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Very nice. Love the stripes!

Looking increasing lovely. I'm real eager to see both done!

Thanks, guys! Yeah, I'm eager to see more progress myself. I'm hoping to do some stuff during the week. But it all depends how mentally and physically drained I return from work each day.

The photos I took last week didn't really turn out that well and I didn't really get round to taking new ones until now.
But that means more progress to show, yay!

The secondary colours are almost done, just a few bits & bobs here and there. I stuck to the same base scheme as the rest of the army, with just a few new colours on the cables so each has a different colour. We wouldn't want to confuse the Tech Priests now, do we?
And I still have to add the plasma glow. It won't be true OSL, just a glow effect on the coils, as I did on the other plasma weaponry in the army.



And here's the Tempest. The metalics are on, and only the missile launcher exhaust plate got the tertiary green colour.
I have a conundrum about the Abe Lincoln beard though... My original idea was to have it black, with the bigger 'blocks' on the bumper in either a dark metal or the bronze/gold, but I felt it might be too distracting from the general look of the model. Leaving it in black feels like a good compromise, as doing the bumper in red might be too bland, and doing it in green, or bits of it, doesn't seem to suit it at all. I'm curious as to what you guys think of it.



Once the last little colour bits are done, it's on to decals!

Updates! Updates! Come get yer updates!

Slow progress over the past two weeks, but a lot of progress over the few days seeing as I've got some vacation.

First off. I finished the plasma effect on the Deredeo. It took a little longer as the larger coils called for a slightly different approach to the little plasma weapons. Those were done easily by basecoating them white, drybrushing Gobling Green, and drybrushing Ork Flesh (Yes, I still have paintable paint from way back when the animals were still talking).
For the larger coils on the dread, I needed to clean up quite a few areas and drybrush again, and in the end I gave the coils a wash of extremely tint of Goblin Green, with a light touch-up drybrush of Ork Flesh.



And then the time was ripe for a little side track. A friend of mine got the Rising Sun boardgame that has a metric feth-ton of awesome miniatures and I greedily jumped on the opportunity to paint them. But seeing as those minis have a 'canon' colour scheme that goes with the game, it means that I had to push the shades of red I had to extremes that I rarely dared upon before. It took me quite a while, sitting down in front of my painting desk, and after reaching enlightenment, and squinting really, really hard for a very long time, I began to discern difference in shade and tint.

First up is the Oni of Plagues, this guy:


Seeing as it a mini with rippling muscle and flowing robes I needed to revisit another ancient technique I don't use often; blending.
I decided to have a goo ad the very finnicky 'selective blending' that a lot of CMON folks have mastered. Damn tricky, but fun to do, if not extremely time consuming.
And of course, this particular oni had to be to be the most difficut red of them all, something called 'hwhite'!



But it's not too shabby for a first attempt, I hope. I also realised that I just can't treat these models as ultimate show pieces because theer are dozens of them. And I've got more incming, also from a few kickstarted board games I backed myself, although those are still a few months away.

Any feedback and c&c is welcome. I'm particularly interested in tricks & tips on how to have a speedy painting process while still maintaining a decent level of quality.

I finally got round to put the photos I took Sunday onto the PC. The vehicles are a bit shiny right now as they're in their gloss coat to apply the decals. I'll blend them in over the week, and then I can move on.

In the end I decided not to further embellish the front bumper. The decals on the flanks are already pushing the limit in terms of visual balance. But I wanted to stick with the insignia standards I've got going on in the army. Vehicle number in normal- and roman numbering, a campaign badge, a few chapter badges, and the black blood drop for the 5th company, and then some bling here and there.



The dread received the same insignia, and I managed to put a fancy ribbon on his hoodie collar, although the gloss coat makes it difficult to see.





