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@Paradigm, tell me about it, the woman in smiths gave me such an odd look when I was paying.

@ Gits - I think its fairly common with the historial gaming community, really is very neat.

@ Darth bob - Thanks man, I think i may look into vallejos ones, just for the airbrush ease.

@Giraffe - Pah, not mine, cant take credit at all.

@Sheep - Thanks Sheep, i actually tried to do the opposite of that, chipping green onto the white, but the problem is that the effect gets ruined because the green over white is so bright compared to the rest of the green, i fear i'd have the opposite problem if i did white over green, with the white not covering the green well in one coat. Glad you picked up on the classic valhallan theme, you might like the infantry below too.

@hk1x1 / Leth - BLue tack really is fantastic stuff!

@Rogue- I don't know about that, im pootering along at a snail's pace.

So not much of an update, just thought I would share with you a small amount of work I've done on the valkyrie, trying to add a few bits of grime and soot round the engine, still a while to go though, do you think it needs any transfers? this is probably the last point I could add them at, after this they would look odd without proper weathering.



Also had a quick test to see If the blu-tack technique would work on infantry.....the verdict: well, kinda! Opinions?




Now on to the important stuff! I have a plan to maybe make a armies on parade style board, not sure If I would actually enter it, but I think a clear end goal would be very beneficial for someone as flippant as me!

Now although I really like alot of armies on parade style things I often get the impression the army has been put on the board as an afterthought not planned for the board from the start, so I want to try and make a board based around the army, more a large Diorama than a proper armies on parade.

Now I have a classic piece of imperial guard artwork I want to recreate for this, it's the one with valhallans marching in formation going down a built up imperial street/parade ground, anyone know the one I'm talking about? I will try and find a picture soon.

Until I have anything to actually show you, I will leave it at that for now, as a teaser Suggestions/ inspiration are more than welcome. I may even make a dedicated thread for it, what do we think?

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?

@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.

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!

@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:

@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?

@ Crystal-Maze - Oh yes thats a really cool idea! i hadnt thought about it like that but a load of them swarming round the feet of a knight,..that would be cool.

@Paradigm - Thank you very much, i dont know though, its mostly just sticking bits together, anyone can do it im sure, most of it is just a bit of practice (and cheating tools like the tentacle maker)

@ Darth Bob - Thanks bob, I do totally know what you mean, there have been a few times when painting where I have gone wait...this is just wrong, i should be using red here, but you know you become a bit more used to it after a while, my justification at the moment is that if every tech thrall upwards on every forge world dressed exclusively in red, the production of red dye would become the most profitable vocation in the imperium! I am also thinking of saving the red for higher ranking adepts, i.e. the more red you get to wear the more important you are....this idea might work but with the green as well there is a danger of an army of father Christmases!

@Swampyturtle - Im absolutely certain thats not true, like i said to paradigm there is little skill here just a bit of practice and shortcuts


So guys small update for you, been keeping to my one model at a time rule, so have done a bit more work on the next skitarii from a couple of posts back, the hunched over posture made me really think of someone carrying something heavy, so he is now the proud owner of a large book of technical data (i guess!) Once i got to this stage it was annoying me that he would have no logical way to read from his big book, so I engineered this vox-equipped servo skull to read passages to him, i think it looks pretty promising so far! That said it is still WIP atm! Sorry some pics are a bit out of focus, trying some new lighting set ups:







Now here comes the obsessive part of me as a hobbyist, i really liked the servo skull reading the book, but it is quite a fragile set up and I couldnt decide if it unbalanced the model too much, so to stop me having to make the decision, and so its easier to paint, I made it detachable! the best bit (and which took a reasonable amount of planning) was to make it so that in its alternative set up he could have the servo skull clipped onto his belt, (the pictures show it much better than I can explain.)
But yes, the beauty of magnets:

Thanks sheep, yeah i thought there was a delicious juxtaposition there, books and flames wise.

As for more colours you may well be right, I will try and experiment a bit more in the future, try a few more spot colours, the danger (and the reason I hadnt gone down that route so far) was that the green is already incredibly bright and if there were too many more colours there was a risk of things getting quite gaudy and OTT, but from a painting guru such as yourself I will gladly take the advice and run with it.

The snow does seem to be more controversial than i first thought, and your probably right about context, without the snowy bases you are left with a slightly odd feeling towards it, just because it doesnt tie in at all, i will do a couple of test bases to perch these guys on so you get a better idea how it will look. Snow on clothing is really odd, it does clump sometimes, (ask anyone with a dog who has taken them out on a walk in the snow they come back with their bodyweight in snow attached to them!) For now I think it looks quite neat so I will stick with it, can always drop it for later models if I get disenchanted with it.

