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You’ve said it on the internet now, so it has to happen... Rat Scions ftw!

Viterbi wrote:Great work on the scouts, amazing how you managed to do such a clean camo effect on the rolls on their backpacks

Thanks Viterbi! To be honest, I kind of surprised myself too! I think some of it is due to painting it relatively flat: I did a bit of highlighting when laying down the pattern, and then washed it with 1:1 agrag:medium. The white dots were painted after the shading so that they wouldn't get tinted brown. It seems that with camo you get away with less shading/highlighting - I've noticed that using undiluted wash can easily muddy up the whole design. Of course, the rest of the scheme is also pretty flat, so maybe that's why it looks cohesive I'll keep on testing..

gobert wrote:You’ve said it on the internet now, so it has to happen... Rat Scions ftw!

Haha! You are right of course! I'll see what I can come up with. Might be a good opportunity to use that plasma gun hand..

Late to the party, but those ork boys look fab, and really fantastic freehand on them

 IGtR= wrote:
Late to the party, but those ork boys look fab, and really fantastic freehand on them

Thanks IGtR, much appreciated!

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I've gone back to the AoS starter box and started working on the two minor Khorne characters (Bloodsomething or -other, both of them..). They're now at "battle ready", with the skin mostly finished and the rest basecoated and washed. Them being characters, though, I want to go a bit further and do some highlighting and quick details. Sadly, due to work I probably won't have time to get these guys finished before June, but I'll have to see how it goes..

Looking good, Another wash and highlight on the skin and they look great. The armour really pops with that recess shade to separate red and gold!

Outstanding work on the scouts! They look very clean and well defined. The camo pattern on their rolled cloaks looks like the real thing

The Khorne fellows are looking great already. They'll be awesome when done!

Ah, the blood-secretary and the blood steaker. Or something of that nature. They look nifty!

Khorne probably could use a secretary, really. And some accountants. Someone's got to keep track of all of those skulls.

I love Khorne red and it looks at its best on some Khorney Warriors. Exceptionally neat as ever, will they be getting roughed up a bit?

Viterbi wrote:Looking good, Another wash and highlight on the skin and they look great. The armour really pops with that recess shade to separate red and gold!

Thanks Viterbi! I intend to keep the skin quite pale/light, but you're right, some selective washing might be in order. I'll also do some red/purple washes for bruising and such.

Ezki wrote:Outstanding work on the scouts! They look very clean and well defined. The camo pattern on their rolled cloaks looks like the real thing
The Khorne fellows are looking great already. They'll be awesome when done!

Much appreciated Ezki!

amazingturtles wrote:Ah, the blood-secretary and the blood steaker. Or something of that nature. They look nifty!
Khorne probably could use a secretary, really. And some accountants. Someone's got to keep track of all of those skulls.

Haha! You're right, what's the point of adding more skulls if you don't know how many you have in the first place?

gobert wrote:I love Khorne red and it looks at its best on some Khorney Warriors. Exceptionally neat as ever, will they be getting roughed up a bit?

Khorne Red is a really nice paint, yes! I wasn't planning on doing much weathering, but I guess a few quick nicks and scratches wouldn't hurt. I'll add some red and purple to the skin, and some rust at least to that harpoon.

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Haven't done any hobbying this week, since I've been very busy with work, and that will continue at least for a week. But I do have my hobby supplies and a few minis so maybe I'll get to finish the Khorne guys or build something when the work eases a bit.

Okay, time for a long overdue update! Hopefully I can pick up the pace a bit during the summer..

Nevertheless, I've now finished the two lesser Khorne characters! They've actually been done for a week or so already, but I've been too busy to post them here before now.



To be honest, I didn't really look forward to painting these Chaos models due to the insane amount of details. But the AoS starter set is sort of my testing ground for "tabletop standard" and "speed" painting, I set out to paint them quickly, to a decent standard and without too much pressure. As with the 'reavers, the starting point was an article in White Dwarf Jan '17. However, in the end I used very little of the tutorial as is, instead employing quick techniques I've picked out in the last couple of years and trying some new ones as well.



