Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

And now that the glue is dry, we have one charging Ironclad. Ready to smash some poor bugger aside on its way through the lines.





So, that completes the Battlegroup. Units will be added later, but for now, this is it for the Cygnar. Going to have a think about basing them up properly.

Ta daaaaa!




No tutorial/step by step here. I was far too busy experimenting with my new arsenal of Formula P3 paints. And rather nice they are too. I really need to figure out how to get my pictures to look a little less washed out/muted. But all in all, I am rather proud of what I have done.

You seem to have ironed out the kinks in your flesh method. Sorscha was looking a bit sickly (might have been exaggerated in the image, but her face appeared rather flat and a bit gray), but this guy is good to go. Might be worth revisiting her face, at some point.

oadie wrote:You seem to have ironed out the kinks in your flesh method. Sorscha was looking a bit sickly (might have been exaggerated in the image, but her face appeared rather flat and a bit gray), but this guy is good to go. Might be worth revisiting her face, at some point.

Thanks! Though the secret may just be down to me moving away from GW paints and instead using the Formula P3 range. I must admit, I am very impressed with them. Nice shades, nice finish...

I will not be revisiting Sorscha though. She was the best I could do at the time, and stripping back without wrecking the rest of the paint on the model would be tricky indeed. So I shall leave her as she is. Perhaps I shall buy another at some point. Or the epic version. Who knows!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And on to painting the Cygnar Warjacks. I want to keep as much bare metal as possible for these and keep the colours subtle and more like insignia. I started by undercoating in flat black, as ever. Next came a drybrush of Formula P3 Pig Iron.





Then the blue. Cygnar Blue Base. Doing exactly what it says on the tin/pot.

The cygnar figs look nice, the Stryker is pretty close to mine in color placement.

I like the metal jacks, it looks nice to paint them in other than the studio scheme. The blue brings nice variation to the figs by itself, but I guess you will be adding a bit more color to them?

Metsuri wrote:The cygnar figs look nice, the Stryker is pretty close to mine in color placement.

I like the metal jacks, it looks nice to paint them in other than the studio scheme. The blue brings nice variation to the figs by itself, but I guess you will be adding a bit more color to them?

Indeed! A lot more work ahead. Different metal types, detail, the works.

With my various fledgling factions well on the way, it is time to turn my thoughts to a place for them to do battle. My old gaming board is looking a bit tired. An ideal opportunity presents itself. A new game board for a new game system.

The design that I musing over at the moment is a semi modular, folding frame. This will allow me to slot in 2ft x 4ft boards, or use 2ft x 2ft squares. I will also be dabbling in the new (to me at least) laser cut MDF buildings. I am thinking of making a small farmstead first.

So, time to put pencil to paper and come up with a decent design!

In the meantime, the buildings for the farmstead arrived today. Purchased from www.4ground.co.uk

Flat packed, laser cut goodness.



Nicely packed, and a lovely smell of seared wood. I am looking forward to putting these together!

Hoooooookay. I opened the packet. Popped out the parts. Slotted them together. No glue as yet. Just a test fitting.

HOLY CRAP THIS STUFF IS BRILLIANT! Lovely quality. Each floor is designed to come away from the others. Even the scale is spot on. The genius use of the actual detail of the beams to form the slots and tabs is amazing. Can you tell that I love this kit?




I shall update again once I have glued it together properly and put on the seperate door and window kit that I ordered with it.

Augh...not dead! Just busy. Really busy. Have been painting and renovating my house, so I have a place to actually play with my small but growing circle of Warmachine minded friends. I also joined an RPG group which one of my friends attends, and this has been surprisingly good fun! I have not been totally idle though. The Menoth forces are being assembled, and a good few games have been played. And I have lost every single one. Even so, I am stilll LOVING Warmachine. Quick, fun and full of character. I am going to be putting a little effort into getting the Cygnar battlegroup done, as well as the terrain, once I have finished decorating my wife's study.

So, finally back in business with the Cygnar faction box. So next is to build on the Cygnar Blue Base by highlighting with...Cygnar Blue Highlight. I like how the P3 formula shades have 'what it says on the tin' colours for easy use with the various factions.

After applying the highlight, I used P3 Blue Ink to blend, then added a final light highlight with Cygnar Blue Highlight.



With the blue done, next up is the brass. As a base, I used Molten Bronze.

And a quick wash of P3 Brown Ink




Automatically Appended Next Post:
More metal done on the Charger.



And now back to the Lancer. P3 Arcane blue on the electric bits of the shield and the arcanic recesses of the spear and arc node. The top coils of the node I painted with a few light coats of P3 Morrow White.



Next up, I used watered down P3 Arcane Blue on the recesses of the arc node coils to give it a glowing effect.



After that, a quick blend of Morrow White and Arcane Blue to add a highlight to the arcanic bits of the shield. Then on to the bases. P3 Gun Corps Brown to start.

