A little bit here, a little bit there, some up there

So

Last time I mentioned this crazy basecoat method I got from a tutorial video. Essentially you basecoat black then once dry hit it with a grey at an angle (25 degrees of so) lightly and then a pure white coat straight down from above. The gradient effect gives it highlights and you can use washes and inks to cover most of the miniature.

Here's my first two attempts, with teething issues on my first two infinity minis:

From the PanOceania box set:

I should note that this picture was taken on my iphone with a zoom function. It has a nice water pastel feel to it doesn't it? Odd though.

And here we have a Yu Jing Crane Rank Agent minus pony tail thing. This one didn't go to plan so much on the armour so I just went along with it.

Definitely a learning curve on this one. I'll update as I go along as per usual, but I think once I master it it will be a great technique.

Another quick note on Kickstarter. Mantic have just finished off their Kings of War kickstarter and I managed to get in a pledge after the end of it. Mantic have had the problem of always seeming to be the budget GW, especially considering a lot of their models are interchangable and are often used to pad out GW armies for a fraction of the price. From what I understand however there is a lot about Kings of War that makes it in some ways more fluid and flexible than Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Anywho here's the list of what I got for my $125 pledge:

Kings of War Hardback Rulebook + Mini-rulebook + 10 Dice ($50 RRP)
- Orc Starter Army (10 Gore Riders, 20 Orc Ax Warriors, Orcling Bases)
- Undead Starter Army (20 Skeletons, 20 Zombies and 10 Ghouls)
- Undead Vampiress Miniature
- Orc Wizard Miniature
- Kickstarter Bonus: Your name printed in the KoW rulebook.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Any rulebooks in your order get signed by both Alessio and Ronnie.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Electronic copy of the Kings of War hardback rulebook.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Electronic copy of the Kings and Legends supplement and The Bloodstone Of Cerillion novel.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Litho print of the map of Mantica, signed by Ronnie.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Any dice in your order get upgraded to limited edition "mantic splat" dice.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Any wound counters in your order get upgraded to kickstarter-exclusive blue acrylic.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Orc Chariot/ Fight Wagon model.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Troll Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Mummy Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Gargoyle Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Dwarf Berserker Cavalry Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Elven Palace Guard Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Celestian Paladin Angel Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Celestian Sister Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Celestian Man-at-Arms Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Celestian Paladin Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Ogre Hero Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free Kickstarter-exclusive Undead Skeleton with dog Miniature.
- Kickstarter Bonus: Free ticket to the Mantic Party in Nottingham this September, or Entry to participation game with Ronnie at either Gencon or Adepticon in the US.

Alas no awesome Werewolves

Daaaaaamned if I know

So

This guy and his friends have been sitting on my shelf for months:

Wh40k legion of the damned sergeant.

Standard paint scheme as that's more than cool enough.













Flames were a mechrite red base followed by troll slayer orange and a yellow wash at the top. Bones are army painter skeleton bone followed by their light shade wash, but more skeleton bone on top and highlighted with Vallejo off-white. I think it worked okay. General armour highlights done with thunderhawk blur wash with nuln oil.

In other news I have some infinity miniatures on their way. Itll be interesting as they are 28mm scale rather than the standard 'heroic scale which are, I believe, 36mm. 28mm gives a better scale apparently.

Until next time.

What you gonna do with a broken server early in the morning

Well, type out a blog post on your phone naturally. For those keeping score it's Just over a week now sans server and it ain't getting any easier.

So

Back in that place where there is only war ( as long as you don't count Birmingham...or Syria) I was able to purchase a very old school lictor for the tyrannus tyranidus genus.

This was one of the few occasions I basecoated in white. At the time I didn't think much of it, but after watching a video where a guy airbrushed over a black basecoat with grey at a 45 degree angle and white directly above, then did the majority of the painting with washes. It gave the mini a nice gradient.

Anyway with the lictor I painted the carapace grey before washing it repeatedly with drake holm nightshade from GW. The flesh is pallid Wycherley flesh with a druchii purple wash and another coat of wych flesh. I'll get a coat of sepia wash on there at some point to shade the musculature.

Base is the GW snow stuff I seem to be using quite often.

I have a ton of 'Nids to paint and not much desire to do so at the minute. Same goes for Dark Eldar. I find that rank and file miniatures tend to be rather dull and prefer to paint hero or single units....may explain why I prefer skirmish games.

hmm I reckon that's an episode of Supernatural going on in the back...I recognise that jacket anywhere.