Hey guys, sorry for not living up to my post every week promise, but i hope this will make up for it, I saw the new Sevatar model released by forgeworld and knew instantly I must have it...and in a bout of frenzied painting this weekend I even got him finished!

Have to say it was the most excited I have been to be painting in a long time, wonderful sculpt, really really top notch, anyways, i'll dump pictures then return to the drudgery of the working week. Hope you all had a good weekend.

J














The helmet....its just unbelievably cool.

Thanks guys. And lol paradigm, its odd isn't it that that was one of the things I was most proud of! Good old hairspray method, always looks glorious. And for the scalp giraffe, I totally agree, made me feel a bit ill painting it tbh, but I guess as fans of nurgle models will tell you, that's how you know you are doing it right!

Its a good point that I hadn't considered actually, I guess in my minds eye its been ripped off and thrown out of the boundary of the diorama. Would love to see your version though Bob! Can't wait.

So as always I seem to have ridiculous hiatus's between posting, but hey, that seems to just be something you have to accept if you follow this blog! apologies!

Hopefully I can post a few bits to make it up to you all,

First up, a new member of my adeptus mechanicus warband:





And the servo skull it detachable thanks to some fun use of magnets! as can be seen here:





So the other think I have for you is for those who have followed this blog for a long time you may remember my tyranokroot, an odd mixture of tyranid and kroot parts, well I have finally finished the entire group of ten of them (years late, but still!)

To celebrate here's a couple of pictures as well as a couple of (I think) cool action shots:






And the fun shots:




''Oh Feth!''

You are 100% right Kernel, the wire has two magnets, one that attaches to the body, and another that attaches to the back of the servo skull,

Here it is detached, that round disk at the back of the servo skull is another magnet.

@evildrcheese - Thanks very much, they certainly tart them up a bit don't they.

@Kernal - No problem,not sure its clever mind you! just a tad ott!

@Paradigm - Why thank you!

@Gits - Thanks Gits, I figured I dont normally go in for themed photos so gave it a go.

@Valhalla - Sharp and poisoned to boot, nasty.

@Warboss_Waaazag - Hahah it really was, the feet in particular were a particular pain in the

@Januine - Wow! that's dedication indeed, welcome to the blog! I sometimes think maybe I should have a bit of a summary at the start so anyone new doesn't have to trawl through.

@San - Thanks San, as always the compliments are really inspiring! Im trying my hand at an arbite, (see this post) next! exciting chance to paint blue!

@hk1x1 - Wouldn't want them gate crashing your equatorial holiday though.

@Nerd- Too kind as always nerd, i have been lurking in your thread, i will comment soon, when i have rounded up all my most complimentary adjectives.



So then guys, I am quite enjoying these small inq28 style one of miniatures so have been working on another, this time in a slightly different theme, (albeit still imperial), an Arbite!

Hopefully this will give me a chance to paint some blue, something i almost never do.

The conversion itself is largely very simple with most of the parts coming from the scion kit and the head from the mechanicum whatever they are called.

I cant claim much credit for the idea here, its already been done by a couple of people over at the ammobunker, but it works so damn well I have to borrow the idea.

Anyway, this is my take, i've gone for the standard shotgun look of the arbites, and the obligatory power maul on his back, with an accusatory pointing finger which I think gives him quite a nice authoritative air.The chains were probably a tad too much, but I wanted to get the connection with law and order in in a few (not so subtle) ways here. Anyway, hope you like it






Also tell me what you think of the photo quality, this is using a shiny new camera.

@Paradigm, thanks man, like i say i cant really claim credit, not an original conversion!

@LeCacty - Lol it is pretty details, i worked on him on and off for a couple of weeks, I dont have much time for hobby so I have to squeeze in ten minutes here and there. Overall I reckon a good few hours went into tweaking him though!

@Evildrcheese - Why thank you, check out some other versions that people have done with the same aprts, they are really nice.

@Sockwithaticket - Haha well to be fair the official ones are getting a bit long in the teeth these days. An actual arbite kit, in the same way they have done for harlequins etc would be incredible.

@Nerdfest - DONE!

@San - I am using a macro lens which I think really makes a difference (that said some of these posts i'm about to share are out of focus, but I think that was me being lazy more than anything else.) As for the colour scheme, take a look, the basic idea was to go with fairly standard 'police' colours, white black and a little bit of blue, I think it looks passable.

