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Aye I may well pick at those again, those are one of those things that looked perfect untill I took shots ¬_¬ The back ones are way off compared to the front, and even those wern't perfect.

I may start using tape for them.

nice job Iff, I really like those caution stripes!

I love the cryx, it makes me remember my warmachine painting days!

What's that then Iffy 5 hours from sprue to finished? I'd say that's excellent for your first Ultra. I do agree on the symbol, needs fatting out a bit.

Crikey Iffy! nice marine! looks awesome, I am going to have to insist you please (pretty please) tell me how you approach your gold technique, the shade is perfect for a project i'm working on at the moment and I'd love to try it out :-)

please keep up the stellar work!.... more marines would be nice too.

I agree with NF09, looks like there are 10 more on that sprue lol

Rogue Wolves wrote:nice job Iff, I really like those caution stripes!

I was too until I realised some were wonky! Oh well, haha. Fixing them up now. Derp derp.

Cutthroatcure wrote:I love the cryx, it makes me remember my warmachine painting days!

Everyone should try painting a warjack at some point or another, they are very interesting and differ a lot from the GW range. Huge amount of smooth curves and gear details, I really like them!

GiraffeX wrote:What's that then Iffy 5 hours from sprue to finished? I'd say that's excellent for your first Ultra. I do agree on the symbol, needs fatting out a bit.

I think it was about that, yes. Including drying time, it was not too bad If I am doing another Ultra to that standard I will totally add some mud and browing around the legs, the blue goes really well with dust weathering I think. I wanted to try it out on that guy but was a bit worried I might screw up and make a mistake.

nerdfest09 wrote:Crikey Iffy! nice marine! looks awesome, I am going to have to insist you please (pretty please) tell me how you approach your gold technique, the shade is perfect for a project i'm working on at the moment and I'd love to try it out :-)

No problemo!

Thats the worn gold shade I use, it's super simple though it sounds a bit complex.

Tin bitz as the base, then slowly start layering it up to shining gold.
Depending on what standard you are going for, you can just go TB - 1:1 TB-SG - SG, or bring it up through a lot of finer tuned shades ending on the SG edging.
I then tone it with some washes, for this darker look go 1:1 badab and seppia, watered to your taste, or you could go for a much warmer feel with 1:2 badab to seppia, 1:3, whatever you feel gets it warm enough.

Chestnut/brown ink if you have it will really make warm up, but I tend to use inks on liquid gold instead.

Then I go for a thinner edge highlight of SG, followed by a tiny final highlight of 1:1 SG to mithril silver.

nerdfest09 wrote:please keep up the stellar work!.... more marines would be nice too.

GiraffeX wrote:I agree with NF09, looks like there are 10 more on that sprue lol

They are being painted right now 9 to tabletop standard so not as glitzy as this dude, but should still be nice. I'm keeping the one other character model to paint to character+ sometime in the future.

I hate to ask it, Ifalna, but is that a mould line or a hair on the back of the elbow on the pistol arm? Visible on the last picture.

Nice paintwork, though.

Also, why you no reply to PM?

Thanks Ifalna! I shall have a play around with your recipe and see how i go with it, I do indeed have the majority of the colours you use except for shining gold :-( looks like a trip into the big smoke for me.....

Wow, you're a really good painter. And you do some things so fast (these groups of eldar in 5h.... I'll never reach that....)
I Just finished looking through this blog (had seen the first quarter some time ago), you can definetly count me as subbed now!

Also, your ork skin looks great!

Dysartes wrote:I hate to ask it, Ifalna, but is that a mould line or a hair on the back of the elbow on the pistol arm? Visible on the last picture.
Nice paintwork, though.

Ack, it was a really fine mold line, it is now an ex mold line! Thanks for the heads-up.

Dysartes wrote:Also, why you no reply to PM?

B-because I am really wierd :( I was quickly dropping in between painting to post replies yesterday so didn't touch pm's because I have to "think" properly when I am replying to pm's as my brain categorieses them as emails (?). Don't judge me D:

I shall answer them now with my morning coffee! Mmm.

nerdfest09 wrote:Thanks Ifalna! I shall have a play around with your recipe and see how i go with it, I do indeed have the majority of the colours you use except for shining gold :-( looks like a trip into the big smoke for me.....

Aww, well any gold will do really! You can lighten a gold by adding small amounts of mithril silver to it

MrMerlin wrote:Wow, you're a really good painter. And you do some things so fast (these groups of eldar in 5h.... I'll never reach that....)
I Just finished looking through this blog (had seen the first quarter some time ago), you can definetly count me as subbed now!
Also, your ork skin looks great!

