*** EDIT: The images on the first two pages have disappeared due to a poor choice of a hosting service. I'll sort that out as soon as possible! ***
Instagram: tarkamos_mini_workshop
Hey and welcome to my hobby blog!
First a small introduction:
I have been playing wargames since around 2002. Started with Lord of the Rings miniature game after a friend of mine dragged me to Games Workshop. Grabbed a box of Minas Tirith soldiers and some paints. That's when I knew where all my weekly allowances would go. I was instantly hooked. I played that game for 2 years or so and collected some Isengard and goblin models on the side. Learned the basics of miniature painting (still have my first models laying around) and got some experience on playing the game. We played many games on my friends floor, using old cereal boxes as terrain and a rug as our playing field. Fun times.
I was keen on trying the other games too, as many of my friends played either Warhammer fantasy battle or 40k. As I was very young back then (12 or 13?), it was really hard to make the decision which army or game to pick. Money was tight back then, so I could not just go ahead and buy everything I wanted. So, at first I bought a box of high elf warriors, but after assembling and painting them, for some reason I was not happy with my choice. I think I sold them to my friend at that point.
Later on when the battle for skull pass package (night goblins and high elves) was released, started a small Ork army. That force became quite large and I played a dozen or so games with it.
At that time (2006-2007?) most of my friends had transitioned to Warhammer 40k. The game looked so much fun, but I still could not make my mind on which army to start. I mainly watched as my friends played or tried their armies. Every week I had decided a different army that I most definitely wanted to play.
In 2008 the Assault on Black Reach box set was released for 5th edition. I though to myself that if I liked orks in Fantasy Battle, why not in 40k? So we decided to buy that box with a friend of mine and split the armies 50/50.
It was not long that I took a long break from the hobby. Teenage years and no interest in playing the games or painting the models, or something like that.
From then on, every other year or so, I picked up the brush again to paint a few months, only to pack up all the stuff back to storage again.
After a half a decade of on and off hobbying, the "bug bit again", real hard this time.
It was time to head to the hobby store once more...
So the current state of my collection is somewhat of the following:
Orks ~6000 pts
Eldar ~3000pts
Dark Eldar ~2500pts
Death Korps of Krieg ~2000pts
Necromunda: Escher & Chaos cult
Mordheim: Undead Warband
+ Loads and loads of various miniatures & terrain pieces
This blog is where I continue my hobby story and share it with you guys.
As the name suggests, this thread will display "a bit of this and that". So there is no one theme or project, I will be posting all kinds of stuff: pictures of my ongoing projects, finished models and maybe even some shots from recent games. Stuff I want to share with you, my fellow hobbyists!
Also the update rate will differ depending on how I progress and motivate myself to write stuff. I have noticed that It's hard for me to keep a consistent rate of updates for too long, but I will try to get back every now and then. It is also hard for me to keep my focus on one theme for too long.
The thing probably enjoy the most is painting rust & weathering. For some reason it is very pleasing and relaxing to mess up a vehicle or a terrain piece with chipping effects!
I'm far from a professional painter, but I try to practice techniques like NMM, blending and glazing.
I aim to get better at painting and terrain building, so any feedback / critique is always very welcome!
However, I appreciate every comment equally
So if you are interested in following my journey and keep up with the constant mood switches and half finished projects, buckle up for the ride!
Read on if you would like to see models like this:
Spoiler:
Or this:
Spoiler:
Index sorted by theme or army in chronological order:
Got some more work done on the kabalites, just a little until they are finished (pictures then).
Also, started painting my wyches, none finished yet, still figuring out the colors on them.
(sorry for the bad pictures, didn't have time to put up a proper setup)
Here's the one I've been working on
I also got some work done with one of my eternity projects, the looted wagon.
Got an old horrible looking rhino from a friend for half free, decided to try and turn it more orky.
Have been stuck with that project ever since, and not even close to finish..
Anyway, built a crude looking sponson-like bigshoota on the side, and got some more paint into it.
Whoa it's been a long time from my last update.
But here goes:
Finally got some more worke done with the deldar thing, finished my kabalites and started working on the raider I have for them.
So here they are (again, sorry for the bad pics)
I have always wanted to paint something sort of desertish, so I thought: "heck, why not these deldar vehicles then".
They have a totally different color scheme compared to all the infantry, but I think they might blend pretty well together.
Still in early stage, haven't added much details yet and the highlights on the front are still a bit too bright even for my tastes.
Might add some weathering effects on the hull too.
The weathering effects on the hull sound like a good idea, I really like the sail on that raider, very nice sir! I also like the dark green of your DE, suitably dark. Keep it up.
Thanks!
I just need to figure out how to make those effects look good. Usually been painting ork vehicles with rusty like stuff, so it's a new challenge this one.
Automatically Appended Next Post: More updates!
Decided to show you guys the new color scheme for my eldar vehicles I came up with.
Tried to make it look sort of a night sky-like.
Thinking of repainting all my eldar vehicles with the same way, already done so on the other falcon and a vyper jetbike.
Update time!
Have been busy lately, so not much progress on the dark eldar project, other than few assembled models.
Also I just bought two Venoms for the army. Trying to get them both assembled today and painted over the weekend.
Got some more work done with the new eldar color scheme though, painted the other falcon and one vyper jetbike.
Still got 3 more tanks and other vyper to go.
So, here they are (The vyper is still lacking it's turret)
Uploading more pictures of them when they are all finished
Hey thanks!
It's actually simple enough if you know how to use a drybrush, but pretty time consuming, especially making the "stars".
Just needs alot of mixing different shades of purple.
It's been a reeeeeeeaaaallly long time since my last update.
I have to admit that I pretty much forgot this whole blog thingy
Anyway, have been building a Death Korps of Krieg army lately.
Color scheme is pretty basic dark grey ww1 stylish mix.
Here are some pictures of the first tanks joining the army.
Tried to make them fit the "muddy trench" warfare theme, with a lot of rust and worn paint.
First time doing anything like this, so please tell me what I should have done more or less.
Here's the first one, basic LMBT Greta.
Front view
And here is a picture of the hellhound Nina.
Posting more pics soon.
Bought some jetbikes for my Eldar force a while ago, and finally started painting them.
Just got the "starpattern" done to all of them, the same one I use on my tanks.
Still need to figure out how to paint the guardians riding them.
(Sorry about the crappy phone camera pic)
Also making a jet seer with the mantle of the laughing god, so trying to make this one a bit solitaire-like
So, I'm trying to get a 1000pts eldar force fully painted for tomorrow, trying the list out at the games day at our FLGS.
Everything else is pretty much done, just need to do some finishing touches with the jetbikes.
The list:
Jetbike Farseer with mantle of the laughing god and singing spear
5x fire dragons + wave serpent with tl scatterlasers
2 x 6 windrider jetbikes, 3 shuriken cannons in total (for wysiwyg reasons)
10 x guardians with scatterlaser + wave serpent with tl scatterlasers
Falcon with scatter laser and spirit stones
When I can find a place where to take some decent pictures of the whole army, I will post some shots here.
In the meanwhile, some more crappy phone camera WIP images ->
Using an empty cola can to make flags.
The "Solitaire" mantleseer is pretty much done, just need to figure something out for the flag I have magnetized on the back.
Wanted to make he's jetbike to stand out from the rest, but the seer himself follows the darkish purple theme of the army.
I have been out of the hobby for quite some time. Haven't painted anything in over a year, and for the last couple of years played maybe two or three games.
"I don't have the time" is the usual excuse.
So, as the 8th edition showed up, my interest has awoken once more.
Finally decided to start modelling and painting again, and I wanted to share it with you guys.
Lately I have been doing some terrain and painting one of the basilisks for my Krieg army.
My Krieg army has grown quite a bit since my last update.
And after all these years, my photoskills still have not been improved
Krieg is my main project at the moment. Really trying to finish all the models I still have unpainted (2 basilisks and one leman russ).
Might even order some new units soon.
At the moment the army has:
- Company Command Squad with Master of Ordnance
- Platoon Command Squad
- 6x 10-man infantry squads (3 flamers, 1 grenade launcher)
- 5-man Engineer squad
- 2x Leman Russ Battle Tank (1 stock, 1 exterminator)
- Basilisk
- 2x Quad Launchers
- 3x Sentinels (not "legal", but I really love the models)
Next up some artillery crew for the basilisks and more quad launchers.
I'm going to try to update some images and stories here. Atleast from the games I hope to play in the future.
Atleast more often than once a couple of years
The DKoK infantry are looking pretty great! You could dirty them up a bit more by smearing brown on near the bottom of their coats though if you like gritty guardsmen like I do haha
The weathering on the tanks is nice; I'm also going to steal that tank barbed wire idea
Finished my second Basilisk today. Here are some pictures from it.
Pictures are pretty horrible, just tried to take a quick snap after painting.
Quantity over quality on this update.
And as I watch these images now, I see alot of things that need fixing. Still a bit rusty (heh) on the painting.
Also ordered some more stuff for Krieg. Need to have little more artillery and finally got that Hades breaching drill that I have wanted for so long.
Even bought some artillery crew to put on those basilisks, just to get them to look more "alive" and kriegish.
Yeah, ordered 5 more so I will have 10 in total.
Also got: quad launcher + crew and one pack of heavy artillery crew.
Really look forward to playtest that drill. It finally looks like it could be useful. Still not sure if it's totally legal to use engineers with it, because the index only talks about veterans. Luckily, at least my playgroup agrees on using them together
I _really_ like the night-sky pattern on the Eldar vehicles (all the work here is terrific). Do you have a tutorial stashed someplace as to how you did it?
Meer_Cat wrote: I _really_ like the night-sky pattern on the Eldar vehicles (all the work here is terrific). Do you have a tutorial stashed someplace as to how you did it?
Thanks a lot!
I don't have any tutorials that I followed etc. The idea actually came to my mind when I was staring an space themed wallpaper on my pc screen in the middle of the night lol.
