carefully with a hobby blade, and smoothing everything up with a layer of gloss varnish. Of course, as there are two decals there on top of each other, it was very slow work setting up those transfers. I might have to look into getting a stronger decal solvent...
There are a couple of things that I'm not a 100% happy with. His one eye is one of the weakest I've painted. I think I used a little too thick paint and lost the sculpted detail, not knowing exactly where the eye and the lower eye lid were supposed to be, and that's why I didn't repaint it. It's not horrible, but should've been better. (Again, need to leave bare heads as sub-assemblies in the future!) The other thing is the plasma coils on the pistol: I did the contemporary "inverted" glow and like the sides very much, but the top of the coils doesn't really work. I'm not sure if there's some way to make it credible, or if the old boxy flat-top coils are just unsuitable for this effect. I left the effect be, however, as the blue color makes a nice triangle together with the bionic eye and the sword's power node.
Happily, I get to claim another bingo square with this model. There were a couple that would've applied, but I went with the "paint a model from a new army or faction".
Spoiler:
Finally, the competition. It's my old hometown's game shop's annual painting competition, which I always missed when I lived there. What better time to enter than now that I've moved away! The comp has two categories ("big" and "small"), and the winners are decided by customers' votes, so it's not all that serious. The voting goes on until the end of August, and I'll go pick up my model then and see how the Dark Angel has done. I don't know about my chances of winning, but I was really excited to get to show off my model live, and to see what others have done. There were a lot of cool models and a few superbly painted ones. My personal favorites on both categories were converted Nurgle models with awesome NMM effects and really cool display bases.
Excellent work on the Dark Angel, I like the idea of a wall of all 18 legions… only 16 to go now! . It’ll certainly be a sight to behold if you do them all to this standard! Best of luck in the competition too, he’s sure to do well
gobert wrote: Excellent work on the Dark Angel, I like the idea of a wall of all 18 legions… only 16 to go now! . It’ll certainly be a sight to behold if you do them all to this standard! Best of luck in the competition too, he’s sure to do well
Much appreciated gobert! The competition results should be published in a few days now, we'll see how I've done. And yeah, some sort of wall display would be cool when I get all of the legions done. They probably won't all be painted quite as meticulously as the Dark Angel, but should be up to a nice standard anyway. I'm thinking about trying different painting styles with some of the models - some more GW studio, some more grimdark and so on.
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And a long overdue time for an update. This little model was painted a month ago, but didn't get photographed before now due to work starting again and me wanting to finish another model (coming up soonish...) before setting up the camera gear. When I dropped off my Dark Angel to the painting competition, I also decided to buy a small mini from the game store. I thought I'd have a chance to complete another square on the hobby bingo by finishing a mini in 48 hours after acquiring it. And while it took me a while to take the photos, I managed the painting in time!
Now, I knew that of the 48 hours, I'd only have maybe 4-5 hours to work on the mini, so I didn't want to get a GW model that I'd obsess over, taking a couple of hours just to clean, build, base and prime. Good thing that the store had some cheap Wizkids D&D models. I picked up a "Nolzur's Marvelous Miniatures: Female Elf Cleric", a blister with two models. They're made out of some bendy plastic and the details on them aren't great, but not terrible either. Perfect low-stakes models then, and they even came primed! I tried to clean the mold lines a bit, but the bendy plastic didn't want to cooperate so I didn't bother. Out of the box and straight to painting - I felt a bit like a kid again!
The model was finished in two sessions of around two hours each. In addition to finishing the model quickly, I wanted to try out some new paints and practice new techniques. During the summer I bought a bunch of new paints (some of the new Contrast pots and some Vallejo Model Color bottles). Among them were VMC Dark Sea Blue and Pale Sand. They seem to be all the rage among YouTubers, and I decided to try and use the blue for all the shading and the sand for all the highlights. I think it mostly worked, though I still need to practice some more with this idea of universal shadow and highlight colors.
On the technique side, I tried to paint a worn leather texture on the coat. I remember seeing Vince Venturella doing this by painting small scratches and dots on the basecoat with quite a bright color and then glazing over them with the basecoat color. This was then repeated multiple times, which resulted in a very interesting(/realistic?) layered effect. Again, I think I got the right idea and a pretty nice result for a first try, but some repetition is required on future models!
I also tried to do some simple OSL on the model. She's got some kind of a spell going on, which was cast from transparent plastic. I wanted to color it, and thought that a Contrast paint could work well. I first painted the transparent bit with matte varnish, in the hopes that it would help the paint stick. I then used very thinned down Siegvald Burgundy to paint the spell and the surrounding areas. I then used VMC Pink and Off-White for some quick highlights, both on the spell and the model. The spell was then given a coat of gloss varnish. I think the final effect is pretty cool, retaining some of the transparency.
And here's the bingo card with the cleric added. The square says "paint and base", and I'm aware that my base is probably pushing it a bit. But hey, it's my card and I say it counts!
Yeah, Eric’s Hobby Workshop did all of the legions recently, I reckon it’d be a cool project to do someday too.
48hrs from shop to done, what is this wizardry! She turned out really cool too, the spell is superbly done, as is the leather. I might have to subscribe to vince’s channel.
gobert wrote:Yeah, Eric’s Hobby Workshop did all of the legions recently, I reckon it’d be a cool project to do someday too.
48hrs from shop to done, what is this wizardry! She turned out really cool too, the spell is superbly done, as is the leather. I might have to subscribe to vince’s channel.
Yeah, I saw Eric's video! Some cool conversions in there, and I can't believe how (seemingly) fast he did the whole project! Of course, I'll aim for more of a display standard than tabletop, but nevertheless Eric's models are really inspiring.
I can wholeheartedly recommend Vince's channel, I've learned a lot from his videos and he's also got some excellent podcast-style videos to listen to while painting.
aku-chan wrote:She looks pretty dang good for a few hours work!
Cheers! Yeah, I was very happy with it too.
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Okay, my Space Marine project is moving forward! I've finished another Primaris Marine, this time a Space Wolf.
Around a year ago I painted a mini-marine Space Wolf to commemorate the birth of my son, and went with a 2nd edition inspired color scheme. The idea with this new Primaris was to try the contemporary studio scheme which is slightly darker. I took the main palette from some Youtube videos (Russ Grey for midtone, Fenrisian Grey for highlights, Fang for shadows), but added some contrast with additional point-highlights of Blue Horror and made the shadows deeper with Wyldwood. If I were to paint this scheme again, I'd go with brighter highlights (Blue Horror all over, white on corners), but it's fine for now.
This being a close combat oriented model, I decided it was an Assault Intercessor and as such would get red-and-yellow pack marking on the shoulder. This had me a bit worried, as yellow would be difficult to clean up if I splotched with red, but thankfully I needed to do very little fixing. Another bit of freehand was the "Fenris" text on the sword. I pondered between using the actual runic alphabet and just runic script for a bit, but went with the script so that anyone (me included) could read the text.
I happened to pose this model's head in a way that allowed me to try something new with the eyes: to paint them not looking straight on but to the side. Not only does the face look more interesting/expressive, it's also a whole lot easier to do!
As with the Dark Angel, I built the model using an upgrade kit. I did have to convert him slightly though, as the left arm drawing a knife wouldn't fit the Assault Intercessor body I wanted to use (for the running pose). The issue was those thigh plates, which were happily very easy to remove with a knife from the multi-part kit bits. I didn't even need to do any putty-work to fix missing details, as some accessories hid what little damage there was. Oh yeah, and I scraped off the aquila for a more utilitarian look which I think fits the Wolves well.
New and old side by side
With those small alterations I can claim the conversion square on the bingo card! Almost at a five-across, but that display board isn't happening this year...
Spoiler:
And to finish the post off: hot diggidy damn! I've won the painting competition I entered with my Dark Angel! Needless to say, I'm super pleased that people liked my work. I also got a 50€ gift card as a prize, which might well be used for the next year's entry I guess it's only fitting for the First Legion
Congratulations on the victory in the painting comp, well deserved and against some tough opposition to boot!
The new Wolf is a really cool addition to the wall of Legions. The pose is great, with a good dynamic… plus Sci-Fi guys with two blades weapons is always the coolest! the old Wolf almost looks like a kids next to the new one
gobert wrote: Congratulations on the victory in the painting comp, well deserved and against some tough opposition to boot!
The new Wolf is a really cool addition to the wall of Legions. The pose is great, with a good dynamic… plus Sci-Fi guys with two blades weapons is always the coolest! the old Wolf almost looks like a kids next to the new one
Thanks as always gobert! Heh, that old Wolf looks like a kid, or so old that he's begun to shrink! I wonder if that happens to Marines...
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Oh man, I just noticed that I've forgotten to post a finished model here! This was painted before the Space Wolf.
So I really took my time with this one, but the last biker in my Bike Squad is now finished. I showed the two other bikes back in... 2020. Yeah...
This guy, and his bike, sat on my desk for the two years pretty much with the first basecoats applied. Now that I've found myself enjoying painting marines, I thought I'd finally bite the bullet and get the model finished and off the table. After a week or so of painting, he's ready to join his biker buddies.
I still quite like these models, even though they're really showing their age. The whole bike seems to be skewed a bit, and the mini-marine has even less waist than, say, a current Tactical marine. And I guess it's telling that on GW's website the biker model has it's helmet antenna broken off... But, with some minor conversions/kit bashes, a nice paintjob and base they still look cool.