@Two spartan - No problem at all! thank you very much for commenting, its a real inspiration. I'm hoping to go back and do some more mechanicum for that warband at some point, real life permitting!


Hi all, so I wanted to post this now because I am away from my hobby stuff for a while now, which is disappointing, but hey, real life drags us away sometimes.

Really simple update really, just the arbite painted, as I said to San I went with fairly standard 'police' colours, mixed with a little red as arbites should always have some red in my mind!

Sorry for the slightly fuzzy last couple of pictures.

Hope you like:

@Paradigm - Thanks very much, you are entirely right, its this new satin varnish I have been using, when used sparingly it works a dream, but if you are heavy handed it tends to gloss a little, Ive tried to revisit it with a more traditional matt gloss to no avail, will look into buying a couple of alternatives. I must admit I'm a little stumped when it comes to a base, I am about to paint him some cyber hound assistants, so hopefully when they are all completed a base idea will organically form, hopefully.

@ San - Thanks San, I do like red, so easy to blend! As i just said to Paradigm, the base has stumped me for the time being!

@ Gits - Thanks Gits, I seem to be a bit obsessed with them though, cant seem to do anything else! I go to paint a light tan and end up with that same deep orange brown.

@ Evildrcheese - Hahah, thank you.

@ Spacewolverine - Thanks for the praise! Whites are always so hard to do convincingly! Im glad I could be of help though! I am hoping GW might revisit them at some point for a small skirmish style game as seems to be their habit of late.

@LeCacty - XD

@Thraxas of Turai - Thanks! It is indeed metal, but its very soft metal, its designed exactly for this reason so that is easily bends around the miniature, annoying I seem to have lost where I got them from, my first thought was Victoria lamb, but they don't seem to be on her site so I may have misremembered.

@Bebop - Thanks Bebop! They are taking a real long time to do, but I am really enjoying these character types!

@ Hk1x1 - Thanks, very typical policeman colours!

@ Nerd - Anything for you I may have overdone the arbite vibes, it seems to have broken you.

@Wolf - Not dim at all! you are entirely right, using a toothpick I used a tiny amount of superglue to fuse each link together when they were in the right place, I wont lie, it was a nightmare!

@Severed79 - Annoyingly Ive managed to forget where the bandolier is from, i genuinely thought it was from Victoria Lamb, but I cant find it on her site, I will have a hunt around for you, there must be a clue somewhere in my inbox. As for the shotgun, the handle half is the plasma gun (with arm) from the scion kit, and the top half is a bolter with two ''barrels'' from 2 of the admech guns, no idea what they are called! but thin plastic rod would do the job perfectly. The leather strap is half built in and half greenstuff. Hope this helps!

@ Januine - Banana hey, going up in the world.



Right guys, so you are pretty used to me abandoning this thread for months on end before dragging it back from the edge, so apologies for that, but it seems unavoidable, so you'll just have to bear with me.

First up, I have something a bit different, I have painted a WW2 mini from these guys, http://stalingrad.diorama.ru/ It was just too nice to pass up on. But I'm not massively into historically accurate schemes etc, so I just did him using favourite shade of green,







Second up we get back to the previous theme, some of you may remember this lady from page 34, back in 2014!!




Well she is finally finished! Let it never be said I never finish a project, they just take many many many many years!


She has a magnetically attached swarm of servo skulls who I imagine flocking to where-ever she is pointing to act as her eyes and ears. Enjoy:







Detached Servo skulls: (terrible photo, apologies!)



And finally without the servo skulls and with a slightly harsher light to emphasis the painting more than the overall effect:







I know she could really have benefited from a bit of free hand, but but this stage I want to draw a line under her or it will be almost another three years before she appears on here!

Let me know what you guys think as always! Love to hear your opinions,

@ Kernel Terror - Thank you, was hoping the xenos vibe came through enough with the various eldar components and the ork skull etc, I'm pretty pleased with her to be honest! As for the Stalingrad peice, its 1:35 so a tad larger than what I usually work with, It was good fun not having to squint quite so hard to do the faces! They came from here, cant recommend enough as something a bit different: http://stalingrad.diorama.ru/

@Januine - Really appreciate you taking to the time to comment! Thank you!

@ Nerd - Hahah it's nice to be back, even if my updates are so damn slow. Im really glad you like the stalingrad figure, that's high praise coming from you, the master of painting expressive faces.

@ San - Thanks San, Im glad you dont think she needs freehand either, the thought of having to redo the blending on the green to correct mistakes makes me feel a bit unwell!