PS: Carnivale is a great show, don't let anyone tell you differently.

Well if you're going to redesign Dante...

So back to the wonderful world of Malifaux, here we have the leaders of the mercenary box set Victoria and...erm...Victoria.

 I stuck to the studio job for them pretty closely but you can probably see the DMC influence in there. Great minis to paint by the way

Skarlock is a funny name isn't it?

So

I did do a blog post on this earlier in the week but it seems to have disappeared.

A Skarlock appears to be an attachment for a war caster which allows them to widen their spell casting range and, correct me if I'm wrong, cast two spell a turn. This would be the Cryx variety.

Studio paint jobs paint them as skeletal figures but..aren't they supposed to be cyber skeletons (ooo play some modded doom after this me thinks)? So I used a grey base followed by a wash of nuln oil followed by some bolt gun metal, another wash, celestia grey, wash, chain mail highlights.

Cloak is Cryx bane base over black base coat with tusgor fur as highlights. The sweeping soul is gnarl green followed by necrite green and Vallejo electric blue highlights. It's still WIP but ill get there.

Two for the price of one

Back to work we go, here we have a very fast paint of a defiler and night...thing. I forget the names of the bonejacks, tiny little boring things that they are.

God the snow went everywhere didn't it? Ah well I knocked these out quickly just to really check out the P3 paints and I have to say I really like them. They're more watered down than GW paints and obviously have different hues. To be honest, if I had enough of them I would probably use them instead.

And here's the other part I promised

So

Lady dd and the judge of the death Marshall box set. Not much really to say here, though you can see with the judge I'm still trying to work out how to effectively paint white. Anyway next up are the Victorias for malifaux and perhaps a dip back into 40k for a bit.

All together now 'bluriness, bluriness, it's the greatest thing that I possess' Anyone got any ideas how I can do this better beyond getting a flashlight and a white shoe box?

Oh to slip off this mortal coil

So

Here's one of my favourite minis that I have painted so far:

The eldar harlequin death jester. As you can see he's essentially black and white with a nuln oil black wash deneb stone skull and a bit of thunder hawk blue on the gems, and splashes of khorne red here and there. Simple but effective. Of course after I finished I realised I should have used a pencil to draw the thatching but I'm sure I'll paint some harlequins in the future

So what exactly is her "great rack"

So

As things go it looks like I'm only going to be painting at the weekends or on high days and holidays, so here's this weekends star attraction. As promised the lady with the rack everyone covets: pSkarre

I hear she's the bomb.

So( I do like that word don't I?) here's the skinny. I took a look at the studio paint job and though I'd try my best and this is what you got.

Skin is a mixture of GW Rakath flesh and talarn flesh as base coat. Washes with carroburg crimson and then highlighted with Rakath flesh, talarn and pale wych flesh with a splash of carroburg crimson in the mix. Well you already know I'm useless at faces.

Eyes are white with a light wash of necrotite green so you can see the white iris underneath.

Cloak is a wet blend Of ( from the top) GW chaos black to dark shadow grey to Cryx bane base to dark angel green to gnarl green. Kinda worked.

Metal was a base of clestia grey follqes by boltgun metal with a highlight of chain mail and a blue wash. Blighted gold on the grips etc.

Hair was celestia grey over chaos black followed by a blue wash and glacial blue highlights with some red for the captain jack sparra' look.

Base was a custom resin with a very old school GW terracotta washed with army painter light tone followed by a liberal application of GW snow paint thing. Highly technical I'm sure you'll agree.

Side note: I paint on the 180s in differing colours depending on the faction:

Green and brown = Circle
Bright green and bronze = Cryx
Red and white = khador
Others to be confirmed though I think I'll change Cryx to blighted gold instead of bronze.


Second sub note: this painting was made possible by the delightful decoder ring theatre podcast, especially the tales of the red panda. Without them painting wouldn't be half as fun. Cheers.

Third sub note: about the horn...the second one disappeared as I opened the package. I looked for about 2o mins before deciding to model my own out of green stuff. I think it gives her a wee bit more character, don't you?

Those vile ratmen and their loathsome kin

So

Returning to the GW side of things, as far as Warhammer itself goes I'm a big skaven fan, yes yes.

