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Well.....

'last post 2/05/2014....' well, this just will not do at all....

First of all, hello to any who remain here in this dusty blog with the skeletal remains of those followers who starved to death from lack of updates, to those who died, I apologise.
I shall try my best to rekindle this little blog of mine, and I will entrust my partner to make me regularly add new logs to the fire, of course any good natured heckling from subscribers may also help me from slipping in this new years resolution of mine.

Now...lets pretend like nothing happened and I have never been away
I fear to say my hobby time has not been massive recently, but I have not been idle, busily doing a little bit here and a little bit there, as a result the progress takes my usual slightly scatty approach to the hobby and raises it to a whole new level, but i have regularly been taking pictures so let us see what we can find for you few survivors:

...*having looked at my camera album* ...oh wow, this may be something of a beast of a post, we best get started.

So after I last posted I continued to mess around with airbrushed camo for a while, which led on to painted camo:




This (combined with me reading guants ghosts books again) lead me to buy and paint some camo cloaks from victoria miniatures (utterly fantastic btw), which I painted, and then combined with elysian bodies and various heads to make my version of ghosts.....the last pictures are where they got stuck paint wise, they have been sitting there 3/4 painted like that for over 5 months....






Then i had a small ork phase, which saw me paint two models, ....don't ask how many were bought.
Firstly a snakebite ork/feral ork using a savage ork body and a fenrisian wolf head





The second okr was then kromlech's kommissar model, which i have wanted to paint for ages now...on reflection, i could have done better, the face in particular looks a bit flat, but is probably just because I'm not used to the subtleties of green flesh!



After the ork phase i had a while where i decided i would cast my own imperial guard parts, which although a semi-success was never going to fit around my already horrifically small modelling time.
The parts included a head, masked valhallan style, a torso and this body which i still absolutely love, couple of pictures of the end result included too:







Having eventually getting depressed of how long/unproductive/flawed my casting was, I moved on, although I learnt a great deal during the process and im sure it will come in very handy at some point in the future.

At this point i got enticed by horus heresy stuff and had a pop at an iron hand, the idea was to try and emulate that rich colourful oily black you sometimes get: there is an extra hidden element here, i also plan in the future to do some HH alpha legion and i intend to use the same jade and blues that i incorperated into this iron hand's black, as a subtle hint that they might in fact be AL in disguise......sneaky.

Here he is after just airbrushed colours and before i washed/oiled/brushworked him:

And finished:




Next up we have an imperial guard tank, some of you may remember this hellhound from ageeeeees ago, but i decided i hated the paint scheme and wanted to see if i could improve it. I actually decided that the camo on the (still unfinished) valkyrie was perfect so I copied it and included the lessons i learnt when painting the valkyrie, the reason the valk remains unfinished it because ive seen how much better the camo could have been doing this:

WIPS:



and finished, in dakka galelry:







Now we come up to the last month and a half where I have been bitten by my original passion in this thread, for adeptus mechanicus!
So I initially started off doing some conversion work which i'm fairly happy with, not they are not all finished yet! I dont really care what they might be at this point, rule of cool shall prevail:









Last of all i have been working on a paint scheme for this new band of mechanicus I'm working on, my only criteria was I couldn't use alot of red, too cliched and ive already done that to death with the last batch. In the end I didn't use any, going for bone armour with gright green cloth as an accent, what do you think?: The first guy is a skitarri crow.....shameless mixing of things that have worked in the past!






I have also been applying the same colour scheme to a thallax robot, which again I think is working quite well, so chances are high I will stick with this scheme for now. This guy is not totally finished, but its close enough that i don't mind posting him now:






Wow...so that was a ridiculous post....i doubt anyone will read it, but hey, at least now I can say I am up todate with my blog and I can really give this new years resolution to keep it current a good go!

Any thoughts on anything? Have i gone horrifically off course without dakka's loving guidance in all things hobby?

HE'S BACK!

Everything there is looking good, but the best has to be the AdMech stuff, especially the DCA-type-thing with the cog-flails and the Skitarii-Crow. Iron Hand Marine looks very nice too, although I feel it could maybe use more weathering (just preference, that). Excellent stuff all round!

