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Great job on the summoner. Love how all the colors blend.

Hey guys,

Thanks all for the kind words. Normally this feeling fades after a day or so, but I still look at the Gaunt Summoner with a massive amount of satisfaction and pride lol.

So on with the Assault Marines.
I got a second one done with the main details + wash.
I put down decals, which was a PITA. The squad numbers on their jump packs are 3 different decals. A 'V', an 'I' and an 'II'. I understand why they didn't do decals for each number. But it was a pain to get them all lined up together. Lining up 1 would knock the others out of position, and so on... Got there in the end though.
Initial battle damage sponged on. Needs detailing now.


And I'm going to share this picture:

They've been in this state on my WiP shelf since mid-Jan. So I'm publicly shaming myself to get my arse in gear to finish them.

My Fantasy stuff is still going strong. Got some new additions (2x Raptor Chariots + 2x Witch Elves). The chariots will fly across the paint desk. Seeing as I need them for a tournament in 3 weeks time.
And on the topic of Ninth Age tournaments... I took 4th place in 'Pork Chop-up 3' this past weekend. I went 3 wins, 2 losses. I had a really great time. So much so that I've signed up to another 3 tournaments over the next 3 months...
I only remembered to take pictures during 2 games...


Z

Ahh, ranked up infantry looks so nice. Grats on 4th place, quite the accomplishment.

Assault marines are coming along nicely.

And you can get the rest of those guys done, we have faith in you!

I know what you mean when you keep looking back at a model you did really well. Good bit of inspiration I think!

Love the weathering on the Marines, it's just the right amount. Bounding through mud can't keep you clean for long!

Hey guys.

Just a little bit of progress this past week:

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It bothers me a bit that the Raptors are inconsistant with the last ones I did... I'll get used to it.

I need these 2 chariots done by the weekend for a tournament. So they're at the top of the priority list.

I'm also building myself a gaming PC. I'm going from a 5 year old Laptop to a shiney, new gaming PC. It's going to be a pricey endeavor. But I'm looking forward to getting back into video games. I haven't played games extensively since I played World of Warcraft 5-6 years ago... Not sure how much painting time I'll get in, though...

Z

The brighter lizards are fine. I do like the darker guy a bit more though. Maybe they use a slightly different breed for pulling chariots, bread more for strength and endurance then the agility of the ones bread for steeds?

Or the Charioteers just take them through the car wash when they take their ride in to get cleaned and detailed. Pay a few coins extra for the deluxe wax and polish.

I prefer the brighter Cold Ones personally. They stand out more.

Cheers! I like the brighter ones too. It's what the older ones should have been.

I broke one of the raptors at the ankle today... It's a PITA, but should be fixable.

And for those interested, I'm keeping a log of my games in a written battle report thread here. I know it's The Ninth Age, and you probably dont play. But if you enjoyed old WHFB, then maybe take a peak. Pretty much exactly the same, in terms of play. Just slightly different unit names.

Hey guys,

I got the chariots finished!!





Their reins are terrible. So flimsy. They just break when you're trying to clean them, and bend to the pressure of running a paint brush over them. Really terrible. You can see where they've broken. I lose the end piece for one of the reins, so it just kind of floats there.

And I went to a Tournament this weekend past. I went 2 wins (1 against the 'best' netlist out there - lol), and 3 losses. All in all, good times. Oh, and a best painted nomination. I took a picture of my army on display.


Next up, I'm going to finish everything on my WiP shelf over the next few days. 3 Marines, 3 descent minis, 2 random DnD minis (for friends). Should have more for you in the middle of the week.

Z

Long time since I checked into this blog: excellent stuff going on here Zambro!

Hey guys,

@Elnibbus: Cheers matey!

So I have a few days to myself at the start of this week. It was nice to have some time off after the tournament, but I got myself in gear and started painting. I've cleared everything that has built up on my WiP shelf over the past few weeks. And I've even prepped a few more units, and I have them sitting on the WiP shelf ready to go. And on the topic of the tournament I went to, I found out last night that my army list is 300 points short. I miscalculated and have been playing my list handicapped since the start of February - That's 2 tournaments, my LGS's league and casual play. I feel like an absolute idiot.