You may have come across one of my painted skaven already;

Death master Snikch (which I pronounce as snitch for some reason) was dressed this season in the ever popular Ezio Auditure de Firenze Assassins cloak which he models here for us today. Notice the folds and pockets ladies and gentlemen, perfect for an enterprising rat about town.























Here we have Queek Headtaker without his rather daft trophy rack. Red may not be in season ladies and gents but it certainly helps cut down on the cleaning bill for this cavalier rodent.

I hope to get half an island of blood box set at some point so I'll have lots of rats to paint.











Quick note on Sedition. If you haven't heard, Mike Mcvey is putting out a board game a la space hulk with coolminiornot.com and currently ( for another 12 days, has a kickstarter going for it. I've slammed down $144 for the set, the ripley model and the Isaac Clark wannabe model

Head over to Kickstarter today and get in on this now. I suggest looking at the YouTube video cause it's dead space mixed with space hulk...what more do you want? To play it in the dark with glow in the dark figures? Well why not? Optic camo models? Why not?

A downed server doesn't stop...Justice!

As our work server has committed seppuku this morning, I have a small amount of time to bring you an introduction to the wonderful world of Malifaux.

Malifaux is a table top skirmish game not unlike necromunda in that you play in gangs against each other and variable terrain is a big part of it. However the main difference is that Malifaux is played with a deck of playing cards( you can use your own but there are specific branded fate decks with relevant imagery). Instead of rolling a dice you flip a card. On top if this you also have a hand of 7? Cards which you can use to substitute your flip or "cheat fate" as it were. There are other systems too but that is the barebones of it.

I picked up Lady Justice and the death marshalls box set as well as the Victorias box set for my housemate to play with. Have yet to play but painting is going well:

Here you have the death marshals. They were what drew me to that gang to be honest. I reckon the leather dusters look a little flat, so I will revisit them at some point.

Next time lady dd and the judge himself .

Okay I lied

I said I would be painting pSkarre but I didn't. Nope it's the master of mutilation, the bringer of pain, he like nightmare in elm street so much he got two of the razor gloves, your friend and mine, master tormentor morghul.

So what did I do here? Painted the gold in p3 blighted gold (which is tin bitz really for those with the GW bingo card at home) followed by a weird gold mix I got given which is much brighter than most golds. It's almost a greenish verdigris colour. The plates where done by covering the inlays with red than brown ink to give it some depth.


I still can't paint skin well, but I'll work at it.

I may have a bit of a break now as I'm back at work and feeling a bit Ill. Hopefully that will pass as I've got some great malifaux figures coming up...also more circle naturally

Have a good one

eBay is the root of all evil

So

I seem to have lost most of my bank account to this habit of mine. I think I'll certainly not be buying anything for a while but luckily I have a lot to work through...

So what do we have here?

Tharn Bloodtrackers x 6

Tharn bloodweavers x 6

Feral Warpwolf

Lord of the Feast

Satyr Gnarlhorn

Cygnar thingy x2

Stryker

Kromac the awesome 

Skorne Beasthandler and Paingiver

Autumnblade

Woldwarden

Skorne faction book

Whew, too much too soon too expensive. Thats all I can afford for a couple of months, and hopefully you'll see them being painted up over the next couple of months. I hope to find somewhere to actually play this damn game at some point.

Anyway

Today I've mostly been painting a khador widowmaker..I never quite understood why the studio paints them in red and black if they are snipers in a snow covered area, so I painted her in white, a colour I'm not comfortable with. I went for the grey to white highlight layers, looks okay but half finished.

I'm coming to the end of my wonderful holiday so i'll try and get PSkarre done tomorrow after doing a bunch of basecoating, so I'll see you on the flipside.......

It's the circle, the circle of me ripping your head off with werewoooolvesssssss. hmm doesn't quite work with the music

Heya

So while I do love my roboskeletons from hell, when it comes to Hordes (Warmachine's more bestial brother) I took one look at the lists and....bought a bit of everything. Seriously though as far as actual factions go there was only one real choice


Circle of Orboros...no not Oroboros (though it's similar in concept and sadly there is no Wesker screaming about Total Global Saturation tm.)

So why the Druids? Well apart from the fact I'm very much on Team Jacob? ( he's the werewolf dude who never wears a shirt aye?) well these Druids are bastards who will happily wipe out humanity to keep the planet safe. They go for the long view and a such there are acceptable losses and means are fine so long as the end is there.


