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Flying Pooo wrote:I really like those old termies. They'll defiantly stand out on the battlefield, especially with that great paint job you've given them.
Those infinity minatures look great too. I've never thought much of Infinity before, but seeing these...

Thanks man. Yeah my army is hard to miss with its hunter's safety orange color. And no, you don't get a bonus to your to hit rolls on me!

You should definitely give Infinity a look. It has some really awesome looking minis and the gameplay is quite good. There's a lot to like about it.

Casey's Law wrote:Nice update to your Infinity force!

Yeah it's getting quite large. Also ordered a HMG and Panzerfaust Ghulam. I better draw the line somewhere or I'll be into 40k territory with the size of my Haqqislam. Gonna do Nomads next, they're irresistable!

Chemical Cutthroat wrote:Man those Kameels look awesome. It's going to force my hand to pick some up. I wanted an EVO remote anyway, and that just looks splendid.

Thanks. I don't think the official photos really do them justice. But I would seriously recommend bending their legs to fit entirely on the base, as they come with these 'extensions' that make their legs spill over the base, and just looks stupid IMO.

Small update here. I was given some more old terminators to fill out my squad of Rogue Trader termies to a full 10 man strength. These were painted by a good friend of mine who has been into warhammer and miniature painting with me since we were 13 or so. So, these are a teenager's work and I'll have to strip them and bring them into the fold of my army with a fresh coat of paint heh.

The inquisitor in the center is a rare figure that I always wanted to have, so I'm excited about that! The other two are a later generation from the original terminators, probably early-mid 90s?




Also, I participated in the Infinity Dakka Painting Challenge. Here was my entry, a Lizard T.A.G. for the Nomads faction. It was quite a tough competition and I think I got 31 votes or something out of 1776. Hard to stand out amongst so many amazing entries. I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out, however, and I'm excited to paint up a new Nomads force based around this unit in this color scheme.



As a side note, I think a neutral gray background is much better for photos than the diorama/lightbox I made.

Casey's Law wrote:Nice score on the marines!

I think you did a really wonderful job on your competition entry and deserved to place higher. In all honesty i don't think i voted on it but i truly wish i had. I'm not a fan of the model and i sadly allowed that to cloud my judgement when voting and not just with your model. Despite me not entering i guess i learnt from this comp that i need to think more carefully about voting.

Anyway, congratulations on your entry because you did a really nice job!

Me too! I voted impulsively and would have changed a few votes in retrospect. Oh well, hindsight is always 50-50. And thanks for the comments. I've heard that this model is polarizing, people either love it or hate it for some reason.

Well, finally back home in the states. Gonna miss a lot of the Canadian friends I've made over the last year as I wrapped up my job there and got a sweet new job at a gold mine in Colorado! Gotta find a new place to live and move, and that will be hard work as im a total pack rat and have a TON of crap.

Gonna try to finish my kameel remotes quickly. Also got in a ghulam heavy machine gun and panzerfaust figure to boot.

Was looking at minis today at the store and was so tempted to buy a fine cast chaplain with jump pack, which is an awesome figure but I resisted. I'm proud!

Now if I could quit smoking...

Got a few last minute updates before I move. Tearing my place apart atm packing and I can't wait to get out of this dump into a nice new house.

My stash has grown fairly out of control. I really need to stop buying stuff and paint what I've got. This could easily occupy 1-2 years of non-stop hobbying right here.



It'll be like mega-christmas when I unpack all this stuff in my new place!

So, I decided to try my hand at building scenery. I've been wanting to for a while and have lots of materials to do it with, just never had the motivation. Bought this Tamiya 1/35 scale brick wall kit at hobby lobby for 5 bucks and built this stuff, along with some trees I've had sitting around for a while.

I wanted this scenery to be good for 40k, infinity and malifaux, and whatever else, so I tried to make it as non-specific as possible, while also pumping in some serious detail. Pretty happy with the results, although it is a little hard to reach into some of the crevices to get a miniature in there.




















That's all for now.

Flying Pooo wrote: You made me laugh, I'm in the same boat as you.
I have enough hobby stuff for a couple years worth of painting/modelling but I just cant stop buying new stuff or getting distracted...