Here is my true demi-company. 50 marines. 30 Tacticals. 10 Assault and 10 Devs.



Not ideal picture taking conditions, but you get the gist.
Looking at 50 marines like that is incredibly satisfying. Roll on 50 more!!

And some closups of the finished assault squad:





Overall, quite happy with how they turned out.
On my WiP shelf, I have 4 DE units to complete. Once they're done, that'll be all the DE units done (just characters left). I'm thinking, as soon as the shelf is finished, I'll pick up a box of tactical marines. That's maybe a week or two off. We'll see how long this stuff takes to get done, and how I feel then.

Next up, those pesky Descent characters that have been sitting around for ages.




Quick and servicable. Plus, most people I play board games with aren't painters. So they have no 'standards', per se.

And my current WiPs, all of which are Ninth Age.




Plus a unit of Warlocks I forgot to take a picture of. Like I said, prepped and ready. Primed and some base layers down. Hoping to power through these in 2-3 weeks.

So that's where I'm at for now. Hope everyone's doing well. More soon,
Z

Lovely work on the Assaults, and the Demi-company as a whole.

Grats on the true demi-co. I know it shouldn’t, but it irks me when people call a full company, or even a demi company “done” when they only have minimum 5 man squads. Demi co is 50 guys, plus at least one HQ. Full company is 100+. Sure, you might never use them all, but if you want to claim a full company, I want to see the back half of those squads.

The assaults came out quite nice. Keep it up!

Good looking start on the dark elves. Should be fun to watch them come together. And IIRC you were doing pretty respectable with your lists, even with the point handicap. Once you get up to speed, you should be unstoppable.

Damn, those Assaults came out awesome. Top class painting here Zambro.

Cheers guys!

So something's happened the past few days... No easy way to say it, so I'll just come out with it: I sold my White Scars army.
I boxed it up tonight, and doing so spent some time going back through this blog and thinking about the WS. I started them in Q3 2013. I went to my first tournament in Feb 2014 with them. And 'finished' painting the WS just over a year after I started. My WS were my gaming army - even when I was painted Eldar/IG/other stuff - up until the end of 2014, when my Fists started to make an appearance. And sadly, that's pretty much where the ode of the White Scars ends. It's been a dark, lonely existance in foam storage since. They've had the occassional day out, but nothing regular. Some of them even got pinched for my IF's - quick splash of yellow and they're recycled.

I totalled up what I had left of the Scars, and it came to over £500. I set the Ebay auction at £250, with a buy it now of £350. Aiming for somewhere in the 50-70% rrp mark. Someone bought it out for £350... I'm a little shocked that it's gone for that much, tbh. 70% of RRP after 4 years... That's a great return, if I'm honest. I definately got my enjoyment out of the Scars. And happy to get a good chunk of the money back for other hobby stuff. (I promise to ear-mark some of it for 40k - a Chaplain, perhapse?).

With the rumors of new 40k etc, I've decided to off-load my excess hobby stuff while I can. Not to mention that I dont play anymore. Seems like a good time to let it go. No one will want this edition's rule books / cards etc when 8th drops.
Not sure where I'm going to put the money once I've sold everything. Some 40k, I suppose. Probably fantasy. Will have to wait and see.

Z

Seems fair, always a shame to see people part with models (especially such nicely done ones) but in the grand scheme of things, probably the best thing to do if you weren't using them and can spend the profits on stuff more useful/interesting to you.

If you're not keen on keeping up with 40k proper, have you seen the new Shadow War game being released soon? Basically a redone Necromunda with a 40k skin, might be a good way to keep going with 40k minis without committing to any more armies, and it'd let you experiment with all sorts of stuff as a box of models basically equals a whole team. So far as I know the rules themselves are limited to the upcoming box set, but most of the faction rules are going to be free PDFs (with Skitarii and GS Cults in next month's White Dwarf), so if you can nab the rulebook on ebay then you're set.