So by trial and error I found a way to paint some sort of spacey night sky thing, mostly using drybrushing (technique I like to use a lot).
Here is a message I found from 3 years ago regarding the same thing. I think that explains it relatively well. It's been so long since I painted those that I don't quite remember what I did there
"So basically I used different tones of purple, from dark to light and drybrushed them on top of black primer -> Start from dark and move to lighter tones step by step.
The lightest parts and the dots ("stars" are pure white. Very minimal drybrushing on top of the purple parts. -> Make it look random.
To finish things off, I washed the tank with a mix of purple wash and varnish + some water. -> Some of my tanks are matte and some washed with gloss, haven't yet decided which looks better. "
And now I have decided, matte looks better. Maybe...?
Hope that helped
Edit:
Found some time to grab pictures from all of the vehicles together. As I've been absent for quite some time, maybe it's justified to show progress with this army too.
The whole bunch:
Wave serpent matte (without gloss):
Falcon with gloss:
And as you can see, they do not look "that good" when observed up close. But on the battlefield between all the terrain they look pretty nice.
As I'm not too good at painting shapes with freehand, I cheat a little bit with drybrushing etc.
Also the horrible light I have makes those weapons look too bright.
Still have the Eldar flyer unpainted. Maybe I should refresh my memory and try to paint that. Gotta stock up some purple paint though.
And finally it's done, the third basilisk is ready for battle.
Took some time to finish all of them, because I painted these little by little while doing other stuff at the same time (painting 20 minutes here, 15 minutes there etc.)
They are still lacking some crewmen (already ordered). I think they will make these look a lot more dynamic.
Anyways, here is a shot from the last one:
Tried to take some shots from all three of them, this is the least horrible one:
Now just to wait for the Forgeworld package in order to get more models to paint (like I don't have my cabinet full of those).
I think I'm going to work on the other armies I have when their codexes finally arrive.
Meanwhile I will build a list or two for Krieg. We are trying to schedule a game for this week with few friends of mine. Would be my first game in 8th edition (actually first game in almost 2 years)
Feedback and suggestions welcome!
Also taking some hints for better photos. I use my phone + any light I have at hand. Cannot by a better camera at this time.
Auroch wrote:Do you do those hazard stripes freehand? Looks great
Yeah they are freehand. It takes a few tries to get those lines straight though
Some small updates too:
The Forge World package finally arrived, yay!
Started by checking that every part is in decent shape and nothing is missing.
After that, the parts needed some cleaning.
Took quite a bit of filing to smoothen the edges.
Image is after separating the parts from the casting. Paper was there to catch most of the dust from filing.
Also applied some base coat for the thudd gun and Hades.
Partly painting them in pieces for two reasons: first it is easier to apply paint to different parts before assembly and second, I run out of super glue
Trying to get these bad boys assembled tomorrow.
EDIT: I have lost all the WIP images on this update :(
Finally got to play my first game in 8th edition! Enjoyed it a lot actually.
Played a 1500pts game, where the Krieg 239th siege regiment faced my friends very cool Death Guard zombie army. He works at our FLGS so we were able to use their gaming table during and after opening hours.
The army I faced was very themed: 100 zombies aka poxwalkers, chaos spawns, zombie daemon prince, typhus and two maulerfiends(?).
Pretty much the whole army was melee only and relied on sheer manpower and resilience. Very fun army to face if you are not playing too seriously. And I never am with Krieg.
Zombies make their advance towards Krieg lines:
While the kriegsmen ready their guns and reinforce the line:
But the enemy pushed through regardless and the line was broken:
"Omnomnom"
After 5 turns, the game ended at tie. My opponent scored first blood, linebreaker and slay the warlord, while I had linebreaker (thanks to Hellhound and Hades) + more objectives.
Thudd guns were very effective at killing hordes, but my Leman Russ was a disappointment. Maybe it was the bad rolls, or it just is worse in 8th. Don't know yet.
Also I'm pretty sad that Hades did not make a single close combat attack -> it was instantly killed by Typhus during MY charge phase(should have studied the stratagems before the game).
I also learned a great many things:
I played like in 7th edition, trying to protect my tanks from everything that moves -> they are actually pretty resilient nowadays.
Krieg are actually pretty decent in close combat (atleast against poxwalkers).
USE YOUR COMMAND POINTS -> forgot this pretty much all the time.
Hoping to play more often than once in a year or so
Now back to painting and modelling...
Weapons and leadership values are the same, but they have an army wide rule, "cult of sacrifice", which let's all infantry ignore wounds during the shooting phase when testing for morale.
It makes the army very fluffy, as your troops will not care much if they get shot
Krieg guardsmen are also a bit better at close combat than normal guarsdsmen, as their ws is 3+.
Also their orders are a bit more close combat oriented, for example: change their lasguns to pistol 2 or fight during the shooting phase.
Painted the Hades Breaching Drill, engineers, thudd gun and it's crew.
The paintjob is more of a "tabletop standard". And man does that camera give harsh judgment, I see a lot more mistakes when watching these pictures closely. Many times the models look okay with bare eye or on the gaming table, but take a picture of them in direct light -> nope
Also it seems I have totally forgotten how to paint cloth, as these are definetly not the best I've done. Maybe it comes back to me after enough of brushing.
Tried a little lighter color scheme on this one. I found it very fun to do weathering effects on light grey.
The metal on the drillparts looks a little sloppy though. It seems the paint behaves a little differently with resin models of this size compared to the hull of a leman russ for example. Even when primed.
There are also some rocks and sand on the metal "belt" that comes from the drill itself, but don't show very well in these pictures.
The bases (or the models in that matter) did not turn out the way I kinda wanted. The ground is a little too dark compared to other models in my army.
3rd gun of the battery ready to hammer the battlefield.
This on turned out a lot better than the other two in my army. Atleast something to be happy about
Next up I need to finish the crew for the basilisks, they will be ready pretty soon!
These guys really add some life. And now these tanks look a bit more Kriegish.
Shame I got some wrong hand pieces in the package, but I tried to make it work. The package also lacked the big artillery shells, so I have to contact Forge World if I could get them. The crewman holding his hands in the air looks a bit out of place without the shell.
And yes, still using a gaming mat from Magic the gathering as a background
Now that I have painted all my Krieg models, time to fix the older ones. Couple of years of storage and moving from one house to another has taken it's toll on some of the models.
There are numerous bent and snapped lasgun barrels that I have to repair. Also the paintjob on some of the kriegsmen is very underwhelming, as I painted them in batches on 20.
40 out of my 60 kriegsmen are made from the Gorgon Transport passenger models (I think you can't get them anymore?).
It was a cheap way to get more infantry. Shame I don't have any pictures left from the project. Took a lot of cutting and greenstuffing though.
Here's a picture of the models, not taken by me though:
Spoiler:
Anyway, most of them look fine, but there are a few that are pretty horrible when observed up close.
So I decided to order one more squad of advancing kriegsmen next month to replace the few "mutated" ones.
Meanwhile I'm going to repaint few of the models that have been painted pretty lazily. Also repainting my Company Commander (marshal these days), as it's paintjob is not good enough for a model that pretty.
I really like how you weather the steel on your vehicles- that burnished-bronze-brass look that says that corrosion or oxidation has been removed through the laborious and constant application of Brasso or Never-Dul; takes me back indeed! Really nice work and a great effect.
Making the edges of the drill look worn is a really good idea; not particularly surprising given that it drills though rock though
Engineers also look pretty cool. Are those shotguns?
Meer_Cat wrote:I really like how you weather the steel on your vehicles- that burnished-bronze-brass look that says that corrosion or oxidation has been removed through the laborious and constant application of Brasso or Never-Dul; takes me back indeed! Really nice work and a great effect.
Thanks! To be honest I didn't even think it like that. Just tried to add different "layers" of corrosion and wear. Valid explanation though. Maybe the krieges do care about the condition of their vehicles after all
Auroch wrote:Making the edges of the drill look worn is a really good idea; not particularly surprising given that it drills though rock though
Engineers also look pretty cool. Are those shotguns?
Cheers! I tried to think which parts of the vehicle actually hit the rock and other matter when the drill goes under ground. Glad it worked out.
The weapons are indeed shotguns. They do pretty nice damage on the tabletop
Thinking about converting another melta engineer, not sure yet. Deepstriking 2 meltas plus those shotguns sounds tempting though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Some work in progress updates:
As I said before, a few of my models have taken some damage over time. Found couple of pictures I took before starting the repairs.
Few of the lasguns were bent like this. Or even worse (already fixed the worse ones before realizing that it should be good to take pictures).
Just apply some hot water to soften it up, then carefully bend it to right position and "freeze" with cold water.
And the worst scenario:
These guys are equipped with the less known carbine version of the lucius pattern lasgun. Luckily I had quite a few spare weapons to steal parts from.
EDIT: image lost :(
Also small improvements on the painting side. Decided to add some more detail to these chainswords. Previously these were just drybrushed grey, the same color as the rest of the models.
This is what happens when you try to finish too many models in too little time.
There were many more mistakes like this, which I'm now fixing model by model. Nothing too big, just some small details that bother me.
These things did not bother me as much before, but now that I have improved a little bit on the painting side, I'd like to put these guys in order.
Also found few kriegsmen from the passenger model:
EDIT: image lost :(
These are the leftovers from the cutting project. Need to figure out what to do with these guys. Making a squad out of these is a bit too much work, because they are casted pretty well together.
Maybe I could create bodies or something to the tabletop from them.
Auroch wrote: Objective markers or terrain with tastefully sprinkled Korpsman corpses maybe? They'd look pretty dead facedown
Something like that
Finished the paintjob on the Company Commander. For once I really tried my best rather than making just tabletop standard on a single infantry miniature.
Tried a slightly different highlight techique and tried to find every single unpainted detail this model had.
