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After hitting a groove in painting I decided to start a blog to document the painting my Cygnar force. I have been painting this army for sometime already, but process has been sporadic as time to hobby has been cut short by real life happening. Now it seems I have time to invest into painting and so this blog is part of getting inspiration and motivation to painting the army.

I will post the already painted figs as I get to taking photos of them but here are the most recently finished pieces: a journeyman warcaster, without whom I have never fielded my cygnars, and a light wreck marker to mark the demise of my light jacks.






At the moment I have this Gun mage captain adept almost completed. Only the base and some small fixes are needed to him.




So any comments are welcome. I'll post more pics of the completed part as I take em and get new figs finished.

Love em... Very dynamic & good metal areas. The faces are the highlight for me though

How do you do the faces? Any chance of a very brief list of colours you use please?

You know, that's something that I love on the faces of many of the Warmachine human models that's distinctly rare in 40k - goggles. 40k needs more goggles. Nice job - I particularly like the 5 o'clock shadow on the gunmage.

Thanks for the praise guys,

WingWong wrote:How do you do the faces? Any chance of a very brief list of colours you use please?

The faces are painted (same as most of the other parts) with Vallejo colors. Base coat for these two fellows is 1:1 mix of dark flesh and dwarf flesh.
Then eyes are lined with black paint. Then I usually paint the eyes, nothing strange there. The downside of the eye is lined with dark flesh as black gives usually too harsh line there.
Then then face is highlighted with 1:2 dark flesh - dwarf flesh mix and after that straight dwarf flesh. After that dwarf flesh is mixed with either elf flesh or bone white for the last couple of highlights. I mix these also in same sequence pure color -> 2:1 base to highlight ratio -> 1:1 base to highlight etc.

The most important parts are the placement of highlights and the dilution of paint, which I do with tap water.

The shadow is just 2 very thin coats of light gray on top of finished face, effect worked out very nicely IMHO.

Death By Monkeys - Yes there are plenty of goggles in Warmachine. I think that most of my Cygnar models are wearing goggles, they present nice way of bringing a splash of color to the face. And if they are wearing them on the eyes, you don't have to paint eyes, which is a definite plus on my book. I'm so lazy to rework the eyes if they turn out crooked or if I otherwise messed them up .

Been painting these three sword knights now after the GMCA was transferred to the basing department.



The metal parts are still in progress, the steel lacks the final highlight and gold has no highlights at the moment. These guys are my favorite troop figs for cygnar so I have a full unit on the way, with 4 troopers already finished. They are pretty fast to paint thanks to the large metal areas, only the blue cloth needs to be layered.

The GMCA is also finished, didn't have time to take decent pics of him yet. I'll try to take pics of him today, if the weather permits.

I finally got of me and took some new photos.

First up is the finisher GMCA. I'm pretty happy with the way he came out, only the blue looks a little plain to me. The jacket still needs some mud, but that is for someother time.


Then the already finished sword knights. Still need to finish the three boys above and then the captain.



Then some older figs, first is my leader Cmdr Stryker

And his untrustworthy side kick Reinholdt


And first Cygnar fig I painted some years ago, the Charger.

Finally got some my photo set up in decent order and first thing took better pics of my entry to the last dakka painting challenge.

The skeleton was over his head in the competition and the too dark pics didn't help much . Here's a better pic of him. Thanks for all who voted for him.



The lure of chaos got better of me, so I'm also on the process on painting an all cav warriors of chaos force. I'll take WiP pics of the first unit, warhounds, soon to post here.

The new warriors of chaos book had me going and as the new plastic marauder horsemen made the thought of all cavalry force viable here we go. The first sign of northern marauders appears in the shape of warhounds. The first of four units is now ready, I painted it with a limited palette focus on getting natural and down to earth look to the mutated dogs. The two primary colors are tied together by using same gray in the mix to get harmonious effect. These had a quick rank and file paint job to get em from the desk quickly to get to the good parts of the army: the knights and heroes. Still 15 dogs to go with 5 already assembled and waiting to be puttied before painting.

i voted for the skeli lol

I finally got the swordknight unit finished on Wednesday evening. Yesterday some pics were taken of the unit and here they are for your comments.

First the full unit of knights. They were painted in 3 batches during some 8 months, so there is some variation in especially metallics. Mostly a study in painting metal, which is worn but taken care of. I am not completely happy with the yellow metals, but I'm slowly getting there. The blue is the same as for all of my cygnar. Please vote on them, the pics are links to the gallery. I've also taken some new shots of GMCA and Reinholdt to the gallery.



Then one of the knights in by himself, the figs are nice as they have enough different parts to get some individuality for every man in the unit.



Last of the swordknights is the captain. Some additional time was spent on him, as he was painted by himself. I like the calm pose on this one.

Everything looks awesome! My favorite is also the faces! And your blue is perfect! keep the pix coming!