J-paint, dude, what a come-back! Seriously now, I thought you'd dropped off but you've been a busy little bee! I am in love with those camo-cloaks, very well done indeed sir. Plus that arco-flagellant type dude with the cogs and cutting disks? Awesome.

Just... Awesome.

Totally worth the wait, really like the use of the cloaks on the elysian's, very nice effect that and the mechaicum guys are the highlights for me. Going to have to steal some off these for some of my own armies.

Can't wait for the next update.

I can't even begin!!! I mean really? seriously just bugger off for another six months will you please!

I LOVE the camo pattern and i'm stealing it shamelessly for my Orks! so there!

I also want to try and convince you to make me a an admech guy and send me to paint? I think honestly they are some of the best conversions i've ever seen for that theme! so dynamic and full of intent and malice, just a brilliant job mate.

Oh and your Ghosts are too good, please tone down your skill set by about 6-8 degrees posing and look is perfect and as a squad I simply enjoy just looking at them!

now one last thing I must implore of you, and that's don't stop your hobby stuff, and don't stop holding back from us, we need it like air sometimes to see the mind and inspiration you provide :-)

Welcome back. Maybe we can all motivate ourselves to do more, this year.

--B.

Loving the work as always! I'm especially the tanith like elysians!

Too mucheap greatness to comment on from my phone. .. arrrgh, will have to come back when I'm in front of a keyboard.

You know some people just love to show off Awesome stuff all round from conversions to brush work, the tanith are some awesome stuff indeed nice choice of heads

Now your ad mech are stunning some really cool cut and shunts and great use of the tube toll and the cogs are a great addition and offer up a great slash and dash look

Well isn't this a breath of fresh air. LI'll echo everyone else here mate, brilliant stuff, and way too long between posts!

Welcome back.
Camo'd people look good.
Good use of the wolf head on the feral ork.
I like the sort of wax coat look to the commisork.
Good work on the body and the cast looked like it came out well.
Space Marine looks great. Nice colour you got to the armour.
Tank looks great. Good job.
The wip mechanus people are brilliant. Good posing.
And good work on the last two also.

Good to see the PhD hasn't completely melted your brain yet...

@Elnibbus / Braincj / AnUnearthlyChilde / Gits / LDD / Sheep - Thanks guys! really does mean an awful lot knowing people still care enough to post!

@gianlucafiorentini - Steal away!

@Paradigm, the weathering was a hard one, my original aim was to have a sleek looking oily black, but i admit it was very tempting to do a really battered version with the dark metal showing beneath.

@Nerd - Lol Nerd you should tone it down, my head will explode! But of course I would love to make you a mechanicum guy! In fact I would be truly truly honoured, but let me do a few more so I get the basics down, the GS cables in particular are causing a bit of trouble to get perfect....That said if you give me a PM we can discuss what we can concoct together??

@Dr H - Lol good lord Dr H that is a lot of those thumb emotes! Thank you very much!


So then Dakka, my aim is to try and keeping posting at least a week, even if I have nothing to show you! Its a resolution that (this week at least) has worked really well because it has given me a deadline to work towards!
So this week I offer on the dakka sacrificial table the admech arco- flagellant style conversion all painted up. Keeping in with the bone and green theme I think its worked quite well.

I am also going to play around with some lighting set ups, see if I can get any better photographs in the future, I admit I am not really a photographer but I figure it would be worth the effort to improve the quality of my pictures if I'm going to hold out on you all for a week at a time....the alternative would be improving the written aspect of my posts, but that's not going to happen anytime soon!

Anyway, I'll shut up, pictures:





Any thoughts? Always willing to go back and tweak if you guys have suggestions.

Wow been looking at some of your stuff and it looks amazing. Like the last model as it is. Looks really cool with the snow. Keep up the good work.

Insanely brilliant! Excuse me for a moment, I need to go and rescue my jaw from the floor!

Beautiful... what's the white stuff? I only ask because there's no white stuff on the base so I assume it's not snow.

One of the thins I love most about your models is not only do you do some great conversions but you then have the painting skills to match the conversion

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Beautiful... what's the white stuff? I only ask because there's no white stuff on the base so I assume it's not snow.

Don't think that's the base just cork to make the model easier to hold while painting.

LOL! OK, not my brightest moment...

