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 Azazelx wrote:
@Nick - those heads relaly improve those figures no end. Much nicer look than the square hats. Looking forward to how they start to turn out. The Karists have come up nicely also. Do you intend to add any texture to their bases?

Thanks, to answer your question allow me to quote myself.

 Nick Ellingworth wrote:
I'm not going to reveal my full basing plans just yet as I'm waiting for the stuff I need to be delivered (this week I hope!) but I will say that it involves my first use of tufts for bases.

The good news is that Dark Sphere dispatched my order yesterday so hopefully today or tomorrow I'll be able to make a start on the basing.

I've also got pretty much all the base colours done on the Epirians, so I should be able to get them done quite quickly too.

Sort of half of a Kult of Speed. This was a test order from Vanguard miniatures for some of TMG's 'honestly not Orks' Skinners. A pack of not Nobz Warbikes, Warbikes and Grottanks (which will count as Wartracks in the Speed Freak list). Quite impressed with them to be honest; good detailing, reasonably priced (for Epic minis anyway) and there is a decent range of stuff. I will put some better pictures on my PLOG when I get the chance.

I did paint up 8 stands of Warbikes but I only appear to have 7 now, I suspect that the 8th will either turn up in my son's toy box or mangled in the hoover

I have some stuff incoming from Ebay; Skorchas, Trukks and a Gunfortress so far, so that will probably make up the rest of the months painting.



This is the Blitzbrigade that I finished before Christmas and all that I had painted for this project before this month.

I never got into epic as my detail skills are not great, but those look fantastic.

To be honest they are generally very easy to paint, the only thing is that you have to be neat.

Ork infantry will probably be a nightmare though, and I have about 30 stands of them to do.

Looking great, Silent Puffin! Very nice to see one of the original plastic battlewagons in there too

Keeping on the Ork theme, I've made a bit of progress on my 10, should be on track to get them done this month:

Lots of classic ork goodness on the page, nice to see from Silent Puffin and Slinky.

I have decided to make a start on my Beyond The Gates Of Antares Algoryn with the following two units:

Algoryn Command Team:



Algoryn AI Team with Mag Light Support:



Good luck everyone.

Now, see, when you were trying to sell me on GoA... why didn't you lead with the cool power armored aliens?

Got my first movement tray lined out, what I want to do should be possible, at least. Will try to paint some today but y'know.

Ooh some GoA. Good to see yet more variety in this thread.

I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with your Algoryn Thraxas.

 Slinky wrote:
Looking great, Silent Puffin! Very nice to see one of the original plastic battlewagons in there too

Its the sole survivor from the Space Marine box that I bought when I was about 10

I've made a bit of progress on my first six Dystopian figures. I'm trying to assembly-line paint them, but I'm getting a bit distracted by some other Prussians I'm painting on the side. Still, I managed to get three figures done last night, even if only one is actually for this project. I'm at a point where I should be able to complete two more today, which will have me halfway finished for this month. With luck, I'll be done by next Monday.

I'm loving the diversity in projects on here - we've got Infinity, Epic, various Mantic stuff, GW stuff, Medge, Spartan Games, Gates of Antares...

I love it because I love seeing all the minis from various KS, new companies or whatever actually "in the wild".

Could use some help here guys. I think I like the black washed guys on the right more than the red washed guys on the left, both I like more than the grey guys I used originally. Also should I paint the spearshafts or have them be the same terracotta as the rest of the unit?

The black wash looks better, as they are a single colour you need as much contrast as you can get.

I think that the spearshafts are fine as they are although perhaps you could give them metal weapons?

Making the weapons metal will be a lot of extra work. Up to you though. Blackwash is superior.

Thanks Silent Puffin?, I think I'll have to pick up some better metallics and try for a bronze as I believe that's what the actual terracotta soldiers had.

I would also probably give them a dry brush as well but that would add significantly to their painting time

Gotta agree with Silent Puffin? Those terracotta warriors would really pop with a drybrush. Though they still look good with the black wash.

Also my Dark Sphere order has arrived and basing the Karists has begun.

Thanks Again Silent Puffin? You sure talk a lot for a silent Puffin , Maybe we'll change you to quiet spoken yet really helpful puffin.....probably wouldn't fit the Username space though

Thanks as well Nick, Ill see what a drybrush will look like on them after the ink completely dries, probably tomorrow night as we have family stuff tonight and a funeral in the A.M. Also looking forward to seeing more of the Karists popping up.

