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The red on the legs for your kabalites looks awesome. What colours did you use?

Love both the idea for the plog (eBay assortment) and all the work you have done so far!

That Fire Prism is looking really good!

I have to acquire a similar small lightbox. Just have to find a place to store it. Currently it takes a lot of effort to create decent conditions for good pictures. I have to clean my table, cover it with something (grey cloth, magic the gathering playmat etc.), move around some lights (including stealing my girlfriend's table light) and setup the camera. This would make things a lot easier.

That lightbox seems great for the price, those are some crisp photos. The tanks are looking grand. The bone works really well with the green and, well, I'm always biased towards any sort of green Eldar as a general rule.

I'm enjoying those canopies too. Like you say, the transition could be smoother but then again I could see the staggered transitions being a sign of layers within the glass (well, futuristic space elf glass substitute) or something similar.

Tanks are looking great. For such old kits, they hold up very well. The Falcon is what got me into Eldar.

Keep up the great work.

Captain Brown: Cheers, it means a lot! I was really relying on the engines and the exhausts to compliment the green and it seems to have worked!

Youwashock: Thank you, that's what happens when I amass models and paint nothing! Didn't think I'd have a mech army when I started Eldar.

King Thor: Thanks for stopping by! The fact a lot of my models that have yet to be painted are from eBay, it gives me the motivation to actually strip them and get them painted up. The Kabalites are primed grey to give a neutral base and then basecoated mephiston red and given a sepia wash. That is subsequently layered with meph red and washed again but not as heavily. This dulls everything down enough so that an Evil Suns Scarlet highlight is stark enough without going too high up the red spectrum. Hope that helps!

Ezki: Thank you! The great thing about this little light box is that I can collapse it down and store it in a bag about the size of an A4. I don't have the space for a permanent light box so it's a perfect, if a little small.

Bellerophon: I started out wanting to paint Biel Tan but I couldn't for the life of me paint white, so I made my own variation and now I've made it my own Craftworld! I sort of wish I took more time on the canopies but I could definitely bull something fluff-wise

Nevelon: Cheers Nev, I appreciate it. I'll be very sad on the day they announce a new Falcon design. It only really needs a re-tooling.

Update time!

Hey all!

I've made it to three pages and I'm humbled to see so many of you replying to my blog, it's honestly such a motivation for me and it makes me want to push myself with new techniques and styles. So thank you very much!
So over the past few days I've slowed down a little bit in terms of painting, I've moved onto a lot of detail work with the tanks and whatnot so taking photos of the range of different things is a bit of a challenge. I'll post pictures and chat about them as I go, I've got a few different things to show!

I've managed to highlight all my tanks sufficiently with the exception of the metal prism cannon turret. That's been assembled at least and it seems sturdy thus far. I've also gone about picking out some of the raised parts of the tanks to be gem stones and I've started with a dark purple. I'll do the whole gemstone technique on them so hopefully they'll look good when they're done as they'll add a bit extra to break up the monotony of the green. I'm also planning on painting the prism cannon crystals purple as I have an idea in my head that maybe they're cut from the same material. It lets me experiment more with blending and building up layers.
My collection of tanks on the desk:


Gemstones have been basecoated on all tanks, but here they are on the turrets:




I've touched up the weapons on my Dire Avenger squad and they're a nice solid bone colour now and the headcrests have their basic colours down. I may paint over the old terrible freehand I did on their helms and they need some highlights on the armour still and I'm unsure if I should go for a simple lighter green highlight or go for some stark bright green highlights like I have on my tanks. Comments welcome


Seeing as the Unofficial Painting Competition deadline is nearing, I sat down and put some more colour onto my Archon. I think it needs another sepia wash to tone down the scarlet then I'll do a finer highlight of the same colour to enhance the extremities. The change from painting green to red is quite refreshing! The base is feeling a little plain and I don't know how to spruce it up.




Finally, I took a group shot of my Kabalites just for giggles and I'll update my original post to show off the finished pieces there!




As always, thanks for checking in and reading, C&C is always welcome and Happy Thanksgiving for those who celebrate it (a day early I know)!

-TH

Looking good. A little bit of sand or crumbled material could add some interest to the Archon's base. Some brighter highlights on the Avengers sounds like a good call, too. Eldar all over this place today. I love it.

Cheers youwashock, now that you mention some sand I am tempted to sprinkle a little bit of baking powder or a tuft of grass to give it a run down feel. The whole plan of the base is to be like abandoned Eldar ruins but it's difficult to do on a 25mm base.