Terrain time: Getting back on with building the farmstead. First up, this stuff is made from MDF. As such, it is very, very thirsty as a material. It will just slurp up any paint you splash on it and leave a weird, fibrous finish. The way around this is to first prep the surface for painting, and this is something I picked up when prepping bare plaster walls in my house. So... first up, seal the surface.



Two coats of watered down PVA glue will prevent the MDF from devouring all of my paint!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And there you have it. A little wash of GW's obsolete Devlan Mud on the bases...a little bit of flock...



One Cygnar starter set done!

Next on my 'to do' list is the Iron Kingdom's answer to Baba Yaga, Zevanna Agha aka the 'Old Witch of Khador'.

First thoughts opening the blister: God damn, this is going to be fiddly. Little crows, spindly, chicken legged mech, Freddy Kruger talons on the hunched old hag herself...

So, time to begin drilling and pinning...well...everything!



Mind the gap! Time to try out a little of Games Workshop's 'Liquid Green Stuff'. Pretty cool for filling in small gaps. More like a really thick paint than anything, but it does the job.

After much delay, I am finally giving an update on my progress with Warmachine. This is due in part to a hectic schedule, and also due to an epic failure with regards to the Menoth force I was working on. I rushed to get them built. Next I undercoated them with Army Painter White Spray.

It was an unmitigated disaster.

I have had personal experience with poor finishes from white spray paints. Games Workshop spray has failed me again and again in the past, so much so that I never ever thought I would use white as a base colour again. But I had heard good things about Army Painter, so I gave it a go. I used every trick I knew to ensure a good finish. Shook the can for near on half an hour. Took into account humidity, spacing, prep and drying location...but the result was farcical. P articulated, fluffy and far too thick. It went on like dust, and comes off like dust when touched.

In order to recover the models I will have to strip them, which is another chore for another day.

Moving on. I have been busy building. I like building, I don't know about you lot but it relaxes me. More so than painting. Which is a shame. Perhaps it is because there is more of a margin of error with building. With painting, one slip can wreck the whole game. With building...not so much. This, I think, has led to something of a catch 22. I build because I like to. I paint because I have to. But I hate models to go unfinished, and models need to be painted to be finished. So, the more I build, the more I have to paint. And I will always try to improve my painting...so painting takes me a long time. And I am never happy with the results.

Now, enough rambling. Here we go with the latest round of built models.



The Old Witch of Khador is an interesting creation. The sculpt it amazing and...this goes against everything I have just written above, but I just realised I am actually looking forward to painting her. Huh. How about that. Just hope I can do her justice.



Captain Jeremiah Kraye. A guy in steam powered armour. On a horse. That horse must be badass. Another model bought and built purely because I like the sculpt.



Couple of unfortunate Khador Warjacks, because yes, I do actually play the damn game form time to time and the markers are useful.



Orsus Zoktavir, the Butcher of Khador. This guy is going to be my warcaster of choice once finished. I like his 'strange' (murderous, bloody, mysterious...oddly chivalrous) character. To quote Ash form Alien..." I admire its purity. A survivor … unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality." Add to that that I like his stats, I like his armour...and the little touches like the name of his axe...



Karchev the Terrible! This guy is in a weaponised iron-lung for crying out loud! Too bitter and ornery to just expire after being turned into the human equivalent of a sandbag. Got to love that tenacity. Just because he was defeated once, does not mean this guy cannot royally screw up your afternoon.

But wait!



Cygnarian reinforcements have arrived! Lieutenant Allister Caine, Captain Maxwell Finn and a unit of Trencher Infantry. Undercoated and ready for painting. I best get a bloody move on.

Hah! Found a way to make time for modelling in my hectic schedule. Lunch hour at work!

Let the batch painting begin. Step one is undercoating, for which I set about using up the last of my GW sprays, Chaos Black. On top of this, the first coat for the Trenchers, Cain and Finn, was all done with a watered down drybrush of P3 Pig Iron.



Next up was to paint the flesh with a base coat of P3 Khardic Flesh.



Only got a few odd looks as I sat painting atop my ceramic tile, with palette, water and brush cleaning soap to one side. Mainly the looks I got were interested ones. Quite a few folks I work with seem to have dabbled with miniatures as kids, and they are impressed for the most part with how far things have come since then.

"You mean...there is more than Warhammer out there now?"
"Oh yes...Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Historical...lots of cool gaming systems about. Take your pick?"

Made me realise just how rich the selection of wargames is these days!

After the basecoat, a watered down drybrush of P3 Midlund Flesh



Then a highlight made up of blending Midlund Flesh with P3 Menoth White Base

I spent today pondering paint schemes for my Cygnarian infantry and did some research. I had a look at the equipment and colours worn by the various armies involved in the trench warfare of WWI. In doing so I stumbled upon this French poster.



Now, in my mind there is a strong resemblance to the Cygnar Trenchers. Just add a little armour plate. With that in mind, it seems a good idea to base my colour scheme on around the fellow in this poster.