And then the Oni. It was touch-and-go for a moment and I was just working with the darkest tone, got a phonecall, and fumbled gloriously... But I did manage to straighten it out a bit. I think I'll just do a few more highlights and then move on. I realized that I have little over a month to go before our annual gaming weekend and I've got a box full of minis to paint. Not the whole Rising Sun box of minis though, just a selection. the whole box is easily over 60 minis... :S



But yeah, so I'll need to paint them a lot quicker, or at least get them to a visually interesting stage, and hope they survive a few games without a protective coat on. Luckily most of the crew are familiar with miniature games so there's only minimal chance of ham-fisted babooning.

Sorry for the lack of updates, guys, I'v'e been spending little time on the forae, as well as my painting desk.
But I've been painting for an hour here and there, and things are slowly chugging along.

The Blood Angels have had their decals blended it, a coat of airbrushed satin varnish, and ready to have their asses weathered off.
The first little layer of metallic sponge chipping is already on there




And the first three Oni are almost done. Honestly, the're not the best models I ever did, but made the hard choice of sacrificing quality for speed. Since the models are legion, and they're going to be used frequently for gaming. So three down, around 40-50 to go, lol. I've got the two next ones in undercoat, and two more that need a wash & scrub.
But anyways, tadaa!

So I came here expecting to see beautiful red SM, and I am not disappointed stunning work on the marines. But my gods man, these other figures are a whole different level of awesome. I love the figures, but you have done a truly magnificent job on these.

Cheers mate!
Yeah, I have been digging under my desk, and selling my soul to kickstarter, so I do plan to start painting other stuff as well. I've got all the minis for this Rising Sun boardgame to do, two mini-heavy boardgames I bought myself (by the end of this year), and enough non-GW minis to do an Imperial Guard detachment, as well as a small Sisters of battle one.

But I also promised myself that I'm always going to have at least one Blood Angel unit in the pipeline as well. I've still got sooo many of those lying around. Dreadnought flyers, vehicles, terminators, etc..

Ok, some painting got done. The past few months have been way too hot to paint during the day so progress has been very slow. But I did manage to sneak in the odd half hour here and there during the evenings.

The land speeder is finished. Although I might touch up the weathering powders here and there.
I just noticed that one of my lights was still set to a yellowish light when taking the photo's so I think I'll take some new pics later.
The Stormtalon has been undercoated, a golden stripe added to the wings, and the cockpit done. Tomorrow I'll glue the cockpit shut, mask it, second undercoat, and then she's good to go.



The Deredeo is actually also finished but since the base flock is drying, pics will come later.


And then I spent some time making a new model of one of the characters of out Warhammer Fantasy campaign four years in the making. Gotrak (no relation), the Daemon Slayer of the party who got his arm lobbed off some sessions ago. He promptly invested his hard-earned gold to go to a dwarven engineer and requisition a steam-powered punching arm.
Just a quick kit-bash of some bits and bobs, and a daring foray into greenstuff world to make some straps.

Oh, and a bit by accident I stumbled across a nice little bust online, which will make a nice birthday present when finished.




So, some stuff finished, some stuff progressed, and there's more to come. Onwards!

Thank the gods that the heatwave is over! Finally was able to put in an afternoon of painting without paint drying in an instant!

Deredeo finished and based. I must say I'm pleased with the model. Boaty McBoatface really grew on me, and I have his bigger brother Leviathan lined up as well. :-P





The Tempest Land Speeder is also done. And the Stormtalon redesign has gotten its cockpit masked and base coat put on. I'm actually looking foward to see how that one turns out, as I do think it's already looking spiffy in red, evenifIfdosaysomyself.




And then... Gotrak's buste got some paint splatted on. I must say I am liking it a lot playing around with glazes, but I also constantly am catching myself subconsciously losing patience and speeding up way too much. there are lots of little drying marks all over the place, but nothing too destructive I feel. Some spots can be blended in when I start highlighting, other might be turned into little skin blemishes.

So far I have just done some shading while keeping in the 'three-band' theory in mind; i.e.: top yellow, mid red, lower blue. I also used some purple for shading on the cheeks, and darkening the are around his eyes. I want him to have a somewhat tired look and reddened cheeks & nose from excessive drinking (it's a dwarf after all). I think the model might even be just big enough to use some red cloth fibers to put some veins on the eye whites.