On another note, my local comic shop started stocking GW products and some people have started painting up armies so I'm gonna try and run some demo games at the club for anyone that wants to come along. Hopefully it'll be fun!

Hey all,

I've been a bit lax with the work I've been doing this week, I'm currently experiencing Storm Diana, which is ravaging the West coast of Ireland and it's making the house pretty cold and it's sort of unbearable to paint!
I have been a wee bit busy though, I've worked away on my entry for the Dakka Painting Competition and now it's finally finished! It's been really fun to paint up something for a competition and I've never done that before so maybe I can snag a few votes?







I headed down to the gaming club at the weekend and a friend of mine fancied trying out 40k for the first time. I brought along my Eldar and he used my Black Templars in a 1000pts game using the full rules minus stratagems and we had a great time! I brought a pretty soft list as my BT army was and still is in no way good, it's just a bunch of cool models from when I dabbled in marines (everyone dabbles in marines right? Right?). I brought a pretty soft list for this game and included using a Falcon for the first time ever. Brought some striking scorpions and once again they failed to deliver, which is horribly disappointing...




I've been painting gemstones on my Grav Tanks as well as the prism cannon and I didn't feel like they were substantial enough updates but when they're finished I'll show them off properly, but you can get a peek of them in the photos below.
I decided that it was about time I started basing all of my models, I've been pretty diligent recently with making sure my models are based and have a bit of flair but I've decided that all of my models, past and future, will be done so my army actually looks like a coherent army and not just a rabble of random units. So I based most of my Eldar with sand and some cork chips that came from definitely not alcoholic grape juice. Here's a small selection of what I've been basing:



I've been doing some slow updates on my Sybarite and he's not changed much, but I have assembled the model fully now and painted him up a little:




I'm nearing the end of a lot of the projects I've been working on as of late so you'll start to see some new (or old) stuff soon, I promise! The grav tanks I want to finish this weekend with the exception of the metal prism cannon turret, I need to prime it and I don't want to do it by hand. The War Walkers and the Wyches are real sticking points right now, the Walkers just need me to sit down and magnetise them and do detail work, while the Wyches need layering, highlighting and general detail work. The Wyches feel like a chore in all honesty so I may shelf them or paint them every so often.
The Sybarite is getting there and the Dire Avengers need their bases painted and highlights so they'll be nice to finish. After these projects I'm trying to decide on what I want to paint next. I'm keen on painting Fire Dragons as I like them but I doubt I'll use two units in one game so Warp Spiders may be the choice. I'm pretty limited by what I've primed but hey, it makes me get them done!

Thanks for having a look, C&C is always very much appreciated and I'll be back with Grav tanks next time!

-TH

Good luck in the painting competition Tyranid Horde.

Cheers,

CB

If you are looking for a ruined base look, you might consider some of GW’s vine kits. Nothing says “fallen empire” like being overgrown with vines.

Painting is looking good. Great job working to gather fresh blood into the hobby.

Good luck with the competition!
Thought about attending too, but just sort of "forgot". Anyway, your entry is looking very good!

Keen to see the tanks finished, they looked real fine already!

Also good that you got to intro 40k. Hopefully you were able to get him hooked on the hobby

Curse you! Now I can't decide whether I want clear canopies to show the drive or to paint it the same way as you!

Cheers Cap, we'll see how it goes!

Thanks Nev, might be a good shout with the vines, I always find it difficult to get some detail into smaller bases outside of a few cork chips or poker chips as of late.

Ah Ezki, can go for the challenge this month! It's the open round and you'd do a great job!

Give it a go Fifty! If you leave out the pilots you get extra bits for later!

Speaking of fresh blood, I may have convinced him to start collecting! Had another game with him today using the AoBR models with some list tinkering to balance the game out and he seemed to have fun!

Update time!

Howdy all,

A rather small update again from my side, I'm still plugging away on highlighting my Dire Avengers and I'm still basing away. I can't seem to help myself when I see my old models. I really want to touch them up or just flat out repaint them but that's probably best reserved for a later date.

So I'm happy to say that I've finished three out of the four grav tanks that you've all been seeing over the past month(?). I finshed them off with some panel lining to make the panels themselves stand out more and I think it worked. The older fire prism got left on the back burner a little bit as I missed the window to prism the cannon and I haven't tried to prime with an airbrush before so I don't even know how to start with that. I need to take a few group shots but the lightbox barely fits one model let alone three! Might do an army shot at some point over the holidays after I've done a bit of decorating but here they are individually for now

Falcon Grav Tank:



Wave Serpent:



Fire Prism:



Let me know what you all think, comments and criticism is very much appreciated. I also need to have a think about my entry for the open round painting competition so we'll see if I've decided by the next update!