It transformed from this:
Spoiler:
To this:
For once these images are linked from the gallery itself, so they can be zoomed there.
Learned a lot and it was nice to see where my painting is at the moment. I discovered that I have lot to learn regarding small details and highlighting. Also I maybe should have thinned the paint even more, as some thickness is present.
I noticed that painting black (boots) or white (the collar) clothes are not my best skill, so I will need to work on those.
Still I'm fairly happy how it turned out.
Next up the Platoon Commander (or field officer) and the rest of the command squad models.
Already started the base colors on the plasmapistol which I'm going to swap onto him. As I want this army to be WYSIWYG.
Playing my second game in 8th tomorrow (2 games in one month, is this even happening??). Let's see how these guys fare against battlesuit heavy Tau.
Picture heavy update with shots from a recent game and some terrain I mad long ago.
Probably not going to post pictures from every game I play in the future, just a couple to show my latest projects on the battlefield
So I played a 1750 pts game against Tau this time. Managed to table my opponent at the end of round 5, which really surprised me. Usually I have lost pretty much every game with Krieg back in 7th edition.
Basic infantry seems to be a lot more useful and I really love that ws3+ with these guys. Basilisks also did fantastic job this time destroying loads of battlesuits and the enemy commander.
Game images inside spoiler tags, as they are somewhat "off topic".
The whole army:
Spoiler:
Gunline prepares:
Spoiler:
Greta in big trouble:
Spoiler:
Fix bayonets!
Spoiler:
Table after 5 turns. Space marine tanks are used as terrain:
Spoiler:
Before the game me and my friend managed to find a box that contained pretty much all of my old terrain and a gaming table we did like 6 years ago from plywood.
Wanted to share some pictures of those too. Some of these terrain pieces are 5-6 years old, some are made more recently (2-12 months ago).
A more recent project that I made to rehearse my painting skills after a break.
A piece of ruin. This terrain piece is more of a visual thing rather than giving any real cover.
An old silo made from a peach can:
There were a lot's of others too, but they were pretty much just non converted buildings from the Imperial Sector just drybrushed grey. Looked too boring to take pictures from.
Need to work on these pieces too and create some more terrain to make the gaming table look even better.
I might make a terrain blog at some point if I feel up to it. Need to finish my armies first though, as they are the first priority.
In any case, I think I have painted enough of grey for a moment, so next up some eldar. Continuing my Krieg also when the I get to order some more infantry for them.
Yeah craftworld indeed. Also have a Dark Eldar (drukhari I believe they are called these days) army, but that can wait until their codex is released.
I have a ~3000 points of craftworld Eldar, but first I'm going to enchance, fix and paint a ~2000 points worth of models to be used on the tabletop.
Luckily most of them are in pretty good shape, which means that I don't gringe when I inspect some of them.
As for terrain, I like to use bases for buildings as well. Plasticard or a piece of hardboard works well. They really make the buildings look more realistic and part of the battlefield.
Usually I cover the whole base PVA glue, then add pieces of normal kitchen roll until the whole thing is covered. After that, mix a 50/50 mixture of water + PVA glue and "paint" over the paper.
As it dries, it will be easy to paint. Prime it black and drybrush different shades of brown, it will look pretty realistic. Just add some debris and parts from vehicles / buildings and it's pretty much done.
Adding some details to the buildings, or even painting them with different colors (red, blue etc. have worked for me), make them really stand out.
Sprues actually make pretty good bent metal pieces from buildings. Cut a few of them, add some dents with hobby knife / clippers, roughen up the edges and maybe bend them a little bit.
As for those oil silos, they are made just by using a tin can. All the details are cardboard which was cut to the right shape and then glued on top of the can.
Auroch wrote: Not a fan of the new names though... The Dark Eldar will always be the Dark Eldar just like the Guard will always be the Guard for me
My thoughts exactly.
Auroch wrote: I was thinking of grabbing some Eldar some time in the future. I love Aspect Warriors How are they in 8th? Haven't really checked out the codex
Go ahead! They have quite the cool looking models and are pretty fun to play.
Most of the Aspect warriors seem to be decent. Haven't tried them on tabletop yet though.
What I read, Dark Reapers are pretty much the "favor of the month" - unit at the moment with their great firepower and relatively low cost. Looking at the codex I see lot of improvements with the other units too. They may not be competitive, but still pretty good.
Banshees can actually get to close combat these days, as they have improved mobility and they can't be overwatched!
Wall of text incoming!
And as the Eldar project is kicked up and running again, I started once again by fixing some broken models. This time I also made a few army lists, which work as a base for the models I'm going to finish first.
Beginning of the new edition is always a great place to try out some of the units that have been sitting on the self for too long. Few of these are my Raners, Howling Banshees, Wraithlords and Swooping Hawks.
They used to be quite bad in recent editions (atleast compared to other simply better units), and I also used to play a little more seriously so these guys stayed in the figure case without seeing much daylight.
I won't be buying new models before these are completed, so the following lists are made from the units I currently have. The armies are completely composed from the Craftworld Ulthwe, as I'm not too keen about the trait mixing and matching shenanigans.
I only listed the models and the weapons, as I'm yet not sure about all the loadouts etc.
So the first list is more or less composed from the units I want to try out. It is not competitive by any means, but looks like fun to play.
I have always wielded a mech army with loads of wave serpents etc. This time I'm curious of trying the good old "footdar".
Spoiler:
HQ
Avatar of Khaine
Eldrad Ulthran (not sure about the powers yet, maybe guide, doom + something?)
Farseer (-||-)
This comes out ~1750pts.
The loadouts for most of the units are definetly not the best ones, but as this is more of a fluffy list, I want to go WYSIWYG. And this is the way I built the models back in the day.
This second list is something I'm more familiar with. I have been playing pretty lists more or less similar to this one in the previous editions. The biggest difference is that I replaced all the Dire Avengers with Guardians.
I have never used the Eldar flyer and now that it looks actually quite good, it had to be included.
5x Fire Dragons (exarch, firepike)
10x Howling Banshees
Heavy Support
5x Dark Reapers (exarch)
Falcon (bright lance + shuriken cannon)
Fire Prism
Flyer
Crimson Hunter Exarch
Transports
3x Wave Serpent (scatter lasers)
This list is also ~1750pts
I know myself well enough to know that after a few games my lists will always shift to a more competitive style (especially with eldar and dark eldar). But I will try to avoid it when playing casual games with my friends.
And then for some pictures!
Project started with actually washing most of the tanks. They were so dusty that it was impossible to paint small details without making a mess.
Maybe not the best way to do this, but as I'm a busy man this worked out just fine.
All washed up!
Paint has been cracked off from some of the models:
And some are bent (and missing their wings)
Rangers have also lost their rifle barrels to some unknown dimension (vacuum cleaner? under the carpet? who knows..)
Summary: pretty much all of the finecast models are bent in some way and most of the metal ones (which I have quite a lot) have lost some paint.
Quite a lot of unnecessary work that could have been avoided.
Young and stupid is not a good combination when it comes to storing models. Some of these were just quickly dumped to the miniature case after a game and then forgotten there for a few years
If only I could go back in time and smack my younger self to the face
In any case, let's continue:
My friend donated his Eldar warhost to join my craftworld. Got ~1200pts worth of models practically for free (we made a deal that he could still play with them, but I would paint them and own them).
But these guys were primed twice (if I remember correctly) and then painted with a very thick layer. Rookie mistake, we all have done those.
So swimming they go!
Trying to get rid most of the paint, so they can be repainted. They are drowned in a mix of water and a traditional finnish cleaner "Mäntysuopa" (tall oil soap).
It takes a few days for the paint to dissolve, but atleast it's a safe way to do it without damaging the models themselves.
I tried some acetone to an old test model of mine -> the paint dissolved pretty quickly, but the plastic on the model also suffered. Might work for metal models though.
This project also got me wanting to finish my storm guardians!
They were in pretty horrible shape, as I never actually finished them. I was enthusiastic to build them, then realised how bad they were gamewise and left them in a drawer.
These guys also deserve a fighting chance. So added some new parts and bases:
And primed them:
I have meddled with different color schemes for these guys and will post pictures when I'm happy with it.
I will also repaint my other guardian squad, because they are painted BLUE(?). I thought it was a good idea back then, but they do not fit the aesthetics of the army at all.
So, keep tuned for some pictures from actually finished models in the future!
Messed around and tried a bit different paint schemes for the guardians.
I finally came up with something that is relatively quick to paint, but still looks decent on the board.
The final (hopefully) color scheme will be something like this. Works better with the rest of the army, atleast compared to blue.
Still need some work to be done with highlights and of course the bases. I'm really trying not to spend too much time on these models, as they are "just troops". I want them to look decent, but also want them to finished and ready to fight.
Just seems to be hard for me to ignore some small mistakes and details that no one will ever even notice, except for myself
Removing the citadel paints works fairly well with the tall oil soap. ~48 hours of soaking and some toothbrushing results to something like this:
The hard part is the spray primer. That seems to be very hard to remove, and the models I got from my friend have been primed atleast twice, so I might need to try something different on those guys.
Interesting contrast, although it seems a bit jarring to put metallic gold right next to black armour IMO Could go with the traditional Ulthwe scheme, although the white helmets might be a bit of a pain
Auroch wrote: Interesting contrast, although it seems a bit jarring to put metallic gold right next to black armour IMO Could go with the traditional Ulthwe scheme, although the white helmets might be a bit of a pain
Do you mean the weapons? Tried different colors with them, not yet decided whether I'm happy with those or not. Also tried more of a beige/black style with them.
At the moment they are painted with Ushabti Bone and washed with black and/or orange wash.
Traditional Ulthwe scheme is something I tried a few years ago. It looks good but somehow I did not manage to do it correctly. And you are right, painting white armor is a pain.
Also I did not want to "copypaste" an existing color scheme, rather like to experiment with new styles.