Thanks very much MrMerlin!
Great to have a new reader, and I am thrilled you have enjoyed the blog It has developed into quite an amount of sillyness, but ofc nowhere near the incredible Gitspllitas blog. That thing is crazy. Craaaazy.

Just had a batch of models arrive for commission, a small squig army. Squigs.

A small squig army.

An army.

Of.

Squigs.

5 squig hoppers, 5 mini squigs, a gobbo on a giant squig, and 2 manglers? Good times. The good times are here.

Incoming multicoloured hilarity. I am excited, oh yes. I had no idea mangler squigs existed untill now, and my god, they are intense. Going to actually base them as 2 seperate models and not one on top of each other at the owners request, and I agree it's a better idea. Finecast however has once again reared its ugly head with this monstrosity -



so I will be waiting for a replacement. That's bits of the actual mold stuck in his face, right? So the next model to come out of that mold will have no face? Sigh.

Yup. That's mold rubber in there. I can only image someone else has parts of the hand mold on theirs... that's an awful cast!

Oh dear thats kind of fail. Sadly we've come to expect that though. Gutted for the next person to buy a mangler cast from that mold.

An army of squigs however, is definitely not fail. This should be amusing....

Remember the good old metal models? ..... *sigh*

But the squig army idea sounds great!

Wow... that is definitely some Mold Max 20 ripped out of the mold and snuck past QC into a finished good. Wow. I find it remarkably gratifying that GW uses the same stuff I do in my spare bathroom, yet sells far worse quality.

Also, give me a heads up before you post your next Menoth jack for sale. I have a starter set I am slowly getting painted up to sell, and I don't want to be competing with yours! Well, I won't be competing, just losing


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, also, Warmachine and Hordes are really great. They really have a much more involved, tactical feel than GW games. I have been really glad I made the switch.

Ultramarines in a 2nd Company scheme? Yoiks! This is where I put my fingers in my ears and go "lalalala" so that I won't be looking on Ebay. It helps that I can't remember how to find your auctions.

Squig army sounds wonderful. Looking forward to seeing them. My huge-o-mous O&G army has many units but no squigs or night goblins (yet) - well, none except for George and Spike but they're part of my Mordheim warband.

Do you have any commission openings? Any room for say 3-5 character models and 6-10 tabletop quality models? I promise that none of them are my Ultramarines.

endtransmission wrote:Yup. That's mold rubber in there. I can only image someone else has parts of the hand mold on theirs... that's an awful cast!

I've been ranting about it on Tumblr and Facebook, I just don't understand how it got past QC, they must be in a crazy rush to be pushing out sprues without checking, it's not like Mangler squids are cheap :S

Vitruvian XVII wrote:Oh dear thats kind of fail. Sadly we've come to expect that though. Gutted for the next person to buy a mangler cast from that mold.
An army of squigs however, is definitely not fail. This should be amusing....

An army of squigs is the opposite of fail.. I'm painting 3 "gnarly cave squigs" right now, one is scaly. They are incredible. Man. Wow. Yes.

MrMerlin wrote:Remember the good old metal models? ..... *sigh*
But the squig army idea sounds great!

The entire army is metal, bar the manglers! It makes me happy. They are so small that they do not weigh a lot, but they feel so good in your hand as a solid metal mini, and they are all flawless bar tiny bits of flash. I love metal mini's. I just don't love assembling them D:

Wehrkind wrote:Wow... that is definitely some Mold Max 20 ripped out of the mold and snuck past QC into a finished good. Wow. I find it remarkably gratifying that GW uses the same stuff I do in my spare bathroom, yet sells far worse quality.
Also, give me a heads up before you post your next Menoth jack for sale. I have a starter set I am slowly getting painted up to sell, and I don't want to be competing with yours! Well, I won't be competing, just losing

You should totally take pride in that, I agree. They have a tad more money to throw at it than you do, hehehe. As for the Menoth, dude! Don't think like that, its not competition, people buy mini's based on if they like the look of them. We have really different painting styles, mines not "better" so you won't be "losing" I'd bet our Warjacks would look quite different! Do you have any painted up?

But yeah I only have the one up for the moment and don't have plans for anymore for quite a while, chocablock with commissions so no time to paint up an angry robot ><

Wehrkind wrote:
Oh, also, Warmachine and Hordes are really great. They really have a much more involved, tactical feel than GW games. I have been really glad I made the switch.

A lot of people have said that exact thing to me. I tried it out and it was extremely enjoyable and felt amazingly tactical for a game I was playing with 3 mini's.. it's good stuff and the company know how to keep people happy.