-TH

The grav tanks are looking good - really smooth and I like the purple spiritstones and crystal against the green. It's a classic combination. I'm jealous of getting several of them done in one go!

Good to hear about the fresh blood too, it's fun to be somebody's intro to a hobby.

I love the glass effect on those tanks and the blending is perfect!

Wonderful!
The color combination is great and that glass effect on the canopies work wonders!

Tyranid Horde,

Very nice.

As you removed the vanes from the Wave Serpent, did you have any plans to replace those with something else?

Or are you just happy with the smooth look you have now?

Cheers,

CB

Bellerophon: Cheers! Thought the purple looked like a nice compliment to the green but I didn't want to go much further, otherwise I'd have it looking like Yme-Loc! I think doing them in bulk is the way to go for me, I hate looking at primed models and getting the major details done asap motivates me to finish them up.

Cain: Thank you! The photos hide some errors but I'm pretty pleased with the blending!

Ezki: Thanks! Was worried the canopy colour would clash with the purple but seems to be okay!

Captain Brown: Thanks! When I first made a Wave Serpent I didn't realise the vanes were part of the model so I was always used to the barebones look of them. Then I see every other Serpent has them but I keep thinking they'd break easily. I might paint them up and test them yet though.

Update Time

Evening all (or morning/noon/night)

A rather small update this evening in the form of showing off my December Dakka Unofficial Painting Challenge entry. As it's the open round this month I had a dig through my pile to pick something that would be a decent standalone entry and standout from the norm. So I picked up a 1/35 scale Tamiya Panzer Kampfwagen II Ausf. F/G which you can see below:





I know scale model kits aren't the norm on Dakka and I've not seen anyone do much with them here except for some exceptional pieces on the gallery area of this website. It's quite a cheap entry into painting and modelling and that's how I started originally with a starter airfix set. I think this Panzer cost me a tenner so for what you get it's great value. You get the tank, a tank commander, and four soldiers.

The kit is quite nice and from doing some background research I've found out that this kit is quite old. It's got plenty of detail though and you can get a brass etching kit from Eduard to add more detail but I don't have the time to get that now so I'm rolling with the stock kit. Rather than paint it as the box art, I plan on going for the typical sand colouration you see in the Afrika Korps as the F variant of the tank. I do have some foam which I can cut to shape and make a small diorama, time permitting. I won't be entering the soldiers into the challenge but I'll be painting them up in tandem as I won't do them otherwise!

The plan is to make it a bit of a battered tank, like its been through an actual war, not just a pristine tank rolled out of the assembly line. Aside from just drybrushing and paint chipping, I want to make a few dents and scratches to make it more than just superficial damage. Then the tank will get plenty of weathering and because it's North Africa, there'll be lots of sand!

Anyway, I made a start to the assembly of the model and by start, I mean I've pretty much finished the assembly and it's ready for priming. I reckon I'll do a black prime all over then do a zenithial white highlight to give the desert yellow a bit of variation for when I basecoat it. While I'm at it, I'll prime some other models too, namely that Prism Cannon turret so I can get that finished. Here are some progress shots of the model:





Ready for priming:


Some dinged up wheels:


I'll have some 40k in the next update so normality will resume but this'll be a fun project!

Thanks for reading and if you have any tips or tricks when it comes to scale modelling, let me know as I've not ventured outside 1/72 scale!

-TH

Ah yes, this brings back memories!
Used to build many models like this during elementary- and junior high. Most of them were 1:72 scale and manufactured by Revell.
The ones I remember more clearly were the russian battletank T-34/85 and the modern british Challenger. Even did a small base for the Challenger from styrofoam.
Now that I think about it, I think I have stored some of them in my parents house. At least I hope so, would be a real shame if they were lost.

Not sure I had any Tamiya kits though, but I've heard they are pretty good. Maybe I should give one a go someday..

Look at you, getting me all nostalgic!

Not sure how the plastic is with that one, but some of the models I built required a good soapy wash before the paint would stay on the surface.

Anyhow, interested to see this one finished.
I'm always a fan of military model pieces. They are after all usually more demanding to build and different to paint compared to 40k.
I hope you can pull off a small diorama!