RBeijers - Thanks very much!

Paradigm - Lol its not that good! besides, its taken me a virtual age to do, compared with the speed you are speeding through your lotr stuff its a trifle! (apologies I'm a terrible lurker)

Gits and gianlucafiorentini - Thanks guys, my painting is OK, but no where near the standard of the true talents around this site, just washes and highlights for the most part! As for the white stuff Gits Gianluca is 100% right, that is just the cork in the picture, although they should be based I cant commit to a base type just yet, they will definitely be snowy, but beyond that I havn't planned enough so for the time being they will have to make do with their giant corks!

Man that's lovely work! I will PM you tonight and start a chatty chat chat with you now you're back on board :-)

 J-paint wrote:
@Dr H - Lol good lord Dr H that is a lot of those thumb emotes! Thank you very much!

and you deserved them. Here's a couple more for the flagellant Good job.

That arcoflagellent looks like it would be more dangerous to itself than anyone else with all that stuff dangling and flopping about, but the effect is striking. Amazing work.

Really like the camo on the Guardsmen too.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
That arcoflagellent looks like it would be more dangerous to itself than anyone else with all that stuff dangling and flopping about, but the effect is striking. Amazing work.

Really like the camo on the Guardsmen too.

I thought that was the point to arcoflagellants? :-P

Everything you touch is always incredible - while I'm sad to see the Ghosts fall by the wayside, I'm excited for the Mechanicus conversions to come.

My one piece of advice is to incorporate a white cog trim on your green Mechanicus cloth. Especially since you're not using red it would really bring the theme home and tie the models together. Of course, if you're planning on having snow clinging to the robes, that might ruin the effect...

@Nerd - Still waiting on that PM only joking, I'll message you in a sec before we both forget again!

@Dr H - I'm being smothered in thumbs! (....a truly unusual sentence.)

@Vet/anunearthlychilde - Lol its very true, I would certainly fear to be in the same postcode when those things starting swinging.

@Pekel - I will try to have a push at some point to finish up the ghosts, you are right, it seems a terrible shame to leave them half done! As for the cog idea I think its a fantastic one, and something I considered for a while, even tried, but my freehand is no where good enough for me to be happy with the straightness of the cog lines, very frustrating. So yes, although the real issue is my capability the snow is a good scape-goat!

So ladies and gentlebeans Its almost been another week, incredible really, time just evaporates! So as well as posting here every week I have told myself I have to finish each model i make before moving on to the next this year...this doubtlessly wont last long, but its worth a try, and is something I managed to stick to this week.

I spent my time this week painting up the next mechanicum guy from a couple of posts back, so here he is:






And so this is a bit more like how a plog is meant to be, here is a group shot of these new mechanicum guys so far:

Very nice! I really like the guy with the axe and Empire arms!

How are you doing the weathering on the Thallaxii out of curiosity?

@thenoobbomb - Thanks, well spotted!

@Anunearthlychilde - Its a odd one, and I'm not 100% happy with it at the moment, but i am starting with my base bone colour, washing with sepia, rehighlighting, then just sponging the edges with black to give a chipped effect, the choice of sponge seems to be the most important things, the grey sort you used to get in GW metal blisters is perfect. After that I have applied some thinned down dark brown washes in some more prominent recesses, if it would help I could do a step by step next time I do one?

 J-paint wrote:
@thenoobbomb - Thanks, well spotted!

@Anunearthlychilde - Its a odd one, and I'm not 100% happy with it at the moment, but i am starting with my base bone colour, washing with sepia, rehighlighting, then just sponging the edges with black to give a chipped effect, the choice of sponge seems to be the most important things, the grey sort you used to get in GW metal blisters is perfect. After that I have applied some thinned down dark brown washes in some more prominent recesses, if it would help I could do a step by step next time I do one?

Yes that would be fantastic thank you. Ive tried all sorts of late and nothing seems to be to my liking tbh.

The painted mechanicus guy with the empire arms looks exactly like what I imagine a sacrisant from one of the Knight Worlds looks like - a combination of high-tech and feudal chic.

Good stuff once again. What really amazes me about this stuff is how natural these conversions look, it's like they jumped right out of some artwork as a fully formed concept, rather than being the product of GS and existing bits.