Nice terrain man!
I like those trees.
Are they part of a kit or scratch build?

It's definitely an addiction and the scale modeling crowd tends to be REALLY bad at holding back from piling the kits up. Far more unassembled than completed models.

The trees I bought at hobby lobby, but I painted them and used putty to cover up the gap on the base. They were a bit on the expensive side and this scenery also took a fair bit of paint.

Wow, we'll its been a while, dakka. So I've moved IRL for a new job and have had a pretty active summer. Many weekends spent mineral collecting in the Colorado Rockies. Love it!

Also discovered I really have a love for retro console games, specifically Sega genesis and dreamcast (is that retro yet?). I've spent a fair bit of money on games, controllers and other accoutrements for that particular hobby. I love my space ship shoot em ups!

As such, I really haven't done a whole lot of painting. I've only played 40k once in the last 5 months or so, and once again, completely failed to enjoy it. I think I've lost the spark of wargaming.

I do find some things about it appealing, but the 40k scene seems to have so much negativity and baggage associated with it. I haven't ever heard of anyone wanting to get together for a narrative, story-based game with heavy focus on the fluff.

Instead, it seems to be a droll recitation of stats and rules.

Plus I'm in the mountains now and there is no one around here to my knowledge that indulges in such hobbies. Maybe in Colorado springs.

At any rate, I haven't gotten a whole lot of painting done recently. And for a while my inspiration, my muse or whatever you want to call it was gone.

Up until last weekend or so. Rather than start. New project, I decided to really try and knock out some of the half-done models and projects I have laying around.

I'm easily distracted and often get bored with one model for whatever reason. Lots of times I get to a certain point where I'm waiting for one layer to dry, put it down, and start something new.

Also have numerous assembled and primed figures laying around that I haven't gotten to.

So, I'm getting some of this stuff done. So far I've completed 3 dioramas, 8 old school terminators with full basing and clear coating and 2 chronoscope models! What a good feeling to get this stuff done (and my display shelves are certainly a lot better looking!).

Still to do are space marine predator and vindicator, both about 80% complete, and my contemptor dreadnought about at 50%.

I'm also getting a bit worn out painting space marines, and damn, I still have so many more of them! Got some dark elves I want to finish up to complete that army, many of which are partially completed or poorly painted and will be stripped.

I'm getting the passion back and that's a good thing!

 Briancj wrote:
I have the same problem. I'm down to playing 40K once every few months. But, let me tell you, with 6th edition? Yeah. Me and my friends are playing wonderful, fluff-based, narrative games, and it has been a joyous resurgence.

"I don't play Warhammer 40K very often, but when I do...I play 6th Edition."

Enjoy the mountains! Fresh air! Rocks! Geocaching!

--Brian

The air is fresh at 10,000 ft, but it's also quite thin. I'm glad I quit smoking as I'm out of breath simply walking uphill or upstairs here.

So, this week has been a reprise of warhammer fantasy painting. I had these two stupid unpainted beast handlers for my dark elf hydra, which had been completed long ago. But these guys were just slacking around in the wings unpainted.

There's a reason for that. They're unappealing,, boring and basically useless accessories to a really cool model, and unfortunately necessary to field said model. So, I just got sick of looking at their primered hides and have painted them up.

This time I've taken a new approach and favored muted, earthy tones instead of the punchy, vibrant purples. I also wanted to make their skin blue-black colored and with menacing red eyes, like the D&D dark elves.

The pics are yet to come, as time each night is limited and I've been occupied with painting. Ive got a lot of stuff I want to photo all at once and hope to take some pics soon.

Update time! This one has been a long time a-comin'!

Summer has been busy. First, moved to a new place and have a nice new hobby room:





Video games for when I need a break!



Ikea display case. Really nice, but a weird Swedish model kit in its own right.



Library of artbooks, magazines and RPGs, and other games etc.



Infinity and Malifaux in their new home.



Spehss mareens interred in their display tomb.





Ok, painting!

Finally completed these guys. I'm not gonna lie, it was a chore. And they''re a pain in the ass to move around, so front-heavy. But I just love em!







And also finally completed the Dark Elf Hydra kit!