Speaking of conversions, I built the meltagun arm from Tactical squad bits, adding a pistol grip cut off from a pistol holster, and even went so far as to reposition the little aquila trinket to look like it's flapping around in the wind. As you might have picked up on, the pose is inspired by the old metal biker with plasmagun.
Painting-wise, there's not much to say. I tried to paint it as similar to the previous bikers as I could. There are some differences that come from not batch painting and leaving the project for two years, but they're very minor. The only really new thing was the heat burn effect on the melta barrel. I'm not really happy with how it came out, I rushed and didn't let the different colors dry properly, so I got some coffee staining which I of course couldn't really fix. But it's serviceable, and I'll try the technique again with some future model.
Sweet bike squad! I don’t think I spotted on the original pair, but I like how the Marine clearly looks after his armour more than his bike. As for the Melta, if you hadn’t said it was a conversion, I’d have thought it was one of he metal bodied bikers. I too have broken many a Marine helmet antennae, but hadn’t spotted that even GW clipped them off the official pics!
gobert wrote: Sweet bike squad! I don’t think I spotted on the original pair, but I like how the Marine clearly looks after his armour more than his bike. As for the Melta, if you hadn’t said it was a conversion, I’d have thought it was one of he metal bodied bikers. I too have broken many a Marine helmet antennae, but hadn’t spotted that even GW clipped them off the official pics!
Cheers! That's a successful conversion then! Yeah, my reasoning for the weathering only on the bikes was something along those lines - it's more important to keep the armor tip top. Of course, the reason was that there's no weathering on any of my other troops, and there is on the one other vehicle (Dreadnought), and I wanted to keep things consistent.
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Appropriately for Orktober, I've painted the two Boyz I showed last spring.
Both of them have minor conversions, but since I've talked about them previously, I won't be repeating myself (too much). On to the painting then! Well, not much to say about that either, as I tried to follow my orange color scheme and make these two models look like the rest of the Boyz. As with my Space Marine Bikers, there's a bit of difference between old and new models. With the Orks it's mostly in weathering and skin, which comes from developments in my brush control or painting habits. In some ways I like the old models a tiny bit more, but recognize that this is nitpicking and the newcomers fit right in with the old Boyz.
Nitpicking aside, I found painting these two models a lot of fun! It felt quick and I really like the results. Painting the metallics was satisfying as they all started out as (drybrushed) silver, and then I just slapped on some Contrast paints for the brass (Nazdreg Yellow) and copper (Guilliman Flesh). The helmet with the visor came out really nicely, and I almost forgot it isn't a stock part. Likewise, I liked how the hat came out, and I got more practice on painting simple freehand.
Kinda want to build a few more now... And I'm only three Boyz short of a full "mob"! Realistically speaking though, as I most likely won't be spray priming any new models before next spring, there probably won't be new Orks from me before next Orktober
Congrats on winning with the Dark Angel (amazing paintjob) and happy your bike squad is done now. Now they can finally ride in splendor into the sunset
Orks look great too that vibrant orange against the green skin really does it.
Happy Orktober! The new pair look great, it’s a shame you won’t be able to prime a few more until next year. Hopefully we’ll get treated to a full mob pic next Orktober?
muette wrote:Lovely Orks!! I like a lot the bright orange over the desaturated scheme, and the textured leather looks awesome.
Cheers! Yeah, the orange really pops doesn't it?
Viterbi wrote:Congrats on winning with the Dark Angel (amazing paintjob) and happy your bike squad is done now. Now they can finally ride in splendor into the sunset Orks look great too that vibrant orange against the green skin really does it.
Much appreciated! Heh, ironically the bikers rode straight into a storage box... A shame, really, but once I get some more display space they'll come out. Or maybe I'll rotate the models on my display case..
gobert wrote:Happy Orktober! The new pair look great, it’s a shame you won’t be able to prime a few more until next year. Hopefully we’ll get treated to a full mob pic next Orktober?
Thanks! To be honest, I'm pretty bummed about it myself! But, I always get excited about the faction when I paint/finish a model, and when I change to another project I get excited about that as well I'll definitely snap a group photo when I get to ten models, hopefully that's next year! It would be nice to have a Nob or something in there as well, the problem is that I don't really like the one in the box at all...
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Started working on some more Necrons. Haven't gotten too far, but with most of the basecoats done, painting will be much more fun going forward!
gobert wrote: Good to see your steps on the Necrons, it’s such an effective scheme. Hope you manage to get them done soon
Thanks man! Got them done!
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After a couple weeks of leisurely painting, I've got four new models to put in my cabinet!
All were painted pretty much the same way; only the Royal Warden getting a bit of an additional accent. As he's some kind of a character, I wanted him to have something to set him apart from the Warriors, but not so much that it would get distracting. I decided to paint the stripe on his helmet and the "necklace" in gold. It's pretty subtle, but I think it kind of works. Speaking of subtle, I painted a few of the coffin-shaped tiles on his flappy bits cream to break up the metal. See if you can spot them! I also thought about painting one of his gun hoses orange, but in the end decided against it as I didn't feel like wrestling with the orange color any more than I already was. Maybe I'll go back to change the color some day, but for now it's good.
The Cryptothralls were pretty fun models to paint, up until the big power globes. Trying to avoid all the finished parts around the globe wasn't enjoyable, but it went surprisingly well. The globes ended up too orange (not light enough) to really read as glowing, but didn't really want to retry painting them. The eyes on the other hand I'm pretty happy with.
Finally, the cute little Plasmacyte. Paint scheme-wise, pretty much identical to the 'thralls, only the power globes are really visible here. Easier to paint but a shame that I didn't get the tone right... Both the Plasmacyte's and the Cryptothralls' paint sheme differ a bit from the basic Warriors in that the Warriors have their rib cages painted cream and the shoulder plates in silver. As these models don't really have rib cages, I painted the shoulder plates/carapaces in cream instead. To further break up the silver, I painted some bits with black Contrast paint.
I'll use the Cryptothralls to claim another square on the bingo card: "add scenic bases to a unit". Two models are not much of a unit, but it still counts. And of course, I've done this type of base for each of the models in the army, so it's about time for an "achievement"
Superb work on the Necrons. Even the orbs you’re not happy with look smashing, the glows all look great to me. I too though am not looking forward to painting the central orbs on the murder buckets!
Once again, sorry for the even-longer-than-usual replies...
Ezki wrote:Absolutely loving those necrons!
The color scheme fits them really well.
The weathering looks good too!
Much appreciated Ezki, as always!
gobert wrote:Superb work on the Necrons. Even the orbs you’re not happy with look smashing, the glows all look great to me. I too though am not looking forward to painting the central orbs on the murder buckets!
Cheers! The orbs were a pain to paint, but doable. And if you mess up a bit, they're not too visible anyway! Looking forward to seeing yours.
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Long time no post, but I'm still kicking! I've been quite busy with work and other 1:1 life stuff (more on that soon-ish), but when I've had time I've chipped away at another Primaris marine: an Ultramarine Intercessor!
When I started my Primaris First Founding chapters/legions project, one of the goals was to build each model with an upgrade sprue to give them some extra flavor. I decided to make one exception, and that was with the Ultramarines. Being the posterboys of marines and GW, he was built as generic as possible.
In addition to building each Primaris model as an individual, another goal was to try out different ways of painting marines. For my Dark Angel I tried a combination of volumetric and edge highlights, while for the Space Wolf it was subtle volumetric shadows and edge highlights. I've wanted to try the 'Eavy Metal approach for some time, and what better model for it than a box art Ultramarine! The color palette and process is also very well documented nowadays, perhaps best by Dave Perryman, an ex-'Eavy Metal painter. I followed his YouTube video for most of my model.
There's a whole lot of edge highlights going on, and while on the studio models all of the highlights are applied on every edge, I confess to applying the final highlight only on upward-facing edges. This is mostly because I couldn't make it thinner than the previous one (as far as I could see), at least consistently, so I thought I'd not cover all my previous work and save some time in the process. Still, I'm super happy with the result! While on closer inspection I can see that the box art is way sharper, the highlights thinner, from a bit further away it looks like I have my own 'Eavy Metal model! I also feel like I improved my brush control quite a bit, especially doing the knee and shoulder pads where you don't have an actual edge to highlight.
Probably the biggest departure from the studio version are the shoulder pad markings. I've always liked the idea that each marine can have slightly different heraldry. This is/was often shown in Codexes and White Dwarfs, but rarely shown on models. However, the Indomitus box came with very nice Ultramarine decals, many of them a bit different from the others. I chose an Ultima sign with "XIII" on it for the left pad. For the right one, I used some "vintage" decals from the Battle for Macragge boxed set. I quite like the big squad number and the small tactical arrow, and it satisfies my need to make every model, even a box art Ultramarine, my own in some way I had some issues applying the decals and had to do them twice, plus paint over the older ones as they were more transparent/not as white as the new ones. Got it looking nice in the end though!
The base also got the box art treatment. I found it interesting that the main brown color was done without washes, just drybrushing. Efficient! I tried static grass for the first time here, and while I'm not totally happy with the result, it's fine. I used Army Painter's Field grass which is not quite the same tone as on the 'Eavy Metal models (anyone know which product they use?). I washed and drybrushed the grass to integrate it more to the base, which is another deviation from the studio models, but I quite like the look. Also, this was my first base without a black rim. Back to black with my future models, I think.