So then guys, to try and push my boundaries a bit, I have taken the plunge and bought the silver tower set! I figure it will be a fun way for me to paint some new colours and textures I wouldn't normally encounter and generally give me a chance to paint something a bit differently.....That said I didn't really enter into the spirit of things with my first model, the knight questor. I am not a massive fan of the gold and blue truth be told, or any of the other schemes I've seen knocking around, so I thought rather than botch it I would simply borrow the tried and tested palette I have been using for my little Ad Mech warband. Personally I think the bone armour makes these guys look a bit grittier, and more relate-able, rather than the invincible thunder gods I've up to this point perceived them as being.

But first I wanted to draw attention to the base, I spent a bit of time on this, because I am aware I tend to leave bases to last and neglect them a little:



And with miniature






And finally a comparison picture with my Ad Mech Thallax, I appreciate this picture is horribly over-exposed, but so you get an idea, not just of the 'borrowed' palette, but also the scale of these guys, they are frigging enormous!





Anyway, next from the set I am planning on painting the barbarian chap, but I am also very keen to hear what you guys would like to see next. So far I have resisted the urge to convert anything, but the idea of all those unique parts gives me the converter's itch. (Which may or may not be a real thing,)

Thanks Paradigm, I must correct myself before I forget, I said I hadn't seen a scheme that I liked for the stormcast until now, that's simply not true! Id forgotten your gorgeous guys with the green and the pale armour. I am a terrible lurker, I will be sure to comment when you post next! In case I forget, your deathwatch are saved in my inspiration folder.

@Gits - Thanks Gits, I suspect the camera is just being flattering, in real life its not quite that smooth!

So I am quite getting into this whole fantasy phase after that stormcast guy. I have no idea about the fluff of Age of Sigmar, but the idea of having a mismatched army of all sorts of races is the ADD hobbyist's idea of heaven.

I am using the opportunity to try and indulge my chaotic side, normally my conversions always have to be very exact and require a lot of concentration, because imperials and ''good'' guys always have pristine conversions and seams, bodged welding and spikes and fur are very much the hallmark of chaos/Orcs.That said, rust and spikes and lumps and fur and a general lack of symmetry make converting incredible fun! So why should I miss out!

In this theme I'm going with my favourite fantasy race to start, a few beastmen. My first conversion is very simple, just a weapon swap of sorts:


And after, for once this isn't a case of me not posting in ages or not getting round to painting, I got so carried away I made and painted this guy yesterday in his entirety! unheard of for me!








I got so into this infact that I started messing around sculpting some fun beastmen bits, we will have to see where this leads!



I havn't forgotten the silver tower project, In fact I have started the next Hero, and this time I couldn't resist a minor tweak, his standard sword just looked a bit over the top:




Hope you all enjoy this new fantasy based diversion! J.

@ Januine - Thanks!

@Paradigm - Thanks Para! It is pretty small really! Was just getting warmed up!

@ LeCacty - XD thanks! Always a good idea to hold onto old cheap jewellery!

@ EvilDrCheese - XD quite simple really! Yeah, quite pleased by the bone armour to be honest!

@ DrH - Hahahah im glad you picked up on that, made me smile when I came to review the post.

@Angelofvengeance - Hahhaha, I had to look up the reference, but he definitely did help with inspiration.

So i'm getting into this now! having whetted my appetite for some rough around the edges converting I've started on three more beastmen, I havnt really got a plan here, Im mostly going with things that look cool or creep me out a little bit!


1) Ready for paint: Pretty pleased with how this guy has come out, its reassuring to know i can finally sculpt semi convincing hair, have always struggled in the past:






2) Just a rough concept for now. The only thing that annoys me is that his mouth wouldnt actually be able to blow the horn, but it does look pretty atmospheric, what do you guys think? Is it passable?






3) Very early stages with this one, trying out the new blood reaver torso, for a more solid/built looking beastman:




Thoughts?

@ Jehan-Reznor - It is now!

@ Gits - Hahah Im glad you think that Gits, im going for the more noble beastmen look here!

@LeCacty - I hope you like them as much painted!


So this was my attempt at speed painting, working all the colours up from the same brown really sped things up, plus, you will all have to appreciate how enthusiastic I am for this project, this is the second painted figure in as many days!

Hope you like him, I originally did the flesh much lighter but it didnt quite look right, so i gave it a few brown washes and im much happier with the result.