Been working on finishing this black unicorn thingy I bought years ago from Spanish company GameZone?



It's pretty sweet at any rate and there is a female wizard rider for it I'm gonna repaint.

Lastly for miniatures today, did up these two characters from the Chronoscape line of figures. I really like this line, not very useful for gaming but they're just enjoyable to paint and look at.





He's not happy someone made him spill his coffee and drop his donut!



Spooky, irradiated deep sea diver.


Aight, more completed projects! All dioramas strictly unrelated to Warhammer, but I hope you will enjoy them at any rate!

UFO diorama featuring the ship from Land of the Giants, some old-ass movie I've never seen.












Brocken Labor mecha from PatLabor anime series. Old-ass anime you've never seen!












AMT 1957 Chevy Stepside truck

Oh what a great weekend! Spent pretty much all of it completing a few miscellaneous figures for my dark elf army and a random malifaux figure. Will post some pics later.

Slowly prioritizing assembled and primed models to be painted next, as there are piles. Must resist the temptation to get bored and assemble more stuff when there are so many sad, lonely, unpainted miniatures just begging to be painted!

Also went on a terrain making spree after getting inspired by terraformers excellent work. Something so cool about making awesome scenery. I'd really like to do some Halloween themed terrain, like a graveyard and a haunted castle or something.

I read many articles on terraformers blog and learned quite a bit. I never knew acrylic craft/hobby paint from Walmart costing 97 cents a bottle could,be on par with specialized, and much more expensive, model paints.

 weetyskemian44 wrote:
Those picture links are broken which is a shame. The ones I can see look cool - I agree with you about the chronoscope range they are fun - so many characters. I like your sheriff. Nice sunglasses.

Yeah I don't know what's up with that. They seem to work about half the time, and are hosted on Flickr. Maybe I got them linked wrong?

Terrain!

Been hard at work on this stuff all weekend and evenings. I love to create dioramas and little self-contained bits of scenery, just makes a nice little world for your gaming. The more detailed, the better.

Some of this is a bit non-descript, and hopefully good for any game system or setting, and some of it is what I'm calling a regressed colony. A world that was once a high-tech space colony on an alien world, but for whatever reason the colonists regressed to a primitive state, and their technology has decayed and their buildings gone to ruin. Good sci fi, right there.

Anyway, built this stuff with MDF board cut and sanded to shape, with pink insulation foam cut and sculpted, filled in with some spackle and dressed up with sand and glue and lots of miscellaneous bits in the case of the building.

Workbench with everything in very rough shape:



Rock outcrop after spackling and sculting, starting to take shape:



Another rock outcrop, tried to make them all have nice little bits of cover while keeping a natural, organic look to them:



A ruined building, not sure if it was a house or an office or what quite yet:





Pretty much done at this point, minus the paint!



Scaled to 28mm and large hands as best as possible while still looking like a relatively practical structure. This is the first time I've ever made a full on scale model building from scratch!



Completed rock outcrop piece. Looking a bit more swampy than I'd wanted, but I'm still quite happy with how it turned out:





Painted this almost entirely with dollar walmart paints, which to my surprise, are fairly decent! I would have never believed it. I mean it's walmart...




That's it for today, gonna finish painting some rock outcrops tonight then get started on the 2 story building, which I really want to give a detailed and realistic paint job to.

 Jaidyn wrote:
Love the terrain keep up the good work XD

Thanks, there's more a-comin'!

 Briancj wrote:
The only difference between the low-end paints and GW/Reaper/P3/Vallejo is the density of the pigment. Which, when painting on a small scale, becomes important.

For terrain (and also several coats on vehicles) you can swap out the cheaper paints no problem.

Looking sharp!

Good to know. I'm gonna have to get more of the walmart paints, especially black, which you can never have enough of. I've always found it good to use a wide variety of different types of paint and from different manufacturers. Maybe it doesn't really matter, but I tend to think it prevents your miniatures from looking too homogenous in their finish, and adds visual interest.

Did a bunch of drybrushing last night on two more rock outcrop pieces and now just need to add some flocking. Going to clear coat them all, too, so my hard work doesn't get chipped too fast. I found that adding in a red-brown wash creates a subtle effect that makes the rocks look more realistic, like they're oxidized, which nearly all rocks in real life are. I'd like to make some sedimentary looking rock outcrops too.