Plus there are werewolves.

Man, Krueger's cape gave me nightmares due to the poor lighting in my room. I literally spent about 6 hours on this dude, a good 2 on the cape and ols (?) alone. Will probably redo him when I get an actually handle on all this..,though I think my wet blending of the erm skirt? Worked well.

I thought he looked dumb just hovering on the ground so I whipped up a custom base from tissue paper, pvc and super-glue. I had hoped to do something a bit more..oomph..y...but I ran out of time and ability so I just went with a rock. S'okay but he looks like he's on the deck of the titanic as its about to go down. Still that lightning effect is pretty cool from a distance eh?

Quick note, nothing at e3 about the Warmachine video game which is a shame. Hopefully we'll hear something soon but the trailer on YouTube pretty much sums it up.

edit: bring on the wub wub.

One day and one jubilee later....

Wow, what a party old Queenie put on tonight. Whew I'm exhausted.

Anyway here's old DJ done to just about a tabletop standard...if you squint...a lot.

I used my bronze effect explained in a previous post for the metal. For the panels I used incubi darkness blenders to dark angel green to warp stone green to moot green. Wet blending is a new thing to me so I'm just getting used to it, so excuse the mess.

Also half way through the painting I realised that the pelvis was on back to front....what are you gonna do? Anyway let me know any ideas and stuff I should practice.

DJ DJ!

So I mentioned I had a deathjack to assemble huh? And when I say assemble I mean green stuff and super glue EVERYWHERE. I'm probably so high right now from fumes and accelerator fluid I'd get stopped by the police.

So here we go. Step by step. Oh and I didn't get instructions with the model, which made it a bit interesting....

So here you have the bits box, scrubbed and washed ready for assembly. Remember kids, always scrub and washing your miniatures. Who knows what kind of crazy things its been rolled in, and it helps with basecoating. Trust me. 

A little bit of green stuff and super glue later its beginning to take shape. Imagine it rising from a vat of molten lead and...erm...souls? I should note that I didn't get the card with the model, which I found a wee bit odd, but I can pick up the deck if needs be.

There we go, he's actually coming together...yeah I know the legs look off, but imagine him running forward onto his right leg and it kinda works. Oh the sticking and the green stuffing this took. 

I can hear someone back there screaming 'PINS, PIN HIM YOU DUMB BASTARD'..or that could be my inner voice. hmm..anyway, yes I should have pinned him but I don't have any pins about and I'm working on a time constraint due to only having a week off work. Believe me, Terminus will be pinned no worries.

99% done! I'm leaving him to cure overnight and then I'll put the fiddly bits on which don't weigh a ton. Such an awesome model, and I got him half price off ebay...cough

*cue maniacal cackling* It will be mine mwahahahahahahahahahah

DJ is now fully built. Notice all the spikes and rib cage? I decided not to put in his soul furnace as I'd find it even more fiddly and I can use it with something else I reckon. All I've got to do now is let it set again, base and then paint. Whew, only took 4 hours or so to put together. I think I'll leave Terminus till I actually have time to build him..those wings..erghh 

Bronzed off

Here we have my most recent model, prime version deneghra or pDenny for short from the rather wonderful Warmachine game. Two things to note here:

First is that I painted her skin a la dead version of eDenny (if you have to ask) so that's why she's greyish with blue lips.

Second is that I'm working on a bronze green Cryx force. Hence the bronze armour. I've tried to give a weathered look by covering GW dwarf bronze with a very light thunder hawk blue was to give it a verdigris look. After that dried I put on a light splodge of scorched brown followed by a lighter brown made of Vallejo leather and shadow grey 1:1 highlight. Finally I used a very old GW yellow wash on the parts hit by lighting.

I hope it came out okay, I'll keep experimenting.

WIP it, WIP it good

My work in progress 'box'. Those Trollkin will be interesting to shade and the legion warbeast....whew.

I've also got a deathjack to put together

2 months previously

I apologise for the bluriness of my photos. I have only an iPhone to work with and poor lighting. All I can say is that I'm working on it...

Anyway, here's my first couple of models from about 2 months ago.

Welcome to my travails in painting

So here we go, my first paint based blog gets off to a start with a Raven Guard Chaplin. I consider this to be my best work so far...give or take.

I should say that I'm not the biggest fan of GW in terms of policy and prices but some of their miniatures are really quite lovely. On that note...