Auroch wrote: Ushabti bone? Oh I see I thought it was a metallic paint somehow sorry
I do like the raised purple areas though
Yeah the light I used for these quick images is a bit yellow, so the effect seems a bit too strong.
In any case it was a good point, yellowish color does not fit at all.
After pondering (and getting some more feedback) I decided to try out a few things. Liking the direction more.
(Mind you, the paint job is really thick on these, as I have painted them over and over with different colors. So they need some paint stripping too.)
Original purple:
Lighter purple:
Decided to try painting the weapons with grey (still need to play with different shades) and added some purple to the kneepads.
This maybe fits the darkish cold scheme better without popping the weapons too much. Just need to go easy on the shade, so they won't look too metallic.
I might choose the shade of purple from somewhere between those two pictures.
Sometimes it's really hard for me to figure out a color scheme. But one thing I like about these communities: Feedback from fellow hobbyists. Really helps out quite a lot.
Many times one can be blind to certain things, and getting other opinions is very valuable
Been a really busy week, so no much other progress.
I think the grey for guns definitely looks better
I do prefer muted colours to bright colours (probably because I've been doing guardsmen) so I'd probably say that the first purple looks better, but the second might make the models stand out more on the tabletop which would be good
Auroch wrote:I think the grey for guns definitely looks better
I do prefer muted colours to bright colours (probably because I've been doing guardsmen) so I'd probably say that the first purple looks better, but the second might make the models stand out more on the tabletop which would be good
I actually grew to like those grey guns so much that I decided to paint the weapons on the vehicles like that too! Even though the white/beige looked alright, it was a pain to paint + they looked a bit messy as there were no visible highlights.
Ynneadwraith wrote:Ohh nice yeah I'm definitely one for muted colours, especially on Eldar which tend to be a little bit dazzling
I'd encourage having a go at weathering on them too I've got a real thing for gritty eldar schemes
After painting a few more models, I noticed the darker shade looks better. Will go with that.
I share my opinion about Eldar with you. I always wanted my army to be a bit more grimdark.
Before allies were a thing, I actually bought some dark eldar models to convert swooping hawks etc. Then the rules for allies emerged, and I was really happy. Later on that of course got out of hand, and now I own a ~2000pts worth of dark eldar
Also checked out your Eldar conversions, really nice! Might lend an idea or two in the future if you don't mind. Especially the conversions with dark eldar parts were very inspiring, as I have quite a lot of those.
Some quick updates too. Got the storm guardians pretty much finished and started to mass produce the other squads.
Guardians on different stages:
Storm guardians (the model on the right has a bit too bright body armor, need to darken it a bit):
Will take some better pictures when they are all finished and I have more time. The next few weeks are really busy as the semester is coming to an end and I have a ton of school projects to finish (some game and demo programming etc.) + quite a lot of shifts at my workplace as the christmas is closing by.
That being said, I still try to paint whenever I can.
I tested the new codex today against Tyranids. The urge to try this army was too high even though the models were not finished (shame on me).
No pictures this time, as they would not have been very good with half painted models.
Went with the more familiar mech list. Pretty much the same I posted above, but without the flyer (it was just primed, so using it would have been a bit lame) and used storm guardians instead of howling banshees.
Falcons with bright lances seemed to work very well, they pretty much wrecked every monstrous creature they fired at. Also guardians did some very nice damage combined with stratagems.
I'm also happy they nerfed the serpent shield, as using that in previous editions was a bit too strong.
Still though playing a mech list is fun only if the opponent has at least a decent competitive list, as it tends to be a bit too strong for casual games.
Maybe will try footdar next as it needs a bit more tactical decisions.
Yeah that dark purple scheme is looking great the more models that are in it what's the plan for Aspect Warriors? Rainbow or craftworld-colours?
Also, how did the Storm Guardians fare? They're about as fluffy as you can get for my craftworld, and I love the conversion I've got going for them, but was a little disappointed that they still seemed pretty sub-par...
Ynneadwraith wrote: Yeah that dark purple scheme is looking great the more models that are in it what's the plan for Aspect Warriors? Rainbow or craftworld-colours?
Thanks a lot!
Most of the aspect warriors I have painted have been using purple as a main colour, with a little bit different spot colors to distinquish them better. As they all need repainting, I think I'll keep the scheme pretty much the same with the guardians.
Don't want to go with the usual "all colours of the rainbow" - mentality. Except for howling banshees, they might stay close to their original bone colourish theme.
Also, how did the Storm Guardians fare? They're about as fluffy as you can get for my craftworld, and I love the conversion I've got going for them, but was a little disappointed that they still seemed pretty sub-par...
Well to be honest, they are still not very competitive.
That being said, they still are a bit better though than in couple of previous editions given that they actually hit well in close combat and low strength is not that bad anymore. With two fusion guns they did some nice damage and finished of two ravenors in close combat, but other than that nothing special. They met their demise charging a broodlord (game was pretty much over at that point, so decided to have some fun).
I think you'd be better with regular guardians and their superior firepower.
Still going to give them another chance, as they are a fun and fluffy unit.
Yeah I'd go with Guardians too except that they look pretty unbalanced on my running conversions of them with their bulky shuriken catapults, that and it's supremely fluffy for my craftworld to be throwing clone-conscript Storm Guardians into the meat grinder
You and I definitely think alike on colour schemes too. Variants of craftworld colours for aspects, different enough to stand out but similar enough to look cohesive
Ynneadwraith wrote: Yeah I'd go with Guardians too except that they look pretty unbalanced on my running conversions of them with their bulky shuriken catapults, that and it's supremely fluffy for my craftworld to be throwing clone-conscript Storm Guardians into the meat grinder
You and I definitely think alike on colour schemes too. Variants of craftworld colours for aspects, different enough to stand out but similar enough to look cohesive
Indeed we do
Loved those Storm Guardians by the way! Got inspired so much that had to continue my old kitbashing projects with eldar/dark eldar parts too
Always thought of them more like "eldar citizen militia" rather than specialized close combat warriors, so making them look a bit crude works very well imo.
Still been very busy, will try to get all my guardians and vehicles done during this week or the next...
I like the purple color scheme- have a unit a friend would like me to paint for him and he wants purple as the featured color, so I'm watching your progress closely, as I intend to rip it o---, I mean, emulate your distinctive style!
bunnygurl wrote:Models look great. Glad you got to get a game in. I've only played one game in my 17 years of hobby-ing so yeah...and I lost... >_<
Thanks bunnygurl! Well gaming is not for everyone, or time does not allow that sometimes. During my earlier hobby years I focused more on playing rather than painting, and actually played most of my games with unpainted / unfinished models.
That has changed to quite the opposite.
Meer_Cat wrote:I like the purple color scheme- have a unit a friend would like me to paint for him and he wants purple as the featured color, so I'm watching your progress closely, as I intend to rip it o---, I mean, emulate your distinctive style!
Glad you liked it!
And go ahead, emulate all you want. I do it all the time using google search when trying to figure out how to paint this and that.
It's nice to be a source of inspiration for someone
Finished the paintjob for all the 2.3 squads of guardians. 7 / 10 of those I received from my friend were not salvagable, even though they swam in different paint removers for a week or so. The spray paint layer was just too thick.
Mind you, the bases are not done yet as I run out of basing materials. That is also the reason there are some spilled paint all over on the edges of the bases.
All of the storm guardians.
1.3 squads of guardians.
A little dark picture from the whole posse.
Paintjob is little messy here and there, as I tried to finish these pretty quickly. Counting for them to look better when in a group on the tabletop
These guys will be stripped for parts, as the paint layer is too damn thick and the trouble of removing all of it is not worth it. Rather buy a new box of guardians.
As you can see, I started painting couple of them and realised that they will just look horrible.
Also started painting more details to my skimmers and swithced the weapon color to the same grey theme as the guardians have.
On closer look, there were many small mistakes / unpainted areas I need to sort out.
Did some kitbashing with dark eldar parts to make couple of more storm guardians.
Found some of my old kitbashing projects. Couple of years ago I thought to combine dark eldar scourge parts with guardian parts to make some better looking swooping hawks.
Then I got lazy and just bought the box.
I really don't like the static look of the original models, so I want to continue that project and try to make these guys a bit more lifelike and different.
Here are some of the stuff I found:
Parts from scoruges (painted ones are donations from another friend of mine), some guardian legs etc.
The idea behind this project was to create a winged autarch. Never finished it.
+ tons of eldar / dark eldar hands, weapons etc.
Maybe I will figure out how to combine this stuff to make a squad of decent looking Swooping Hawks!
Neat your guys are looking better and better the more of them you paint
Part of the reason I don't have many Aspect Warriors is that I've never managed to do a conversion I'm 100% happy with for them. They're so iconic to my mind that it's really hard to capture their look with other kits. Not that Scourge-based Swooping Hawks don't look awesome mind you just that I've never managed to make them fit right to my mind.
I did have a little luck with combining Harlie legs and torsos with Scourge wings, helmets and guns though. You might like those
True, and the outdated models for Aspects don't quite give enough credit for them.
But damn, those are some fine looking hawks you got there!
I had something similar in mind, but looking at those made me realize that harlequins actually have a plastic kit now. Opens up so many possibilities.
Inevitable_Faith wrote: The Guardians look great. I especially like the heavy weapons platform.
Thanks! Glad you like them.
Still very busy with school and work stuff, and will be for the next two weeks.
So no further progress with the models, as I have not had a chance to even touch a brush.
One thing I managed to do however: ordered some bits and kits from black friday sales to convert some better looking eldar. Also got the new necromunda box.
Man, has it been a busy few weeks.
So much work, school stuff and other boring responsibilities. Haven't had time even to pick up a brush.
But still, a small update just to show that I'm not gone anywhere:
My waylands order arrived couple of weeks ago.
Ordered couple of kits for cool parts, conversions etc. Still need to buy a box of wyches too.
These will go for the eldar and the dark eldar projects.
