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Finished Grot Infantry test model 1 of 2. Not sure what it is that isnt sitting right with me but I'll see how the second comes out:

Hey Guys! I've been a way but I have been busy and it looks like so has everyone else! Great work Bama on the lizard men.

ahhh that Plague tower is just epic... i can't wait to see that painted.

The rat man of course look to be improving as well!

After re-reading all of tghe comments and suggestions, I will be doing the OSL on the lens and heavy weapons. But I'm not gonna get to high details like that until i at least get the last tac squad and two 5 man's of Dev's up to speed. With Just about a week to go I feel confident I can knock out these last 20 marines to table top quality.

Time for some picture updates! I've got the 10 devs built - 8 lascannons and 2 sgts. The 1st 4 lascannons are just about table quality, the 2nd 4 i just started adding some paint to and the two Sgts are almost to table top level. tell me what you think!


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I plan on getting these 10 guys up to where the other 3 tac squads are tonight and Priming my last tac squad tonight as well

Then I get to build my Company Vets!

Warlock riders coming soon!

Super quick update before work guys





He's a little further on than this now. The reigns are gone and the rider is almost prepped to be stuck on. Gotta say the legs were a bugger to get off!

That elder just bike is awesome!

Thanks for the encouraging comments guys, I'll keep at it


Melcavuk - cheers dude, I've really been striving to achieve some interesting skin tones without going rainbow style

I would really recommend the savage orc kit, its probably my favorite from GW, even considering the arms. I find so long as you vary the weapons and keep in mind what you've done already you can still achieve quite a variety of different poses. That being said, I think if you were going all 1 weapon eg. spears + shield as required normally, the repeats would really begin to show. Then again, I consider the normal 40k orks kit to be lacking in posability too... Think you're right though that in general fantasy kits are less pose-able. Perhaps design constraints due to the models having to rank up?

I'm a big fan on the spiders you've done so far, especially the effect you achieved on the one with the broken up shell. Haha, just noticed the rider sniping sideways too, joookes! Neat idea putting the spiders down at different points on the bases too, helps break up their uniformity.

As to the test grot something looks a bit off to me too. I'm wondering if its just that the helmet grots have much bulkier heads? Try the second without a helmet and see if that works out.

BTW, are you using a light box for your photos? I was wondering about the lack of shadows that I get in mine with just daylight.


Jackal Come on, lets see this "progress" then, or we won't believe you


Master Azalle - glad you've decided to go the OSL route, should be awesome.

I'm a fan of the devs more than the tacs you showed previously. They have much more bronze/gold on them and I think it really helps to lighten up the dark a bit, but still retain the grim feeling.


Eclipseone - Ooooh, now this looks promising! How many kits did you have to scrounge to get all those bits? I'm seeing DE, maiden guard and possibly wood elf... I can't imagine it being too cheap, but from the incoming results, so worth it


Darkmoonlight - Nice work dude, thanks for getting that up. These sorts of picks always amuse me, I have no idea how much effort it took to get the rider off, but good job all the same Whose going to be riding this beasty? I'm just wondering why you could have just attached a new torso or something.

purple squig thanks brother! I wanted them to stand out a bit more, and heavy weapons almost always seem to be a little more ornate. Glad you like the added gribblies. I'm going to have to practice my osl a little before I try it on my Angels though. (I may be a little protectiveof them)

Thanks guys I haven't had much time to look through all the projects yet as I've been away! To say the least these riders have been a huge pain in the arse. Lots of cutting, and I need to get some green stuff to fix some spots and I have no experience with it.

Kits used are:

Reaver jetbike rider legs
Reaver jetbike lower torso cut
Reaver jetbike rider head
Wraithguard shoulder plates
High elf maiden chest
High elf maiden cloak
High elf shadow warrior swords

Hope to get these done by the end of the weekend

Grot 2 without helmet, the actual models will likely be done through a mix of night goblin and cadian bits to create a kind of hooded goblin militia (or Kult of Mork).



Prefer this one to the original.

I also got sidetracked today with a painting comp at my local GW, the theme was Heavy Support so I have an action posed Devastator marine nearly done.


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 PurpleSquig wrote:

Melcavuk - cheers dude, I've really been striving to achieve some interesting skin tones without going rainbow style

I would really recommend the savage orc kit, its probably my favorite from GW, even considering the arms. I find so long as you vary the weapons and keep in mind what you've done already you can still achieve quite a variety of different poses. That being said, I think if you were going all 1 weapon eg. spears + shield as required normally, the repeats would really begin to show. Then again, I consider the normal 40k orks kit to be lacking in posability too... Think you're right though that in general fantasy kits are less pose-able. Perhaps design constraints due to the models having to rank up?

I'm a big fan on the spiders you've done so far, especially the effect you achieved on the one with the broken up shell. Haha, just noticed the rider sniping sideways too, joookes! Neat idea putting the spiders down at different points on the bases too, helps break up their uniformity.

As to the test grot something looks a bit off to me too. I'm wondering if its just that the helmet grots have much bulkier heads? Try the second without a helmet and see if that works out.