So yeah, this was most likely my last finished mini for the year. Not a bad one to end on, I reckon! I don't know what I'll paint next, but it'll be something a bit quicker, a bit less precise Hopefully I can get back to painting right after New Year's!
Wow, your paint schemes are very well put together, the colors on the orks and necrons particularly are great. That ork scheme, between the skin and the orange and the bluish grey, I like it a lot.
That’s one lovely Smurf! If I didn’t know better I’d say that you’d taken a pic out of white dwarf. The numeral transfers give him a unique addition, and the edge highlighting of the top only looks better imho, so good choice. Which chapter will be next? Fists, Scars, Angels, Hands, Sallies, Ravens? I might have a few Blood Angels bits (mainly sanguinary guard and old upgrade kit but I believe they’re compatible) knocking about if you’d like some?
muette wrote:That could be easily seen in any GW official promotion. Eavy Metal style dominated!
Hah! Dominated, eh? I like the sound of that!
ph34r wrote:Wow, your paint schemes are very well put together, the colors on the orks and necrons particularly are great. That ork scheme, between the skin and the orange and the bluish grey, I like it a lot.
Thank you very much ph34r, and welcome to the plog! Orange looks nice, doesn't it? ;D Though I can't take much credit for most of the schemes, they've been heavily inspired or straight up copied from other painters. The Necrons for example are an original scheme by Trovarion.
gobert wrote:That’s one lovely Smurf! If I didn’t know better I’d say that you’d taken a pic out of white dwarf. The numeral transfers give him a unique addition, and the edge highlighting of the top only looks better imho, so good choice. Which chapter will be next? Fists, Scars, Angels, Hands, Sallies, Ravens? I might have a few Blood Angels bits (mainly sanguinary guard and old upgrade kit but I believe they’re compatible) knocking about if you’d like some?
Many thanks gobert! I greatly appreciate your offer, but as it happens, I got the Primaris upgrade sprue from eBay and built a Blood Angel already! Well, mostly.. I think I'll modify him a bit before painting, as I've got a nagging feeling I'm not 100% happy with him as it is. But, as for the next chapter, the Angel would be a good bet, or perhaps a Raven. I got the base model built, but need to get the upgrades to finish him off. Which- or whoever the next model will be, the project will most likely continue next spring when I can spray prime again.
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Sorry for the late replies, once again. I haven't had much time for hobbying in the last couple of months, and even less for plogging... I and the missus bought an apartment, did some renovation and finally moved in for New Year's. Things are still finding their place, but we're getting there. I'll post some painting progress soon-ish, when things settle down a bit. Of course, work starts on Monday again and there's some big changes coming up, so it might be a bit hectic for a while yet...
Apologies for the three-month radio silence... It's been a very slow start to the hobby year, as I've been busy with work and family life. I also got distracted by video games! And on top of that, some other real life stuff that I may or may not write about some other time... But without further ado, I think it's time to talk about my first models of 2023, the Chosen Axes!
I started this warband right after new year's with the aim of getting a quick and easy win to start the year. I've never been a big fan of these models, and thought that I'd use them for Contrast practice. Of course, I couldn't just leave it at that, and layered and highlighted pretty much everything. I basically tried to follow Juan Hidalgo's guide on applying Contrast paints, which was very helpful. There were some spots of nasty pooling, but for the most part I think I got the paints working nicely. The mistakes weren't a huge issue, either, as they got fixed with the next paint layer.
There's not a huge amount of hours on them, and I tried not to worry about small mistakes or obsess over every detail. I tried to be as neat as possible, and to fix mistakes with the next highlight/layer. There are some errant splotches around the models and I skipped painting the eyes, but I'm happy with how they look at a glance. (And the photos came up really nice as well!) One thing that I should've done that would've had a big impact is some glazing, for example red on the skin, black on the feet and blue on the steel, but frankly I just wanted to call them done. I suppose these models would be good candidates for touching up later, but with the amount of unpainted plastic in my closet that's probably not going to happen...
I debated a bit on whether to even start a hobby bingo card this year, as it has taken me the whole Q1 to just get the ball rolling, but lets do it! I also noticed that Rob had updated the card slightly. I hope I can pick up the pace a bit going forward, but to be honest, this year will most likely be a slow one. Still, I'm happy that I'm now only one warband short of finishing Shadespire! I've even got the last warband, Magore's Fiends, primed. Maybe one of my hobby goals for the year should be to finish them...
Loving the orange vibes on this page between the dingy crons (I think the glow on the orbs reads very nicely btw) and the clean dwarves. Some very nicely painted minis and clean HQ photos too.
The smurf wouldn't look out of place on the box art for the unit - suuuuuper tidy. Love the highlights on the leather pouches etc in particular.
muette wrote:Woow, fantastic paintjob on those Dawi!
Cheers, glad you like them!
aku-chan wrote:Nice work on their beards!
Thanks! They were my favorite bit as well!
tzurk wrote:Loving the orange vibes on this page between the dingy crons (I think the glow on the orbs reads very nicely btw) and the clean dwarves. Some very nicely painted minis and clean HQ photos too.
The smurf wouldn't look out of place on the box art for the unit - suuuuuper tidy. Love the highlights on the leather pouches etc in particular.
Keep it up mate.
Much appreciated! Looking at my minis now, I think orange might be my favorite spot color...
Adeptekon wrote:What a variety here great stuff!
Thank you very much Adeptekon, and thanks for taking a look!
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So this post is way overdue, but better late than never! Here's a group photo of last year's models:
The class of '22. Missing from the pic is the Elf Cleric.
All together I managed to finish 39 models last year. A slight improvement over the previous two years, which surprised me a bit as I felt I hadn't gotten a lot done. But, as always, I'm very happy with each finished model, happily admiring them in my display cabinet even now.
The definite highlights of the year were the Gitz and the Primaris Marines. Each of the Gitz was a character in their own right, and I had a lot of fun discovering and painting all the little details, as well as coming up with the different colors and freehand patterns. And even though there were a lot of models, gobbos being small models made progress feel quick.
The Marines were pretty much polar opposites - big models that were mostly about edge highlighting. That's not to say to say I didn't enjoy painting them. They were actually my first Primaris Marines, and I got to say, they are a treat to paint. Can't really pick a favorite out of the five, though the Dark Angel is a pretty good candidate on the account of winning me my first painting competition!
Despite making good progress on the hobby bingo card, I failed again to finish a complete row of five. Oh well, with 12 squares claimed it was the most completed card I've managed in the four years I've attempted this! As I said in the last post, I don't have high hopes for this year's card, but I'll keep on painting and claiming squares where I can.
Adeptekon wrote: You're welcome, I subed! These are all fab too, and Praised be to that Black Templar. I'll be lurking
Cheers! I'm hoping to get a couple new Templars painted this year... I saw yours in the gallery, very cool!
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I'm trying to get back to the habit of painting, and what better way is there than a quick, simple project. And this time, I actually managed to keep it so! This Knight-Questor was painted almost completely in a single weekend.
I don't have too much "me-time" these days: an hour or two after the boy goes to sleep, and during weekend maybe two hours extra each day while he's napping. And that's if I don't have work to do... But, in the week after finishing the Axes, I painted the metallic bits on this Questor and the "Getting Started with AoS" Knight-Incantor (to be continued later...) . The rest of the model was painted on the weekend, bar a couple finishing touches. And yeah, I know that "rest of the model" is basically just the cape, but still...
I've always loved this model, and think it's one of the coolest SCE models available, even with all the new designs around. The pose is just so perfect: a knight imposingly scanning the scene, ready to take on whatever's coming up, cape flapping in the wind. Rather than paint him exactly like the rest of my Silverlions, I treated him like a one-off project. The gold bits are the biggest departure, they are much simpler here and less saturated. More fun to paint and I guess it makes this guy a bit more silver! The reds got more love than usual - I took a more volumetric approach, blended the colors a bit more and added some extra highlights to improve contrast. I also continued practicing simple TMM on the sword blade. I actually had to paint it twice as the first attempt was awful. I'm not entirely happy with the scratching, but didn't want to start over for the third time, so I called it good.
My only slight regret with this model is not doing any freehand lining on the inside of the cape, like they have on the box art. I decided to leave it out, obviously, to get the model finished sooner. As the cape is so flowy and especially with the "magical toilet paper" on the way, I knew there would be a lot of back-and-forth fixing mistakes. Oh well, there's no reason I couldn't come back to this some day
I was struggling a bit with the bingo card on this model (can you believe that this model hasn't been in my backlog for even a year?). In the end I decided to claim the "finish a unit for your army before gaming with it". This being just a single model, it feels a bit cheap. But I suppose characters are considered units too and I don't see myself painting too many full squads anytime soon, especially for "armies". So I guess this is as good a time as any to claim the square.
Adeptekon wrote: You're welcome, I subed! These are all fab too, and Praised be to that Black Templar. I'll be lurking
Cheers! I'm hoping to get a couple new Templars painted this year... I saw yours in the gallery, very cool!
I eagerly await... and thanks! I can't take credit for those
mcmattila wrote: I'm trying to get back to the habit of painting, and what better way is there than a quick, simple project. And this time, I actually managed to keep it so! This Knight-Questor was painted almost completely in a single weekend.