JB wrote:
Ultramarines in a 2nd Company scheme? Yoiks! This is where I put my fingers in my ears and go "lalalala" so that I won't be looking on Ebay. It helps that I can't remember how to find your auctions.

Oh sorry? I couldn't hear you over the sound of the rest of the unit to tabletop which are also on Ebay.



Haha, they are not incredible or anything, I stuck to my basic tabletop standard of keeping it neat with a couple of focal points with extra detail, eyes, shoulders and seals with these guys. They are great little mini's, I love snap together marines. I realised after I painted them that the shoulderpad symbols might be on the wrong side? I hope that's not a massive deal and doesn't ruin them or anything :(

My camera really can't handle more than a row of models, regardless of aperture setting, there is always a slight blur. You can see the middle back guy is in perfect focus but no one else is, if they were one line they would all be in focus, I think it's aperture settings just don't autofocus as they should, hopefully its not tooooo noticeable :S

JB wrote:Squig army sounds wonderful. Looking forward to seeing them. My huge-o-mous O&G army has many units but no squigs or night goblins (yet) - well, none except for George and Spike but they're part of my Mordheim warband.
Do you have any commission openings? Any room for say 3-5 character models and 6-10 tabletop quality models? I promise that none of them are my Ultramarines.

You know normally I would squeeze them in somewhere for you but I am honestly chockabloc for the next god knows how long, I don't know what exactly happened in the last month but the amount of booked models I have has exploded. That sounds like I'm blowing my own horn, but that's not what I mean. I would love to do some stuff for you but I wouldn't be able to get them out in decent time at all :( Sorry dude.

OMG did someone say SQUIG ARMY!?!?!?!? and i thought that those grot ig armies where cool... but damn a squig army would be awsomeamazingness!

You understand, of course... that your "basic tabletop" is better than most of us can manage on our best days??

Rogue Wolves wrote:OMG did someone say SQUIG ARMY!?!?!?!? and i thought that those grot ig armies where cool... but damn a squig army would be awsomeamazingness!

I KNOW. And the Manglers, oh god, the Manglers. I am putting 2 of the little gnarly squigs on their bases too, and some mushrooms. And all the colours. And spots, and stripes, oh man I have to go lie down.

Gitsplitta wrote:You understand, of course... that your "basic tabletop" is better than most of us can manage on our best days??

Blah blah blah Mr Oh-whoops-I-acidentally-painted-40-new-character-standard-models-for-my-rare-chapter-in-a-month-oh-no-everyone-its-not-a-big-deal-dont-look-at-my-ridiculously-beautiful-lenses-and-detailing-or-anything-Splitter. I'm onto you.

Also, your orkies will be on the way in the next 3 days, Ill pm the tracking no. Every plan to get to the post office in the last couple of days has failed miserably due to either migraine, oversleeping, or being an idiot, so I am putting my foot down and getting them out properly now.


I just realised that the fix for my camera's lack of depth focus was to just take 2 shots of 5 and 4 marines and then edit it into one image.. and I now feel like a moron.

Yes mom....

For depth of field you want to lower the f-stop as much as possible (i.e. a very small aperture). Don't know how much control you have with your camera... but that should help. Especially since you have a light box and your camera can expose as long as it needs to in order to get proper light.

Sorry if I'm telling you something you already know.

The ultras look very nice, striking!

Clever on the two image thing. I would never have thought of it

I use F 3.5 for single figs/single rows of figs, but the max this camera can go is F8, and even thats not enough to get 2 rows into focus, there is always a slight blur. I even tried manually re-focussing afterwards and it makes no difference, the slight blur is always there :(

F3.5 is fine for singles, it's not incredibly crisp, but this camera is not specialised for macro so I can't complain.

Sounds like you've got a good handle on it Iffy, I'll leave you to your business then.

Ifalna wrote:... oh man I have to go lie down.

Thats what Michelangelo had to do, and we know how awsome his painting turned out!

Gitsplitta wrote:You understand, of course... that your "basic tabletop" is better than most of us can manage on our best days??

This is why I hate and love the two of you

Ifalna wrote: As for the Menoth, dude! Don't think like that, its not competition, people buy mini's based on if they like the look of them. We have really different painting styles, mines not "better" so you won't be "losing" I'd bet our Warjacks would look quite different! Do you have any painted up?

But yeah I only have the one up for the moment and don't have plans for anymore for quite a while, chocablock with commissions so no time to paint up an angry robot ><

...
A lot of people have said that exact thing to me. I tried it out and it was extremely enjoyable and felt amazingly tactical for a game I was playing with 3 mini's.. it's good stuff and the company know how to keep people happy.