Glad to bring back the memories Ezki! Going back to the roots with this one, my first model tank was a Panther in Afrika Korps livery and this one will be too! Sometimes it can be fun to look back on these things. This kit wasn't too bad for adherence but I've heard other kits can be a nuisance.

A small update for the evening, got the model primed with a black basecoat, then gave the topside of the hull a white coat to see if the basecoat I do shows it up as a bit of a pseudo highlight. I then basecoated the model with Tamiya's XF-60 Dark Yellow, which seems to be a decent colour as a base for Afrika Korps. It's got a bit of a stench but I always have good results from it. I airbrushed it on because there's not a chance in hell I'd make a smooth enough coat of paint with a brush. The difference between black and white isn't hugely noticeable but it does make a slight difference. Everything will be dulled down anyway once I get to weathering and such.

I also cut a squarish shape in some insulating foam to make a start on my diorama. I've never made one before so it's going to be very much a learning process. I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing in terms of where in North Africa this diorama is set or what the terrain is like. Seems like a bit of research is necessary! After that, if anyone has good terrain building techniques or materials, I'll gladly accept them!

So, some photos:

Panzer primed up:


Basecoated:




A literal start on the diorama:


In other news, I primed the fire prism turret so now I can properly get to work on that. Apologies for the poor photo below but hey ho, it's literally just been primed. I've also cleaned up and primed a forgeworld scatter laser turret I've been hiding in my pile for the past few years. It's out of production now apparently which is a shame as I would have liked another turret to swap out falcon turrets which will surely never see play outside of casual games.





Thanks for looking,

-TH

 Tyranid Horde wrote:
Captain Brown: Thanks! When I first made a Wave Serpent I didn't realise the vanes were part of the model so I was always used to the barebones look of them. Then I see every other Serpent has them but I keep thinking they'd break easily. I might paint them up and test them yet though.

That is exactly like I always liked the original FW version with the six gems and the bridge between the two front wings instead of those vanes..

Good luck on the tank.

Cheers,

CB

Thanks Cap, you're right about the old forgeworld kit, made them stand out that much more than the vanes.

Update time!

Hey all,

Been a few days since the last update, been busy with this whole Christmas thing this month so progress is a little bit slow and a little bit distracted which you'll see why in a moment... It's a bit of a photo dump.

I've decided to do a few projects at the one time as I can see WWII armour isn't to everyone's fancy and to break things up a bit I've decided to do some more Eldar while I'm painting the tank, as ideally, I'd like to be done with Eldar so I can move onto something else. That's something that won't be done for a while but the pile is getting smaller quicker than it's growing!

I've spent a lot of time making sure the coat of desert yellow is as smooth as possible on the tank before I moved onto detailing. I assembled it and fiddled with those god-awful rubber tank track until they stuck on... and consequently popped off on one side. The instructions say to melt them but I'm not keen on doing that, especially considering they're too tight to put over the wheels once they're glued as a loop. I initially used plastic glue and it does give a reasonable bond to get the tracks to where they should be but the bond doesn't seem to last. I may superglue it after to strengthen the bond but if anyone has tips for rubber tracks let me know!

Here are some pictures of what I've done on the tank to date:




With the rear, the details were a bit bare so I added a little bit extra by putting an MG-34 on a bi-pod with an ammo box and a german helmet to give the tank some flavour. The ammo box had no handle so I bent some wire to shape and glued it on. I plan to have the tank parked up so it sort of makes sense.


I did a few initial coats of paint on the tank commander, who'll be out of his tank and standing beside it:


Moving away from WWII, you'll see why I've been a bit distracted. I wanted to get the prism cannon basecoated and highlighted with my airbrush but the siphon feed means the volume of paint isn't high enough to warrant using it. So I had a run through my models and decided that I wanted to paint some single models in tandem with everything else I'm doing. I built up a support platform and a few models that I got to make a Seer Council back when 5th edition Apocalypse had a datasheet. It's a shame Warlocks are kinda trash in this edition with Brotherhood of Psykers but you can never have too many Seers! I also did some much needed highlighting on the Dire Avengers so I'll do a photobooth shot once I'm happy with them but there'll be another WIP pic below.



I'm not very happy with the highlighting I did on the prism cannon but it can be fixed to some extent an I'm sure once the detailing is done on it, it won't look as bad I hope. Same goes for the support platform. I think the model is far too small to get the nice gradients I got with the grav tanks but I did try it out and it wasn't the best. That being said, I can now line highlight and paint the details so I'm looking forward to finishing off the Fire Prism and actually be able to field a competitive spearhead detachment.