Things to note with this guy are the poor attempt at a freehand design on his shoulder pad and the horrendous way his shoulderpads are attached to him!




Logan: ''Now lets be cautious, assess all our possible choices before we act ''

Masked beastman: ''CHARGE''







What do you think?

@Paradigm - Oh please do! and then send a link, I insist!

@DrH - Thank you.

@LeCacty - Its mostly just for fun at the moment, but Im thinking I would like to try AoS sometime, so maybe if I stick with it long enough these guys might be cool to use, that said, I know nothing about weapon restrictions etc in AoS so i shall model them going purely based on if it looks good!


So a bit of a delay with this update, but I have been cracking on with the beastmen this week, adding to the gang, If I include a couple of shots before paint, may be helpful?




And after, you will notice the inclusion of a silver tower tzaangor, they are just too cool not to include in this sort of project!

You will have to excuse the photo quality today, a little rushed.








These chaos types sure do proliferate quickly! Even if they are not very photogenic!

Thanks guys, yeah you are probably right Cacty, I hadnt even considered that, it may be a moot point considering how likely i am to play. but lets say mordheim/AoS. I quite like the helemet guy too paradigm, I think this band is going to blur the line between beastmen and warriors of chaos a bit, too many of the parts are too cool not to use.

@Lecacty - Thats very true, and aesthetically, they are pretty similar, horns and all!

@ Wehrkind - Thanks very much!

@EvilDrcheese - Thanks man, I have to say I wasn't sure about the hair, so good to hear its got approval!

So I have been adding to this band of beasts, this week has seen me add this guy to the band:




Before working on this guy I did a test run for the skin on a savage orc, I quite like it and finished painting him to add him to the band, anything brown and feral with lots of bone is welcome in this band:





Talking of skin tones, I was wondering what you guys prefer for skin on these guys, a more fleshy colour or this more animal like brown?

@ Lecacty and Paradigm, I think I may dedicate this bunch to you guys, I will name the next couple after you! Hope you are not too offended at having a beastman likeness! I appreciate the kind words. As for the skin Paradigm, you are entirely right.


So today I have for you the darkoath chieftan from the silver tower set. For the most part I absolutely love this model, the one thing Im not a fan of is the stupidly large sword, he is cohan inspired, i get it, but lets leave out the cheese! So I swapped mine out for a darker looking blade, and personally I think it helps alot.

As for paint I have gone for a much cleaner look, in imitation of the 'eavy metal team to try and stretch myself a bit, I think the colours do pop alot better this way, especially the skin tones.

Might start following the paint guides in paint splatter a bit more carefully from now on.

Anyway here he is, again, he may well yet double up as a member of this dark woodland warband im making. I've yet to think of a good name for them.

Hahah good, I will try and start them this week.

As for your critique Paradigm, let it never be said that I dont listen!

I introduced him to the gors, and as you predicted all hell broke loose! On the plus side the end result was that he got a few cuts and bruises! He could do with even more but i didnt want to ruin all the nice blends on the skin, next time!





Also if he think he came off badly in the fight, you should see the other guy:




The gor gods only know what happened to him! He looks like he got caught up in the Hindi Holi festival!

http://www.sensationalcolor.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/People-Celebrating-Holi-Festival-of-Colors1.jpg

@ Gits @ Dr H - Thank you Gits, Dr H, nice to see you still hanging around here!

@Aku-chen - Quite simple, but I think it works well too!

@ Wehrkind - Thank you, I think you are entirely right, I think a large part is due to scale, like you say, its simply not feasible to paint tiny scratches from bushed etc, so that even the smallast lines i can make with a crush represent quite considerable wounds! if you over do it I think it becomes too much because by rights they should be dead from blood loss!

@Rustproof - Cheers.


So although i quite liked the rainbow tzaangor it wasnt quite working for me, and then I had an idea, I was thinking how cool they would look painted like albinos, obviously different, but not over the top bright blue! So I have been practising my plale flesh on more of these savage orks, it gives a really different feel to these guys, will have to remember this for the future, albino orks look very intimidating! Sorry, the colours are a bit off on these, I took them in a hurry.





On a different note my local GW is running a halloween themed painting competition and to get me to work to a deadline Im going to try and enter. My entry is going to be a fresh member of this beastman warband, but to make him more haloween like i will likely add pumpkins etc to the base, personally i think he looks absolutely terrifying!


l

@Wehrkind - Thanks! Its true, they are incredibly similar really arent they! I imagine as a sculptor if you find a winning recipe for faces it will be quite hard to not accidentally incorporate some of the same aspects.