<sigh>

I feel I’ve already said something last time you sold off a well painted army. Not a huge fan of the practice. You are correct that it’s probably the time to do it now though.

So going to update your avatar?

...Completly forgot about the Avatar picture...
I was going through my Marines looking for a suitable model. There were a few contenders, but only one correct answer, imo.

On the painting front, finished a few models for The Ninth Age:




Z

Hey guys,

Been a busy week for me, hobby wise.
I decided to have a good build session today, to replenish my WiP shelf. Here are some of my current WiPs:






along with a half finished witch elf unit:


I sold off my shoddy, broken, poorly painted Altar, and used those funds to buy a new one. It's GW only, and I though I might as well buy a Chaplain too. It was the last of the HQs I need for the Battle Company, so progress on that front.
I magnetised the top of the Altar (it's massive otherwise), and I made the Medusa into a separent model. Still got some witch elves to build, but they can wait. I've had enough of cleaning mold lines for today.
Those 2 characters I've had for ages. I just got them based, and magnets installed on the bottom. They're ready for a grey prime before painting.
I also threw the 2 Skaven characters from Silver Tower onto my WiP shelf. So more WQ:ST to come.

I also completed 2 units this week:





My WiP shelf went from dangerously low to "f*ck, I've got loads to do".
Enjoy your weekend,
Z

A well stocked WIP shelf helps keep you out of trouble. And it’s not like they are going to go stale, paint them when you can; take your time.

DE looking good!

Did you magnetize the backpack for the chaplain? I find mine spends most of his time with a JP.

Nice Witch Elves. The Shades look much better on a cohesive base too, instead of them all being separate like in WHFB. Great work Zambro!

Hey everyone,

No pictures for you this week, unfortunately. My progress has been mininal... I've primed the Chaplain, Medusa and Pegasus Lord. And got 1-2 layers down on the Medusa's lower half. That's it. (I impulse bought a Dark Elf Dragon, too...).

My excuse: A bought a new laptop.
My old laptop was 5.5 years old, and had been displaying a "battery will fail eminently" message for about 2 years. Not to mention a ridiculous start up time and general bloat of files/software/sh*t.
My new laptop is a thing of beauty. Pricing in at £800 (got it on sale, £900 normally). It boasts an I7 processor, an NVIDIA Geforce GTX 960m and 8gb of RAM. Oh, and the keys are backlit, which for some odd reason is incredibly satisfying. And for those who might not be computer literate, it's safe to say I'm getting back into gaming.
Anyway, the only game I own at the moment is Total War: Warhammer. And damn, I love it. I've played a solid 24 hours - most of which I've been uniting the realms of Bretonnia under King Leoncoeur and cav. charging Beastmen raiders.

I'm not sure how painting is going to be affected with this new toy. Hopefully when the "ooh shiney" wears off, I'll feel inclined to paint.

Hope everyone's Easter and double bank holiday weekend was great.

Hey guys, sorry about the shoddy updates recently... I've had a list of things to do growing for a few weeks now, and typically I leave it to the last day of my week off to do them all. Back to my regular weekly update.

Starting with my Dragon.




I feel all my time playing and painting Fantasy and the End Times has built up to this moment. A mother f**king dragon. Easily my favourite model in my Fantasy collection. I feel a dragon is to fantasy what a dreadnought is to 40k - the epitome of the genre. And I'm enjoying painting it, to boot.
I've left off the rider, and some armour panels so I can paint the dragon first. So far, so good, imo. I felt like the teeth were too bright. They kept attracting my eye when I looked at the model. But since then I've started adding in bone and it's less of a problem. If they're still too "bright" when I've done the rider and armour (ie completly finished), I'll start playing with ways to dull them down. Not too worried about it now as there are still opportunities to add colour to the other pieces to lessen this effect.
As you can probably tell, I can't paint horns that well. I'm trying for that lined look GW tends to do really well. I'm struggling my way through it. Good thing is; the amount of times I'll have to do it on this model will make me an expert by the end!
In the last picture, there is a bit of wing that has been washed red-purple. I was toying with the idea of doing it on the wing's membrane. Still very much on the fence about it. Thought as I'm typing this, maybe just on the underside? Would love to hear thoughts on the wings / ways to make them more interesting...
Dragons get a "bad" rap in terms of usefulness. There are definitely better ways to spend the points. But who cares, I'm taking this bad boy to a 45 man tournament the first weekend of May. Unfortunately I'm not the only person with a Dragon... (a HE player is bringing one too).