Also got the necromunda box, as I really wanted to try the new version.
And as a friend of mine insisted, I had to start assembling the necromunda miniatures so we could give it a spin.
Might post some pictures of the necromunda gangers when they are finished
So building and painting these takes some time, but I will be getting back to the eldar after christmas.
Even thought about dedicating a few days just for mini's during the holidays, as a way to relax from all the stress that has been going on for a few weeks now.
Started working on the swooping hawk conversions.
Decided to "borrow" some of Ynneadwraith's ideas about combining harlequin parts etc.
Started by spreading tons of different kinds of bits all over the table.
Some images from the work in progress:
This guy was supposed to be an Autarch with wings, but as I very rarely use it in my lists I decided to use the half complete model as a hawk.
I'm aware that these guys don't have close combat weapons, but it just looks too cool with the spear that it had to stay
Still a bit unsure about some of the hand positions etc, so those might change a bit.
Also I'm missing a few hawk wings, need to scavenge a couple more from somewhere. The bat wings that come with the scourge package, don't quite fit to these quys imo.
Still a lot of work to be done with these.
Painting wise I think I'll finish all my tanks and farseers first.
I have had some lack of motivation towards painting and updating this thread. Some of it is due to personal hardships over the last winter and spring, some due to school and work stuff.
Trying to force myself to finish some painting projects that I did not feel like doing just because I had told myself that "this army or this unit needs to be done next" was not a good approach.
"I have not updated my dakka blog in a few weeks, I have to paint something and write about it".
Picking up a brush just because "I had to" just lowered the motivation even more.
Eventually this led me feeling stressed about a hobby. A hobby that I love and a hobby that should be one of the things that helps me to ease all the stress.
You should NEVER feel stressed about a hobby.
Over the summer I finally got the motivation to paint back, even got a few games under my belt. And man it felt good.
This also made me realize something. It is okay to take a break. It is okay to jump from one project to another. It is okay to write something, even though the last update was a few weeks, months or years ago. And now, I had the urge to start writing this post at 3 in the morning
Most of you won't care about this scribble, but mostly I'm writing to myself and convincing myself to do things that feel right at the moment and when it feels right.
And now to the matter at hand:
I have been doing a bit this and that. Painted another squad of guardians (after realizing that storm guardians are still a bit meh, even though a lot better than before), made some new wyches for my deldar army and finally finished some Necromunda models so I could test the game out.
Without further ado, it's picture time!
So first an "old" picture from the late spring. Did some kitbashing with the dark aelves box set to make some more wyches.
This girls are still at this point. Will finish them some day.
Next up couple of the Escher gangers from the necromunda box.
Still need to do the bases.
And then some WIP chaos cult gangers.
I had a couple of unopened boxes of chaos cultists lying around. Don't even remember why I bought them couple of years ago.
After I noticed that the rules for cultist had been released for Necromunda, I thought that finally I could put the to good use.
But no, I did not want to go the easy way and just make a gang out of the vanilla cultists. I have collected a ****ton of bits from all over the place, so they came in handy.
A basic autogun cultist.
Cult witch (a really bad image, sorry about that).
This one uses a dark eldar wrack legs, a vampire counts skeleton rider (don't remember the real name) torso, daemonette hand and a cultist pistol hand.
Chaos Disciple with a shotgun (again, bad image).
Chaos disciple with heavy stubber and some basic gangers.
Some of the walls that came with the box. Painted all pieces in like two hours or so.
Really had to fight the urge to paint all the nuts and small details on these, even if no one would never even take notice
Then the second squad of guardians for my eldar army.
This time I wanted to create couple of more dynamic looking characters. Thanks to Ynneadwraith for the idea!
So yeah, this is pretty much the stuff I have been working on during the last couple of weeks.
One last thing.
I have always wanted to take part on the armies on parade. This year I finally decided to do it.
The army that will be displayed is going to be Death Korps of Krieg in a winter trench setting.
As I get all the WIP images sorted out, I will do another (image heavy) thread with just a couple of posts to track the progress. I have already done quite a lot of work on it, and still have couple of weeks to finish it.
A small spoiler of what is to come.
Spoiler:
Thanks for checking this out and keep on wargaming!
For a few weeks I have been busy with the armies on parade board. Now that's complete and it's time to get back to other projects.
You can read the project blog for the board in here: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/764420.page
So for the last 5 weeks or so, I have finished only one model.
Did a quick 2 hour paint job (I'm a really slow painter when it comes to single miniatures) for one Death Rider for the board.
So the deal was that I put on a timer and after two hours the miniature would be complete, no matter the state it was in. Base included.
I paused the timer when the washes dried of course. Did this just that I could finish the model quickly and then continue making the board, as I was in a bit of a hurry.
Now that I think about it, the grey background was not the best choice.
But all in all, I'm happy with the model. Will need to finish the other four sometime in the future. Thought about getting 15 of these: two squads, one command squad and one commander.
As for the Eldar project, I have not yet managed to finish the playable force completely. Jumping from one project to another, the progress has been inconclusive.
Been playing some games with them though (shame on me for playing with unpainted models).
So, time to get back on track and finish those few unpainted models plus some that have been "painted", meaning they have some base colors but not yet finished.
For some reason when I was younger, I just kept buying models, assembled them and then maybe added few colors and jumped straight to the next unit. So I have a ton of half finished miniatures. Very annoying.
Finally started working on the Crimson Hunter.
It will have the same theme as all the other vehicles, but this time I wanted to make the pattern a bit different.
Challenged myself and tried to make a "black hole" - like effect. The black paint came out too thick and I'm not very convinced, but if you don't try something new you never learn.
The current state.
Will get this finished the next week. It's going to be pretty busy with school etc. but I have a few spare hours here and there.
Then it's just the squads of half finished dark reapers and fire dragons!
Agree that the Swooping Hawk needed to keep the spear- I think it would be cool to have a whole squad outfitted with 'aerial lances', like in Poul Anderson's book "War of the Wingmen". S is: kickass!
Good job on the gangers- especially the Escher leader.
_Great_ job on the Crimson Hunter- what a terrific starfield, and the black hole effect was very well done.
Thanks!
Painting the gangers proved to be a nice change. Got 7 escher gangers ready and based and three more to go. I will take more pictures when I get to build my "mini studio" again.
I think sometimes I give myself a bit too much criticism, especially when I try new stuff like the black hole effect.
I just have to learn to be satisfied and stop comparing my models to all the stuff other people have done.
Meer_Cat wrote: Agree that the Swooping Hawk needed to keep the spear- I think it would be cool to have a whole squad outfitted with 'aerial lances', like in Poul Anderson's book "War of the Wingmen". S is: kickass!
Now that would be cool! Got to put that under consideration.
Managed to arrange a few hours of hobby time in between all the other stuff.
Got the Crimson Hunter done. Couple of quick pictures from my hobby table:
At the moment I'm working on the dark reapers and firing dragons.
This is the point where the troops are at the moment:
So a lot of work to be done.
There are two things I really dislike when painting. One is repainting old or hald painted models. Other one is finecast, especially the models from a first few batches, as they are full of mistakes.
The units I'm working on combine both of these elements
I think I will just quickly paint these to tabletop standard, so I can finally complete this force.
When I'm done, I will take pictures of the whole force and all the necromunda models with better lightning etc.
Building up the photoshoot setting takes a bit of work, as I have to take it down every time when I'm done. So It's only worth it to take pictures of many finished models at the same time.
Still working on the dark reapers. Night time is the best time to paint am I right? No interruptions at least.
There are oh so many small spirit stones on these but I want to paint them just to get some more color for contrast.
These guys will follow the same black / purple theme as the guardians.
Edit: Yes, one of them is missing the missile.. Maybe he fired it already?
Read through your blog, wonderful stuff and I didn't realise you had this blog on top of your Armies on Parade blog!
I really like the colour scheme of your Eldar, and I like that you're painting your aspects in a similar scheme to your guardians. It's something I did with my Dire Avengers but I've found anyone I play against get confused when I tell them that they aren't guardians (their fault but hey ho).
The crimson hunter looks excellent, the black hole swirl is really nice and I love those Dark Reapers.
Tyranid Horde wrote: Read through your blog, wonderful stuff and I didn't realise you had this blog on top of your Armies on Parade blog!
Glad to hear you read the whole thing and enjoyed it!
It seems that the first post was 6 years ago, but I cannot say that I have been "blogging for six years". I have taken a lot of breaks, some shorter and some longer. The longest seems to be couple of years even.
Still though, I wanted to continue updating this same thread. That way I can look back on all the stuff (well, few posts) I wrote years ago and follow my improvement regarding both painting and writing a blog.
I decided to give the armies on parade a thread of it's own, as it was something completely different both in scale and effort.
I really like the colour scheme of your Eldar, and I like that you're painting your aspects in a similar scheme to your guardians. It's something I did with my Dire Avengers but I've found anyone I play against get confused when I tell them that they aren't guardians (their fault but hey ho).
The crimson hunter looks excellent, the black hole swirl is really nice and I love those Dark Reapers.
Cheers!
Typical Mon-keigh, can't tell the difference between a citizen and an elite warrior. But yeah to be fair, they have a lot of similarities.
Regarding the color scheme, I like to keep the army unified. Aspect colors are cool and all, but I just dislike the idea of having "all the colors of the rainbow" in my army for some reason.
Dark reapers pretty much done, will show you guys some pictures when the washes dry etc.
While they are drying, I'm starting to work on the squad of fire dragons.
Woop, Dark Reapers done! Finally!
It took a while, but most of it might be because of Red Dead Redemption 2 was released..
A bit more black parts than the guardians, as these are supposed to be a bit more "evilish".
Turned out quite nice, fits well with the rest of the force. Still need to fix that one missile though!