I'm just trying to manage an hour or two to get into painting... looking at the quality of the sword in this knight's hand makes me want to cry when I think of how I thought I was doing so good on my gnoll chieftain's scimitar, only to totally blow it trying to give it half the quality... I would love to be able to put in an hour or two here and there as you, and be as great!
Adeptekon wrote: I'm just trying to manage an hour or two to get into painting... looking at the quality of the sword in this knight's hand makes me want to cry when I think of how I thought I was doing so good on my gnoll chieftain's scimitar, only to totally blow it trying to give it half the quality... I would love to be able to put in an hour or two here and there as you, and be as great!
Just keep at it! I got back to/basically started painting six years ago, and if you go to the first page of the thread you'll see that it was pretty humble beginnings for me, as it is for everyone. But after that I've painted maybe 150 models or so, improving with each project. I started by watching and following the WHTV tutorials, but branched out to other Youtubers and tutorials from which I gradually tried out new tricks.
If you want to know how I painted the sword in more detail, just ask! It was relatively simple in the end.
During the Easter weekend I visited a city with a hobby shop, and thought that it would be a good opportunity to go for the "finish a mini in 48 hours" square on the bingo card. As such, I picked up this Bugbear:
The model is a WizKids Pathfinder Deep Cuts Bugbear. It comes in a blister with another bugbear, a female mage(?) who is arguably the more interesting model. However, she has some trasparent flame effects modeled on her and I didn't have a good way of doing those nicely, so I picked the more straightforward model to paint for the challenge. Quality-wise, they're alright. The details are a bit soft but not terrible (I think the models' larger size helps with that). The mold lines are unfortunate, but that's what you get. These were also pre-primed, so I could get to work straight away!
I did bend the rules a bit by starting the timer only after I got home to my paints, a couple of days after purchasing the model, but I think we can still count this. There's around three hours of actual painting time on this model; an hour spent basecoating the model with Contrast paints and metallics, and two hours or so for the detail work and the base. I knew that with the (to me) very limited painting time I couldn't go "full ballsack" on the model, so I decided to focus on the face and the blood effects, and only highlight the upward-facing parts of the model. The lower bits are just Contrast, and additionally shaded down with some Athonian Camoshade.
I'm very happy with the model as a whole, as I think I succeeded in my goals. I got a good expression on the face and some nice tonal variation with glazes of red and blue. (I don't know anything about bugbears or what color they should be, but I think the standard skintone works pretty well on the model.) The blood splatters are probably the best I've done so far. I've noticed that applying Blood for the Blood God convinsingly is really difficult if I try to paint it on with a brush, but flicking it on with the help of a paper clip gives you nice a splatter effect, and is surprisingly accurate as well. The model also worked as a test bed for different Contrast browns. I hadn't really tried Snakebite Leather (armor plates) or Aggaros Dunes (pants) before, and found both very pleasing. Snakebite Leather gave a very nice look for the turtle shell-like armor, especially with some quick highlights and scratches applied. A recipe for future, methinks...
The part about the paintjob I don't like is the hair/fur. The toes work, but otherwise it's pretty nasty... The sculpt probably doesn't help, but I'm sure it could look a bit better with better highlight placement. But in the end I'm not bothered as it's not the focus of the model and it's done. Another thing that came to mind after the model was finished was that I could've added some rust effects on the metals. It would've been very quick and simple, and added some further character to the model. Oh well, next time!
Finally, the current bingo card. I'm picking that speed up! As I said at the beginning of the post, I'll claim the 48 hour square with this model. Interestingly, this year there's a new, wholesome square: "paint a model for someone else". I don't think I've told you, but I gave the elf cleric I painted last summer to someone who actually plays D&D! If they have use for a bugbear, I'll probably give this one to a better home as well. Perhaps I'll paint the mage as well...
I like dwarf butts and I cannot lie! Sorry for being cheeky! seriously though, those guys were a great choice to get the year going, really great job
The year end pic looks like more than 39 to me, but I trust you’re counting more than my eyeballing . Either way, they look fantastic and even better that you’re happy with them.
Quick succession of minis now too, both look great and even more impressive for such a quick turnaround!
The haul of 2022 looks really good! So many different colors and amazing looking models.
And you achieved the most important goal: being happy with every model you have painted!
What kind of setup do you have for group pictures like that?
The Bugbear is also looking good!
The Wizkids models are alright and quite good bang for your buck. Been buying them from the local store (Fantasiapelit) to be used in D&D and so forth.
Due to their cheap price, I can sometimes justify painting them only using washes or contrast and call it a day haha.
gobert wrote:I like dwarf butts and I cannot lie! Sorry for being cheeky! seriously though, those guys were a great choice to get the year going, really great job
The year end pic looks like more than 39 to me, but I trust you’re counting more than my eyeballing . Either way, they look fantastic and even better that you’re happy with them.
Quick succession of minis now too, both look great and even more impressive for such a quick turnaround!
Haha, cheeky Cheers! Hmm... You're right, something's off... In the picture there are precisely 39 models, and so there are in my list. But there's one model missing from the pic (the elf), and also from the list (the Space Wolf). So I painted 40 models even!
Ezki wrote:The haul of 2022 looks really good! So many different colors and amazing looking models.
And you achieved the most important goal: being happy with every model you have painted!
What kind of setup do you have for group pictures like that?
The Bugbear is also looking good!
The Wizkids models are alright and quite good bang for your buck. Been buying them from the local store (Fantasiapelit) to be used in D&D and so forth.
Due to their cheap price, I can sometimes justify painting them only using washes or contrast and call it a day haha.
Much appreciated Ezki! The photo setup is very simple, even more so than for single models/squads. The models stand on a white desk (you can see faint reflections of the models on the glossy surface), and I shot the picture on a sunny day so that I got as much light as possible, but the models weren't in direct sunlight to avoid harsh shadows. For the same reason I don't use lamps for these big group shots - I try to have the light as even as possible. Then I just make the exposure time longer to get the pic as bright as it needs to be (tripod is a must of course). My camera is an old Nikon D3000 with a 50mm lense, which is otherwise fine but the 10MP resolution is a problem for these group shots.
ItsVaughany wrote:Just catching up on this blog and all of this is amazing. Last years minis are an incredible showcase - and that Bugbear for 48 hrs is superb...
What is up next?
Many thanks Vaughany, and for stopping by as well!
Now that you asked, I've been working on the next Primaris Marine: an Imperial Fist. The body's pretty much done, I'll probably just add some chips to the armor and do some minor fixing. Then there's the head and base rim to do. Shouldn't take a whole lot of painting hours, hopefully I can show the finished model in a week or two...
gobert wrote: Hehe, I love it when my count is lower than the actual number, congrats on the bonus mini!
The Imperial Fist is looking superb, the yellow practice with your Revelators has clearly paid dividends!
Cheers! I'm sure painting the Revelators has helped, but I used a very different technique on the Fist!
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Working up the courage to paint a yellow model took some time, but using the new Contrast paint made the process almost trivial. My Primaris collection now has an Imperial Fist!
The model was built mostly from the Intercessor kit with the IF upgrade sprue. The pistol arm(+hand) are from Assault Intercessors, as I thought the pose was a more natural pair for the raised fist. I changed the "heavy bolt pistol" to a regular one though, as I like my pistols more reasonably sized I put the model on a sloped piece of cork, which made the model more upright and, to me at least, works very well with the overall pose. If you don't count the kitbashing, the one conversion I did was to remove the IF icon from the power fist. Mostly because I felt there would've been a bit too many fist icons so close to each other (I mean, just look at this), but it also gave me some room for freehanding!
As I mentioned, this was an exercise in Contrast painting. I took Aidan Daly's Imperial Fist scheme as a starting point. I zenithally primed the model with Greyseer and White Scar sprays and coated it with Imperial Fist Contrast paint. A smooth, vibrant one-coat solution! I don't have Fuegan Orange, new or old, so I used thinned Gryph-hound Orange for recess-shading instead. I then layered and highlighted using Flash Gitz Yellow, Ice Yellow and white. While I of course had to work very thin when layering (more like glazing, really), it was actually enjoyable as I had the solid IF basecoat to work on. After finishing the armor I had to paint all the black elements, which was somewhat stressful, but I managed to do it without too many slips.
The bit I probably enjoyed painting the most was the head. I've been really enjoying painting the Primaris heads, they're relatively large, very well defined and have some great expressions. This time I left the five-o'clock-shadow out as I imagine Imperial Fists are always properly groomed. I tried something new with the hair: some gray/white above his ear to hint at him being a "more seasoned veteran", or the light gray hair that many Fists seem to have.
There are a couple of freehand elements on the model. The first one was on the aforementioned cleaned up power fist. I try to incorporate the name of the chapter/legion, its primarch or homeworld on each of these first-founding Primaris models, and went with the primarch, Dorn, here. I wanted to try a more gothic lettering than I've previously managed to do, and after looking at a lot of references and doing some back-and-forth fixing mistakes I had the design you can see in the photo above. The position of the letters is just a tiny bit to the left of where I'd want them (in relation to those studs), but definitely not enough to repaint a black design on yellow background! I also painted the company marking on the left knee, which was a relatively quick thing to do and brought an additional point of interest to the model. Decals were used for the other details: the squad markings and the small maltese/templar cross that seems to be a popular motif even with Primaris Fists.
