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Righty ho guys not been able to do painting today as ive been at work all day today so sadly no pics from me this time but to answer the question by LadyCassandra and Melcavuk

I know what you both mean with the photos they were only taken quickly and next time when i have better light will get some better pics with a white back ground

And to LadyCassandra the blue that has gone over is meant to be my first attempt at Glow Effect and all the red started off as Rhinox Hide base they will show better in better pics and the metalics on Farsights sword is the only Metalic i want in the army as i dont like painting it at all

Thanks for all the comments on how to improve my stuff guys more pics will come soon

Chaos warhounds because from a model and price point I vastly prefer them to the flesh hounds, it would have been crippling to the later parts of my army to blow so much of my budgets on hounds at this stage.

Ah, I feel your pain (or your wallet's at least). Good decision in both respects anyway, I think the nurgle look will go better with the warhounds. Any plans for sculpting to make them a bit more nurgly? I realize you didn't on the horrors but from the look of your heralds you've got the skills.


Master Azalle - How about going for some really spectacular OSL? I'm thinking going heavy duty on the plasma weapons and maybe something a little more subtle around the eyes of each marine. It should really emphasize how dark the rest of the squad is, making them seem either like they're fighting at night, or just looking more dark and sinister in general...

Well, its a thought anyway

Blimey there's some good stuff appearing already, now I feel like a proper slowcoach, which I suppose should be the motivator! Saying that though I completely forgot to do more tower shots while I was doing the blog ones.

@Eclipse - Bikes are very pretty, dark eldar players always seem to pull out the pretty paint effects!

@Melcav - More chaos players! We seem to be everywhere, everyone loves that nurgle champion don't they, it wouldn't be a P&M blog without at least one. Like the way you've got the skin on the nurglites some of the metals a bit clean for my tastes but then some people hate rust everywhere. Thanks for the comments on the tower too, that side was done mid 2010 when I was a little less good than now, bit torn on leaving it as it is or making it 'darker'.

@Alabama - Good start on the skaven, almost sold my gobbos to go for an army of filthy ratmen will be looking forward to seeing this one progress, as you certainly seem to be getting on with it.

@Pyro - Argh filthy Tau player (I kid honest). Looks like a solid start, riptide is especially pretty, little surprised at how many of their brethren they seem to be stomping but they are the resistance I suppose.

@Cass - No you can't cause you're mean (and smelly), what do you mean I can't take criticism! But yeah I know what you mean, I did them back in 2010 when I hadn't really used greenstuff before, now I'm torn between leaving them for nostalgias sake or bringing them up to my new and improved standard. I always felt the tower should be big I mean it does have 18 Hullpoints which is double the baneblade it's based on (if I'm remembering correctly). Can't really comment too much on the models there as I'm familiar with them from the blog and you know I'm a fan so I'd better not stroke the ego too much or you'll never paint them!

@Dark - Thanks for starting this first of all, those models certainly are pretty, only really looked at the O+G stuff on warhammer forge but those are a hell of a start point.

@Kholzerino - Well that's certainly different, the tiger stripe is excellent, really well done, as others have pointed out the green might need a bit of adjustment (don't shoot me), but what a start to something that's definitely different.

@Azalle - I'll be interested to see how you handle black power armour for ideas as I've got some red corsairs and black legion to do at some point. Also my word you're certainly moving at a pace!

@Purplesquig - Those orks are excellent, the tattoos especially, I can never seem to get the ruddy things to look right.

@Ignatius-Grulgor - its part of Farsights background where hes still being hunted by the Tau Empire

Maybe this should give me a good enough kick to get painting

Names Jackal, ive got a huge skaven army thats just sat there getting no attention at the moment so i need a way of getting myself painting again.
Im hoping this is the kick i need to keep a good pace going and get through it all

Out of my skaven army, this is currently the only stuff ive painted, and even this has taken me too long to get finished.





And for some amusement, even if it wont see the table, my version of a skaven vermin lord since i really dont like GW's one.
Currently being painted and washes drying while i type this.