So while writing my last response, I realized that I have been painting models for quite a long time. As sort of a bonus I wanted to take some time to display some of my FIRST models I have ever painted. Still have them laying around of course. It really was a nostalgia trip to browse trough all my older stuff (including my first 40k orks, but they will be displayed later).
All of these models are from the lord of the rings strategy battle game, as it was the first game I ever played. Anyway, you can read the full story in the first post of this thread.
Picture time!
This is the first model that I remember painting. After picking the gondor starter box, I went to my grandmas house and immediately started brushing away.
As I had no prior experience and there was no one to give me any guidance, I just kind of dipped the brush in the pot and applied the color in very thick layers. I think I was 10 at the time.
Spoiler:
The next model I want to show you guys is from the Mines of Moria boxed set. One of the hobbits (I forget which one, Merry or Pippin?). I had just discovered inks (old versions of the current wahses). Used to apply quite a lot of that stuff on all models.
Spoiler:
After a few years of training (at the age of ~12-14?) I had learned the basics of drybrushing. From then on, I used to drybrush all metal parts.
I remember getting some grass material from a friend of mine. Used that on all the bases.
I did not even remember that I did the bow strings from some basic thread. I'm surprised that I had the patience for that back then
Spoiler:
Last model I want to show today, is one of the wargs I had. My Moria army consisted of a ton of goblins and ten wargs.
I'm still pretty proud of this actually. Developed the dry brushing technique even further. This might have been back in 2007-2008 (14-15 years old).
Spoiler:
If I find my old fantasy battle orcs that I have left, I could post a couple of pictures from them if you guys are interested.
I sold most of them back in the day, but if I remember correctly, I might have a few of them left in my parents house somewhere.
Also, just to celebrate the end of Orktober, I ordered the collector's edition Ork codex. Even did a headcount on my old orks.
So I think I will be starting to post some orky stuff somewhere in the near future.
Enough rambling and back to the matter at hand.
Still have the Fire Dragons to finish and then I can finally move on to other projects. I still have ~1000pts worth of Eldar to finish, but that includes models I rarely use. I will paint them eventually, but the main goal at the moment is to have a few playable armies. Playing with unpainted models is a sin of the past from now on.
Working on with the Fire Dragons. The same theme will continue with this squad.
Terrible image, but as these are far from ready I don't think it matters that much.
I wanted to add some spot color with the orange cloth pieces. I think it works well enough, as yellow is the complementary color (not sure this is the right word?) for purple.
It also represents the aspect colors a bit.
Still a lot of details to paint and have to redo their bases.
Offtopic: I managed to get my hands on a decent camera. It will of course take some practice, but over time the picture quality will hopefully improve!
Thank you! Glad you liked them.
Some more of my old models will be shown when I start working on my orks once more.
Fire dragons finished!
The paintcoat is a bit thick, as these were painted before. I did not find it relevant enough to strip the paint off, as I just wanted to finish these quickly.
They will be seen on the board only for one or two turns per game anyway
While the basing paint was drying up, I started a little "mini project" on the side.
Decided to make a bit more interesting looking base for the crimson hunter.
First added some ruin pieces on the base.
Some toilet paper and 50/50 mix of water and glue to make a nice texture.
And to top it off, a bit of sand and small rocks.
Took me like ~20 minutes to make, so it's just a quick effort to add something more to the base.
The glue mix needs to dry over night, but I will throw a quick paintjob on it over the weekend.
So, my ork codex did not arrive yet so the Eldar journey continues.
It was actually good that it did not arrive, so I can actually finish this project properly for now.
I decided to finally finish the swooping hawks I started like 10 months ago. Also thought about painting a squad of dire avengers to the new color scheme, so I have some diversity in my troop slots.
Time to dive right back into my bitzbox once again and mutilate some old models.
Finishing these guys was pretty quick, as I had 3 and a half of them done already. One of the main reasons to put this project in hold 10 months ago, was the fact that I did find enough of "hawk wings".
After going through all the boxes and bags I had laying around the house, I managed to find three more sets of wings! So I even have one extra pair.
I'm aware that these guys still have the splinter rifles, but I think it won't matter that much. Most of my friends who I play against would not even tell the difference.
As a bonus, I suddenly got the idea to kitbash a Farseer. I have Eldrad and one or two of basic farseers already, but the old farseer model is just too darn static in my opinion.
Just for change I decided to make the new seer a she.
Half painted scourge legs, wych torso, harlequin cape and some greenstuff later I was pleased with the result.
I'm not very experienced with greenstuff, so this was a good practise.
The finished result. Ended up using a wych head too, as I already have so many seers and warlocks with helmets. Wanted to use a spear even though I almost never pick it in my lists, but it looked much cooler than the sword. Maybe I can spare a few points for that.
Your flyer base looks excellent, can't wait to see it painted up!
Liking the farseer kitbash, will you be adding anything like a ghosthelm around the head to distinguish it to be even more like a seer? The spear is good in game by the way, 5 points into a little bit more potency is quite useful in a pinch!
Tyranid Horde: Thanks! Should be easy enough to paint, if I don't get stuck with all the small details that no one can even see. The ghosthelm idea sounds good, I actually found some reference images from Dawn of War 2 which might help. immediately after uploading these images I thought to myself that she has too little details, gotta add some more!
Excommunicatus: Heh, indeed Talking about Slaanesh, I actually played with the idea of converting a unit or two with daemonette etc. parts. The idea behind that was to make a few models that would be fallen to Slaanesh. But as I have so many different ideas with all the armies I have, maybe this will stay as an idea. For now at least.
So, FWIW, if you ever go to the Bolter and Chainsword there's a guy there called Kierdale who did a Witch Elf Daemonette kit-bash thing that may help for inspiration.
They'd probably work pretty well as counts-as Harlequins, IMO.
@Ynneadwraith: Glad you like them! The wyches are still just basecoated. I should work on them some more, but the project was put on hold as I'm currently thinking about some army wide ideas for the Drukhari.
@Excommunicatus: Gotta check that out. Thanks for the tip! Also using them as "harlequins" sounds like a good idea.
@youwashock: Cheers! The seer need some more work, so I need to sort that out. She will be the next character to be painted.
@mcmattila: Appreciate it! She's my favorite too. I need to do a few more, as we are thinking about organizing a campaign and five autogun cultists is not enough.
Originally I thought starting to paint the Swooping Hawks during the weekend, but life got in the way. Luckily I got to play some extempore Necromunda with a friend of mine, so still got to have some hobby time.
Managed to do some work with the flyer base though. Nothing special, but wanted to have something a bit cooler than just modelling sand and/or rocks.
A few details to sort out and gotta clean the stand from paint and such. It would have been easier to create the base before gluing the whole thing together. Oh well, live and learn.
Not too detailed, but I did not want to spend too much time on this. Just a small sideproject.
Really enjoyed painting and modelling it though, as I really love doing urban scenery stuff. Already blooming with ideas to expand my terrain collection.
Started to work on the Swooping Hawks finally!
Just some basic colors added.
Did some color testing on the wings. Only painted one pair, as I wanted to test things out.
While painting the fire dragons, I got keen on orange and yellow shades. Wanted to try the same sort of thing here.
This of course needs some more highlighting and tidying up, but I kinda like it so far.
What you guys think, yay or nay?
Wow, nice vivid colours on those wings! They look so different to the original swooping hawks (which I happen to love) but I think it captures the Eldar aesthetic really well
@Tyranid Horde: Appreciate it! You are right, good bases actually make a huge difference. When I get most of my old Eldar models done, I think I have to do some rebasing on some of them. Already have a few ideas for the three wraithlords I have.
Painting the 4 other wings (and finishing the first one) will take a while, but I think it will be worth it.
@Scythern: Cheers! They indeed look a lot different, as I wanted to make a bit more dynamic illustration of these guys and gals. I've always liked the scourge wings, so that was a good excuse to do some kitbashing.
Will keep on working with these tomorrow and hopefully get them done so I can start painting the Farseer.
Just got my Ork codex, so I want to get this batch done. Then I can get to work on my Orks with good conscience. They have been gathering dust on the shelves for the whole of the 8th edition, as I was not too happy with the Index rules.
This does mean a few orky updates, but I will still keep developing my space elves. So to my elven brethren, this is not the end of the Aeldari!
A bit offtopic, but wanted to share a few ideas for the future:
I've been brewing with the idea of rebuilding my Dark Eldar force a while now. I really liked to play with them back in 6th and 7th edition and by watching a few battle reports I think I like them even more in 8th.
When I used to collect Warhammer Fantasy Battle, I gathered some Vampire Count models. After pondering and browsing for convertion ideas, it suddenly hit me: I wan't to do a "vampire themed" Dark Eldar force.
After googling some more, it occured to me that I was not the first one to think about that. Found some great conversions for inspiration.
I would not mutilate all my old models, but as the force is almost completely unpainted / half painted it would be a great opportunity to try something different. I have around 2000pts of them so far.
This will need a lot more thinking and figuring out the color scheme etc.
Always thought about learning to use an airbrush, so this project would be a good place to practise (after a few failed test models of course).
Had a day off yestedray, so I decided to have a hobby day.
I thought about wrapping the Swooping Hawks up in a few hours and then proceed to the next unit, but it took a lot longer than I thought.
So I "only" got them done.
It was not a good idea to just sit and paint until they were done. After 6-7 hours straight, I started to rush a few things here and there. Mainly the bases, which are a bit anti climactic.
But, what's done is done. After all, I'm pretty pleased how they came out.
I also tried out the camera I acquired (Canon EOS 450D). I'm not too familiar with all the aspects of it, but I still think these are better than the ones I took with my phone camera.
Still need a lot better lights around the house.
The exarch.
Sadly the images from this model did not turn out so good, as I was playing around with the settings.
The last one is a pretty messy picture, but I posted it just so you get the idea how he looks up front. Not that I think about it, the weapon could have been painted with different color, as it blends a bit too much to the rest of the model. Oh well.
That's all folks!
On a side note, which size do you use when uploading images to the Dakka gallery?
