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Cloak is a bit bright, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Nice work on the tank.

The Farseer is looking really good - I can see the improvement on blending the cloak from one photo to the next. Like has been said, even greater contrast wouldn't hurt, but it's looking nice enough already I'd be worried about making a mess of things by trying to change it too much.

 Tyranid Horde wrote:

1) Do not buy any new models, but if I do, I want to paint more than I buy.

Impossible!

Tyranid Horde,

The Fareseer and the Fire Prism look great.

Cheers,

CB

Youwashock: Cheers! Ask and ye shall receive! I've darkened recesses and added some blending.

Ezki: Thanks, I've put a good few hours into this Seer so it's good to see the work is paying off. Don't know how possible the paint more than I buy will do, I'm already tempted!

Nev: The green is rather bright, I guess it's the consequence of my stark highlight for the rest of my army.

Bellerophon: We'll see about goal no.1, hopefully I can stay true to my goal!

Cap. Brown: Thanks a lot!

Hey all,

Another small update, I've not really been painting much other than the farseer, going over and back between blends and touching things up here and there. Happy to say now though that I think it's finished. I've darkened some of the recesses and lightened other areas. Bit of a learning curve but I think I'm more confident now than when I started with my wet palette and making blends on the go. Let me know what you all think!









I've also been messing around with a support platform guardian, as I have a few more guardians to paint and I'd like to get a confirmed scheme for my infantry. I have a squad of Biel Tan guardians I did years ago and another squad is black with green helmets so I'm unsure which direction to go with future guardians as black isn't the dominant colour any more. Let me know what you think of this one too, I think I prefer this scheme more than the black and green guardians, albeit more time consuming! I also have just seen that there's a smear of ushabti bone on the nicely painted helmet, much to my chagrin!




Thanks for looking,

TH

Oh, yeah. That's the ticket. Nice finish, man. I completely overlooked the base before. It is very cool.

Nice work - really like that cloak.

The Farseer turned out really well!
The time spent on that was worth it.

I also like the guardian. The really bright corners on the armor panels make it stand out.

Really liking this blog, full of lovely little touches and some wonderful painting.

With a bonus of finding another Irish Warhammer player.

Excellent work on the farseer. That cloak turned out very well.

The one thing about that guardian scheme is I was asking myself where his chainsword and mandiblaster were. Very scorpian vibe. Might be unavoidable with the pallete you are working with. But he looks great.

There is, FWIW, a very clear progression in the paintjobs applied to your minis over the course of this thread.

The Farseer is a literal work of art.

The Farseer's cloak has come out really well, I can tell that a lot of time has gone into that green. The robe he wears under the cloak looks like it hasn't had as many layers/blends by comparison - the highlight seems a bit extreme and abrupt. It's hard to tell whether it's the paint or the photo, but I think that would benefit from a bit more blending/more transitions? On the whole though, good job!

I like the guardian scheme too. Using a lighter shade of the same colour for the helmet isn't something I've seen often and I think it works well.

Tyranid Horde,

Fareseer is great.

Cheers,

CB

The green on that Farseer looks as if he is actually stood outside in the sunshine.

Question for you, Mr Horde - with the little light box you got (which I've since picked up), are you finding any difficulties in getting the light levels to look right on your models?

With the LED strip that came with it, I'm finding mine to look really overexposed (though I note that I'm using the camera on my phone (a Samsung S9) to take pictures while I look for the charger for my actual camera) - this is despite trying with the white and black backgrounds, so far.

Any tips, chief?

My phone is not a Samsung, but it is an Android and I have found that it always, always, always overexposes close-up photos, unless you put so little light on them that the pics come out grainy and illegible.

Also that none of the on-board settings make even the slightest bit of difference.

The only solution I have found so far is to roll with it and use image-editing software to correct the issues. I use the image-editor bundled with *spit* Windows 10, or GIMP, depending on how much work is needed to fix the image.

youwashock: Thank you! Kept the base simple and luckily it matched my poker chip style base.

monkeytroll: Thanks, glad you like the cloak!

Ezki: Cheers, definitely worth the time and glad you like the guardian, might use that scheme for the rest of them.

Thousandeyes: Thanks for stopping by and glad you like what you see! The gaming scene up in Donegal is pretty quiet right now unfortunately.

Nev: Cheers, The Guardian scheme is the same one I used for my striking scorpions, although modified slightly and painted a fair bit better. I may have to think of something to denote them as Guardians a bit more!

Excommunicatus: Thank you kindly!

Bellerophon: Thanks, and you're quite right, not as much time has gone into the front cloak, it's something that I'll probably go back and redo. Glad you like the guardian too!

Captain Brown: Cheers Cap!

Fifty: Thanks so much!