So thats me for now.
Want to have the vermin lord finished 100% along with atleast 10 stormvermin by the end of the month.
Then hopefully i would have picked up enough steam to start on big blocks of rats.

Bama - I'm absolutely loving that skaven's torn up back! It's gnarly as all hell.

Working on gun/green revision tonight.

well thanks all for the kind complimnets...the reason he is shiny is cuase he was still wet when i took the photo was rather impatient ...the stiches will be picked out just thinking of some way to do them for the armor on the arm maybe a dry brush of boltgun is in order....

jackal!

MAOR RATMEN! great start...good luck with the stormvermin i pick up a box tomorrow, plus a battalion plus a lord that will become my battle standard bearer.

that vermin lord is sick!

Iggy do you need discipline? ill get the whip

yea the only reason i paint so fast is cause well i have really nothing to do with my time except paint so you know its what i do.

five ratmen are staring me in the face and i still have a lizard lord to do and 12 skinks....

like i said brass ring and doing two armies at once.

I think every rfantasy player either has hoardes of ratmen or lizardmen just hanging out that need to be painted.

so i slacked off some tonight instead of painting i went to go play some 40k and watch a movie over at my buddies hosue...i know now i need my own whip for discipline..but work will resume on them tomorrow...

All looking great guys. Thanks for the comments.
Yea I'll bare that in mind regarding the photos Cassandra thank you.
Meanwhile here are more rubbish shots of the army I'm adding too

jackal I feel an infestation coming on. Your rat lord looks awesome, definately something warped

alabamaheretic Ah makes far more senese now that it was wet. i still think that pick out some more detail, especially adding some metal to the model will really help - and yes the whip marks on the back are ace.

darkmoonlight the empire you have on display look execellent, truly. I really dig the base you have for your artillery piece there, looks stunning, can't wait to see your next post.

Ignatus-Grulgor Well... I did say i could use the motivation haha and the army has been half complete for.. well.. way to long. I had the inital combat squads of the tacs at lest with some edge highlighting, but no base paint or additional details highlights. The goal is to get the entire 3rd company table top ready. That and I really just want to deploy an entire company at the next Apoc game at my local LFGS - tired of the one dude with waaay to much money always showing up with titains that he had someone else paint

PurpleSquig I hadn't thought about OSL on the eyes. I like it though. They'd definately look a lot more alive then. Do you know of any good OSL tutorials or have any tips? I've never tried before.

As for My Update: Sorry no pictures, but I have assembled the 4th tactical squad and both devastator squads (Just 5 man not the full 10) each bringing lascannons. I'll be priming and painting later today before my Planetary Empire's campagin tonight, definately will have the next 20 marines up by tomorrow though!

Im thinking about green stictching and washing around those areas with a red wash to give it a raw looking feel...what do you guys think. the more i look at my rat ogre the more i realize taht he does look very incomplete.

Dark- those empire look awesome in the display case.

Iggy- man your aegis defense line on your blog are great! i think you should leave the cartoony faces as a reminder of how far you came since you started that project.

Azalle- your marines are comming along nicely cant wait to see what you have instore. and i agree about that guy that pays other folks to do his work kinda irratates me too, and whats crazy is the markings on his back come with the model so i didnt do any fancy converting or nothing. however i do need a razor saw and a rat ogre head if any one has one...rat ogre head not the saw

so far havent done any major painting yet just picked out the sword on the champ in the hand weapon squad. painting, will resume later this afternoon. waiting for the game store to open so i can pick up more ratmen...kinda excited by this prospect and very much.

Got a few more layers on the vermin lord, assembled 30/60 stormvermin and put more work into my Orc living idol.

Possibly the biggest model ive painted to date and its pretty good fun
Just weighs a ton and burns through a hell of alot of paint.

Master Azalle wrote:I hadn't thought about OSL on the eyes. I like it though. They'd definately look a lot more alive then. Do you know of any good OSL tutorials or have any tips? I've never tried before.