I really regret my choice of username.....

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
I really regret my choice of username.....

I like it , It's original, and at least got a chuckle out of me. Better than a word not many others know what the meaning of is, or a name of a character from a book who you might not reflect.

Its the product of a random name generator so its not as if I can take the credit

If you are going to do metallic weapons I would suggest verdigrised copper. Copper base coat, light dry brush with a very light blue green (some kind of teal/turquoise mixed with bone for example) paint and then a watered down green wash. Quite a lot of work though and to be honest they may be too eye catching given the very limited colour palette that you have used.

One more vote for the black wash

Over in my P&M Blog it was suggested to just keep the weapons as is because 3' away your not going to tell the difference between Terracotta and Bronze. I think I'm going to go with that approach. I am thinking about painting the cloth around the legs though , like the army dressed the terracotta guys, which might also bring in some color. I thought about doing the eyes as a glowing color, but they are way too tiny to try and pick out, so I will have to go with complete uniformity on the terracotta guys. Also thinking of painting the dragons similar to the warriors.

Mantic Ogre and Blood Rage giant for scale. I have 2 of them which are identical, just different paint schemes (prepainted figures) I think I'll use them as Pheonix in the Basilea lists.

Also Army list is shaping up to look like this

(4x) Spearman regiment (20)
(2x) War-Wizard
(2x) Phoenix
comes to 990 with no Magic items or upgrades

It might not be the most creative list there is, but the Phoenix each bring flying Breath-attack (10), inspiring, Heal (6) and regeneration 5+ to the show, the War-Wizards bring fireball (8) each to the show and the spearmen are decent sized blocks with Phalanx to reduce the thunderous charge.

This also gives me the chance to work on the bases to the models and my painting challenge (though small) will look like this.
January - 20 spearmen
Feb - Dragon/Phoenix and a war-Wizard
March - 20 Spearmen
April - Spearmen
May- Dragon/Phoenix and a war-Wizard
June- Spearmen

I should be able to easily accomplish these tasks and still add more to the force so I can have different lists. Honestly, once I decide on a final terracotta trooper paint scheme I want to knock out 100+ of them in really short order.

Edit: Thanks Slinky

Man that's a lot of dakka. My orcs are probably glad of the geographical hurdle, getting trounced regularly would make them sad.

You can't just hit the eyes and surrounding area with the glow color and it osl?

 Theophony wrote:

Could use some help here guys. I think I like the black washed guys on the right more than the red washed guys on the left, both I like more than the grey guys I used originally. Also should I paint the spearshafts or have them be the same terracotta as the rest of the unit?

Wikipedia, the Font of All Truth, tells us that the originals were equipped with standard weapons, so if you want them to stand out, you could just paint them like you would for any other army.

Also, wouldn't a dark brown wash work better on terracotta than black?

Black and red were close at hand, and the strong gone if I use it on these guys will get the Browns in there as well. I think the weapons will stay terracotta for now, will likely get painted black later though.

I think I'll skip the osl, I think it might be scarier if it was just a moving lump of clay instead.

Another vote for Black Wash. Also a vote for a quick drybrush, at least on the upper body - the lamellar armour should pop nicely. I'd imagine doing the weapons would be easier then pants - and probably more "realistic" to give them real weapons than real pants!
I've almost finished the two bases of Spartans that's been taking up my time recently. Then I can work on the first Undead unit for this challenge!

Also - Jackal has joined us with his Epic 40k stuff!

I'd go with the blck wash but I'd temper it with a little coelia greenshade (a cold blue/green shade) mixed in with the black

Okay, I guess I'll bite. I'll enter my Tau as my army of choice for the next few months. As those of you watching my P&M blog know, I'm currently working on some Breachers, but I have lots of other stuff to do as well, so it should keep me going.

Right, I have finally managed to knock off the 8th of my armies and its time to get stuck into the 9th which will be my focus for this challenge.

The Tyranids.

SO, the hardest part of any new army is trying to sort out a colour scheme, so I am putting this guy here as a litmus test to see what people think before I knuckle down and try to punch out a lot of these guys for January's offering.



It is a quick and dirty (15 odd minutes) test piece, I want to really make the weapon symbiotes a different creature (hence a fairly different scheme). Let me know your thoughts so I can get cracking.

I will be running my plog as usual so only finished photos will make there way over here in future, so if you are interested how I am going feel free to stop by and say hi (ok, shameless plug over).

Thanks for reading.