While I am not a fan of warmachine, I am a fan of your painting. Nice work!! I really like your take on your wardogs. I have never seen them painted like that except one place. My paint table!!! Our schemes are very similar. I think they look the best in earthy tones and a more natural feel. Well look and compare. I am happy to see that they will look good when all done. I am working on mine and have lots to go. Thanks for the inspiration!!!



Looking forward to the marauders.

Very nice I also love the wardogs,but my fav so far is either the charger or Reinholdt.

Sha1emade wrote:I really like your take on your wardogs. I have never seen them painted like that except one place. My paint table!!! Our schemes are very similar. I think they look the best in earthy tones and a more natural feel.
Looking forward to the marauders.

Thanks! My style has been going towards more natural and subdued colors for some time now, and the dogs and the Chaos warrior as a whole seemed like a good project to try that on. It should work quite well and the usual take on the army seems to favor more fantastic schemes. Your dogs really seem to be close relatives of mine, I was planning to vary the color my the unit, so I'll probably now try to do one with brown mane as that seems to work very well in yours

The mounted marauders are coming, but have to tackle another unit of the dogs first and then I have couple of Cygnar figs also on my table.

LBursley wrote:Everything looks awesome! My favorite is also the faces! And your blue is perfect! keep the pix coming!

I try to spend additional time on the faces, as they really make a fig if done correctly. I'll get some new pics, but it seems to take me around a month to get anything finished.

Deff Dread red Edition wrote:Very nice I also love the wardogs,but my fav so far is either the charger or Reinholdt.

Thanks! I started the Hunter light warjack for the boys is blue and I'm hoping that the progress I've made since I painted the charger will pay off.

Reinholdt is one of my favourites on the WM line as well. He is so characterful little guy, I just had to paint him when I started painting PP figs.

Woah, wait a minute. Does your GMCA have a five o'clock shadow?

malfred wrote:Woah, wait a minute. Does your GMCA have a five o'clock shadow?

He sure has. One has to look the part to be successful in the art of assassination and look at home next to Caine in the town's seediest tavern.

The effect is really simple to achieve:
- First paint the face as normal with shadows and highlights in place
- Then mix some blue gray (Shadow gray is good) with water to a wash
- And paint this wash to the area you want to be covered in stubble, while being careful to avoid pooling

That's it. This is the second fig I've tried this on and its good looking at least to my eyes

I'm stealing that ^^^

So what's next on the list, Metsuri? Chaos or Cygnar?

That skeleton is great Metsuri, what comapny made that?

Very nice natural paint job on it as well.

I have always had a soft spot for Warmachine stuff. I've never played it or painted anything from that range myself but they have some great concepts. Mike McVey is a clever guy, and I loved his work when he was at GW.

I remember reading his heavy metal articles in the early 90's when I first got into the hobby and just being amazed by his dioramas.

malfred wrote:So what's next on the list, Metsuri? Chaos or Cygnar?

Actually Cygnar and Skorne. I've got Hunter done, base just needs to be painted. And then when meta hit the streets I finally got the urge to paint my Skorne, I've had those on my unpainted pile since the Hordes came out so its time to get em painted.

I have a swordman done and 3 venators on the table, I'll post them at the same time with the Hunter. I'm a slow painter and my kids got the flue so that takes away the hobby time, but probably next weekend I'll have my monthly update

Gundam-Mecha wrote:That skeleton is great Metsuri, what comapny made that?

Very nice natural paint job on it as well.

Thats a really old GW sculpt from around late 80s. Here is the link to the catalog page is Stuff of Legends. I have several of these old GW figs and I've saving them to be painted in between the longer projects. Thanks for the compliment. The paint job seems to be in some parts too natural as it doesn't seem to gather the appreciation I feel it's worth.

Gundam-Mecha wrote:I have always had a soft spot for Warmachine stuff. I've never played it or painted anything from that range myself but they have some great concepts. Mike McVey is a clever guy, and I loved his work when he was at GW.

I remember reading his heavy metal articles in the early 90's when I first got into the hobby and just being amazed by his dioramas.

Yeah, his work in the schemes and appearance of WM factions is great. I still have the White Dwarf where he starts to paint the blood angel army, which was the first full army to be painted for the GW ever.

I really like the WM/ Hordes minis and the game and it seems to be the game for me as the amount of minis needed is relatively small and even with my schedule and paint rate I can have painted army on the table. Here is the McVey's home page in case you are interested in what he has been doing since leaving Privateer Press. Some top notch paint jobs there.

Metsuri wrote:

Thats a really old GW sculpt from around late 80s. Here is the link to the catalog page is Stuff of Legends. I have several of these old GW figs and I've saving them to be painted in between the longer projects. Thanks for the compliment. The paint job seems to be in some parts too natural as it doesn't seem to gather the appreciation I feel it's worth.