I'm thinking this weekend I might descend from the mountains for a sagebrush harvesting mission out on the prarie. After a recent business trip to Wyoming, I saw how absolutely cool sagebrush would be as miniature trees. It's almost perfect. Hoping I don't have to drive back to Wyoming to get some, though.

Also, I believe a trip to the hobby shop is in order. I've got a halloween hankering for some evil 40k or fantasy models. I'm thinking nurgle stuff, and some dark eldar.

Well, I've really been enjoying making this terrain!

I'm painting up the 2 story ruin now, and I want to give it a lot of detail with grime and rust in every corner.

Here's where I'm at with it so far. I just went with the institutional green color on a whim, and it does kind of look nasty, but once it's been weathered and rusted it will look sweet!





Here's the last 2 rock outcrops:









Here's some old OOP Dark Elf Corsairs that I've finally gotten around to painting. Think I got them for christmas last year from my buddy. I did a bit of conversion work on them, namely gave them some spikier weapons.

Man, all I gotta say is AK interactive paints are the bees knees! Just a terrific finish with this product line, and can make any sap look like a pro.

Oxide powders, man!

 GiraffeX wrote:
The scenery is looking very impressive, really like what you've done.

Thanks man! I'm looking forward to gaming with it, as I completed all the pieces this weekend.

Also I err, went on a bit of an impulse buy shopping spree Saturday. Procured more of the new citadel line of paints, which are excellent btw. Also bought three Nurgle kits: plague bearers, nurglings and the fantasy Nurgle chaos lord. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the nurglings and plague bearers are 2012 kits, and look very nice (can you really say that about them?).

The nurglings are kind of a fun kit, and I was actually able to create 3 extra bases of nurglings with the additional ones from the plague bearer box, which was a nice bonus.

I guess I've just got a hankering for an evil 40k army, and demons fit that bill. But I'm also intrigued by dark eldar, especially if the army was built to make use of some of the more monstrous creatures and aliens they employ. I think that would be a really sweet army, if not prohibitively expensive. So I bought the fine cast set of wracks as they looked the nastiest!

My thought was to actually field dark eldar force as the bulk of a new army, with a minor detachment of Nurgle demons. I believe this is possible after looking at the allies matrix in the rule book, but they are only allies of convenience, not battle brothers.

I'll really have to look at the dark eldar and what would appeal to me most is to have a brutal and deadly close combat oriented army with lots of nasty weapons and gruesome monsters and aliens. As it stands now I'm leaning towards a haempnculus HQ with wracks as troops. I'd also like the beast master and khymerae, as the models are awesome.

Also did some major refurbishing this weekend on some very old, first edition eldar harlequins. They were in abysmal shape: broken legs, missing feet, missing arms, all needed to be stripped of,paint and cleaned of mold lines. So that required a fair bit of precision pinning and limb transplants from my dark elf sprues. But they turned out decent. As decent as these crummy old models can look, that is.

My plan with them is to run them with dark eldar, got 8 of them including a death jester, and 3 harlequins kiss, 2 fusion pistols. I might need to do more conversion work on them and give them all a kiss if they're worth it.

Would love to hear any advise on these matters!

 Bruticus wrote:
Lovely terrain. The institutional green and corrugated iron roof will look amazing when weathered to within an inch of their lives. Have you seen this crackle paint craze that is going around? Check out Neil101 and Monkeytroll's thread for some pics, it would suit a decrepit institution perfectly. The interior furnishings are also a nice touch.

Thanks bruticus! I did look at those threads, and they're very inspiring, wonderful stuff to look at. I'll have to check into the crackle paint.

The rust turned out good, I use ak interactive rust and its nice stuff, however when I clear coated the models it got darkened a little bit. It's ok, but not as rusty as it looks I coated. But I don't want the paint job wearing off during games.

Gonna finish up these Nurgle models, which are a really fun change of pace. With them, you can pretty much be as sloppy as you want and it lends itself to the model very nicely. They're disgusting and I gave them a nasty blotchy green-brown paint job, with lots of gore.