BTW, are you using a light box for your photos? I was wondering about the lack of shadows that I get in mine with just daylight.

I do have a collapsable light box to hand but most of my WIP or test model photos are done on a piece of paper/plasticard backdrop due to the effort of clearing enough space on a table for the light box to be brought out. I prefer the way the photos come out in a light box but weighing up the time to do so is something that could eat into painting/modelling time and can be difficult when the kids are up.

Just drying now. Soon to be painted.

The Kit bash works beautifully! Get some paint on them!

The only critique is that they all seem to have to same pose :( which can be hard to vary based off the kits used.

Might jump in to later. I got lot's of stuff to finish and work futher on, Dark Eldar, Eldar, Space Marines, Orks, Chaos Space Marines. This might keep me up painting about 40 cultists.

@Alabama
The skaven look good, always good to see people painting skaven don't get to see much around here for some reason.
I Have a good way of painting the clanrats really quickly and I find you can paint 5-10 at a time and it takes no time at all. The technique makes the models a bit brighter than yours but you can always try it here it is:

Steps
1) Prime white
2) Watered down wash of Mournfang brown over the entire model
3) Skin with ratskin flesh
4) Metals with boltgun metal or whatever its called these days and also some bronze on the parts you want
5) Red, Green, Blue or whatever colour you want on the clothing
6) Any brown pieces you want in mournfang brown (drybrush on sheilds)
7) Fur with a dark grey of your choice
8) Wash of agrax earthshade over entire model
9) Highlights if you want to make it more detailed (Codex grey for fur, 50/50 ratskin flesh/eldar flesh for skin, 50/50 wazdaka red/ratskin flesh for boils)

Thats it you can add red for the eyes white for teeth (you might want to add karak stone on bandages and stuff before the wash tho)

I like this technique myself (I think using the watered down mournfang brown on the entire model before painting adds a good base because then the cracks and stuff you miss while painting will be brown instead of white)
You can see the rat ogre in my thread (link below) how this technique works. I did alot mre details and took my time on this model but the ame idea applied with the white base, mournfang brown wash then ratskin flesh just did alot more detail work on it.

I would join this but I actually have my own post going for my skaven if you wanna check it out its here:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/559307.page

Bit more work done on the Broadside

Need some help guys..

I want to do a design on the cape and was going to do the same stripe as the bike they are riding but not sure. Maybe skinny X's or just a solid color cape but dunno what color. This is a test model.

Maybe the rider should be blue! Not sure here guys.



Suggestions please

Melcavuk - yes, I too much prefer this test grot to the first. I'm sure it must have been the head...

The night goblin heads should work in these conversions, their height helping to counteract the innate stockiness you get using the cadian torsos, looking forward to seeing more!

I do have a collapsable light box to hand but most of my WIP or test model photos are done on a piece of paper/plasticard backdrop due to the effort of clearing enough space on a table for the light box to be brought out. I prefer the way the photos come out in a light box but weighing up the time to do so is something that could eat into painting/modelling time and can be difficult when the kids are up.

Ah fair enough, I tend to take my photos when I can't bring myself to paint anything I'm curious though, if you're just using a paper/plasticard backdrop, how do you get no shadows? Just many many lights?


Eclipseone - Wow, with those shoulder pads on they look even better than I first thought, veeery nice.

I've been thinking about your cape color dilemna, here's my thoughts:

Many of your bikes have slightly different designs on the chassis(?) of the bikes themselves. This means that adopting a strong pattern on the capes is liable to looking OK on one, but just downright wrong on others due to the different bikes. In addition you're using the blue color as your spot color to contrast with the red, so I don't think going full-on blue on either the rider or the cape would look right.

My temptation would be to use those mean airbrush skills of yours and try a color fade on the cape; starting from black at the top and slowing fading to reach that bright blue only at the very bottom of the cape.

Another Idea would be to leave it largely black again, but do a fancy freehand border round the edges of the cape, again in blue.

Obviously these are just ideas to play around with, I'm looking forward to seeing what you go for


Pyro Pete - Ah, the grey really gives some with to your battle suits, looking good.

Just a thought, are you going to revisit the OSL on the back disc/jetpack/whatever? It looks a little messy in comparison to the cleanness of the rest of the model. That's all I can think to crit, keep them coming!

Ah fair enough, I tend to take my photos when I can't bring myself to paint anything I'm curious though, if you're just using a paper/plasticard backdrop, how do you get no shadows? Just many many lights?

I use a DSLR with a flashgun which tends to eliminate most of the shadows, if I need more light I also have a desk lamp,

Hey guys, I'm thinking I'm probably going to be dropping out of this. It's been pretty fun and thank you for the kind words and commentary on my models and criticisms , but I think eleven (or twelve, or thirteen, or fourteen, I've lost track and people keep joining) participants is too many for me to really feel like we're getting much decent support from each other.

It also makes the thread very difficult to parse and match up comments with armies and follow conversations. I only have time to do modelling work on the weekends so catching up has been a lot of work. Also, I've never much liked crowds, so I think I'm going to bow out.

Best of luck!

Sorry to see you go Cass.