These were pretty big, but they looked pretty bad if uploaded in full resolution. Any tips?
@Tyranid Horde: yeah the camera really makes a difference. I took like 50 images and only the ones I posted turned out okay, so still a lot to learn.
It seems that the color palette on these models worked well enough. Having good contrast and colors that work well together is something that I have not always gave enough thought. I realize now that these are things I need to study more in order to develop as a painter.
Had quite a lot of hobby time today too, as my girlfriend was at work so no mandatory plans for the weekend. Will post updates tomorrow, as it's getting late and I still need to upload the images.
So yesterday I did a bunch on random stuff as I wanted some change from painting the same purple theme for a while.
Started by sorting some of my hobby tools and materials. Noticed that I still have a bunch of stuff left from the Imperial Sector building package I bought a couple of years ago.
Layed them all around the table and started to tinker with different ideas on how to use them. Made a couple of small designs in my head, glued a few walls together and stored them again.
I really should get them assembled, as it would give me a bit more room for storage. IF I manage to find a place to store the completed buildings. But that will be a story for another time.
Next I took out my Eldar/Drukhari bitz and decided to complete some old half finished kit bashes.
The only one I actually managed to finish was the Drukhari Succubus. I started creating her at the same time I made the witch aelf wyches. As I stated earlier, I'm thinking about some sort of "horror" stylish vampire themed look for the army.
So here's the model.
The Succubus can't fly of course, but I thought it would be cool to add those wings. A hero character Queen of Pain (Akasha) from the game Dota 2 worked as an inspiration here.
Picture in spoilers (illustration from Deviantart).
Spoiler:
Still thinking about adding some horns and / or tail for her. Will paint her when I finally get a good grip on the theme I want to have with the Drukhari and decide some color schemes.
And to make the progress even more random, I started painting the Dire Avengers and the Farseer after all.
As for the Farseer I did not manage to create anything to resemble a ghosthelm. I might try that again in the future, but I think I'm going with this for now.
Working with the Eldar models for now. Not sure what I'm going to do after that.
Next week will be a bit busy, so the progress will surely get slowed down a bit I'm afraid.
Wow, I've just seen your finished Hawk conversions - and I am absolutely in love with the colours you've got on the wings. Those are excellent, well done!
@Youwashock: Cheers! As said earlier I might still add some horns, but we'll see.
@Excommunicatus: Yeah I think it's the best one in the box! Saw your concept, looking good!
Do you mean the readily made terrain pieces or the unassembled bits? I'm afraid I still need most of them, BUT if there are some left when I'm done with the terrain project I could send you some.
@Bellerophon: Thank you, glad you like them! Trying to learn something new every time I work on a new unit type. This time it paid off.
Not a problem whatsoever. I just wondered if you wanted rid of them and I would have a home for them and Canadian dollars for you if you did.
I personally prefer the one with the mad hair on both sides, but you can only really use that one once per army. Mad hair on one side is definitely a close second.
Managed to get some hobby time after all. This update is more of a quick wrap up from the last week or so.
I managed to somewhat finish the Dire Avengers. Painting them got a point when doing the same colors all over again got a bit boring, overwhelming even.
11 of these guys (9 Avengers and 2 Exarchs) was maybe a bit too much. As I'm a bit of a slow painter, the "quick" color scheme did not turn out to be that quick after all.
These guys and gals ate some of my hobby motivation, but when that was about to happen I just started to paint / do something else.
Anyway, I thought that just a quick brushing would do and managed to finish them after all:
Definitely not the best work I've done, but I think they look decent enough on the tabletop.
I will paint the Exarch's flag when I figure out what I want to do for it.
These guys look a bit dull, but I had no motivation to do better highlights etc. Maybe some other time.
As I said, did some other stuff too. Decided to do a bit of work with the Farseer and repainting Eldrad. Sadly I don't have any old images of him.
Had a lot more fun with these guys, which helped to keep the train going so to say.
Painting while you are tired and doing a hundred million things at the same time is not a good idea.
Results to this:
Luckily did not get any Nuln Oil on my keyboard or clothes etc.
Step by step nearing in my momentary goal of having an Eldar strike force up and running with the same color scheme
Excommunicatus wrote: While they're all up to your usual (stunning) standard, could you do some close-ups of Eldrad sometime?
He (She?) looks spectacular.
Thanks!
I will of course take some close ups when he is finished (I think it's a he. Funny, I always imagined a girly face under that helmet).
This was just a little teaser.
Just catching up on the last few updates, some good work done here!
The succubus is a great looking model, a few trips to the haemonculi have gone well by the looks! The farseer looks great too along with Eldrad, and I'm seconding the request for some close-ups
The dire avengers also look great but they're never a quick paint job. The last two squads I've done are just draining to paint, even when I only plan a few colours.
Finally, feeling the pain there on your bottle of nuln oil. I was at the local grabbing some paints and my bag ripped, ending up with bottles everywhere and my tall bottle of seraphim sepia rolling onto the road and getting run over! Sad times haha.
Those Avengers are looking grand. I enjoy your schemes, sort of colours that most people would make look bold, but taken in a much more muted and more realistic way.
As to that spilled wash... this is why I'm pleased that my Army Painter washes come in dropper bottles!
Edit: And looking again at those hawks, you know, I might just have to take inspiration from that paintjob. My first squad are in the studio standard scheme, and I was contemplating doing my second squad in more of a nighttime sky sort of scheme. Beautiful orange wings to represent the sky of sunset could work very well. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that; I shall see if the idea still holds when I get around to them.
This really pushed my mini-photography to the next level! The main takeaways were:
-Get a tripod
-You don't need special (daylight) lamps, though paired lamps are recommended
-Find the correct white balance
My own lighting setup still isn't ideal as I've got one two very different lamps, both in brightness and temperature, and I don't have gray card yet, but I can still take what I consider pretty good and color-accurate photos. I find the white balance that looks closest to natural, shoot in RAW, and let Photoshop auto-adjust WB and exposure if it still looks a bit of on the computer screen.
Bellerophon wrote:
Edit: And looking again at those hawks, you know, I might just have to take inspiration from that paintjob. My first squad are in the studio standard scheme, and I was contemplating doing my second squad in more of a nighttime sky sort of scheme. Beautiful orange wings to represent the sky of sunset could work very well. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that; I shall see if the idea still holds when I get around to them.
Go right ahead! One of the reasons I like to write about the stuff I've done is to share ideas and techniques with other hobbyists.
Looking forward to see the result!
This really pushed my mini-photography to the next level! The main takeaways were:
-Get a tripod
-You don't need special (daylight) lamps, though paired lamps are recommended
-Find the correct white balance
My own lighting setup still isn't ideal as I've got one two very different lamps, both in brightness and temperature, and I don't have gray card yet, but I can still take what I consider pretty good and color-accurate photos. I find the white balance that looks closest to natural, shoot in RAW, and let Photoshop auto-adjust WB and exposure if it still looks a bit of on the computer screen.
Thanks for the tips! I have to check out that article. I have to agree, your photos look really good!
Most of the work in progress images are really bad I admit, as they are just quick shots from my working table using a phone. Poor excuse I know.
Hopefully when I get more routine with the new camera and possibly photoshop (which I use for cropping etc) I'll be able to provide better pictures for you guys!
Caught a flu during the weekend and did not have the energy to paint. Instead used the time to browse other hobby blogs and ordered some hobby stuff, including a playmat and some miniature trays etc.
It occured to me that my hobby tools are really unorganized, some of it is in poor condition and I lack many tools that would make painting and modelling easier. This has to change.
I will post an update later on how I intend to fix this.
Feeling better now but did not go to work today, so I will spend the day painting and organizing stuff. Gotta finish a few things for a game I'm having with a friend of mine in our FLGS tomorrow.
Did some last minute brush work before the game(s) tomorrow.
I actually managed to finish the Farseer. Took a bit of time as I decided to try and learn some wet blending. As it took some time, I did not yet continue painting Eldrad
Usually I try to thin my paints as well as I can, but without a proper palette it gets hard at times. I'm mostly using whatever is handy, like a piece of plasticard, old citadel paint pots or my thumb nail. The problem is that when I mix paints, they dry out awful quickly. This of course is one of the downsides when using Citadel paints, but I like their color range and consistency. Trying to wet blend with that setup just made me angry.
Enter a wet palette:
Been hearing a lot about these, but somehow just never got around buying one before.
And as I did not own one, I had to create one using a plastic container, some toilet paper and baking parchment.
Man did it blow me away. Will absolutely use this thing from now on! This was the first step on improving my hobby equipment. More to come.
So I practiced wet blending on the Farseer's breastplate, "backpack" and arms. Not visible from the current images but as it is currently 2.30AM I don't want to wake my girlfriend by taking out all the camera equipment.
Just wanted to show you guys some progress. But bear with me, I will take proper pictures in time.
As I'm known to jump from one project to another (trying my best to avoid it), I started working on one of my old Wraithlords. The reason for this was simply to include it in a game tomorrow, even if my original plan was not to paint those at this time.
This is the shape it was in. Painted like 8-9 years ago.
Usually I don't want to repaint stuff too much (if the models are completed), as I like to have the older models around to see how I progress over the years.
This time though, I did really want this guy to fit the current theme of the army.
Of course I did not complete the model in time, so I had to alter the list(s) a bit.
That's all today. Will probably post some game related stuff tomorrow!
She turned out lovely. The blade is again a standout element, and the sash is just great. I wouldn't knock the Wraithlord in either version, but the update is cool.
youwashock wrote: She turned out lovely. The blade is again a standout element, and the sash is just great. I wouldn't knock the Wraithlord in either version, but the update is cool.
Thank you!
The older version of the Wraithlord looks a lot better in the picture as it actually was. Lot's of unpainted details and really messy paintjob.
Update time!
Be warned, this is a bit lengthy one.
