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Air compressor broke... in the middle of working on a bunch of stuff. FML.

New air compressor acquired! More projects inbound... Far too many actually... PICS incoming,

Congrads on the new compressor and really looking forward to seeing your newest project(s). Everything you've done so far has been excellent and I still ref this thread for your IG wayyyyy back at the beginning.

Largish update

First of all, I got an Ork army off of Ebay. Did not look that great and I wanted to do Deathskulls so I have to do some rehab. Here is the before and after comparison:


Before

After

I like it. Greenskins are fun to paint!

Next up are my WIP Death Guard Plague Marines Squad. I am running them old school with True Gritting Boltguns and plagueknives. I heard that I get plagueknives back with the new dex... happy day!


Finally, last but not least, I have a magnetized contemptor mortis dreadnought. I can run him as a regular contemptor or as a mortis and I have the options for:

Kheres Assault Cannons

Twin Linked Auto Cannons

Heavy Conversion Beamer and CCW

Here with everything.


More to come. I am on a roll here!

Wow, you've been busy. Wicked decent job on the Mek, and the Plague Marines are excellent.

If Plagueknives have returned to the rules I'm going to very happy.

Yay, plagueknives have, in fact, returned!

Also... Borderlands 2, MoP, and XCOM don't want me working on my blog. I am going to tell them to piss off.







Not sure if I am serious...

Plagueknives aren't as brutal as they used to be, but that's ok. Wounding on a 4+ against T5-??? is still pretty awesome.

If it is any consolation, I'm playing Balder's Gate II for maybe the 8th time, this time w/ a friend of mine. We're on chapter III.

Well... after FAR too long of a hiatus, I am back in the saddle and painting again.

Life gets in the way. ++Personal life rant incoming ++ (Don't worry I will keep it brief)

My back has recovered for the most part after my surgery. I have regained most of my feeling in my legs, about 80% of the strength, and I am not in agony constantly. Still cannot feel my feet very much but I am lucky to have retained full use of everything from the knees up. Thank you based emprah! Oh yeah and Virginia Mason Regional Medical Center they did the real work. My daughter has a heart surgery planned for the 5th that should fix a defect she was born with. ASD Closure if you care to look it up. Very reliable procedure I am told. Also looking to fix up and sell my home... and looking for openings in higher volume theatres sooooooo yeah. Life.

Okay, now to the good stuff. The Warhams!

Sold the Orks.

Just was not feeling it. Made a slim profit turning them over.
I have returned to an old ally.
Tau. I could not resist the Riptide,
and Fire Warriors getting buffed,
and Missilesides,
aaaand longstrike, omg.

Not used to Tau being awesome since Fish of Fury died. Yes I WAS one of those guys. http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Fish_of_Fury


So anyways. I also picked up some Badger Minitaire paints because MBG over at Spikey Bitz won't shut up about them! (j/k Rob, these paints are amazing. I don't care if your articles sound like infomercials) http://minitaire.com/ has the info on the paints. I ended up buying the full set. They airbrush beautifully straight out of the bottle. Needed to mess with PSi a bit but they are terrific. Nice bright range. I have found that some of them behave a little oddly when brushing on. They seem to dry rather quickly. I am also excited to work with the Ghost Tints. Just need to find the right project...

So I picked up a Commander, 2x Riptides, 3x Broadsides, 2x Hammerhead/Skyray kits, a Crisis Team, 32 Fire Warriors, and 2x Pathfinder Teams to start me off. I decided to go with a theme that I have only seen one other time online.

Tau Swamp Fighters! PidGinRat His Blog Here: http://advancedtautactica.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14201 at ATT had some wonderfully characterful Tau that I loved and I decided to do something similar, albeit with different tools and techniques.
Here is my first step with the Fire Warriors. They are primed with Vallejo Model Air Black Surface Primer and painted with Badger Minitaire Swamp Ground and Pestilence Flesh. The pic is kind of lousy but you get the drift.


So from then I moved on to use many other techniques, from Oil Washing and weathering and highlighting to basing them using Secret Weapon's Blasted Wetlands bases and Realistic Water. The final minis are below.

Group shot.

And a couple of favorite standouts...

Now I am focusing on the Riptide. Going for some gradient goodness from the airbrush. He is fully magnetized. So far a lot of fun. He will be just as gritty as there others when he is done.

He looks a little bright in the photo but he is the exact same color scheme as the FW team. More to come.