Try http://www.coolminiornot.com/articles/1288-glowing-eyes-by-cyril - it's one of the best glowing eyes tuts I've seen, it's how I did mine and I think it looks pretty awesome .

A bit of a non-progress day today, the hounds are all at primed and awaiting airbrushing unfortunately I got home from work late enough that the kids were already in bed and my compressor is not the quietest tool in the world so it's looking increasingly like a weekend job to get those colours sorted which has put the hounds on a halt for now. I did however have a chance to take a look at potential cool looking allies for my Nurgle daemons when they reach a decent points value. I wanted something suitably wacky but with a ranged element to make up for my daemons lack in that field and landed on perusing the Ork codex. However the grot models appeal to me so much more so I have taken up a theme of grots who, without orks to boss them around, have looked for a new boss lead them onto conquests, Papa nurgle has happily obliged.

Here is a test scheme Grot ally for the army:

Love the grot Mel I really like the back story thing for them!
And Cassandra thanks for the tutorial may have to use it on something at some point .

And thanks everyone for the comments on my current empire!

so the game store didnt get my complete order... :( however i did pick up two boxes of storm vermin and a warp lighting cannon so thats some good news...now the problem is the rest of the order comes in next week....on friday...hopefully i have a job or my disability comes in next month so i can purchase it. (not a lot of fantasy players out where i live so not too worried that it will disappear) heres hopin the us gov gets their act together so i can get my warfunds (literally and figuratively)

i sit and look at my clan rats and i look at my potential list of 3,500 points. its gonna be a siege. so far they are winning lol.

Model Count for list 286
Current Modle Count 86
Models Painted: 24

Only a lot more to go...(sighs)

Sounds like you have more than enough to keep yourself busy there Bama lol

Nice Bama
Ill have to get an overview pic of my skaven later, i know the feeling of the large horde of grey plastic lol.

Skaven are quick enough to paint, but when your looking at 5-6 block units of 50 models then all of a sudden things dont look that great.

I might get the vermin lord done and my Rogue Idol, then start working through lords and hero's in my army before i think about blocks of clanrats.
Atleast then i can alternate between a block and a war machine here and there.

Azalle yea lots to do...not enough money to have it all just yet.

jackal...yea in my 3,500 point list its three blocks of 40+
and my problem right now is i only have the one warmachine...
jackal since you seem to be the other rat bastard in this group do you have a spare rat ogre head i could acquire from you?

worked on some skinks today nothing too exciting just blocking colors right now...the 5 skaven have a copper trim now so thats a plus still more work to do.

Wish i could help, but ive only got 5 rat ogres.
3 normal ones i got from a trade plus 2 island of blood ones.
The didnt even have tails, let alone spare heads :(

Ill have a dig about though, im sure i should have some.

Okay, I had a go at resculpting the chests for the new Shades and decided to practice a bit on one of the normal Shades before I tried it out on the Herald of the flag-waver. I think it turned out pretty well, even if its feminine face on this one gives it a slightly odd androgynous feel. Decided to go for a very thin but muscular look. And look! Belly-button!



Don't know if I should remove the tentacle and resculpt around it, or leave it as it is. Also need some slight sanding on some parts to get things flush. And there's a mould-line on the arm. But apart from that, what do you guys think?

Looking pretty damn good.
Might be worth giving it a coat of grey though, it really does help all of it show up better.
GS and metal really are hard to see any detail on.

 Jackal wrote:
Looking pretty damn good.
Might be worth giving it a coat of grey though, it really does help all of it show up better.
GS and metal really are hard to see any detail on.

I've tried this before, but unfortunately you can't then greenstuff over it again, as it only adheres to the paint layer rather than the base material, making it very easy to snap off. Similar issues with primers coming off as they can't bind to the acrylic layer, and so on and so forth. Looking at it more closely, might need to go over it and fix a few lines so they're smoother, but you're right, it's very difficult to tell the angles properly.

Another little bit of progress on the Grot front, member number 2 of the Grot Artillery crew has been completed, small enough models that I can do one when I get home from work without feeling overly stretched.



