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Hmm, I'll have to come back and look to give advice, just checking in with my pre-work coffee, though the SW stuff would look really killer.

I've been painting a little in the last month or so, just haven't finished anything especially interesting or worth sharing. I've finished a bunch of soldiers of Minas Tirith to a tabletop standard for my KoW Armies of Men force (as well as, obviously - LotR SBG and eventually - WotR). I've also finished the odd Dwarf, Human, Orc and Goblin as well, though I'll share them later down the line when they have more substantial groups to pose with. I'll try and take some more proper photos in a couple of weeks.


Dwarves and other random painting desk models. I did finally finish something worthwhile though - Beregond, first Captain of the White Tower - guard and friend of Faramir.


Both of these two were started at least four years ago, at a guess. Maybe longer. The Faramir model is quite an average sculpt in many ways and also suffers from mould slip on the face. I'm just going to use him as a more generic captain, and use a better Faramir model as Faramir. The shading on the cloak hasn't come up all that well in the pic, but then, the photo backdrop this time around is... well... read on.


This is the main reason why I decided to share Beregond here. While the pair still needs to be varnished and have flock added to their bases, I was quite happy with the freehand on Beregond. The knotwork on the front of his cloak and tunic came out decently, but The White Tree turned out quite nicely, despite the folds of his cloak making the tree look even tricky. Using white (and yellow) on black is a bit of a pain - darker colours on lighter colours would be easier but that's not really an option. Perhaps gold on off-white would work for a future cloak if it comes up.


This Dark Angels Dreadnought was originally started back during 40k second edition. I've finally dug the thing out and decided to finish it off. I also decided to stick some of the plastic DA bits from the intervening years on the model to liven it up a little more.


Dark Angel Dreadnought Legs - I tried the salt weathering technique. It went badly. The panels on the Dreads' legs are just too small, and it's probably not the best model to learn that technique on. That's been scrapped. Just trying to repaint it green now.


Dual Assault Cannons!
And there we are. The paint on the arms dates these arms back to 1997 (when I added the nWo logo) and then 1998 (when I went over it with the red of the Wolfpac). The long scroll is from 2014. I imagine the painting of this model got abandoned late in 1998 when 40k 3rd edition was released and the uber-combination of dual assault cannons on Dreadnoughts became a thing of the past. Back in the day there were no "left-handed" Assault Cannons and dreads were 100% metal models, so I cut up a right handed one (in metal) and a Missile Launcher left arm to make the above. With the Contemptor Mortis pattern Dreadnought being an actual thing, I'm also considering adding a magnetised missile launcher battery to the top of the model. Both arms are already magnetised.As part of my "1k 40k Armies" project, I've costed out a Dread with Dual assault cannon for a 1k Dark Angels army, and plan to finish this sucker off in the coming couple of weeks. Since, like the KoW forces I'm working on, the 40k armies are all going to be supplied by me for friendly games in my War Room, there should be no arguments.

I'll be showing more of the small 1k Dark Angels force in the coming weeks as well. Many of the models are already painted. I just need to sort out the vehicles and a few more troopers. And the characters.


Discount photo box. Those pics of Beregond not being the best? This is why.

The freehand on that lotr guy is really nice! I look forward to bones 2 arriving so I can try some more fantasy oriented things like that. I'd probably have to cheat and mask it though, I'm not nearly as handy at such things.

Dual asscan dread, huh, cool. So you're getting several 40k armies built to 1k to have around for people to use? Sounds cool. Like a more intensive version of my strike team for each dead zone faction thing.

Gotta hear the story behind that guy with shades and a space marine torso.

Love your painting style Azazelx, some great work here. The game board is very ambitious, but from the posts am I to understand that the Secret weapon boards have not been delivered to backers yet? Had no idea that it was so badly delayed.

Thanks Grim. I was overall happy with it. I need to get a bunch of these KoW-destined figures that are cockblocking me out of the way so I can paint some more fun stuff - like some mroe freehand stuff on some really open, flat surfaces.

And yep, multiple 1k 40k armies - basically the same as what I'm doing with the KoW stuff, except there I'm aiming for 600-1200-2k in segments. Having said that, I plan to build the 40k forces to at least 2k each as well.