I have some other models to finish ahead of the Tournament in May:



Not as cool as a Dragon...

...Onto 40k...
Wow, what can I say. Next edition confirmed - and honestly... I'm excited.
I don't know if the next edition will be a success. But right now, I'm hyped to play it. The releases are being handled really well. And they're exciting - 2 wound terminators? Hell yeah! It'll definitely get me to dust off my IFs and play some games. And might just even tempt me to spend more time buying/painting Space Marines...
Between layers on my Dragon, I've made some progress on my Chaplain.


Looks very messy at the moment. Hopefully an edge highlight and base layers on the other parts will clean it up and define it more.

And because I made a point of putting some models for The Silver Tower on my WiP shelf, here are the Skaven assassins


Very early days with these. Hopefully I can sneak a layer in here and there while doing other stuff.

Like I said, tournament in 2 weekends time. 12 models to finish for it. Should be no problems.
I will definitely have more regular updates for you.
Z

Nice progress. I can see how you are on the fence with the wash on the dragon’s wing. I like how it differentiates the membrane from the meat of the arm, but am not sold on the color of the shade. I’d leave it off personally.

I like his pearly whites. When a dragon smiles like that, you should be focusing on his teeth. I think when he picks up a passenger, the model overall should balance out.

Lovely work on the Dragon so far, probably my favourite WHFB dragon model (except maybe the Zombie Dragon, got to get my hands on one of them one day...). I think the red wash would work better on the underside, simply as it then gives the impression light is filtering through the wing membrane, as if it's almost translucent. On the upper side it's perhaps not as appropriate, but it does add a nice splash of colour.

Well done on the texture of the dragon's scales. Very impressive work Zambro!

Hey guys!

I went to a Ninth Age tournament this weekend past, and as the title suggests, I won best painted!!! I was so stoked to win it, especially considering the competition. I've been nominated at quite a few events I've been to, and now I've finally got the win. At St Paddyhammer in March, I was nominated. But a beautiful snowy HE army won. The same army was here this weekend, and I fully expected him to win it again. But when he came second, I got looks from my club mates like "it's all you, matey". I won a swanky trophy and a €40 voucher for Kromlech. Oh, and before the tournament started I won a spot prize for "spicey-est list" - for taking a dragon, pegasus lord and all the monesters I could. I got some nice Objective tokens from Bristol Independent Gaming (the venue).



There was a professional photographer there too. I'm just waiting for the pictures to go up on facebook/twitter/Ninth Age forums. As soon as they're up, I'll share them here.

I've been a bit sh*t at doing updates the past month or so. I've been busy/tired/lazy/misc excuse. So I'm just going to dump photos for everything I've painted recently. It's all Ninth Age stuff, as most of it was used in the tournament. Pictures are a bit off, as my camera is broken. Something broke inside, and I'm unable to put the memory card back into it. Bummer, it'll probably cost a pretty penny to fix. So you're stuck with phone pics for the foreseeable future.













And as things heat up for 40k, I'm getting more and more ready to drop money on some Marines. The new edition has me excited! ...Now where did I put that chaplain..?

Z

Yeah, that dragon is friggin' sublime. Wonderful --- and perfect choice of colours. One of the best dragons I've ever seen painted. Perfection.

Congratulations, glad to hear you won, with the agreement of your peers no less. Aren't you lucky though that a photographer was there to take your pictures (something every modeller aspires to have). Well done Zambro.

<cheer>

I’m going to agree with the others on congratulating you on the well earned victory. The dragon really pushed your painting level over the top.