Dysartes: Yeah, it's a bit of a finicky little box, you have to angle the LED strips inwards to catch the model correctly. I'm using a Samsung S8 as it's better than my old DSLR so right off the bat I can tell you that using the auto setting results in overexposed photos! At the start I messed around with exposure and all that stuff on the manual settings but you need a tripod for that kind of work and I didn't have an attachment for my phone, so I just auto focus the model and slide the brightness down on the little icon that pops up on the screen (I think it's white balance?). Using the Dakka gallery uploader tends to wash the images out a bit so darker photos are better. I hope that helps, once you get used to the little light box it's hard to go back!

Hey all,

A rather small update considering the length of time I've not updated this blog, There was a small period of burnout for almost two weeks where I didn't really want to paint so I built a partially built Hawker Hurricane MkIIc to be painted once I get the knack of my new airbrush, practised with said airbrush, sorted my bits into new tool boxes I bought in the Euro shop (aka pound shop/dollar store), and took stock of my pile of shame and half finished models.

Long story short, I need to finish my half painted stuff as a priority

Annnd speaking of half finished stuff, you may or may not remember those Ork Boyz that were partially painted and promptly forgotten about but I decided to paint them up to a reasonable table-top level rather than going gung-ho on them. I knocked them out as Deathskulls, they're a cool clan but for some reason I painted their clothes blue instead of their armour which shows you how much I pay attention to how Orks are painted. I gave them pretty simple bases with a few marine bits thrown on. I think they're officially meant to be on 32mm bases now and the nob would probably benefit from it, but they were already stuck on the bases before the codex came out. Here they are anyway, let me know what you think!







I'm meant to be entering 5 of the Anvil Industry Steam Lords into the painting challenge tomorrow but I couldn't find a scheme that I really liked and the theme of the models didn't fit my small force of Black Templars so I had to have a think and I settled on Luna Wolves. I think trying to paint the grey/white of Luna Wolves is what burned me out. Love the scheme, don't love it when I decide to brush paint it instead of airbrush it. I switched to Sons of Horus but I've gone for the first company colours of black, red and gold. Typically seen on Justarian Terminators, but squads of Reavers get them too, so I guessed that these guys would suit as they're a bit different from the norm. I don't know if they'll be finished on time but I'll give it a go!




I feel a lot better to see the Orks shifted (I'm selling them off too so PM me if you want some Orks!) and it's motivating me to get the Steam Lords done. Let's see if I can hash these guys out in time!

Thanks for looking!

-TH

The brown and blue work surprisingly well on those boyz.

Sometimes painting minis can start feeling like a chore, especially when trying so hard to achieve something repeadetly without success or working against a deadline. At those times it's easy to forget that painting should be the thing relieving from stress / burnout. Not the other way around. Been there a few times myself.
You did the right thing switching the project to something completely different! You'll come around with them eventually

I wish you best of luck for finishing the entry!

Good luck finishing the Sons! Keep it up. Even a little bit of progress can shake off the painting blues.

Good luck finishing your entry. It was fun seeing seeing some ork boyz, I love me some orks and Deathskulls are my favorite clan.

Cheers for the support Ezki, youwashock and Syro, unfortunately I didn't finish the entry on time but I'm still chipping away at them. I found out, much to my annoyance that the weapons they come with don't fit the arms and bolters that I can replace them with are a very tight fit in their hands! I am considering shelving them for a little bit as I've got this month's entry to paint up.

Hey all,

Bit slow once again this week as I've not so much been painting but I have been to a new game night run by the LGS and I ran an intro game of 40k for one of the newbies that had turned up. I also got to try out a Flash Gordon RPG which is a bit like D&D but a bit faster in terms of character building. Was a pretty fun evening and after that I got some assembling and priming done during the week. If you frequent the painting challenge for this month you'll see I've entered the Sons of Horus Reaver Attack Squad I picked up from eBay a few years ago:



These guys took ages to clean up to an acceptable level and I'm still finding mould lines here and there. I based them on 32mm bases instead of 25mm as it takes them in line with the modern marines. Here they are primed and luckily enough the rattlecan primer worked pretty well in 5 degrees Celsius:





As you can see, the previous owner didn't exactly do a brilliant job of removing the nubs from some of the pauldrons... They've been snapped off rather than painstakingly removed and filed down like a normal person should do when they invest in Forgeworld. Anyone have recommendations on fixing these up? I could add some more damage to convey some battle damage. In spite of the damage though, they're some lovely sculpts and I'm looking forward to painting them. So I pose another question: Should I paint them in the First Company colour scheme or go for the classic sea green of standard Sons of Horus? Input is appreciated!

I also got up to some magnetising, which is the first time I've done anything of the sort. As my War Walkers have been staring at me for the past few months (years), I wanted them to have all the options to future-proof them. I used 2mm x 1mm magnets and they just fit in the width of the weapons. I still need to pin the mounts as that's a part that breaks quite a bit for some reason but with magnets storage is handy too!