I tried to keep the weathering subtle on this one, to emulate the clean 'Eavy Metal-look. Of course, I did muddy up the legs like I always do, which went a bit overboard as it often does. I'm not super keen on the coffee staining that happened, but otherwise I'm happy with it. Likewise, I'm generally happy with the chipping. I'm not sure if it's weird that there's no chipping above the knees (other than on the hands), but kept it like that to mostly preserve the clean yellow armor.
As for the bingo card, I'll definitely claim the "rarely-used color scheme" with this model. While I previously haven't painted any models predominantly in yellow, I got to say that I'm pretty excited to work with the IF Contrast paint again in the future. Perhaps on some box art-scheme Orruks?
He turned out fantastic! The yellow is super vibrant, I’d heard IF Yellow was good, and you’ve certainly used it to good effect. The highlights are really well done too. What Chapter/Legion is next?
aku-chan wrote:That's some nice yellow, very snazzy!
Thanks a lot aku-chan!
gobert wrote:He turned out fantastic! The yellow is super vibrant, I’d heard IF Yellow was good, and you’ve certainly used it to good effect. The highlights are really well done too. What Chapter/Legion is next?
Much appreciated! The next Chapter will most likely be Blood Angels, I have the model ready and primed already. I've also built a Salamander, but he's missing the base... However, I've painted something else this past week. I still have to take the photos, but hopefully get to show the model to you on the weekend.
tzurk wrote: That's a beautiful yellow mate, and de-fisting the fist was a great idea.
Love the texture work on the bugbear's vest too - a very nice effect!
Cheers, glad you like them! I was also very happy with the vest. The Contrast paint gave it a nice basecoat to work with, and I managed to keep the scratches sharp for a nice effect.
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Another relatively quickly painted model today. But while it took me less than a week to paint, I built this pilot nearly two years ago!
I've already discussed the build in the previous post, but as it was so long ago I'll do it again. The model is built out of bits from the old Command Squad and some tank commander (Leman Russ, I think?). I wanted to tell a story with the figure: perhaps a Sentinel pilot who lost his walker and got injured, trying to leg it back to the friendly lines after bandaging his arm. I'm very happy with the model, the only bit that's a bit off is that the arm sling is floating a bit around his neck. I think this is because he's not wearing a flak jacket, so not much I could do without resculpting the thing. I hope it's not too obvious...
The paint scheme is inspired by the classic Armageddon Steel Legion, but as the model is Cadian, I had to do some adapting. The main references were Codex Armageddon and Tyler Mengel's tutorial. The shoulder pads and pants were painted a greenish gray, and the leather cap as dark brown. I tried to keep the color palette close to the source material, but I don't know if the inspiration is clear as the model lacks the signature coat, gasmask and helmet, which messes with the color balance. To be clear, I think the color scheme works well, it's just that the model might not immediately read as a Steel Legionnaire.
My favorite part to paint was once again the face. Glazing on some stubble was as satisfying as ever, and I even tried to make the eyes look more tired by coloring the eyelids a bit. After I painted the face to look a bit weary, his bare arm looked too clean. I proceeded to try painting an impression of hair. I used Drakenhof Nightshade to paint tiny lines on the arm, after which I re-highlighted it. I don't think I was entirely successful, but it doesn't look terrible either. I'll have to keep experimenting...
I also think that the bloody bandages came out nicely. I used Vallejo's Hull Red (a brown-red) and black to paint the majority of it, and added just a couple of dots of Blood for the Blood God to imply that some fresh blood is still seeping trough. I also had to weather the model so that it would fit the narrative I wanted to tell, so I painted on some dried blood drips and tried to make the clothes look dusty, like he had had to scramble around in the wasteland. Still, I tried to keep it subtle. I know, that's what I've been saying with most of my recent models, but this time I think I pulled it off fairly successfully!
I followed Duncan's tutorial on the ash wastes base. Ever since I saw it I thought it looked amazing, and have been waiting for an opportunity to use it. And what better model than a Steel Legionnaire? But in any case, when I say followed, I mean the painting part. My base was built before the tutorial was released, and is just regular sand and stones. I actually have the "Dry Ground" texture paint, so it's a shame I didn't use it for this. Some old metal junk would've been cool too for the added color, but the 25mm base isn't really ideal for elaborate bases. I think the first gray wash I did was too heavy, which made the base more gray than in the tutorial, but I still very much like how it turned out and will surely use the tutorial again.
As for the bingo card, the pilot could be used for multiple squares, but I'll go with "accessories themed to match my army". I've always kinda picture him as the original pilot of my Astra Rodentia Sentinel, and could be used as an objective marker of some sort. I don't know if this is a 100% appropriate model for the square as my rats are not much of an army and I'm not too familiar with the rules, but I figured that this is my best chance to score one of the more exotic squares.
The steel legion dude is great. The detail on his face is amazing, it nicely conveys he’s been having a hard time! That bandage looks like it could do with changing though, hope he gets to the medics soon! Loving the Blood Angel too, the highlights are looking sharp!
gobert wrote: The steel legion dude is great. The detail on his face is amazing, it nicely conveys he’s been having a hard time! That bandage looks like it could do with changing though, hope he gets to the medics soon! Loving the Blood Angel too, the highlights are looking sharp!
Much appreciated gobert! Oh yeah, blood splatter was not enough for the bandages, I threw on some Agrax for good measure
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The last couple of weeks have been mostly taken up by work, but I've been chipping away at a Blood Angel when I've had the time and energy. He's done now!
The model was originally built last fall or so, out of a monopose Assault Intercessor and Blood Angel upgrade bits. I made the mistake of stuffing too much bling on his waist, which made the model look a bit off from some angles. Before I primed him this spring, I decided I'd re-do the accessories, and think the model's way better for it. I also spent a lot of time deciding between a bare head and the helmet. On one hand, I like painting faces a lot, on the other I'd like to have a few helmeted warriors in my Primaris collection and I quite like the yellow helmets on Blood Angels. The helmet won in the end. The base is scratch-made, and might be my favorite infantry base I've done so far. I imagine he's charging down a space ship corridor, as a nod to the Blood Angel Terminators in Space Hulk.
I wanted some variety on the normally all-red armor, so for the paint scheme I settled on an Assault Intercessor to get the yellow helmet, and a sergeant for the black shoulder pads. Although, if I'm being honest, I really enjoy painting red so I would've happily painted everything in it. But alas, I think I did well with the yellow and black bits as well. After I had decided on the color scheme, I considered a few different styles of painting. I really like the 'Eavy Metal style, but painting the Ultramarine was plenty of that for a while. Richard Gray's and Trovarion's takes were also considered, but I didn't think this was the right model. I ended up going with something similar to the way I painted my Dark Angel, using volumetric highlighting. I didn't push the edge highlights as much, but paid more attention to the weathering. There are a couple of places where I'm not totally happy with the light placement or the chipping work, but nonetheless I thoroughly enjoyed painting the armor.
As for the detail work, I of course saw the opportunity for some hazard striping and went for it. I actually even painted the red cable on the floor in hazard stripes, but thought that was a bit too much and changed it. All of the gems, lenses and the purity seal were lots of fun to paint and among my favorite details on the model. I also continued with the script practice, writing "Baal" (Blood Angels' homeworld) on his right tasset plate. The "curly bits" didn't end up quite as nice as I would've wanted, but nice enough, and it's legible at least. Trying to do a fancy font myself really makes me admire the 'Eavy Metal paintjobs. I mean, the lines on that "blood" text are so razor thin! I'll keep on practicing...
Anyways, this Blood Angel is the fifth of nine in my Primaris first-founding chapters project, which takes me over the half-way point. That's a good excuse for a group photo, I reckon, so here you go!
A handsome bunch, no? And to finish this post off I'll claim another square on the bingo card. Again, there were multiple possibilities here, but I'll go with the "model from a faction you don't own painted models for".
Ezki wrote: Wow, that group shot is like something from a box art! Stellar work.
Loving the crisp colors and clean highlights.
And thanks for the photo tips. Forgot to answer earlier.
Thank you very much Ezki, and no worries! Hopefully the tips are useful to you, or anyone else.
Your painting is just superb. Really nice work with the marines but my favourite is the Steel Legion trooper. Easily recognisable even without the mask!
Cheers turtles! Just the way I like it! It's a bit of a shame there's only one colorful loyalist left, then it's on to black and white armors...
Olthannon wrote:Your painting is just superb. Really nice work with the marines but my favourite is the Steel Legion trooper. Easily recognisable even without the mask!
Thank you Olthannon, much appreciated! I'm happy that the inspiration is clear!
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A quick WIP photo today. I thought I'd go after some "easy wins", and perhaps paint paint a squad (/group) instead of single minis, and decided to go back to Poxwalkers. Well, I'm painting them one by one, but I'll try to paint a few before moving on to another project. I already got one finished (the one with the yellow hazmat suit. Proper showcase photos when I have a few more finished...), and started working on another. Decided to try another skin color, I like the green so far. The next stage is layering and highlighting, then the metallics and finishing the base.
So, last week I got back to painting Poxwalkers. While this post is a bit late, I have four new models to show for my efforts!