Thanks Thraxas. The board should be great, assuming it all goes to plan. Or even mostly. The SWM boards are likely to arrive in August or so, if we're lucky according to the latest update. I'll have to buy another couple of boards to make up the ground properly-Zavod-style, so I'll have to wait until delivery of the KS, and then use the coupon that Justin has been promising. Hopefully it's a decent coupon, given the 10-or-so month delay and not just 10% or something like that....

The LOTR guys are looking really good, Beregond's cape is awesome (he's one of the few Gondor character models I don't have, I'm beginning to regret that now). Incidentally, I really like that version of Faramir. It's not as cool as the ranger version, but I really enjoyed painting it.

Thanks for that! I dislike the Faramir because of the mould slip and the fact that his pose is so closed. I prefer the variation on the same Faramir model where he's drawing his sword, but really my bigger issue with both of them is the helmet - it doesn't look like his helmet really - a complete lack of details
compared to the actual one

And if they were going to do that, why not give him an unhelmeted head? (similar to the Armoured Boromir)

I guess it's because I quite like Faramir (the character) and found the figure sub-par, and not worthy of him. Beregond on the other hand is quite a nice one indeed...

Oh yeah, I just realised that's the sword-drawing Faramir, I have the sword-swinging one and it's a great model. This is why I should look at my LOTR stuff more often.

Is this the one you're saying is the better version:

Because that's the one I've got and there's no mold slip and the helmet is actually OK, although that painted one GW show is terribly done.

Nice stuff so far Az. Did you ever got those instruments you needed btw? interested to see your conversions using them.

 Paradigm wrote:
Oh yeah, I just realised that's the sword-drawing Faramir, I have the sword-swinging one and it's a great model. This is why I should look at my LOTR stuff more often.

Is this the one you're saying is the better version:
Because that's the one I've got and there's no mold slip and the helmet is actually OK, although that painted one GW show is terribly done.

Yep, very much that one. Though from memory that one also has no detail sculpted onto his helmet? Not that I have an issue with freehanding stuff (I quite enjoy it) but if something is supposed to be embossed it's not nearly the same...

No instruments yet, Carlos.

You have lots of interesting projects going on.

Really like the idea of the tank graveyard and your freehand on that cloak is really nicely done

You also have the same photo box as me just in a different colour

Keep up the excellent work.

Thanks Giraffex! Hope to have some mroe actual finished stuff to share soon.

Hoping to get the two Minas Tirity Banner bearers finished tonight. Would have been last night but I had to give the WIP-banners a coat of future to protect them, since they seem to be made of especially chip-happy pewter. So tonight!

Then onto that Dreadnought till it's done.
And also half-finished Denethor.

Then a bunch of decent photos next weekend

A couple of days ago, while looking for some models - some MIA Plaguebearers for an upcoming Daemons Unit (didn't find the bastards, either!) I found my Eureka USMC models that have been missing since I packed up all my stuff for the move about 2 years ago. I've decided to rotate them back into my paint queue shortly (after a couple of higher priority jobs). So with that in mind, I've found my original P&M blog for them that petered out shortly after starting (due to all kinds of crap going on at the time...) and so I'm reposting it, it edited form for 2014...

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Something different to the standard 40k P&M I guess, but since I’m quite excited about these new Modern USMC figures from Eureka, I’ve decided to start painting them already – typically figures sit in my “to do” pile for anywhere between months and forever (don’t ask me how many unpainted Space Marines from the 1990’s I still have). Moderns though – I’ve always wanted to get hold of moderns, but until very recently they have always been in 20mm, or quite frankly – not good enough models for me to be willing to spend money on. I guess I’m a bit of a snob in that sense, but I grew up with Games Workshop sculpts by Jes Goodwin, the Perry Twins, Kev Adams, Mark Copplestone et al, and later on, figures by the Rackham crew, so seeing figures that looked mostly-smushed or not much better than what I could sculpt myself never did it for me.

I started by basing them on 25mm rounds from Proxie Models. A couple of months ago I ordered a ton of bases ($70 worth) from Ken after some recommendations on Dakka, and they are both dirt cheap and excellent quality. I’m tempted to order more just to have a healthy stockpile for the future.



One of the new things I’ve decided to try with these was the coloured primers I picked up from Vallejo. These are the new Acrylic-Polyurethane primers. I picked up the full range of 10 colours in the 200ml bottles, in the hope that I’ll never need to buy the stuff again.