It feels good to be back. I missed you Dakka.

Ordered Vallejo Liquid Gold Old Gold alcohol based metallic. I have heard that it is the bomb. We shall see...

Metallic paints have been the bane of my existence. So hard to get a smooth and even coat without clumping.

Be really interested to see how that works out for you. I have the old gold, silver and copper but never yet used them. Ifalna got some amazing results with the gold, iirc.

I will have to take a peek. I always loved her stuff.


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Dear God... Space Hulk and Rome II Total War are both out. Luckily I am broke! Time to paint!

Nice blog, man! The IG are smooth, and well composed. The conversions are subtle yet effective, overall, I like it!

Thanks for the kind words, lipsdapips. I am really enjoying the finished army. I am looking to add some of the Raging Heroes minis from the Kickstarter and perhaps a few more custom units. I really like the variety of squads. (Plus they are awesome for killteam.

Update Time!

WIP shots of my Riptide about 70% complete. He is covered in gloss but he is showing off some techniques I am using for the first time: Hairspray paint weathering and glow effects.

First a straight on shot that kind of shows the weathering on the legs and the

Another shot with the ion cannon kind of showing off the heat glow.

And a closeup of the chipping effect. The 3D look is due to the paint actually being slightly raised above the rest. It looks great in person.


Thoughts? How did the glow turn out? First time trying that. Too subtle? Not subtle enough?

What do you think of the weathering?

The hairspray weathering is awesome, I've never tried it myself, most impressed. The glow - and don't take this the wrong way - is imo a bit too realistic! It's very good, perhaps too subtle though. OSL tends by necessity to be a bit over the top. But, the Riptide looks very cool indeed.

 inmygravenimage wrote:
The hairspray weathering is awesome, I've never tried it myself, most impressed. The glow - and don't take this the wrong way - is imo a bit too realistic! It's very good, perhaps too subtle though. OSL tends by necessity to be a bit over the top. But, the Riptide looks very cool indeed.

The weathering I like as well. I was a little worried when it started crackling. (I used a bit too much spray I think) but in the end it turned out. It is slightly raised over the surface and definitely looks sprayed on, which is what I am going for.

Noted on the OSL.. trying to go for a realistic heat glow effect. It looks pretty muted in the photos. It looks more vibrant up close.and I think the gloss kills the effect. I will see if better photos help.

Also I just started with the Vallejo Liquid Gold and I think I am in love... it is soo bloody brilliant. It covers amazingly well unlike any other metallic I have used. Even Mithril Silver has nothing on it. It is worth all the hassle working with Alcohol to have a gold that looks this gorgeous. I will never use water based golds again.


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More pics. Almost done with this beast.

Vallejo Liquid Gold Old gold is amazing. I love it.

Closeup of the Ion Cannon to show the OSL better.

Closeup of the Burst Cannon.

Closeup of the engine OSL.

Head Closeup.

Closeup of the swamp base still early WIP.

Yeah, that's impressive, and the glow is top notch!

Wow, fantastic weathering!

I came, I saw, I subbed to this amazing thread.

Wow. Cool to see you back, and that's some great work to herald your triumphant return with.

The weathering is A+, very well done. Totally captures the 'maintained but used' effect.

Looking forward to seeing whatever you do next.

Glad you guys like the weathering. Thank you for the kind words. He is fully magnetized for all weapon options. I will be finishing his drones and weapons next as I am pouring the realistic water in his base. (Doing this in stages to allow it to fill the base as the stuff shrinks. It took 2-3 pours and drying sessions to fill the fire warriors bases.

Next project will be a few gunships. I am building one as a Railhead with a removable hatch for an optional Longstrike. The other one I plan to be magnetized and swappable from Ionhead to Railhead to Skyray.

What do you guys think I should do with the bases for the Gunships? Should I stick with the stock skimmer base? Replace the pit with something more sturdy? Try and rig a swamp base that would work for them? Thoughts?

Here is a quick list of what I have remaining to work on for this army (sitting in boxes ready to go, not still to purchase.)

Another Riptide.

Commander Battlesuit

Crisis Team

Broadsides x3

Pathfinder Box

The aforementioned Gunships.

22 more Fire Warriors.


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 inmygravenimage wrote:
Yeah, that's impressive, and the glow is top notch!