Rather than batch painting, I painted these guys one by one. They were all started on one day and finished the next, and took roughly three hours of painting time each. While batch painting likely would've saved me some time, I thought that painting the models individually would be more enjoyable and I'd be motivated by the more apparent progress. I'm glad to say that the painting was a lot of fun and it felt great to have a new finished mini every day!
A further reason for painting them individually was that I wanted to try out new skin colors. All my previous 'walkers feature a pale Caucasian skintone, and that's where I started the first of these four models too (trying to remember how I painted these; last time I did was in 2020...). From there on I tried a couple of green tones based on Athonian Camoshade and finally a yellowish skin based on Aggaros Dunes. I got to say, I like each of them, and can see myself using the recipes for other models as well in the future. I layered all the different skintones with a lighter paint, and as previously, highlighted everything with Pallid Wych Flesh.
I had a lot of fun painting these guys, and can definitely understand why they seem to be a favorite for painting competitions - there's a whole lot of cool(/gross) details that look nice with nothing but a layer of Contrast paint, but you can spend a lot of time carefully painting those details, reinforcing the story that the models tell. There are maggots crawling everywhere: some on the models, some under their skin or clothes, and some models have their pockets stuffed with them! You can make the boils glow, or paint them as eyes! There's equipment and improvised weapons that hint at their previous lives. You can play around with basically any/every color you want for the skin, and likewise painting different corroded metals allows for orange and teal spot colors to be added. I feel like I could've happily spent twice the time painting any of these models! Also, while taking the photos I noticed there's a silly face on the hazmat guys exposed back. Hilarious!
A quick note on the photography: if you compare these photos with the previous ones, the models look a bit different. In hand the different batches look fairly close to each other, and I'd say the new photos are fairly close to reality. I doubt it's possible to take a photo that matches reality a 100%, but with my current setup I think I can get fairly accurate colors with minimal post processing.
I'll claim another bingo square with these models, this time the "over a year on the to-do pile". Perusing my eBay history, it seems I bought these models in 2020, and if memory serves, primed them a year ago. I still have six of them primed waiting for paint, and another set of ten unassembled. I don't know if I get to continue this project this summer, as I and the family will be on the move most of the time, but these feel like good models to paint when work starts again...
Just catching up, that Blood Angel is absolutely stonking! I’ve always loved a good bit of black on them, so I’m really pleased you went for a sergeant. That yellow helmet is phenomenal too! The whole gang is just cracking, hopefully you’ve got a good spot to display them all? Maybe a nice wall box display of them all?
The Poxwalkers are amazing too. The different skin tones turned out great. finishing a mini every day must be a great feeling, I might have to give that a try at some point.
aku-chan wrote:They look very gross and pus-filled, nice job!
Thank you very much aku-chan!
gobert wrote:Just catching up, that Blood Angel is absolutely stonking! I’ve always loved a good bit of black on them, so I’m really pleased you went for a sergeant. That yellow helmet is phenomenal too! The whole gang is just cracking, hopefully you’ve got a good spot to display them all? Maybe a nice wall box display of them all?
The Poxwalkers are amazing too. The different skin tones turned out great. finishing a mini every day must be a great feeling, I might have to give that a try at some point.
That's high praise indeed, thank you so much gobert! I've got my Detolf cabinet for display (well, at the moment it's in storage, but when I eventually get back to "normal"...), which has served me well so far, but I've been dreaming of a some kind of a wall-mounted box as you suggested. It would be cool to have one with a separate compartment for each mini from the 18 legions (when I some day get them all finished...).
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I've been neglecting this thread (and forum) for much too long, sorry about that! Let's try to get back to updating. First of all, a little catch-up about my summer, which I wrote at the start of September. I'm a bit strapped on time so I'll not edit it. TL;DR: little hobby progress, had to move house temporarily, had a second kid, work has started again.
Spoiler:
Alright, a quick post to show you I’m still alive! Unfortunately, this post will be light on pictures. Not much hobby progress to share, nor any new finished models 😦
So this summer was a bit different from what we’d hoped. Due to a very unfortunate issue with our apartment (more on that later, perhaps), we spent the summer mostly at the in-laws. Nothing against them, but it meant I didn’t have access to my painting desk, so no progress on that front. I did, however, build a lot of kits! For example, I built almost all my remaining Underworlds warbands (I now have 12 bands built or primed…) and a bunch of character models.
Then on to the big, good, news! At the end of July our second child – a beautiful, healthy baby girl – was born. Everything went pretty much as well as it could have, and the time with the newborn has been surprisingly easy (read: “more sleep than I thought”). As it turns out though, two kids that need pretty much constant looking after means very little free time for the parents! Now that work has started again after my paternity leave, I’ve been readjusting my schedule and spending what little free time I’ve had playing computer games (Boltgun was cool!) and watching YouTube.
Due to the apartment trouble and the new-comer, my Warhammer hobby is shelved for the moment. I’m starting to feel the itch to get back to painting and modeling, but so far haven’t had the time or energy to set up my hobby space. I’m still hoping to get some models finished before the year’s end, but try not to stress over it… We’ll see how it goes!
I’ll leave you with a WIP picture and a bit of a progress report on my Space Marine project. I’m almost finished building the four remaining loyalists! Below you can see the White Scar and the Iron Hand. Very excited to get to painting both of them, though they need bases first. The Salamander is also built, sans the base. Finally, I just received the Raven Guard upgrade kit, so I can finish assembling the model as soon as I pull my tools and the other bits from storage… I think I have a chance of finishing all the loyalists next year!
And then on to today, or at least a couple weeks ago...
The painting train is moving again, if slowly! I've dug out my models and supplies, and finished another batch of Poxwalkers.
As with the previous quartet, I used a mix of skin colors to give the eventual mob some added interest. For the other elements I pretty much used the recipes I decided on my first three 'walkers. The obvious difference is the white "lab coat", as I thought my chosen accent color of orange wouldn't make much sense. Still got to use orange on the wraps of his makeshift sledgehammer, so I think he fits in with the rest just fine.
Speaking of the sledge, it's one of the few details that I'm not so keen on these models. I just find the log very out-of-place thematically. I mean, most of these guys seem like they're from some industrial planet, which we know are pretty nasty places with their nature eradicated. Where did he find a log? But in any case, painting it proved pretty fun! I took an extra photo to show the ring pattern, which you can see below.
These guys were really enjoyable to paint (once again), and were the perfect models to ease me back to painting. With Nurgle, you can experiment with wild colors and different techniques, and don't need to be super accurate. Just the thing for some late-night painting and relaxation. I still have three 'walkers built and primed, but I'll paint some other models before getting back to Nurgle.
muette wrote: My oh my, the skin! The rust!! In love with those.
Much appreciated muette!
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It’s back to Space Marines, but second founding instead of first. Here’s my version of a Crimson Fist.
This model was very much inspired by the awesome Crimson Fist by Luther from The Mighty Brush (and yeah, I'm aware that he's got a thread here on Dakka as well). The model is otherwise a standard Assault Intercessor sergeant, but I swapped out the helmet for a mk7 one, which are my favorites. I didn’t follow Luther’s painting guide (don’t have an airbrush), but instead took the palette mostly from GW/’Eavy Metal and used drybrushing to lay down the initial highlights. Of course, I didn’t leave it at just drybrushing: I recess shaded the model, glazed on some shadows and highlights and of course edged the whole thing. But, as this is only one model, all that felt very quick, and in any case, there’s not much more to paint after the blue armor is finished.
But even if the painting was fast, the decals were not! It took me three nights to get them on and flush with the shoulder pads. I used a Crimson Fist decal from a 3rd edition SM decal sheet, but I had to create the tactical arrow from two decals: the circle from the CF icon and the red arrow from a Dark Angels tactical arrow. The old decals are a bit more transparent than contemporary ones, so I painted over them, adding some shading/highlighting while I was at it.
I’m using this mini to claim another square on the bingo card, for using a technique I haven’t mastered yet. I mean, I could really use any model for this square as I feel I haven’t really mastered much, but this model had a bunch of “firsts” so I guess it’s as appropriate as it gets. In addition to using drybrushing for a marine’s flat(-ish) armor, I tried doing glowing OSL eye lenses instead of the standard gems. I also used DIY dry pigments (ground from pieces of chalk) on the base. I’m very happy with the result of all these experiments, but there’s of course room to refine the techniques.
Congrats on the new arrival! 2 is chaos at times, but soon enough they’ll be their own entertainers if you’re lucky! Hope the house stuff works out too, can’t imagine living with the in laws is much fun, though live in babysitters can’t be too bad!
Your Poxwalkers just keep on getting better. Super disgusting!
The Crimson Fist is great too, the dry brushing gives him a nice patina and the extra touches are great
gobert wrote: Congrats on the new arrival! 2 is chaos at times, but soon enough they’ll be their own entertainers if you’re lucky! Hope the house stuff works out too, can’t imagine living with the in laws is much fun, though live in babysitters can’t be too bad!
Your Poxwalkers just keep on getting better. Super disgusting!
The Crimson Fist is great too, the dry brushing gives him a nice patina and the extra touches are great
Thanks for the kind words gobert!
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Lately I've been able to paint somewhat regularly, and that has translated to new minis! Here's a trio of Corvus Cabalists.