I think I achieved my goals with this small project pretty well. The pair has around a week of painting days on them, and hopefully they look like I've put some effort into them. Here are some of the techniques/steps that I used to speed up the process: the skin is just drybrushing and washes, and the basecoats for the blacks were done with Contrast black over gray basecoat (okay, this might've actually slowed me down a bit). The bone bits were layered by "overbrushing" rather than meticulously going over each and every detail. Highlights on the metallic parts are very rough, and on the whole I didn't really go back to fix "mistakes" that much.



Below you can see my progress on the starter set so far. The two leaders are yet to be built, but otherwise all the models are there. It's looking pretty good, with 36 models painted and 11 to go, but of course this has been a slow burn project. When I'll get back to it, I think it's the Stormcasts' and the Lord Relictor's turn.



I could also use these models to claim a square in the hobby bingo, this time "adding a model to army and painting it before using it in battle". I don't know if I'll ever use them for a game, but by default they've been painted before playing, so should count.


I've actually painted another quick model since finishing the Khorne guys, and should be able to show it soon. Just have to take some photos of it first. And I've made a start on the next project as well, but more on that later..

Quick and rough paint job he says... they look excellent to me! The symbol on the chest of the big monster is really cool, is that freehand or sculpted on?

Yeah, the Khorne stuff looks really good for a quick tabletop-level job.

Those Khorne boys look great! The skin came out really nice

Khorne guys came out great, speed painting method was a success. I particularly like the skin on the fellow with the whip

 gobert wrote:
Quick and rough paint job he says... they look excellent to me! The symbol on the chest of the big monster is really cool, is that freehand or sculpted on?

Gotta echo gobert, if that is your less good paintwork, I am very envious Army shot is cool, love the silver stormcast, always nice to see them in knightly colors.

Thanks again everyone for the great response, and sorry (again) for the very late reply.. :(

gobert wrote:Quick and rough paint job he says... they look excellent to me! The symbol on the chest of the big monster is really cool, is that freehand or sculpted on?

Cheers! That's a sculpted detail on the Khorgorath.

aku-chan wrote:Yeah, the Khorne stuff looks really good for a quick tabletop-level job.

Thanks! Lets see if I can eventually keep it up for the Blood Warriors..

zahnib wrote:Those Khorne boys look great! The skin came out really nice

Thanks! Due to the washes, the skin is not as pale as I had at first envisioned, but i like it as well!

Maharg wrote:Khorne guys came out great, speed painting method was a success. I particularly like the skin on the fellow with the whip

Thank you! The whip guy had a lot of scarring which was a prime candidate for some crimson and purple washes to make it more interesting.

Viterbi wrote:Gotta echo gobert, if that is your less good paintwork, I am very envious Army shot is cool, love the silver stormcast, always nice to see them in knightly colors.

Much obliged! I'm not sure if it's less good, but quicker at least! Hopefully I'll be able to paint the rest of those primed models some day soon(ish). Like, by the end of next year at the latest! Oh, so many cool models and projects to paint, and so little time..

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After the Khorne guys I decide to go for another quick project, and one that I painted for my wife. It’s a single Termagant model, originally from the Battle for Macragge box.



Now, my wife isn’t interested in the Warhammer/miniature hobby at all, but on occasion courteously pays attention to what I’m painting. Some time ago she asked if I’d paint her something. “Of course”, I told her, as long as she’d come up with a scheme. I gave her a choice of some models and she picked an old Termagant, or “a tiny dinosaur”. Her thought process started from a Hello Kitty scheme, but as soon as she discovered someone had already stolen her idea (Hive Fleet Leviathan ), she wanted a python pattern on the carapace.



Ok, something that I probably wouldn’t have tried myself, but as such a great challenge! I looked at some reference photos on Google, and it turns out that there’s quite a lot of different patterns on the snakes. What I ended up painting was more of an impression than a straight up replication. I think the pattern more or less works on the back carapace, but I messed it up on the head. I also don’t know how the scheme would translate for other (bigger) Tyranid models, but as this was a one-off I don’t really have to.