The shading and blending on the metalic areas is spot on. It's subtle, In a good way because the more you look at it I think the more you see and you can really grow to appreciate it.

It really looks like old worn armour that has been in a crypt for centuries.

The work on the boots is also very nice as well, gradual highlights and nice shading.

Thanks for the link to Mike's website I visited it a few times beifre and used to have a bookmark but lost it.

I wish I still had some of my old white dwarfs with his articles! I loved the Eldar Exodite versus the Chaplin on bike. His Eversor Assassin Diorama was wonderful too. The scenery really opened my eyes to what you could acheive in modelling, and I can't remember how many old toilet roll tubes I cut up to make things back then!

Gundam-Mecha wrote:I wish I still had some of my old white dwarfs with his articles! I loved the Eldar Exodite versus the Chaplin on bike.

That one was my fav also, the way the minis were arranged to the terrain that formed yinyang symbol when viewed from above. Great stuff

I have go through the old stuff sometimes to read all the great articles, White dwarf is really lost a lot since those days.

Thanks for the compliments, have to get pics up of the new stuff soon it's been too long again after the previous update.

So here are the minis which I promised some days ago. Go clicky on the photos to vote if you like.

First the Cygnar Hunter light. Basic paint job for my jack, with some experimentation on metals. A light weathering was given to the whole model with brown wash to tune down the bright blue and to make the mini more uniform in appearance.



Next up is the test mini for my Skorne. I've had these minis since the Hordes was released in 06, but I have been hesitant to paint them as I wanted to have my own scheme. The search for striking but simple scheme then took 3 years but here the first victim is finally. The plan is to have a purple and brass army with some details picked in bone and black with red jewels. The base is lighter than usual for me to get more contrast to the mini. Comments would be really appreciated on this as the next 3 members of Makeda's army are already on the paint table and some tuning can be still done on the scheme.



And as a bonus here is a wip pick of a Big Mek I've been working on in between other projects. I just love the Nelson orc and have a army of them for fantasy, but haven't done army in 40k of these fellows. The new line is tempting tough.



Comments and thoughts are most welcome.

Fantastic Orc, I really like the skintone on this mini. Very subtle and really pleasing on the eye. It reminds me a lot of Rackham's studio painting style.

Love the detail on the lip as well! 5 *

Gundam-Mecha wrote:Fantastic Orc, I really like the skintone on this mini. Very subtle and really pleasing on the eye. It reminds me a lot of Rackham's studio painting style.

Thanks G-M. I was really into Rackham couple of years ago in the time of C3. The painting style of the R studio was something I studied, but never really achieved the results I was aiming at. But now that you said it a lot of the techniques used on the ork, especially on the skin, are the same ones that Rackham's painters used. Multiple thin coats and adding color with glazes. It's interesting how things surface after some time has passed.

The lip is just the same color as the rest of the face, but final touch is glaze of scab red. Simple things are often the best

Hopefully I can finish him soon, the base work on the ork was done sometime in December and since then he has just sat on the edge of table. I got the inspiration to get some work done on him last week, but yesterday the skorne won back the focus. Some many nice figs but so little time

Here are couple wip shots of the skorne venators. The figs are close to finished, just the bases left to do. I really like PP's skorne line, the figs are characterful and full of detail, yet simple and fast to paint. The scheme is almost unchanged from the swordsman, just couple of more highlights to the purple as suggested on the gallery. I'll post better pics when the bases are done for these. Next up for the Skorne is Cyclops Savage, my first warbeast.

kka.com/gallery/27398-Hordes%2C%20Primal%2C%20Privateer%20Press%2C%20Skorne%2C%20Unit%2C%20Work%20In%20Progress.html][/url]



The ork mek has also had some work done on, the backpack is now on and is awaiting for highlights.

Some time has passed since the last update, well almost half a year. During that time I have had a nice summer holiday and built up paving for our back yard, and painted. As the hobby time was a bit limited I focused on the actual painting and didn't take photos of the finished figs. Well as the air is getting colder its time to get some pics here for you.


Here is the stormsmith painted for my cygnar army. He is painted to the same colors as the rest of the force, some changes were done to the shading of the khaki coat, but those fit very well to the existing paintjobs.

Love the skin tones on the ork.Also the venators look cool,are they useful on the table top(sorry I'm unfamiliar with Skorne tatics/units)?

Also the stormsmiths robes look cool,aswell as his staff.You've really got painting blues down.

Love the blog,keep up the good work.Your a talented painter!

Your Cygnar army looks great. Hell, all of it looks great.

Its nice to see some warmachine around here. I wish I had more time to play mine, then maybe I'd finish my Cryx.

Great update Metsuri, I really hope to see an update on that ork soon, I have to agree with others that the skin tones on him are fantastic.

Nice to see some more of your Cygnar stuff too.