I’ve heard people talk about how they’re wonderful for plastics but not so great for metals. Well, they applied very nicely and smoothly to my Marines using a 3/16 flat brush, and once dry, the paint has indeed “shrunk” into the detail, leaving them unobscured.
I have to say, using coloured primer has been a little hard to get my head around – after more than a decade of using a spray can, using a brush to apply coloured paint just seemed wrong in some way – like I’ve started basecoating without undercoating. The Vallejo primer was very smooth in it’s application, and feels quite nice on the models. I used a 2:1 mixture of RAL8000 German Green Brown with White, as I figured if I’m going to use coloured primer I may as well lighten it to be a bit closer to what will be my main base colour.
In all, it turned out well. After drying I’ve spotted a few places on a number of the figures that I’ll need to touch up. After that, basecoats!

The one thing I wasn't sure about was the basing of the sniper. He’s too big for a 40mm round, which leaves me with a choice of the two 40k cavalry bases. The WFB square one leaves his rifle overhanging, which means I could more easily position him as shooting out of a window etc, but the round one will better protect the rifle from damage in storage, transport and play. I can also do a little more on the base by adding some rocks and such, though not to the extent of making a mini-diorama, as I feel they detract from models when used as gaming pieces. I also prefer round(ed) bases. A 60mm round would be overkill, I feel. I’m using another figure as a spotter, but I prefer to have 2-man teams based separately as it offers more flexibility on the tabletop and in storage.





In the end, I went for the rounded base for the extra protection. Since with these figures I’ve decided that I want to try a bunch of new materials and techniques, I found the Vallejo Sandy Paste that I purchased awhile back, and decided to ladle it onto their bases. I hadn't used this kind of material for basing before, and have only used non-textured acrylic pastes for adding bulk, such as on my FoW DAK, and then going over the top with regular fine sand. Since the Proxie bases have a slight indent and the Eureka figures have an integral metal base, I used the paste to level out the tops of the bases, using a sculpting tool to apply it, and the same brush as I used for the primer to wipe it off when I got too much on their boots.



Verdict – the paste is way too fiddly to use on something like a 40k army or a full historical army, but should be fine on a smaller skirmish force like these ones. Finally, I added some kitty litter to the bases to add some texture as rocks. I’m going for a more rural Afghan-style base, rather than simply sand. I added a couple of the larger stones to the front of the sniper, to make it look like he’s found a spot that affords him a little bit of visual cover, while still keeping him in theme with the rest of the figures (so no bricks or ruins).



Now I just need to touch up the primer where it got rubbed off during the basing, and the actual painting can begin! Or continue!

===========

In other stuff, I've 90% finished that Late 2nd Edition Dark Angels Dread, and I'll be posting up some pics soon (probably on the weekend) to get some feedback on leg posing. I've also restarted on the Mentor Legion Dread that I started at the beginning of 3rd Edition with planbs to finish him off as well (photos to come, also). Then I'll probably show something I've restarted that's even more retro, but in the same vein...

And yeah, those Minas Tirith Standards. Still got to finish them, too...

Huh, cool. Good to have some soldiers to prowl around your tank graveyard, hope they're good at fighting zombies as you've got a lot of those too

The tanks arrived yesterday, too! I'll be picking them up on Friday. Along with my titanium hobby knives and blades (for cleaning restic!)

Sweet, remember to change them out every couple of minutes

So it’s been awhile – almost a month since my last proper post. Combination of being tired from work and watching The World Cup (it’s on in the early AM hours, here), poor weather, no motivation to take photos, and going through boxes and boxes of stuff that had been in storage has all ganged up, even though I’ve now had more than a week off from work (though with unrostered days in, and work at home – the nature of “holidays” in my work, I’m afraid. Also, friends coming over a fair few times for some intense 4-way-LAN sessions of Dead Island.

The 24 tanks I ordered from Korea for Zavod 311 have come in, and I’ve almost finished the assembly on 4 of them. Pics in a proper update, later. I received some much-needed bits from a Dakka-friend, Carlos13th – to create a couple of musicians and such for Gondor. Also a work in progress that I’ll share later with proper photos of the figures.

What I have today, though are some photos taken from a large 8-player Kings of War battle last Saturday night. Our regular LAN-and-other-gaming friends, Pyro and Orez brought some of their old-timey Pathfinder friends over to play some games. We ended up playing KoW – 1800pts per side with each player controlling roughly 600pts. It took a fair while, mostly due to people getting to grips with the rules (and I haven’t played much lately, either!) and a fair amount of planning and bickering between allies and opponents alike, as it the nature of very-multiplayer games.