The painting process itself was almost as experimental as the scheme. I used three paints to lay down the base for the skin (Steel Legion Drab, Zandri Dust and Ushabti Bone), and then used washes and drybrushing to define the model further. The carapace bits got a bit more careful approach, with the pattern design and the striations. I used some new paints, or rather inks on this model, too! I recently bought some Daler Rowney FW Acrylic Inks, and I tried them out on this Termagant. I used black on the pattern design, white to highlight and burnt umber to outline some of the carapace panels. While all of them felt like great products, the white definitely takes the cake. I don’t think my pot of White Scar will see much action any more..

So yeah, another fun little project completed and new things were learned! And what did the missus think, I hear you ask? She seemed to like it!

That's a very neat looking tiny dinosaur, and the pattern came out wonderfully! Gives it a very natural pattern that i could see blending in well with cliffs and rocks and what not, which is after all something that snakes like to do.

Your quick and "rough" paint scheme surely looks very good! They are looking really good together.

The python pattern is really awesome! That would look amazing on a big horde of tiny dinosaurs.
I think the head is looking good too. The smaller 'scales' are forgiving about small mistakes (which I did not spot mind you).

 mcmattila wrote:

I also don’t know how the scheme would translate for other (bigger) Tyranid models, but as this was a one-off I don’t really have to.

I think the pattern would look great on a bigger nid monster. If you decide against this being a one-off, it would be interesting to see!

 mcmattila wrote:

And what did the missus think, I hear you ask? She seemed to like it!

Job well done!

You say Python pattern I see Moth pattern. Both work to me. Also really neat work. I’ll have to look at those inks, I think HobbyLobby carries them .

Awesome little Tyranid! The striations on the carapace look fantastic, especially how they interact with the python pattern. Top drawer stuff, which hopefully isn’t just a one off!

Haha, the tiny dinosaur came out great!

amazingturtles wrote:That's a very neat looking tiny dinosaur, and the pattern came out wonderfully! Gives it a very natural pattern that i could see blending in well with cliffs and rocks and what not, which is after all something that snakes like to do.

Thank you very much! The "natural approach" was what I was going for!

Ezki wrote:Your quick and "rough" paint scheme surely looks very good! They are looking really good together.
The python pattern is really awesome! That would look amazing on a big horde of tiny dinosaurs.
I think the head is looking good too. The smaller 'scales' are forgiving about small mistakes (which I did not spot mind you).
I think the pattern would look great on a bigger nid monster. If you decide against this being a one-off, it would be interesting to see!
Job well done!

Thanks a lot Ezki! The problem I see with a whole horde of 'nids in this scheme is that it would (maybe) just be a sea of brown, without any pop. I don't know if the black and off-white on the carapace would be enough to give the models good definition.
The mistake I did with the head, as I see it, is that I didn't scale down the pattern enough, which made it less clear than on the back. But of course thinking about this, I realize that scaling up the pattern might work for the bigger models. Before I was thinking I'd "continue" the pattern, which would probably look silly and unnatural.

Theophony wrote:You say Python pattern I see Moth pattern. Both work to me. Also really neat work. I’ll have to look at those inks, I think HobbyLobby carries them .

Hah, I can see it! Thanks Theo!

gobert wrote:Awesome little Tyranid! The striations on the carapace look fantastic, especially how they interact with the python pattern. Top drawer stuff, which hopefully isn’t just a one off!

Thanks gobert! The original idea was to make the pattern/carapace look more like actual scales, but I quickly noticed that that would've taken way, way too much time, and might've distracted the pattern. The striations were kind of an after-thought, when I got some white ink on my brush to highlight just a few corners, I ended up going nuts I've always been a fan of striations on the Tyranids carapaces, though.
Well, I've occasionally thought about collecting a swarm of Termagants and Genestealers, to complete the Battle for Macragge Tyranid side (I don't have all of my original models any more). But I'd probably go for a different scheme for those (carbarf's Hive Fleet Karkinos is the bees knees!), but never say never, of course..

zahnib wrote:Haha, the tiny dinosaur came out great!

Much obliged!

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Okay, back to WIP photos. I've been painting Mollog for the past couple of weeks, and I'm hoping to finish him by the end of the weekend. I took the photos last night, they're missing the two big red mushroom caps I finished today. Oh well, got to leave something for the showcase photos I'm going to paint the conical mushroom blue, and the base obviously needs paint. But other than those "big" pieces, it's mostly a bit of detail work and some more highlights.