Would it be worth considering splitting down into a number of less populated but more focused tale of X gamers threads to keep each more concentrated on a smaller number of peoples progress, critique, advice and and advancements? I'm not sure how many modellers we have now but we could likely populate 2 or 3 tales of X(4 or 5?) gamer threads, how it's sectionised would be something of the challenge (by army, type of work (conversions etc), game type (40K,WFB etc) or just by random allocation.

I'd be willing to start one if 3 others want to come. I'm doing 40k but doesn't matter what game system you play.

Let me know, drop a line here, first 3 well go make a new thread

Hey eclipse, I'm just starting my sob again after a 4 year break from them so I would be willing to partake, my monthly budget isn't great though so my updates would only be once every week or so, I don't know if that's good enough of not?

 Melcavuk wrote:
I use a DSLR with a flashgun which tends to eliminate most of the shadows, if I need more light I also have a desk lamp,

Ok, that explains it, cheers for the info dude. I may need to look into getting a camera with a proper flash then...

Would it be worth considering splitting down into a number of less populated but more focused tale of X gamers threads to keep each more concentrated on a smaller number of peoples progress, critique, advice and and advancements? I'm not sure how many modellers we have now but we could likely populate 2 or 3 tales of X(4 or 5?) gamer threads, how it's sectionised would be something of the challenge (by army, type of work (conversions etc), game type (40K,WFB etc) or just by random allocation.

I think this is probably a good idea, as it is tricky to keep up and get/give meaningful feedback. How about everybody sending one of us a PM with something like the following:

1. FB / 40k (eg. 40k, but lots of fantasy models... (not trying to make this confusing ))
2. mostly, painting / modelling (eg. painting)
3. army (eg. feral orks)
4. average frequency of posting (eg. my own updates 1-2 a week, comments more frequently)

Then someone decides some sensible groups based on the PMs they receive? I guess I'd be willing to do this if people are game, what do we think?

Okay PurpleSquig, I've sent you a PM with the stuff you asked for. Hope this works out. If I'm in one of the groups, I'm happy to do the post and keep it updated with the most recent stuff for my group. But it'll probably only update once a week.

It might be cool if we have links to the "other" Tales in our first posts as well though, like free advertising. And maybe have a linked title so people know we're.. err.. subsections?

And just to make it a little more work (I mean organised I swear) if those who "head" the groups (makes the new threads) maintain a first post with perhaps some of the details of who is in and doing what. i.e.:

Welcome to yadda yadda yadda

People involved:
Person A - Making (army) - Progress shot
Person B

and so on.

With a link to each other thread.


Sounds like alot of work but I'll happily make/maintain a new thread, will send my current stuffs details onto squig now and if needed start a new thread when instructed.

 Melcavuk wrote:
And just to make it a little more work (I mean organised I swear) if those who "head" the groups (makes the new threads) maintain a first post with perhaps some of the details of who is in and doing what. i.e.:

Welcome to yadda yadda yadda

People involved:
Person A - Making (army) - Progress shot
Person B

and so on.

With a link to each other thread.


Sounds like alot of work but I'll happily make/maintain a new thread, will send my current stuffs details onto squig now and if needed start a new thread when instructed.

Yeah that sounds great And I'd be happy to do it. I'm a lot more organised than I am productive .

so do we PM you with the details LadyCassandra ?

PM PurpleSquig so he can sort out the "teams", and I'll be happy to ..lead?.. whichever one I end up in.

aww that makes sense now

Right guys, I've had 3 PMs so far, but obviously not everyone is going to be on tonight.

Hopefully the others will catch up over the next day or so.

Just to reiterate to those guys, send ME a PM with your details in this format:

1. FB / 40k (eg. 40k, but lots of fantasy models... (not trying to make this confusing ))
2. mostly, painting / modelling (eg. painting)
3. army (eg. feral orks)
4. average frequency of posting (eg. my own updates 1-2 a week, comments more frequently)

(the examples in brackets are for me obviously...)

In addition to this, feel free to attach any other requests about how you might want to be grouped (eg. you love me, purplesquig, and couldn't bare to be apart... Or, sculpting scares me and I only want to eat the green stuff), if you're comfortable heading up a group (and hence a new thread) and whatever else you reckon could help me sort us into smaller groups of 4 to 5

Once I've put my astonishing secretarial skills to good use and got these groups I'll post them up in this thread and PM whoever said they'd be happy to be a group leader so they can get their own thread going.

The plan is then to link to these separate threads from the OP of this thread. Darkmoonlight will sort that out for us hopefully.

From there we can get going on all our intense hobbying, not sitting on dakka, honestly...


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Figured I'd just post how things stand atm.

I've received 5 PMs so far, including myself that's 6 bloggers to be.

Hopefully I'll have everyone's in the next two days or so, then I can put up the groups!

As a warning, If I haven't replied to your PM, I haven't received it...

PM sent squig
Ill hold off on my update for now then until this sorts out a bit

Hmm purple power weapons?

Trial run with purple weapon blades..





What do you guys think? Was going to do blue but not sure. Doesn't take long to do them so feel free to suggest something else.