But considering this is my first forray in large bustes with realistic humanoid skin tones, I'm open for any advice, tips & tricks, etc. The skin is full of wonderful little details, like tiny wrinkles and cuts and I'm wondering how to bring those out the best. thinned glazes/washes, perhaps some thinned oil paint? Or should I apply a very, very fine drybrushed highlight here and there to really pick out the edges of said cuts & wrinkles?

How big is that bust? Great to see some updates from you Meph, lovely work as always. I couldn't profess to give advice about the bust because I think you're at a level that's past me! I trust that you'll produce a stellar result anyway.

Cheers man, yeah it's been a while since I did some solid painting. It's really been way too hot here in Belgium for painting, but luckily the temperature has gone down a bit.

Well, the bust is pretty damn big, and heavy. Here are some photos of an earlier WIP stage:

Beautiful work on the dread Meph. Just the right touch on the weathering. Bust is coming along very nicely too.

Cheers! Yeah, I didn't want to rough up the dread too much, seeing as it's such an ancient relic.

I decided to give the hair a base coat (it's going to be a ginger dwarf), just to see how the skin actually looked with some colour around it. I'm not too sure how far I should push the shadows as I feel the skin has a quite realistic look at the moment. Mind you, in the flesh the whole red shading on the cheeks and nose somehow does appear a bit darker than on photo.

I'm wondering, how far would you guys push it?



To compare, I took some phone photos.




And then I finished the red on the Stormtalon. The red came out just a tad darker than usual, but that's OK. I was very eager to get the making tape off to see how the stripes looked, and I'm quite pleased with the results. That black and gold sure does give it an old kitch look, doesn't it?

Today I felt like assembling something...
Guess who's coming to dinnaaah, not de dreadnot.

I can only imagine him skipping through the streets singing.

Amazing how weathering really takes the models to that extra level. The dread and tempest look great!

whalemusic360 wrote:I can only imagine him skipping through the streets singing.

He was skipping on a moon one dayyyy, he was about to join the frayyyy.

I did notice that the whole structure titled back just a teeny bit when the legs were drying. He's pinned to the base and I can't risk repositioning him without breaking something at this stage.I might have to 40K'ify it by putting a victim under his boot.

Illumini wrote:Amazing how weathering really takes the models to that extra level. The dread and tempest look great!

Cool, cheers, man!

A weekend's work! I'm going to have to play around a bit with the photos as, while they're not bad, they do seem a little bit harsher than the model is in real life, especially the purple around the eyes.
But not too shabby, eh,



For the rest I have been blacking out the details on the Stormtalon. Tedious work...

Woops, seem like I fell of the edge of the Earth there again for a while. Some time has passed, but I haven't been sitting still. September was filled for the most part with an awesome trip around BC in Canada, and in October I had some weekends away, including a two-day excursion to Essen Spiel 2018. Man, that was a blast again as usual.

Anywhooo, the fruits of my labour:

First up, I had some progress on the Leviathan. Black undercoat as usual, red basecoat, and the drybrush highlights + washes & glazes.
I have him some striping on his right torso as it seems I have become addicted to masking tape. But damn, that beast is all curves & angles, and in the end, I had to make a compromise between either super-straight lines that lay a bit uncomfortable on the overall shape, or go with more balanced proportion, but not having them all straight at all angles. I chose the latter and I'm OK with the result, but not super-duper happy either. Ah well we'll see how it goes with decals & weathering...

Also, the Stormtalon rebuild got some good progress, highlights are done, and weathering is coming along nicely. I must say, that ugly duckling is growing on me as the painting progresses.



And I have also been painting some other minis as well as assembling.

First up, the five standard Party Guests from Monster Slaughter, a kickstarted boardgame that arrived the same day I came back from Essen Spiel. Awesome game, and a bucket load of cool minis.
It was a quick & easy paint job, done in a few hours. i think I have some 40-dd minis to go on that boardgame.