The frog looks especially good , looking forward to seeing Mollog all done up in his fungi glory.

Oooh, mollog looks great, his rock like skin looks fantastic. The shelf mushrooms on his belly and his toenails look particularly nasty. Can’t wait to see him all done

Theophony wrote:The frog looks especially good , looking forward to seeing Mollog all done up in his fungi glory.

Thank you Theo!

gobert wrote:Oooh, mollog looks great, his rock like skin looks fantastic. The shelf mushrooms on his belly and his toenails look particularly nasty. Can’t wait to see him all done

Thanks gobert! I was very happy with the skin also, as I was initially pretty worried about painting it. Thankfully our boy Duncan helped me on the right track!

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And he's done!
During the spring I went a bit nuts and bought a load of Underworlds warbands. I recently took stock of them, and noticed that I had seven boxes of unbuilt teams! Clearly I need to do something about the pile, and I started with one of the more novel warbands, Mollog's Mob. In this post I'll show you the titular, grumpy leader of the lot.



I'd normally paint the unit as a whole, but I've noticed that the summer months are usually spent working, travelling and with the wife, and if not, the weather's often too hot to paint. So a bit strapped for hobby time.. But I wanted to enter something for Ann's hobby challenge, Miniatures of Magnitude. Although the challenge ran for two months, I only had around three weeks to do my entry. Hence I decided to just paint Mollog, and leave the rest of the gang for another time. Fortunately all the models have somewhat different schemes, so batch painting wouldn't necessarily have helped anyway.



For the paint scheme I mostly followed the box art and Duncan's tutorial. I didn't have all the paints used in the tutorial, but I thought that the scheme had a little to much purple in it anyway (the skin and the big mushrooms). My scheme ended up a bit more blue, and with more vibrant toadstools, a combination which I have to say I like more than the GW's versions. I also took the highlighting a little further than Duncan did, as I'm trying to push the contrast on my models. Overall, I think this might be my best work so far, and it was a joy to paint!



There were a couple of new things that I tried on this model, and of which I'm really happy about. The first was that I used Pallid Wych Flesh for all (non-metal) final highlights, something that worked really well. It seems to pull all the colors together and of course makes those highlights pop. I also tried drying retarder for the first time, and did some rudimentary weblending on the toadstools and the blue mushroom. I think I didn't yet get the right mix of paint and retarder, but I'll surely keep practicing with it on future models.



And yeah, in addition to painting a big model for Ann's challenge, there was an appropriate square in the hobby bingo as well: "paint a monster". Done!

Good job in finishing mollog! He looks great, I like the idea of finishing all the highlights with the same colour. It’s subtle but certainly pulls then all together. The blending looks great on the blue mushroom particularly, but the striations work well on the red one, so it’s all round good!

Your Mollog looks awesome!! The skin came out great and the red mushrooms contrast to the blues nicely. Also the water in the puddle on the base looks really good!

Awesome stuff dude, love the kid scheme

gobert wrote:Good job in finishing mollog! He looks great, I like the idea of finishing all the highlights with the same colour. It’s subtle but certainly pulls then all together. The blending looks great on the blue mushroom particularly, but the striations work well on the red one, so it’s all round good!

Cheers! The "single final highlight color" is of course not an original one, there was some of it going on in Duncan's tutorial, and for example Vince Venturella has spoken about it many times. At first the idea feels a bit counter-intuitive, but as long as it's an off-white and you keep the highlights thin, it works really well! And it theoretically saves time too!
I sometimes think whether I'm overusing the striation/dot-style highlighting, but no, (or even if I am,) I love it!

zahnib wrote:Your Mollog looks awesome!! The skin came out great and the red mushrooms contrast to the blues nicely. Also the water in the puddle on the base looks really good!

Thank you very much! The water also kind of ties Mollog to the base, as the paints used are the same as for his skin.

JoeRugby wrote:Awesome stuff dude, love the kid scheme

Kid? Nid? Haha! Much obliged!

No one is saying it so i'm just gonna: he's got a tiny butt.

Ok, got that off my chest, so i can now say that the painting looks great! The frog and the pool are probably my favorite parts too.