Heh, nope, one is about 1/3 done, but I got irritated doing the white fields and instead painted a white were-wolf. Because obviously I don't need money more than I need a counts-as solo for my Circle army :-P I also screwed up and went Brown-Violet -> White instead of Ivory, and only realized after like 7 coats that were not evening out the way I expected. It was almost an epic coffee table flip moment. (Well... ok it wasn't. It was an epic "Paint the cool Rackham model you want instead!" excuse moment.)

But seriously, if I were out to buy a jack, and saw yours or mine, I'd be expecting a discount on Wehrkind's is all I am sayin'.

If you are playing around with Warma-Hordes, you ought to try Hordes to. The Fury system is just really different from most games, and the fact that the beasts basically come with extra spells for your warlock to cast really changes the way you list build. Especially where as Warmachine casters seem only able to handle 1-3 jacks each, and thus really only want the absolute best (usually a character jack) Hordes warlocks NEED 2-3 at least since you need them to generate Fury. Plus by mixing different ones you can get different animii (bonus spells) in addition to their other tricks so you can pull off stranger combos.

Plus GIANT WEREWOLVES AND SATYRS. And, whatever, dragons or something.

The Smurfs look good and man am I excited to hear someone is doing a Squig Army, what army book do you think you would counts them as?

Gitsplitta wrote:Sounds like you've got a good handle on it Iffy, I'll leave you to your business then.

I have a loose and wonky handle on it, but I do think the focus depth issue is just that camera, I tried my backup one today and got way better results. Crisper all around, too.

Rogue Wolves wrote:
Thats what Michelangelo had to do, and we know how awsome his painting turned out!

I don't think I'm quiiiite at his level yet, but I appreciate your meaning ;D

Alfndrate wrote:

Gitsplitta wrote:You understand, of course... that your "basic tabletop" is better than most of us can manage on our best days??

This is why I hate and love the two of you

But we are both so nice..

Wehrkind wrote:
Heh, nope, one is about 1/3 done, but I got irritated doing the white fields and instead painted a white were-wolf. Because obviously I don't need money more than I need a counts-as solo for my Circle army :-P I also screwed up and went Brown-Violet -> White instead of Ivory, and only realized after like 7 coats that were not evening out the way I expected. It was almost an epic coffee table flip moment. (Well... ok it wasn't. It was an epic "Paint the cool Rackham model you want instead!" excuse moment.)

The bone colour is a nightmare, I prime them white, slather them in sepia, then build it back up to white from that. Trying to yellow it while highlighting did not work for me.

Also, that flip a table feeling? You should have seen me yesterday when I realised I freehanded 9 symbols on the wrong side. Oh god.

Wehrkind wrote:But seriously, if I were out to buy a jack, and saw yours or mine, I'd be expecting a discount on Wehrkind's is all I am sayin'.
If you are playing around with Warma-Hordes, you ought to try Hordes to. The Fury system is just really different from most games, and the fact that the beasts basically come with extra spells for your warlock to cast really changes the way you list build. Especially where as Warmachine casters seem only able to handle 1-3 jacks each, and thus really only want the absolute best (usually a character jack) Hordes warlocks NEED 2-3 at least since you need them to generate Fury. Plus by mixing different ones you can get different animii (bonus spells) in addition to their other tricks so you can pull off stranger combos.
Plus GIANT WEREWOLVES AND SATYRS. And, whatever, dragons or something.

I played against warmahordes and It was totally different to my Cryx, I was really impressed with the feel of the game because of the huge difference in how the armies played, and I admit, the models are very.. very nice.

Cutthroatcure wrote:The Smurfs look good and man am I excited to hear someone is doing a Squig Army, what army book do you think you would counts them as?

No idea! He might just be using them with their normal unit rules or making up his own, or maybe just keeping them for display!

So, I painted 3 up as tests for him to have a look at, heres the first 3. Click for huge!



They are tabletop so I've not gone too mad with detail on these, they are airbrushed with detail picked out, and are the test models to give him an idea of how bright I want them all to be with the dark bases to compliment, and the bone/tooth recipe I want to use across them all. Gloss varnish as they are meant to be slimy, and the higher quality ones will have stripes and spots and sillyness.

These look so big here but WOW they are small.. look at the "giant" static grass!

Did I see something in this thread about sillyness on Gitsplitta's blog? You wouldn't be refering to some Avatar thing going on are you?

BTW,those Squigs look positively great!