Coat: Gun Corps Brown
Jacket & Trousers: Thornwood Green
Blanket: Ordic Olive
Putrees (leg wraps) Hammerfall Khaki
Pouches, leather straps, gloves & boots: Bootstrap Leather
Wood: Bloodtracker Brown

Should be fun seeing if this works together.

All work and no play...is exactly what I am avoiding. Huzzah! Beavering away in my lunch hours, and this weekend I even managed to get the exterior of the farm cottage finished off to a reasonable tabletop standard.





I am rather chuffed with how it came out. The outbuildings will not be too far behind!

With a few friends gathering forces of their own, a place to squabble over has become a must. In the past I have made my own tables from plyboard and model railway flock sheet. But I am going to be potentially moving between my friends houses, portability is a must. With that in mind I wanted to try out the modular gaming tiles that are proving popular for the more mobile gamer. There are certain companies that produce 6ft x 4ft boards from plastic that are very expensive indeed at near enough £200. Purely in a spirit of inquiry, I wanted to see if there were any alternatives out there.

I found a firm based in Germany that produce gaming terrain that produce 2ft x 2ft gaming tiles that can be bought individually, or in bundles of 4 or 6 depending on what size of gaming surface you need. As Warmachine is played on a 4ft x 4ft board, I purchased the tiles I needed for the princely sum of £75 from their online store http://www.ziterdes.de/ziterdes/en/index.php

I went for a river section, a river with bridge section, a corner hill section and a flat plain section.

A few days later and four of these appear in the mail.



The tiles come pre-painted and with a little flock already applied. That was a surprise! Sadly, so was the damage on the corners of the tile where they appeared to have been damaged in transit. A quick email to the company, advising them of this yielded an apology and a credit note towards my next purchase with them. Fantastic customer service as far as I am concerned (as the damage is minor enough for me to be able to fix myself without much trouble)



The boards clip together with supplied plastic sections and also come with little foam blocks that I assume are to brace the hollow plastic tiles when used on a table that is too small to support the exterior ridges. Nice little idea that.



The clips work ok, but I think in the long run I will be using magnets to secure these tiles together and filling them with expanding foam to add a bit more stability and structural support for the tiles. But for now, these things are ready to go right out of the box.

Work continues. Capt Maxwell Finn has now got all his base colours applied.

And there you have it. A quick wash of Army Painter Strong Tone and Mr Finn is ready for a bit of flock and sealing.





Next up, to rinse and repeat the process with the Trenchers and Cain.

Still chugging along with the batch painting. Coats and wooden parts of weapons done thus far.

A little time off work and...voila!





Just some touching up on the bases and a coat of varnish and these fellows are ready for battle.

One of the reasons I prefer plastic miniatures over metal, is that I find metal minis to be more prone to chipping and losing paint. For whatever reason, plastic just seems to hold onto the base coat and paint better. With this in mind, I am going to attempt to use a sealing trick I have been told about.

First off, get your model and make sure it is clean, dust free etc.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Once prepped, on goes a coat of gloss varnish. In this case, I used plasti-kote gloss varnish which was left to dry for 5 hrs.



Next up, I gave a quick blast of Army Painter Matt varnish. And...damn. Instant frosting effect, goopy finish. Not sure if I sprayed too close, or too far away, or too long, or the can was too cold...or too hot...or it was humid in my workshop. Either way. Nuts. I had to scrub the model back to bare metal. Well. At least it is only one I am painting back up. I will try again once I have him back up to scratch.



Not having much luck with these Army Painter sprays...ho hum!

And with a little careful preparation of the can and re-reading the instructions (as well as a few forums) - I learned that the can should be warmed in warm water from cold, shaken for about five minutes, then sprayed lightly in long bursts...rather than the short blasts I am used to.



Rather happy with how these fellows have turned out after all that.

Great work!
Sorry to hear about the varnish debacle - happened to me once and I swore I would never varnish again... now that I'm playing more regularly, I'm seeing the folly of that idea.

Thanks! That learning curve thing that folk keep telling me about...I find more and more that it is pretty much a right angle, rather than a curve. But given these minis are metal...I think varnishing them properly is going to be well worth the effort. Make them a touch more durable out on the table.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Well. No time like the present for getting on with the last of my Cygnarian projects (for now).

Captain Jeremiah Kraye!



I freakin' LOVE this sculpt. I saw this pro-painted in a store once and it looked awesome. One of the reasons I got into Warmachine in the first place. Really looking forward to getting his cavalry officer painted up.

Quick drybrush of Pig Iron on metal parts and armour plates.



And Rucksack Tan for the horsey portions of the horse. The parts not covered in armour or laden with hero in steam powered armour and all his sundry gear. Come to think of it...this horse is a badass.

Slowly and steadily, progress continues.

Base colours finished and a quick wash of Devlan Mud...and I think he is ready for his base to be flocked.