LadyCass> That daemon is looking fantastic, the belly button is a nice touch and the progression from GS to the original model is pretty seamless, when painted it will look like they were made together.

Well, here we go again, going to try to respond to comments about my work and make my own on others since my last big post. Also, there are way too many people here for this early on the Sunday morning . Also, to all those that said thanks for the previous critique, you're very welcome. Now go critique my work .

PurpleSquig - I love your Boyz. I love the almost cell-shaded look you've got on them and the way all the shading and highlighting is crisp and colourful, the bones are especially wonderful. They really remind me of Warcraft in look, and the only things I think may need tweaking is that the bows look a bit too flat in comparison to all the other deep shadows, they need more contrast, and the grey you have there looks like unpainted plastic. Annoying, I know, but there is it. :\. Perhaps stick to browns? It's very unusual to see grey leather naturally as well.

I really like the ice look, if they were flint they'd look too similar to the rocks they're standing on in my opinion, and I love using the fur as a second place for that lovely colour. It, too, perhaps, could do with a slightly deeper contrast to go with the look of the rest of the model, but perhaps that would lose it its ethereal qualities. It's hard to say. Though with snow on the bases, brrr, good thing Orks don't really feel the cold! Proper Ice Barbarians there.

Master Azalle - Okay, if you're getting the red tactical transfers anyway, then my suggestion is to either painting some of the shoulder trims a different colour (red, or gold perhaps), or start painting some of the kneepads a solid shade. The chest eagles are also traditionally a metallic colour, but that's really down to you. The glowing eyes will help a lot I should imagine. Did you see the tutorial I linked for you? It starts about step 9. The real question is what colour to do it in. Also, highlighting the red and golds brighter will help them from getting lost, they're still pretty dark at the moment.

alabamaheretic - Good start on the pictures. Try curving the paper however, rather than having two pieces at an angle. The idea is to have the background get lost. And crop it if you can, it'll really help, especially on this forum where everything is resized automatically. Here's some more info on it. I'd just like to mention though that this is just advice. Obviously in-progress shots really don't need to have this sort of care taken with them. As long as you can see what's going on, the background isn't such an issue. The only thing I'd say is truly necessary to do every time is to crop the shot.

Swamp bases also sound pretty fun. Very suitable for Skaven, that's for sure. That's a pity about not getting your stuff through until next week. Having to rely on the government sucks. Good luck on looking for work!

Eclipseone - Oooh, it's iridescent huh? That must be a nightmare to photograph, metallics are bad enough. Looking good, are the Eldar going to have pearlescent armour as well?

Melcavuk - First up, on your comments about my models. Thanks very much. Yep, they are the previous edition's models, the ones all in metal. Horrors and Daemonettes (the famous Diaz Daemonettes) were designed very differently from before in this particular edition. They've gone back to the "classic" look now in the newer miniatures, but at least it means mine stand out. Unless I'm playing Ignatius of course, who has waaaay more than me. Your models are amazing as usual, look great as their squads. Where did you get the twisty pointy staff thing the Plaguebearer captain is holding, it looks awesome.

The Grot models have so much character, just like the Snotling models from the fantasy range. It's almost like painting Epic figures at that scale though! You should put up a scale photo so folks can see how tiny they are. And thanks for the comment on the chest greenstuffing. I'm very glad it looks like it's a whole thing . If I ever run these at a GW store and get told "You can't have third party models here", I'll be very happy, hehe. Also, it's a bit strange but I love sculpting belly-buttons. Makes absolutely no sense for daemons, but my Diaz Daemonettes have them so I modelled on one for my KoS and it seems to be extending into a theme. It's also really easy to do and makes a bit of detail on an otherwise blank area.