The Order of Battle on the Good side was comprised of a 600pt Basilean contingent, led by a Paladin with holy book (army standard) and Wizard, featuring a unit of Mounted Paladins, Foot Paladins, Men-At-Arms and a unit of Heavy Bowmen. These were all proxied from Rackham Confrontation Lions pre-paints, which resulted in much better looking Men-at-Arms models! Unfortunately, due to some issues with the Elohi figures (terrible arms and weapons) they didn’t make it to the field this time. Once I’ve found parts to proxy their horrible, mould-lined and ill-fitting arms and weapons (as I already have for the heads) then they’ll be painted and join their mortal counterparts. Mantic… almost!

Allied with the Basileans was a 600pt contingent from Minas Tirith. The Men of Gondor (Armies of Men) were led by Beregond, a standard bearer, and were made up of a unit each of Knights, Shieldwall, Spear Phalanx, and Archers.

Finally, sub-commanded by myself and Orez were 1200pts of Ogres. Warlord on Chariot, Standard on Chariot, a Shaman with a unit of Berserkers, one large unit of Ogre Warriors, two small units – one standard and the other with 2-handed weapons, and finally, a unit each of Crossbows and Blunderbusses. And I think I may have forgotten a single-ogre unit that might be supposed to be in there as well.




Fighting for the Evil Team on the day was a battle-tested 1200pts of Pan-Elven force (Twilight Kin), led by a mounted High Priestess, A Dark Avenger Hero and Standard Bearer on Cold Ones. The troops were a large unit of Knights supported by Spearmen, Darksome Guard with 2-Handed weapons, Shadows, Wardancers (Blade-dancers), Gargoyles and Heralds of Woe (scout cavalry). Finally, a Reaper Bolt Thrower.

Their allies were 1200pts of Undead, worked out the day before and based on “What undead stuff do I have painted?” So an unusually hard-hitting, elite-style undead army with one unit of skeletons, one unit of ghouls, one small unit of mummies, 2 units of Wraiths (Army of the Dead), a unit of Werewolves (Rackham to the rescue, once again!) and a Balefire Catapult, all led by a Liche King, played ably on the night by the Mouth of Sauron.





In the end, we played 4 full turns, no scenario. After one of our number let us know that he had to leave shortly, the game took off at a much faster pace. So we were finished by around about midnight with what was effectively a draw – 3 units destroyed on each side. Thanks to all for coming, and especially PE for taking photos, since I forgot to bring my camera out to the room several times, so all of these photos are thanks to him.

Overall I felt that the Undead and Elves had a significant advantage in that they both had an artillery piece each, while the good side had none (this will be rectified!) and a significant speed and manoeuvrability advantage – the Werewolves with Speed 9 and Elves with their fast cavalry (S9) units overwhelm all of the others (Ogres merely go from S6 on foot to S7 in a chariot for some reason) and the units with Fly all being on the Evil side – Gargoyles and 2 units of Wraiths. Again, this will be balanced out when the various armies that I’m building start to fill out towards 1500 and 2000pts.

* Ogres will get Red Goblin Cavalry (played by wolves without goblin riders), and units of chariots (played by Ogre Stonetusk cavalry)

* Gondor will get Trebuchets and Ballistas as well as Rangers of Ithilien and Swan Knights of Dol Amroth (using Elven Ranger and Elven Knight stats respectively, as befits the elite of Gondor – but no gunpowder or Ogre units, despite the KoM list, as I want the army to fit the Gondor theme.) As well as more foot troops. And eventually, they will be joined by my unpainted Rohirrim.

* Basilea will get their Elohi Angelic units and possibly some exotics like Griffons and Phoenixes, as well as more foot troops.

* The Undead will ironically, get more non-elite units – more skeletons, ghouls and zombies to fill out their numbers, as well as undead cavalry, wights and more heroes to Dark Surge their minions forward.

* The Elves will be split into two forces (once a lot more painting happens – High (Blood) Elves with their woodland offsiders, and proper Druchii – Dark Elves. This will mean warhawks, and possibly treemen/Ents and perhaps a Phoenix on the High side, and things like Manticores, Hydras and even a Cauldron of Blood on the Dark side.