I'm a little bummed to read that dark eldar and chaos can only be desperate allies, however. That's not so good and would make for very difficult games I think. Maybe I need to consider dark eldar and eldar if I want an alliance.

 Two Spartan wrote:
Just skimmed your thread, that scratchbuilt house looks great! Cant wait to see pics of it all rusty =)

Thanks! It's actually all done, I just need to take some pics. Only have a 3-4hr window each night to do anything these days, and I've been painting Nurgle stuff. Taking pics, uploading them and getting the gallery all set can take a long time sometimes and I'd rather do other stuff. Or, I'm just lazy!

@spuj thanks that makes my day. I've been super hard at work every night makin stuff. Creativity is an amazing feeling when you hit the zone. I absolutely love seeing something made from nothing, and ideas in my head come to fruition. I really need to post the cache of pics in my camera. Tomorrow I promise!!

Speaking of the zone, I'm covered in pink insulation foam, gorilla glue and spackle. And it's great! Been working on 2 large pieces of terrain, plus finished my Nurgle plague bearers and nurglings, and have an almost finished Nurgle lord. They're disgusting, nasty and ugly. Love em!

So fun to pain gak brown and vomit green, and have it not matter. In fact, if you're painting Nurgle, the worst and most badly you can paint those colors makes the models look all the better, IMO. Nurgle models should not have clean edge highlighting and nuanced shading. They should looks like a slimy, muddy, bloody gross mess!

And as a parting thought, Devin Townsend is Canada's best-kept secret. This guy is one of the best musicians I've ever listenened to. Pure awesome win metal, if you like metal that is. Just got his Epicloud album and I haven't been able to stop listening to it!!

Well I still have a ton of pics I want to post, but I'm too lazy to get on my computer and do it.

Currently working on 2 large pieces of area terrain with hills, trees and lots of cover, and are large enough to provide cover for tanks! I'm exclusively painting them with the el-cheapo Walmart acrylics, which have a very serviceable finish, but are so damn thin the paint scratches with alarming ease. Will have to very thoroughly clear coat these pieces to prevent dings and paint chips. But for 57 cents a bottle, I don't think you could beat them.

More or less done with my Nurgle models, and need to put the finishing touches on the Nurgle lord.

I'm torn between wanting more Nurgle, enough to field a 1000-ish pt army, or dark eldar. They are both appealing but would play very differently, I imagine.


I think before buying anything more, I need to paint the Wracks and harlequins I refurbished. So easy to fall into the trap of constantly wanting more.

Progress!

Finally decided to pry myself away from the painting table long enough to upload some pics.

Here's some original RT era Eldar Harlequins, which as I mentioned were in really bad shape. I had to pin them extensively, including their legs and arms lol. I made a few improvised Harlequins Kisses for them.





Primed and ready to kill some stuff!



Also painted up a box of Nurgle Plaguebearers and Nurglings...great kits lots of fun.







I'm going to clear coat them and then add some more gloss coats to the swamp slime and blood n gore, just to make them extra nasty.

And also been making lots of scenery. Here's 2 large pieces, which are going to be hilly/rocky foresty areas with plenty of cover. I started with masonite boards that I had made attempts at painting on years ago, but well...let's just say I'm better at painting models than landscapes.



Next I glue down my insulation foam, usually with gorilla glue to ensure a very strong bond.



I do some rudimentary sculpting then add some basic terrain shapes, which will eventually be rock outcrops.



I then add more glue to ensure the additions are well-cemented together, and begin to carve them out.



I always like to place a marine on the terrain to get a general idea of scale, and make sure that the terrain will also be functional as well as aesthetically pleasing.



Next I use my soldering iron with a hobby blade attachment to partially melt the foam, so it creates the illusion of weathering. The glue seam actually was a nice accident, as it will look like a mineral vein when painted! Yay geology!



I actually cracked the knife blade attachment while doing this, hopefully it wasn't too hot!



This will even be good for tanks!



And here we are with some basic paint applied. Many more layers to go. One piece is actually like 99% done, I just wanted to buy more flocking to increase the detail level on the foliage, but otherwise they look sweet!

 Galorn wrote:
an nice technique I stumbled across and just tried out is using spackle to make a surface then "etching" in strata lines with a wire brush.