On the painting side of things I've been working on that Wych Squad which I'll show off once it's finished. They only need a few more hours put into them to finish them so I'll show them once they're done. Other than that, I dug through my models and found my first Guardian for a bit of a ten year comparison. It's not quite the full ten years, more like nine and a half but prior to that I'd never painted a model. Hopefully there's a noticeable difference!




Thanks for reading,

-TH

You could call the difference noticeable...

Those new Sons are quite cool models. My 30K model knowledge is rather limited, so it is neat to see unfamiliar figures pop up. I vote Sons green for the armor.

Very nice Farseer, man. Bright green is very eldar-ish. The classic eldar colour, you could say.

Tyranid Horde,

The improvement from the first model to now is huge. I do not even have my first painted models any longer...sold them ages ago.

Cheers,

CB

youwashock: I reckon I'll be trying out green Sons, it'll be a challenge but I'm up for it! Just need to get to the hobby shop to grab some paint.

TheEldanariPrince: Thanks! It's probably the brightest model I've painted thus far!

Captain Brown: I reckon I'll keep my first models, although I may consider repainting them at some point. They're a bit hilarious to field alongside my more recent models.

No updates, but I made it to the front page a few days ago, definitely something ticked off the bucket list

There is definitely some major improvement in your 10 year comparison! it's always cool to see how we improve. Greatly increases the motivation.

Looking forward to see those wyches! I bet they look great.

Also congrats on the feature!

Cheers Ezki! Ask and ye shall receive!

Update time

Hey all,

Added the final touches to my Wych Squad over the past few days and they're done, but I'm not overly happy with them. I wasn't a huge fan of painting them and I think it shows. Skin was not something I'd tried before/avoided so it was a bit of a challenge getting a tone I liked. I've also not really given time to practising faces, something which I have experience of now thanks to these guys. One thing I could have done first were the eyes, my brushes weren't small enough to do tiny detail work and I gave some of the Wyches googly eyes on a few before giving up and going over them again.
I can attribute this set of models down to practise and I'll definitely sort out my work order for the next set of models.

Here they are:






Some spoilered individual shots for those interested!


I managed to finish off the Vaul's Wrath Support Battery I'd been working on too. I did do a nice base made from poker chips but no one will ever see it because the platform covers the whole base. The kit was quite lovely overall, the great thing about the weapons is that they're all interchangeable and don't require magnets to slide on and off the mount. I doubt I'll ever use it in game but I'd like two more to complete the set just in case.
Here it is:




Spoilered photos of the individual Guardian and the platform:


And finally, a little progress shot of the War Walkers. When I left them I didn't realise how much more work was involved in them, but I'm getting stuck in. The most labour intensive part of the whole thing are the bases. I want them to match the poker chip bases that you see on my Dark Eldar and the more recent support platform to tie them into the aesthetic that I'm going for. The only issue is that these bases take so many damn layers to bring them up to a nice bone colour.
Here they are, in various stages of completion, with the most progress made on the leftmost walker, and the least on the right:


And here is an individual shot:


Considering I've magnetised all the weapons I own that are compatible for these guys, I'll need to paint them all up too. I'll crack out the airbrush for those, something I should have done for the bases

I mentioned the poker chips and how I want to tie in my bases to each other. I was thinking about starting up a thread in the fluff to flesh out my Craftworld and Kabal. So considering the Eldar ruins theme, I have a few options to consider that I'd like some feedback on and they each open up their own stories.

1) Theme the ruins to be that of a Crone World. It's something not explored often in the lore so leaves me to be creative. I could write a fluff piece about the collection of spirit stones and potentially include Slaaneshi daemons or Chaos Eldar (something mentioned in 2nd edition and is hinted at in the 8th edition BRB). For larger pieces of terrain the ruins could still be wraithbone but twisted into something else entirely. This ties into the Webway and forgotten paths that the Kabal could have entered in their escape from Commoragh.

2) An Exodite world besieged by another race. I've modelled some of the Wyches with Tyranid spikes and spore stacks so I could show the ruins among a world covered in flora that erupts during the invasion of a Hive Fleet. This would tie in my own Hive Fleet into the lore of my Craftworld (something I've not touched in a very long time) and I have loads of bits from my Nids to embellish the terrain/bases. This would also lead into some Exodite Knights which have been inspired by a few I've seen here and from artwork/fluff in the 2nd edition codex.

3)??? I'm open to more ideas!

Anyway, thanks for having a read, any comments and criticism are always very welcome!

TH

Wow! Lots of progress! All looking good. Support battery really came out clean. I vote 2. Because dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs are pretty sweet to be fair. I'm looking at Drakespawn knights for them should I go down that route. Their lances make a nice analogue for Shining Spear lances!

Some good work here TH. Those poker chip bases work particularly well with your Eldar. The colour scheme on your boyz is cool too. As for the SoH then sea green gets my vote, even though it strikes me as a difficult colour to pull off consistently. That said I expect you’ll smash it!

I am leaning to option 1 with all the elder curves on your larger bases.

My two cents,

CB