Glad you like it. Not sure why my lightbox pics appear to be worse than those at my desktop

Obviously something to do with the settings I am using on my DSLR camera.


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 Skalk Bloodaxe wrote:
Wow. Cool to see you back, and that's some great work to herald your triumphant return with.

The weathering is A+, very well done. Totally captures the 'maintained but used' effect.

Looking forward to seeing whatever you do next.

Maintained but used is what I am going for. I figure the Tau are meticulous and would not let things go to disrepair but that on this world, maintenance is a nightmare... I imagine that these Tau are fighting an extended campaign on a death world and they have to deal with the enemy, the local fauna, and the corrosive nature of the environment such that cosmetic repairs are sidelined. I imagine this riptide was deployed in pristine condition with brand paint and stripes and as this campaign has progressed the repair teams have been fixing major battle damage and corroded parts but are not about to take the time to put some new paint on it.

I also figured that whatever the gold parts are, be it gold or another similar metal, that it is a metal that is very resistant to corrosion. Any idea what those big disc things are on the jet pack? Besides interesting looking details that make the model look cool? Like, what do they actually DO?

Ran out of secret weapons realistic water. I found out that it is just Acrylic Gloss Medium.

Ordered a huge ass bottle...

Like a boss!

I saw that you mentioned trouble with metallic paints. Have you tried the semi-metallic metallic method? (Using a non metallic color, such as brown, and then drybrushing your metallic (in this case bronze) over it.) I've found that it eliminates clumping and streaking, and leaves a very subtle metallic finish. (Although it doesn't photograph as well as it looks, I nevertheless have several examples in my gallery.)

Good looking tau! I've got a large amount of the SWM swamp bases for my OWN Tau, actually. Good to see that they look so sweet.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I saw that you mentioned trouble with metallic paints. Have you tried the semi-metallic metallic method? (Using a non metallic color, such as brown, and then drybrushing your metallic (in this case bronze) over it.) I've found that it eliminates clumping and streaking, and leaves a very subtle metallic finish. (Although it doesn't photograph as well as it looks, I nevertheless have several examples in my gallery.)

Good looking tau! I've got a large amount of the SWM swamp bases for my OWN Tau, actually. Good to see that they look so sweet.

I have tried the semi-metallic method. This is the way I have to do it if I am using regular water based metallic mica metallic. The Vallejo Liquid Metal alcohol based stuff, I have discovered, is far superior at giving a brilliant metal finish. For tarnished looks there is still something to be said for the other stuff, but the vallejo stuff just looks so damn good.

In Tau Army Update related stuff.

I got the Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid (Gloss) and have found that it is NOT the same as the Secret Weapon Realistic Water... It looks like PVA glue. This troubles me. It is supposed to dry as a glossy clear layer. I poured it 48 hours ago and patches are still milky white and it has not dried yet. I am worried that I may have ruined my riptide's base. I am going to give it a solid week and see how it looks. It it dries clear I will switch to actual realistic water, or the actual medium that I think the realistic water actually is. With some testing I believe it to be Acrylic Gloss Varnish.

Thankfully I have a bottle of Liquitex Gloss Varnish sitting around. I am crossing my fingers that I do not have to scrap the base and redo it.

A couple of quick WIP shots of the Hammerhead / Skyray that I am working on while waiting for the base to dry on my riptide.. Been a week. Never again will I use Acrylic Glazing Liquid for this purpose. The same as realistic water my butt!

Just a base coating and quick highlighting from the airbrush and then an oil wash. Sorry about the crappy photo. Taken on my iPhone.



Going to do a similar process as I did on the riptide.

Next update I plan to show the completed riptide. If it ever dries that is...

Shading on that is glorious mate. I get a whole Amazon river snake vibe off your Tau scheme that I just love.

OMG I see it now!

I am digging this army even more now. Thanks for the mental image.

I live to give *bows*

Soooo...

The acrylic glazing liquid is finally drying. It has been weeks. Utterly ridiculous. I would never have used the stuff for the Riptide's base if I knew it would take this long. It IS drying clear, thank the emprah! I should hopefully have pics of the completed model in a few days.

In the meantime I have been working on my Gunship and a trio of Ravenwing bikers. No pics on the Ravenwing yet as I am still playing around with them.

Progress on the gunship below. Missing some details and weathering but about 80% done. Should be done in a day or so. Then I shall post finished pics!

Some really amazing work here. I love it, especially your imperial guard