That's a pretty good idea. I've looked,at a lot of different rocks in my career, and there are a staggering amount of variations that occur naturally. It's actually quite ridiculous.

Ok this Sunday I really need to photo some stuff, but I also need to make a trip,to the hobby shop and that's like 3 hours round trip more or less. I wish there was a hobby shop in the mountains where I live.

 GiraffeX wrote:
Your scenery is looking very nice so far, the Plague Bearers are great as well.

Thanks, I finally finished them and several other projects today. I'm in the process of building a daemons/csm army. Not sure which will be the primary and which will be the ally, as they both have advantages and disadvantages.

I'm leaning towards Nurgle daemons with epidemus and csm allies with typhus, plague marines and forgefiends, as I really love those models. I also bought the new csm codex and I must say its nice to see color, even though it was crazy expensive.

I gotta say I also really like the models for the chaos cultists in the dark vengeance box set. It doesn't appear you can officially buy those models yet outside the box set, but I did see some attractive auctions for them on eBay. The idea of painting a horde army isn't very attractive to me, however. Nor would be placing the on the table and moving them around.

So, here's comes a ton of pics!

Made these extra nurglings with extra bits!



Main nurglings models.



Bloody mess! Decaptitated eldar figure, very old. Was messing around with trying to convert stuff when I was younger, and now this fallen alien has served a higher purpose.




I actually have two bases like this. I did the blood with many layers of red + red ink and gloss coat, then followed up with tamiya x-27 glossy red, which really looks realistic!






Plague bearers





Chaos champ, will count as a herald of nurgle and lead my plague bearers





The family thus far



Festus WIP. He will count a a herald or possibly epidemius



And some WIP fine cast plague marines.




Now for some dark elf stuff....I'll finish this army sme day...





Sorceress on black Pegasus! This is a game zone mini, a Spanish company. Still not quite happy with it and I even repainted the sorceress. It's a cool figure but...something about it didn't quite turn out right.







Also completed a malifaux guild captain and guild hounds set, for my Ortega clan to give them a bit more variety. You don't see many fat bald guys depicted in miniatures, lulz.





Couple things I tried on him didn't turn out too well, for instance this unfortunate tattoo....



But overall they turned out decent I think




On to some terrain projects!

Been cutting a lot of foam and stuff, and my blade shattered finally. They're designed to do this but the bits flew all over the room in different directions!! lucky none went near my face, but I wasn't wearing safety glasses and man, that stuff is serious. I'll be wearing my PPE nex time.



This is the biggest piece of terrain I've attempted yet and it's eventually going to be a spooky keep and will be a centerpiece for games. I'm just not happy with the rocks yet, and I'm gonna do some more work on it.




Here's a completed piece of temperate forest, ready for the gaming table!





A large piece of woodland, I'm really excited with how these look and getting multiple types of foliage was well worth it!











They just keep getting bigger!












And finally my ruined building. Somehow that awesome desktop computer survived the apocalypse, and I wonder if there's any Mentats in that file cabinet...








Upper floor...observe the recycled skull candy earbud

 Spuj wrote:
That is some truely awesome terrain, looks really good!

Any chance of a pic of all your terrain on your gaming table? Would be great to see it all together.

Sadly, all I have at the moment is my kitchen table! I need to draft up some plans for a dedicated gaming table, I'm thinking 6x4.

@bruticus, thanks man!

@two spartan, thanks man I appreciate the feedback. I had a log of fun adding in those details and hope to make more apocalyptic type terrain.


@ chemical cutthroat, I do love me some fallout. Haven't played malifaux in a long time now but I do dig it. Tattoos Re just really hard to execute realistically, though practice makes perfect

Not sure about that, Chem. But I do have a lot of colored pencils and am gonna be giving more models some tatts, so its worth a try.

starting a major nurgle painting campaign now. Just finished up some plague Marines and bought another box of them, more plaguebearers, and 20 chaos cultists from the DV box set on eBay.

I'm also working on a great unclean one conversion and daemon prince conversion.

btw, writing this from a new windows 8 phone and I don't know how k feel about it yet. Cool toy in some ways, but lacking in other areas.