Then, the Eisenkern APC. Now thàt was a joy to build. Way more intricate than GW models and more akin to the military modeling kits of old. Loads of moving parts as well. Turrets move and extend, all hatches open, there's even an engine under the bonnet!
Oh, the windows look a wit weird as they have a coat of liquid mask on them to protect them from painting.

And last but not least, a squad of Primaris Reavers and a captain, and a 10-man Tartaros Terminator squad. half GW, half Forgeworld. The white shoulder bits on the GW ones are from shapeways and have a 3D BA symbol on them. I actually had enough to give the Forgeworld ones some as well, but then I assume they would never be able to be selected for the FW website anymore as they have recently have removed the photos of my Spartan which had the metal replacement tracks... :-/



Anyways, I'm back in the saddle and boy I sure have some catching up to do by reading the threads from you folks. Cheers!

What a great haul of content! You've made a real dynamic leviathan there. I love the pose. It gives a great sense of how their mass actually moves about when they're in motion.

Want that APC.

Nice haul all round.

Cheers, guys!

Alrighty, some stuff got done!

The Storm Talon is done! Unwrapped the cockpit after weathering and varnish, and tadaaa. Still an ugly ducking, but better than the original I think.


The Leviathan Dread also went through the weathering and varnish. I though I was finished and it just dawned upon me that the base is still missing... dagnabbit!


Some other stuff in the pipeline. The humble beginnings of my non-GW Imperial Guard detachment, possible with a non-GW Sisters-Of-Battle detachment.


I still have to come up with a colour scheme, lol. I narrowed down the choices to either an olive drab or a WW2 Wehrmacht grey... I wonder what would look best on that APC? I'm slowly starting to lean towards the olive drab but I'm curious about your thoughts...
And to whet you appetite, yesterday I took all that I have so far of the non-GW stuff and laid it out on the table. It's already quite a bit, and I still have two Kickstarters incoming, well, three to be exact.
I put the photos in an imgur gallery so I don't clutter the thread too much.

https://imgur.com/a/kShJlz1

Depending on how it goes, I might even add some GW tanks or APC's as well. Oh, which reminds me, I still have a GW superheavy in a box somewhere... Time for an archeologic expedition under my painting desk!

Alrighty, two months on, time for some photos. I haven't been sitting completely still but I completely blame Star Citizen for absorbing a lot of free time that otherwise could have been spent painting.

But as said, I did manage to squeeze in some painting. And some other stuff than red Blood Angels as well.

First up; A female commisar, I think from Heresy Girls. And daymn it's tiny.
Those models are 'true' 28mm, so actually true to scale to a Space marine, but with fine detail that's becoming a bit too fiddly for me to spend much time on. But I like the minis nonetheless and I have quite a few of those 3rd party Imperial Guard-a-likes, so I'll paint 'm up to medium quality so I have an alternative army to play with/against.

Second, an Oni from the Rising Sun Boardgame. Fun, just metalics, but I went a bit overboard with glazes. Still good for a table-top boardgame.

Third, the Eisenkern APC. Got so excited painting that one that I completely forgot the racing stripe masking that I had originally planned for it.
So I guess I'll be just olive drab. But that leaves more open spaces for nice decals.

And as a fourth, I blasphemed, blasphemed bad... With this year alone there will be 5-6 miniature-heavy boardgames incoming within our gaming group... We're talking 200-300 minis. And I pledged myself to paint 'm all.. Woe me. So for the simple rank & file minis I decided to dab, quite literally, in the most heinous of painting techniques... dipping! Yup, that's right, I bought myself a pot of that gooey so I can just paint up a mini in base colours, some quick highlight, and dunk that sucker. And I must say, it sure goes quick. Just 1-2 hours for a batch of minis. I'm never going to win anything with them but at least we'll have painted minis on the table, which is always nice.



And then I finally managed to complete the base for the Leviathan. So here it is in all its glory!

Nice work Meph. Diggin' the commissar.

Cheers, mate!