It's been quite a while since I painted my previous Cabalist (or the first one, for that matter), so there might be slight differences as I don't have complete notes on all the recipes and procedures used. I did change one bit about my original method though, and that was to thin down the Nuln Oil wash after the zenithal priming, and leave it completely off from skin parts. This way the Contrast paints I used for basecoats worked better. I don't know if it had much impact on the final products, as I ended up painting over most of those initial coats, but I was happier with the approach.
All in all, these models were enjoyable to paint and felt really fast compared to the two characters I painted previously (which makes sense, obviously). They're fairly small and don't have too many details or different elements. But, there's also room for painterly flourishes such as the blends on the beaks, the eyes, and I even tried a tattoo on a bare chest! The tattoo could've been a bit better if I'd spent more time on it, but my brush was way past its prime so I didn't bother too much. Still, I think it fits the overall aesthetic and I'm happy with it for a first try!
With these three done, I'm three models away from finishing the Cabal. Unfortunately I'm not so keen on the two Spire Stalkers, I'll have to see if I can convert them in some way to be more to my liking when I get to building the remaining models... But speaking of conversions, the lady throwing a dart has had her spear swapped out for a knife, and I'll use her to claim the conversion square on the bingo card.
tauist wrote:Superb paintjobs all round! Dunno why but only now saw this plog, will be following closely from now on. Cheers
Much appreciated tauist, and welcome to the plog!
Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll wrote:The tattoo looks great!
Thanks Gwyn, glad you like it!
Ezki wrote:I second the statement: nice work on the tattoo!
These models look so great and you've done them justice!
Thank you very much Ezki! I think the Cabal are still my favorite models from Warcry, even with plenty of cool new releases from GW.
aku-chan wrote:Nice work on those beaky guys!
Many thanks!
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As always, sorry for the late replies. I've had very little time for hobbies in the last two weeks, as work is ramping up towards the end of the year and the kids seem to have decided not to sleep at the same time (sigh...). But I have a quick WIP photo to share, I started work on my last unpainted Shadespire warband, Magore's Fiends. The photo is from two weeks ago, and I've made a bit of progress since then, but haven't taken an up-to-date picture. I think I have a shot to finish the warband before the end of the year, but we'll see...
I have so much hobby progress to catch up on but my goodness, your Space Marines are next level. Beautiful paint jobs and vey character models. Box art-level work
zahnib wrote: I have so much hobby progress to catch up on but my goodness, your Space Marines are next level. Beautiful paint jobs and vey character models. Box art-level work
Much appreciated zahnib, and good to see you on the forums again! I'm also chuffed with the Marines and looking forward to painting another chapter. That'll have to wait until spring though, as I don't have any primed first founding models left. Though I do have a some Black Templars...
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A brief progress report with very little - yet still some - progress!
In my last post I was hopeful of finishing Magore's Fiends before the year's end, but alas, it was not to be. Since that post I've gotten maybe a couple of hours of painting time. I'm now on my Christmas holiday, so I'll do my best in the remaining days of '23, and hope that I'll be able to finish these guys next week.
Happy new year mcmatilla! Those cabalists are still ice cold cool, cracking work on them. The red and blacks on the Khorne lads are spot on, good luck getting them finished
tzurk wrote:Reds already looking gorg on the Khorne fellas -they'll be beautiful once they're all wrapped up.
Really appreciate the cloth texture on the pants of the bird boys too, a bit of a departure from all the marine/armour painting lately.
Hope you have a great holiday mate.
Much appreciated tzurk! Yeah, I also like variety in my painting, keeps it interesting with every model. Holidays were really enjoyable, got to spend time with the family, eat well and surprisingly ended up having time to paint as well!
gobert wrote:Happy new year mcmatilla! Those cabalists are still ice cold cool, cracking work on them. The red and blacks on the Khorne lads are spot on, good luck getting them finished
Cheers gobert, and to you as well! Thanks for the compliments, check out the Khorne boys (and doggo) below!
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I've finally done it! I've finished Magore's Fiends, and with that, all eight warbands from the first season of Warhammer Underworlds, Shadespire.
These guys have been on the to-do list for quite a while! The models were released in 2018, but I think I bought them a year or two later when GW retired the Shadespire models. These rank among my least favorite of Underworlds warbands (they're okay sculpts but I think too similar to the monopose Blood Warriors from the first AoS launch box), but I wanted to complete the collection anyway, as I liked the game so much. As a side note, I also have all of the season 2 warbands, but after that I had to admit I was never going to get every warband painted, so I've just bought (most of) the really cool ones. Which is more than half of them, but still...
I decided to get them over with and started painting them mid-November. What I thought was going to be a quick-ish paintjob turned quite a bit longer as I just didn't have time for painting with a lot of work and the kids apparently deciding not to sleep before 11pm. But with the Christmas holidays I got some painting time in and managed to finish the Fiends.
I went with the default red scheme but switched the brass trim to black, as I don't like painting with metallics all that much and didn't want the hassle. Furthermore, instead of Citadel's Abaddon Black, I used VMC Black as everyone seems to like its coverage. Sure enough, it covers really nicely with just one coat! I got to say, I still like the satin finish of Abaddon Black more, but the VMC paint is just nice to work with. I drew a lot of inspiration from tutorials by Cult of Paint and RobPaintsModels, but copied neither totally, as I don't have the specific colors or tools (airbrush, mainly). The paintjobs are pretty straightforward as there aren't many colors, but the characteristic Chaos trim of course slowed the painting down. As for the metallics, I feel the brass details ended up too similar to the steel (not counting the flesh hound's collar). I thought I didn't want bright gold on these models, so I started with Runelord Brass as the main paint. After all the washes and highlights though it ended up very desaturated and close to the steel. I did add some verdigris so that there would be some blue/teal on the models, to better integrate Magore's blue cape.
Some parts of the paint jobs were phoned in pretty hard. The blood on the bases for example is just a layer of Blood for the Blood God over Khorne Red, and I didn't highlight it or the skulls. The flesh hound was also mostly painted with a big brush, I wasn't too careful with the highlights. I feel like the models could've benefited from a final round of quick highlights, and maybe some extra detail on the bare head and some scratches on the armor plates, but I didn't want to stretch this project out any longer. Still, it's another warband I can be proud of!
A new year, a new bingo card! As always, I'm using Rob Hawkins' hobby bingo card, and this is still the one from last year (he hasn't updated it for '24, at least not yet). And like last year, I start by claiming the "skirmish team" square! Hopefully this year goes better than the last, but at least I've finished my first painting project in January, not at the end of March!
Spoiler:
Finally, a note on photography: I've usually shot the Underworlds warbands using the gameboards as a backdrop, but they are currently in storage. I might reshoot at some point, but a white background will have to do for now. Oh, and speaking of things in storage, most of my models are in there as well, so it'll be a while before I get to take a group photo of last year's finished models...
Happy New Year mcmattila! Magore's Fiends are looking fantastic! That red armour has a really nice depth and the blue cloaks along with the black trim work really well and are a nice alternative take on the classic Khorne scheme. Look forward to seeing what you get up to in 2024
Awesome job on the fiends! The red and black looks super crisp and that doggo is lovely… well the painting is, wouldn’t want to pat him/her! They certainly don’t look rushed at all. Hopefully we get to see all of the warbands in action when you get the rest out of storage
zahnib wrote:Happy New Year mcmattila! Magore's Fiends are looking fantastic! That red armour has a really nice depth and the blue cloaks along with the black trim work really well and are a nice alternative take on the classic Khorne scheme. Look forward to seeing what you get up to in 2024
Thank you very much zahnib, and hopefully the new year has started well for you too! Heh, I'm looking forward to 2024's projects as well, may they be many!
gobert wrote:Awesome job on the fiends! The red and black looks super crisp and that doggo is lovely… well the painting is, wouldn’t want to pat him/her! They certainly don’t look rushed at all. Hopefully we get to see all of the warbands in action when you get the rest out of storage
Thanks a lot gobert, glad you like them! The doggo was perhaps the most fun model of the four to paint. Surprising, really, as I spent ages thinking about how I'd go about painting it. Then I just got on with it and everything turned out to be fine. I suppose that's how things usually go...
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It's been a good long while, but I've finished another Black Templar!
First things first, a couple of words about the model. I straight up borrowed the design from Eric Wier of Between the Bolter and Me, as I loved it from the moment I saw it. I think I've said it a few times, but I really like the look of a bulky Space Marine with an SMG-sized weapon. And while the Primaris proportions are obviously superior to the old models, I still prefer the mk7 details like helmets and backpacks. As such, I find this combination of mk4, mk7 and mkX bits really pleasing!
As with the previous "test" model, I followed Maxime Corbeil's paint recipes for the most part. Whereas the test model got a marble base, here I wanted to try Mr. Corbeil's basing as well. This was both for the iconic look of the 40k 3rd ed. box art and the contrast that the orange brings to the blue highlights of the black armor. The base was really simple and satisfying to paint, and I liked the random variety that washes of orange, brown and dark gray brought to the base. I'm not sure if I overdid the drybrushing and desaturated the base too much, but I'll have plenty of opportunity to get the bases looking "just so".
I got to mention the transfers here, they were one of the highlights of this project for me. I used the transfers from the Black Templar army box (didn't get the box, but bought three sheets of the transfers from eBay), and they went on like butter! I did apply a couple of rounds of Micro Sol, but honestly, there was very little need. I guess the newer transfers use thinner film than the ones from circa 2000, but it was a pleasure to work with these. The transfer sheet features many different designs of the Templar crosses, out of which I picked ones with red outlines. Nothing too wild, but a touch of personality for this grunt. I intend to delve a bit deeper with the personal heraldry on some future models, but this guy has to do with the bare essentials (at least for now).