The spoiler contains basecoated minis for the Seer Council, nothing interesting, just some metal models and the new plastic seer.


Thanks for having a look and hopefully I'll get another update soon!

-TH

Is that Fire Prism's gem/cannon the one that needed the serious gap filling? If so it turned out nicely, well done. Non sci-fi stuff is looking good too.

Tyranid Horde,

I see an old FW Wave Serpent turret with Scatter Lasers in your photos. Always like to see stuff from my era.

Cheers,

CB

I love a bit of scale. I love getting the weathering gear out and going to town. really making it look realistic with damage and wear, which I dont often do with my 40K stuff. I was actually thinking about starting a thread on it to see if anyone else dabbled in scale. One bit of advice I'd give you for painting scale vehicles, is to basecoat with a grey or light tan rather than black, then pre shade your panel lines. this will give you depth to your paintjob as the next layers go over, and wont look so flat.

Cheers Syro, yeah that's the one, nightmare of a thing to put together and luckily it'll be the only one as I now have three fire prisms.

Well spotted Cap, I picked it up back when Scatter Lasers were OP in 6th edition so I could replace a turret on another grav tank. Wish I bought another because they're much nicer than the new ones.

Queen_annes_revenge, it's always good to see more scale modellers. Weathering is probably the most fun part of the whole thing for me. Worth starting one to see, you'll find all sorts have done it at some point.
Thanks for the advice, everything helps. It's my first time doing a model that isn't 1/72 scale so it's a new challenge.

Update time

Good evening all!

A smallish update for the evening but it's worth a read. Before I get onto what I've done on the P&M side of things, I'd like to talk about Phil the Dakkafex.

Here he is:


Phil the Carnifex, or Dakkafex because of his loadout, is one of the Carnifexes that I have in my Tyranid army that doesn't see the light of day anymore. He comes from a time where washing everything made it better and it did, but I didn't do anything else to it. 14 year old me thought this was great and called it done.
Now on Monday night, I posted him to my instagram feed after digging him out from his box and used the typical #paintingwarhammer tag just to make it show up. I head to bed and wake up to a comment from Warhammer Community asking to feature it on their website. I say yes and low and behold he's put up in the gallery

One of my worst models is up on their damn website!


Onto the P&M side of things now and I'm happy to say that after about three years, my Dire Avengers are finished and don't look too terrible! The freehand symbols will be kept, even though they are awful. I don't feel like redoing the whole helmet. Highlighting these guys were a pain due to the sculpts but oh well, I only have another ten of those to go in the pile of shame. C&C is appreciated on these guys!






I spent some time painting gemstones yesterday on all of the models that are currently on the table, which was fun, if not a lengthy process of layering. Got some highlighting of my extreme highlights done too while I was at it on the Prism cannon, wave serpent turret and the support platform. I also based the guardian the support platform comes with so having plenty of fun with poker chips again.
The prism cannon is quite lovely, there's a nice weight to it and the big prism is so cool. I'll be working on more highlights and blocking in the bone details on the arm of the cannon. There's a big mould line I've missed so that's a bit annoying but there's no going back now!




The support platform is a lovely kit. The weapons are easily interchangeable and you don't need magnets for them either. I got mine when they were sold as single boxes but now they're in teams of three which is better. I'll always have one left over if I ever get more, especially now that CA has seen a huge drop in points for platforms and their weapons.




Here's the Forgeworld wave serpent turret, I need to do the weapon in a bone colour because it's far too much green when mounted on the chassis.


Just thinking about the guardians in this platform kit really makes you think about how badly the current guardian kit they throw into every Eldar box needs an update. Aspect Warriors are badly in need of an update but guardians and dire avengers need it more.

Thanks for reading and looking, this one was a bit of a ramble.

-TH

Good work on getting an old excavated paintjob on the site

Congrats on the 'Fex being posted. That is legit. All the work on the Eldar is looking good.

Good work all around!
That old Fire Prism turret looks so much better than the new in my opinion.

I share my opinion with you regarding the Guardian kit. They are just so static compared to many other (non Eldar) kits.
One of the main reasons why I attached wych legs to some of them.

Almost have forgotten that those heavy weapon platforms even exist.
Good to see one being worked on though! Would like to see how they work on the tabletop.

Also grats on getting your model on the GW website