Pyro Pete - Ahh, its a glow effect? I suggest pulling it back off the red then and repainting it back to a standard, and then try following the glowing eyes tutorial I linked above. The main ideas you need though is that the light source should highlight up to white in the centre, and that the light coming off it should be pretty subtle. Glaze the area around it, don't paint or drybrush, the idea is to just tint the colours with the one you want. So in your case, rather than the pale blue sections, it would be a slightly paler purplish red, as if you got the main colour of the Riptide and then mixed in a spot of the light colour into it (also a valid way of doing it, if you're good at blending). I look forward to your better pics, but if you do change your mind on the OSL, I recommend painting them the same as the grey "buttons", as those looked excellent.

Ignatius-Grulgor - Hey, even I posted something up, where's your other shots? To be fair the faces work for Nurgle especially. If it was Tzeentch I'd be less forgiving but they sort of look like Nurgling faces so it works. Also, stroking my ego does not stop me from painting things, honest. If anything, it may work in reverse . I just have a fair amount of inertia on that point... At least with the Shades they have a dead simple colour scheme so it shouldn't worry me too much. Then again, so do the Shadow Hounds, and look how that turned out. Or you know, didn't.

Jackal - Welcome to the thread! Is that 11 people now? At least that's Obscuras' number so he should be happy at least . Looking at your Seer, it looks like you've higlighted him by hand all the way up than using washes or drybrushing? It gives him a real painted feel, and I quite like the bright edge-highlights on the robes. The tail and ropes need a little more love to get them up to the same level, but it's looking great. And a slight dot of orange-red in the centre of that eye will make it pop, if you want it to. Your attempt at NMM doesn't really seem to work I'm afraid. Same advice to you as everyone else vis-a-vis the photography stuff. Flash is especially to be avoided, it will kill any effort you put into painting highlights dead outright.

Very nice Vermin Lord conversion! Love the fur green-stuffing, it's a lot harder to get it looking natural and growing in the right direction than people give it credit for. Really like this conversion, can't wait to see it completed . Out of interest, what are the pieces?

Also, 11 days to go guys!

Cheers Lady Cass, on the topic of grot scale here is a marine vs WIP grot size comparison:


And alittle more focus on the WIP grot 3:


And now something of their "ride" midway through the Grot-tillery creation I have my WIP Lizard pre-cannon mounting:


And with an hour or so's more work, the Artillery Lizard and 2 crewmen on their new base, just awaiting the artillery piece to be painted and mounted on the lizard with the 3rd grot shown as a WIP controlling it.

Dubbed the Runt Squiggoth Booma:

LC - None of it is NMM, just poor camera i think distorting the colour on the silvers.
It is actually mithril silver lol.

I did miss a trick on the eyes though so ill have to go back to those and get them done.

I like my extreme highlights, weird style, but i find it really makes models stand out more

Ill get some more pics of him in better light after work tomorrow.
I bloody hate cameras, even more so when ive only got my works phone which is an old galaxy ace 2.

That's Bastilladon is amazing I absolutely love it god work Mel.

So here is my weekends worth of work, the pictures are a little better due to discovering the joys of iPhoto .














So that's four down one to go. Began prepping my amber wizard to stick together also so we'll on track.
Need to go back over the first two guys for the swordsman on the shields and dirty them up about with chips etc.
What do you guys think?

Darkmoonlight -> The faces on those models are really nice, the eyes in particular stand out well without going into the wide eyed staring that alot of people stray into when doing the pupils. The battle damage on the shields helps to distinguish them well from the blue of the armour. Not being a WFB player are those bases your own work or bought in? They're simple but really effective.

They are bought from dragon forge.com waiting on another batch to arrive actually to base up some flagellants.
And thank you for the comments on the faces, I quite enjoy painting them so it's all good. The guy pictured with the battle damage took me around a hour to get the eyes right lol it was madness.
Yea I didn't want to change the blue on the shield to be honest, this unit is meant to be a costal patrol and wanted the idea of the blues child's as almost like the enemy is crashing against a wave when attacking.

LadyCassandra - Cheers for the advice dude gonna try better OSL on my next army or little project but every help is welcomed

Not been able to do much as been workin alot recently and this is all ive been able to do enjoy