Then on to the bingo card. I had to think about it for a bit, but I can claim the "unfinished for a year" square with this model. Oof, time flies!
Spoiler:
I'll leave you with a story of an unfortunate mishap I had painting this model. While working on the aquila I was opening a pot of Screaming Skull. Apparently I had a bad grip on it, and when I got the lid open the pot slipped from my hand and spilled the contents all over me and the surroundings. Luckily, the paint that didn't land on me mostly went on a chair and floor tiles, which I managed to wipe clean before the paint dried. Even more luckily, none of the spillage landed on my phone (just the case), watch or the model . My jeans and t-shirt were instantly ruined, however. There's surprisingly much paint in a 12ml pot...
I had a similar mishap recently, but coincidentally with Black Templar Contrast! glad you mostly got away with it with only a set of clothes as damage.
The latest Templar looks great and yeah, the tiny Bolter is a cool look!
Wow that Black Templar looks amazing mcmatilla! The mix of Firstborn and Primaris bits looks really great. If I ever cross the Rubicon myself I will definitely be going down this route. And thanks for linking Eric's article, its a great read. Looking forward to seeing more Black Templars from you!
gobert wrote:I had a similar mishap recently, but coincidentally with Black Templar Contrast! glad you mostly got away with it with only a set of clothes as damage.
The latest Templar looks great and yeah, the tiny Bolter is a cool look!
Yeah, I think we've all spilled at least one pot of paint in the course of our hobby careers! Thank you very much gobert!
RedSarge wrote:Love that Templar!
Seems everyone is making those AoS Khorne Bloodwarriors[Reavers] on Dakka.
Much obliged RedSarge, and welcome to the blog! Now that you mentioned it, I think I've also seen one or two other sets of Magore's Fiends being painted recently. I wonder if they still have competitive rules in the current Underworlds season...
zahnib wrote:Wow that Black Templar looks amazing mcmatilla! The mix of Firstborn and Primaris bits looks really great. If I ever cross the Rubicon myself I will definitely be going down this route. And thanks for linking Eric's article, its a great read. Looking forward to seeing more Black Templars from you!
Thanks a lot zahnib, and you're welcome! I think I'll be building some more of these Firstborn-Primaris kitbashes, though I might need to buy another box of standard Intercessors first... But, I still have another model which I just started working on! See below:
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Started working on another Templar, this guy was built at the same time as the previous one, so more than a year ago. I'll write a bit more about the model(/build) when I get this one painted, but as you can see I used a mix of new and old bits here as well. As for the painting progress, I got the first two highlights on the armor done last night, which is probably the most annoying and longest bit as they both go on all edges. There's still one highlight on the upper edges and then dot-highlights on corners, and some other stuff, but I'm hoping to get at least the black armor finished during the weekend.
tzurk wrote:Beautiful transitions on the fish doggo from hell. Love the contrast of the blue cape, and the patina on the weapons. They are a great looking unit!
Loving the mix of old and new on these templars. Those tactical marine helmets....ahh.
Fish doggo! Haven't heard that one before, but makes perfect sense... Thank you very much, glad you like them!
zahnib wrote:The latest Templar is looking good! The old helmets work a treat on the Primaris bodies. Look forward to seeing your next update
Cheers zahnib! Yeah, I'm also partial to the old helmets, happily they (and most other bits as well) fit without (much) modification on the Primaris bodies.
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Hot on the heels of the Black Templar in the last post, I've painted another!
But let's start with the model. I'm super happy with the pose, as well as the bit selection. Again, I mixed a Primaris body with some older mk7 bits (helmet and backpack), but this time I also gave him a shoulder pad from the BT upgrade kit. I had to trim down the hose on the right of the helmet a bit to be able to make the head look as far to the left as it is. Another, bigger modification was the gun.
My vision for this Marine was to be the squad gunner, armed with an LMG style weapon (and this is talking aesthetically, not in-game rules). I wanted to have the cool box mag, but also add an optical sight, so I combined the bits of two different bolt rifles. Finally, I removed the front iron sight and replaced it with accessory rail carefully shaven off another rifle.
The painting didn't differ much from the previous Templars, though compared to the last one this guy had a couple more lenses which were fun to paint. One stylistic choice here was to paint the trim of the right shoulder pad white. This was done for balance more than anything, so as not to make the left one look much bigger. I know it's technically a Neophyte/Scout thing, but rule of cool trumps. At least one of mr. Corbeil's Marines has shoulder pads like this, and there's a kind of a precedent on Blanche's Black Templars painting as well.
The decals were a joy to work with, once again. I chose a different design for the shoulder this time: the default black cross with a skull in the center. I really love that GW has decided to include a lot of chapter symbol designs in their recent decal sheets (Black Templars upgrades, Indomitus and Leviathan at least). Adds an individual touch and I think it really fits the image of Space Marines as knights with their own heraldries.
No bingo square for this guy, but I'll leave you with a picture of the Templar duo. Damn they look cool.
Thank you for talking us through the little details you've added/changed, he looks so well-put-together that I could see him coming straight out of the box.
Love the spot highlighting on the helmet and vents - super well executed. They do look brilliant together. Love the difference in weaponry when they're side by side!
Your black armour recipe works a treat and combined with the eye lens and the bone elements like the Imperialis on the chest, make for some mighty fine looking Black Templars! The white shoulder trim is a nice touch as well. Would love to see some more John Blanche inspired elements worked into your future Templars. Thanks for sharing ☺️
Once again, sorry for the tardy responses, life has been hectic at times...
tzurk wrote:Hnnnngh, yeah mane, this is nice.
Thank you for talking us through the little details you've added/changed, he looks so well-put-together that I could see him coming straight out of the box.
Love the spot highlighting on the helmet and vents - super well executed. They do look brilliant together. Love the difference in weaponry when they're side by side!
Thank you very much tzurk, glad you appreciate my write-up on the build, and the end-result!
gobert wrote:He looks properly cool! Love an OG helmet on Primaris
Cheers! I as well!
zahnib wrote:Your black armour recipe works a treat and combined with the eye lens and the bone elements like the Aquila on the chest, make for some mighty fine looking Black Templars! The white should trim is a nice touch as well. Would love to see some more John Blanche inspired elements worked into your future Templars. Thanks for sharing ☺️
Many thanks zahnib! More Blanche inspired details are definitely coming on future models, like the freehand stuff and the classic yellow guns...
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Another long pause between completing models, but I've at last something new to show you: the Knight-Incantor that came with the Getting Started with WHAoS (2.0) magazine.
As I mentioned in a previous post, this guy's metallic bits were painted a year ago, leaving me not too many elements to paint to finish the model. Still, while it took relatively few sessions to complete the model, they were spread out over a month... The main thing slowing me down was that we moved again - back to our own apartment - and all the work that entails, before and after. I've also noticed that for some reason my hobby motivation is pretty low, but I'm sure it'll pick up sooner or later.
Anyways, back to the model! It's another silver Stormcast, but instead of red, I've used purple as the spot color. It took me a while to decide between the two colors, but I decided to paint this model like the Cursebreakers, both because they all are from the Sacrosanct chamber (i.e. magics, as I see it), and I wanted to paint something purple for a change. When I started to highlight the purple, I immediately realized why I haven't used it much, as the light purples have really bad coverage, but I think I got a nice result in the end.
My favorite details on the model are the blue flasks - I like the bubbly effect and I achieved a nice contrast from almost black to pure white. The red gems are also nice, but I could've gone a bit darker with the low end. Finally, I painted a quick freehand lining on the tabard (/skirt). It's rather crude and I'm not entirely happy with the design (I came up with it on the fly). Nevertheless, I'm happy I got it done. I think I might be more likely to do these cape linings on future models as well.
I'll claim the "color scheme you don't normally use" bingo square with this model. While I've painted this scheme before, it has been years since I last opened my purple paint pots.
Great paintjob man! Hear you with the move, did it too recently and going back to painting was always in the back of my head during the whole painful process. But after you can enjoy!
zahnib wrote:Your black armour recipe works a treat and combined with the eye lens and the bone elements like the Aquila on the chest, make for some mighty fine looking Black Templars! The white should trim is a nice touch as well. Would love to see some more John Blanche inspired elements worked into your future Templars. Thanks for sharing ☺️
Many thanks zahnib! More Blanche inspired details are definitely coming on future models, like the freehand stuff and the classic yellow guns...
Sweeeet, looking forward to seeing some more of your Black Templars! Your Knight-Incantor looks great! The lining on the tabard is a nice touch and those blue flask are *chef's kiss* Hope you've all settled into your new (old) home.
Man! That’s one sweet paint job! The purple cloak turned out really great, it has a nice sheen to it. As boss says, his face is fantastic, really well done! Hope you’ve settled in soon post move
But, good news for you is that there's a bunch of Templars coming up. At some point in hopefully not too distant future...
So much character on every mini.
Cheers! Hmm... You're right, something's off... In the picture there are precisely 39 models, and so there are in my list. But there's one model missing from the pic (the elf), and also from the list (the Space Wolf). So I painted 40 models even!