@Evildrcheese / RiTides - Hope you like him with paint too!

@Gits - Thank you, yeah I find with pale flesh it can be really easy to go massively overboard if you are not careful.


Before I start guys, I have joined twitter, I am aiming to use this to do small updates, if you are interested come follow me:

https://twitter.com/JPMiniatures


So then guys, Just in time for halloween, and my local Games Workshop (Norwich) painting competition, here is my halloween themed gor! Replete with greenstuff pumpkins! I honestly had a fantastic time doing the base, I think woodland bases may be my new thing.






There is a reason I have been so slow to make this update...well, actually there are two, number one I was getting the shiny new watermark you can see on these photos made, and two, I was massively distracted chopping and sticking in something of a converting mania.

I don't know about you guys, but I think these are some of the best conversions concept wise I have ever had! Really really pleased with them! This whole feral army theme, with little else in the way of restrictions is absolutely fanatastic fun. Here are some of the results:

1) My first feral animated woodland construct thing, animated by a suitably crazy brayshaman in my mind! As you can tell, based mostly on a Kunnoth hunter, but with lots of grisly bone bits. The ''heart'' or whatever they are called has been replaced with a load of trophies and charms. Here he is with a bow:



And seeing as how if I ever played a game with them the most logical thing for them to prozy as would be minotaurs, here he with alternative arms and a big axe! Honestly so excited to paint him!




2) Now after I came up with the idea that this guy was designed and twisted and stitchted together by a suitably insane bray shaman, I knew I had to make him, plus I knew he had to look suitably wild! here he is. The skaven skull is a deliberate inclusion, the hobby butterfly will doubtless want to add some sneaky skaven to this rag tag bunch at some point.



3)Next up is a couple of ungors, and i must admit the stock poses are a bit rubbish and dated, so I have been making a bit of a more sophisticated ungor, after all, since the end times they have had thousands of years to gather some better clothing, this first one is still very WIP:




4) This second one came about when I thought about the idea of female beastmen, femgors if you will...... i figured small dainty archers mixed in with the ungors would be pretty neat and an awesome converting opportunity, again, very WIP:



5) To finish, I plan on painting this guy like an old gor with grey hair, just because:

Thsnks para, I have to say I'm really psyched with how they are coming out. Indulging in all this fantasy chaos stuff has opened so many conversion opportunities for me I keep getting carried away, my mental list of ideas is almost endless at the moment.

@IGtR - Thanks, shame they are all so time consuming as well!

@Lecacty - Hahah, thanks!

@Two Spartan - Thanks for the feedback, I can see where you are coming from with the elf arms, I might bulk them up a tiny bit more before I call them finished, depends how impatient i get to add paint!

@Wehrkind - Hahah i would hope there aren't too many people who beastmen do it for! But questionable kinks aside, thank you!

@Evildrcheese - Fingers crossed I can live up to the hype!

@ Elnibbus - You are alive! Don't waste your time on this rubbish blog, we want to see updates!

@ Nerd - Hes becoming a lurker, its a slippery slope.

@Heretic Tom - Thank you very much! I would absolutely love to do a little bit for the society page, I will try and do it properly though, with step by step instructions! As with everything I do it will take a little while, so dont hold your breath, but I hereby commit to do mini tutorials on both!

@Angelofvengeance - Thank you! im excited to paint him!

@Freytag93 - Hahahahah this is some high praise! I hope this post lives up to your expectations! I am indeed working on them, but as any of my long term followers will tell you, progress is glacial around here!



Wow, so these guys are clearly going down well! I have spent the time since my last post slowly adding some paint to my minotaur construct, I had real fun trying out all the different textures on him, the bird beak and mushrooms in particular! The other texture I included on this guy was I coated all the wood areas with the textured GW cracking paints, personally I think it gives a fantastic depth to these parts and works really well as bark, its an idea I will probably be using again.
I have gone for quite a natural scheme with lots of bone, I imagine the brayshamans contorting and twisting it into shape with dark magic before linking it with that odd sinew-like brown wood flesh.
As you can probably tell he is not quite finished, he still needs to be based and I am holding off for now, I really want the basing on these guys to be something special so I have been stock-piling supplies and practising.
A quick question for you all, for the axe version of this guy, should he have some globules of blood and gore hanging from the head of the axe like the halloween project? Would this make it even more sinister or would it be a tad over the top?







And with bow instead:



And my favourites bits:
Its only when you see it like this that I realise I rushed the glow on the eye socket of the bird....will need to tidy that up.