* And then I can start on adapting Nurgle, Chaos Warriors, Beastmen and Chaos Dwarves. I really can’t wait for those…

More pics on the Wordpress blog, as per usual.

Looks like it was fun! I keep meaning to try out KOW with my hundreds of LOTR figures and proxies, but I just can't get into Fantasy gaming at the moment. I have a feeling that Minion Miniatures may change that, or maybe Dwarf King's Quest from Mantic, if the value is good.

Looking forward to the tank pics.

I'll echo Para, sounds like much fun was had, great to see all those different minis getting along on one table to duke it out.

Looking forward to the tanks also.

So far I've assembled 4 tanks to near-completion. Since they're rather tedious to clip, clean and assemble, I'm just trying for 2 a day at the moment. So.. 20 more to go.

Then I'll start on the batch-painting!

Brave soul, i'm not sure i have batch painting in me anymore, even when i'm doing a regiment for supposed kow style games i still can only paint maybe five at a time.

Well, my batch-paint plan involves aerosol cans, an airbrush, salt, hairspray and then some weathering powder and fixative.

A "normal" brush would only come in at the final stage before final varnishing. After they're basically finished - if I decide to add some rough hand-lettered numbers like you see in the Ukrainian reference pics.

That should help, airbrushing and rattle cans change the game a bit. The best i can do with a brush is maintain a 2-5 model 'productivity queue' where i've got something else ready to use up extra paint.

I've got 11 batch-painted Gondor rangers that only need less than an hour worth of finishing their faces and hands. I haven't been able to motivate myself to finish them for the past three days. If they weren't some of the worst figures I've ever painted, they'd be done and dusted by now.

Then I have 21 more Minas Tirith Soldiers to do, and 6 Knights of Minas Tirith that also have less than an hour's work to finish. And have for a bit over a week now. Again, mental block from painful figures...

I think it's the 'having to do it' that kills me. I've got 8 dr who minis to paint up for a diorama but since i've got a deadline i keep finding excuses not to do it.

So as a complete Painting ADHD tangent, I'm trying to work out which way to go with painting my Chaos/Abyssal Dwarfs.

There's the traditional "Brass/Red/Black" type schemes, which look pretty good, but possibly shares a bit too much in common with Khorne (who will come later).


Then there's the version that brings in a lot of blue as well, but I'm not too fond of this one. It's a bit too 1990's over-coloured (which, admittedly, is how my CD Bloodbowl team of those days looked. I just dug them out, I need to finish off those figures as well...)


Even when it's much more copper and less red, it's still got a similar feel:

(red metals, whod'a thunk it?)

Then there's green and metallic green armour - probably accented with gold/brass/copper etc - I was always partial to it from the early WFB3 days


My only real concern with the green is that my Dark Elves/Twilight Kin are already using a Metallic Turquoise colour scheme (with gold/brass accents), going both into more blueish and more greenish, depending on the unit. I wanted to avoid the "traditional" purples and blues that DE always seem to be in.

A third option is to use both green and red, and use the gold/brass/copper elements to tie them all together.

Any thoughts?

Paint them like their armor is lava! Or like heated metal that's just starting to cool.

Green seems somewhat less traditional, so maybe the green and red together? Unless... have you considered classic glossy black with stark highlights? Also, what about something off-kilter like white? Of course it would have to be soot-stained white, or maybe a medium grey?

I'm going glossy black without highlights for the Obsidian Golems that I'm working on today, though I'm painting in a kind of glow effect between the rocks to represent the magical magic that animates them (rather then the usual inner-lava-glow that we see). Pics sooner or later. I'll need to figure out the army's colours before I can do their armour plates, though.

Dirty/stained white.. that's a painful colour and a lot of work. I might do it down the line with Death Guard, but even that's not for certain.

Green and Red together might just work. Red for the Big-Hatted Dwarves, and Green for the real old-school ones, and the FW ones that lack big hats. Not sure. There are figures in the force that I really want to paint in each of the two colour schemes.

My vote goes to the red/black/bronze scheme. Those colours really do work together, and have very nice contrast. Not a fan of the green, to be honest (I've always seen dwarves as having very earthy brown-red-black tones rather than natural green that I associate with Elves).

Hmm yeah white is probably too much trouble. I forget not everybody dips their white like me . Golems sound cool, looking forward to those.