So I did not write a gaming update as I promised earlier. We were in a hurry, as there were many players in queue in the FLGS, so I did not have enough time to take pictures (the few I took failed totally).
I played one 1000pts game against a friend of mine (Astra Militarum) who was just playing his third game or so. Did not manage to play other games, as there were three of us and I thought it would be more important to let the "new quy" get some games under his belt.
Tried to take a bit more casual list with just footslogging Guardians, some Windrider Jetbikes, Swooping Hawks and the Crimson Hunter. Mostly models I have not yet wielded in 8th edition.
I did not try to lose on purpose of course, but took the game easier than usually. Still my opponent called the game after round three, as I was leading 10/3 victory points and he had only a few characters and a dozen or so guardsmen against a whole lot of space elves. He learned a great many things though and we both had fun, which is the most important thing.
He won the second game against Tau wielded by a third friend of ours. I've noticed that even though it's not fun to lose on purpose, sometimes it's good that a new player wins a game every now and then (or atleast gets a few units destroyed). Otherwise they might start getting bored or angry with the hobby.
Then to some other hobby stuff. Sadly still no more painting or modelling progress, BUT I managed to start a project I've been meaning to do for a few years now: organizing all my hobby stuff.
This means buying a bunch of tools and containers, upgrading my miniature storage, sorting all the bits I have etc etc.
Over the years I have collected way more models that I've had the capacity to store properly. I have a ton of bits from various kits, which are held in closable plastic bags (luckily each army has a bag of it's own). My painting gear is in pretty poor condition (especially the brushes) and stored all over the house. The reason for this is the ignorance of my young self, moving a couple of times and the fact that I have tried to postpone this daunting task further and further. No more, this has to be settled.
As seen from the various pictures I have taken for this thread, my painting area is not the most ideal. I don't have a "hobby table" and have to do all the painting and modelling in front of my computer, ghetto style so to say. This means that I have to take my painting gear out every time I want to do some modelling (sometimes I leave it there for a few days). That's why I can't build a proper painting station, which would be ideal.
This is the box I have stored all my paints, brushes and tools for years. Yes, it sucks. Not the box itself, but the fact that everything is just thrown there and it's really hard to find anything.
And yes, most of the brushes are in poor condition. Got one or two that I actually use.
You have the permission to laugh, facepalm or whatever.
The first thing was to empty the whole box and to do an inventory check for what I have and don't have. The box had a dozen of empty or dried out paint bottles, which flew straight to the garbage can. I also found some lost brush covers, a few Ork bits and other random stuff lying at the bottom.
Thinned most of the old paints with water and organized them again. Still using the same box though, but storing only paints in there from now on.
A few new brushes managed to get into the picture too.
Which gets us to the next step: I went shopping.
Bought a bunch of new brushes (2 drybrushes, one large drybrush, a shade brush and a bunch of different sized "normal" brushes), some paints, glue (citadel and revel), drill bits, knife blades and a bunch of fishing lure cases. Also ordered some gaming related stuff and still waiting for my miniature storing trays from Feldherr.
All the brushes etc. fit well in one of these! The standard brushes I bought were Roubloff Kolinsky ones. I really like them, as the ones I have been using are almost as good as the Winsor & Newton ones that I have tried before. And a lot cheaper too.
When all the paints and tools were sorted out, it was time to do the same for all the basing stuff and bits.
As I stated earlier, I have a one or two of these bags for each army. These are okay, but when doing some kitbashing it's hard to find that small head piece. It's a bit like building a Lego model: the piece can be found until you really need it. Then it disappears in to the warp.
Also had a bunch of different sized boxes filled with random pieces. Some of the contents were from old conversion projects, some are just parts I've found lying around and tossed to storage.
So it was time to put on some music, pour a glass of "apple juice" and diving in bag by bag.
And after a couple of hours:
If you are wondering whether one of the boxes reads "spandex", you are right. It's an joke name for all Eldar a friend of mine invented years ago.
Everything is sorted: large pieces are in the bags and the lure boxes have sections for heads, torsos, weapons etc. This will help with kitbashing a ton I imagine.
Acquired one half sized glass shelf for our Bestå (IKEA brand) cabinet to display more models. A bad picture, but you get the idea. There is also another glass cabinet like this one, but it contains whis... apple juice bottles.
Finally a display of my "work bench". One of the reasons for this project was to make it easier to move the hobby stuff away when I'm done. I think I have achieved that now.
Mind you it's not actually this dark in the living room. Still meddling with the camera settings.
Took a while, but I'm happy I got this finally done. The cabinet looks a lot better now, as I threw away a few full bags of trash and I can finally locate all the stuff from now on.
Let's just hope that I can keep it tidy in the future as well.
Still need to acquire a new cover for my table (the piece of hardwood I use was actually meant to be used as a base for some terrain), better clippers and something else I can't remember from the top of my head.
Hopefully now I can finally get back to painting.
There will be a vol 2 of the great reorganization when the miniature trays finally arrive.
I heartily approve of the organization effort! Being CDO myself (OCD, except the letters are in the correct order) and space-limited I do much the same as you, with parts organized by type in boxes and bags very similar to yours. I'm in the process of beating all the loose bits back into their cages, as a matter of fact. With the last LOER competition and now this castle gatehouse project, I've gotten a lot of stuff out, and much of it now needs to be put back. Good luck and keep up the good work!
I too am OCD and love your update. You will be much happier going forward, you will save so much time not having to look for stuff and are less likely to buy doubles of things you already own!
Yeah my mind if finally at ease regarding all the bits and hobby tools!
I'm actually enjoying painting a lot more now, as I don't have to go around the house finding just the tool I need.
Finally finished Eldrad!
Also some close ups from the farseer kitbash.
Took a while, but I think I'm happy with him now.
So many details to paint, which was a nice challenge. Some of them are a bit blurry, as I did not manage to strip all the old paint from the model.
Also tried to use wet blending on the cloak. Turned out okay after a few failed attempts.
Without further adue, pictures!
Tried a different approach on the cloak, with lighter colors on the bottom rather than on the edges. A bit bluish, but looks good enough in my opinion.
Some thickness is definitely visible here.
Close ups the Farseer too as promised:
Tried a different objective for the camera, so a few of the pictures came out a bit blurry. Also it seems that the light was pointing too closely, as some over saturation can be seen.
All the pictures looked good enough on my laptop, but when I moved them to a 2k IPS display to edit, I was not happy with the results. But there is no crying on the market.
And man the camera does not give any mercy regarding the details and paint thickness. What looks good enough when observed with bare eyes, proves to look a bit harsh in a close up picture.
Luckily, no one watches these models that close. I hope.
This means I'm pretty much done with the Eldar for a while. I still have many ideas for kitbashing, but I gotta do something else for a while just to avoid a "hobby burnout".
There is already some things brewing, which will be revealed a bit later...
Both figures are ace! I'm really taken by the work you did on Eldrad's sword and the Farseer's spear blade- really top notch! You do gems really well, too.
The blade on your female character and the head on the wraithlord are both beautiful pieces of work. Well done , I’m not usually an Eldar fan, except striking scorpions, but wow.
Really awesome to see you've organised your paints and bits, I'm currently working out of a box myself for my paints but I've started buying nuts and bolts boxes to separate out all of my bits.
Eldrad looks awesome and the wet blending looks to be a good job. I like the touch of yellow on the model, very classic Ulthwe!
Your Farseer and Wraithlord are looking sweet too, really good job!
Thank you Meer_Cat, Theo, Tyranid Horde and Youwashock! Really appreciate it.
Got a few ideas for Warlock kitbashes, so I will get more training with wet blending whilst painting their black robes.
Had a gaming day today.
First played a 1000pts game once again at our FLGS and later in the evening teached the basics of Necromunda to another friend.
This time I brought a bit more mechanized list. Even though I won the last game against the same opponent (the relatively new hobbyist), I decided to give him a bit more challenge.
Also he had a lot of anti tank, so I would not say that the list was "too good" by any means.
Forces of the Imperial Guard preparing their heavy firepower before proceeding to clear the ruins of possible threats.
Wave serpents stalk in the ruins of an Imperial city ready to lay fire on the advancing enemy.
The enemy forces halted to form a gunline, forcing the Eldar to move closer.
Crimson Hunter Exarch ready to swoop in to provide covering fire for the advancing strike force. And to avenge a fallen transport taken down by multiple lascannon and battlecannon shots, rendering it to small pieces.
The pilot was however able to keep the skimmer in control before crushing to the side of a building, leaving the troops inside unharmed.
After disembarking from the wrecked Wave Serpent, the Dire Avenger face heavy resistance. Luckily the Warlock that accompanied them provided protective powers to minimize casualties.
Heavy enemy fire forced the Farseer to call upon the reserves from the skies and webway.
Eagles dived from the sky landing on a ruined building to gain control of the flank. Using their grenade packs and lasblasters, they managed to destroy a flanking infantry squad.
Even though taking a few casualties from heavy bolter fire, the Exarch proceeded to impale the surviving Comissar in close combat, who had executed the last two guardsmen.
A Cadian missile launcher team preparing to repel the swift attack of the Eldar. Even though they managed to hit the quickly moving target, the armor was too tough preventing critical damage.
Enraged by heavy casualties to the both Guardian units, the Farseer ignored all reason and charged trough the roaring flames of the Cadian flame throwers.
Protected by the ancient runic armor, she was able to leap trough with lightning emitting from her hands, scorching the remaining guardsmen.
Focusing all the psychic potential she possessed, the Farseer weakened the opposing Primaris Psyker before ending his life by running the spear trough him.
By the end of round 6, I controlled two objectives whilst the opponent had only one. I also had the first blood (Crimson Hunter two shotting a sentinel) and line breaker.
We had a great time and my opponent fared really well. After popping the first Wave Serpent with only three Lascannons and a Leman Russ, I thought this would be over pretty quickly. If I'm playing him again soon, I might try a different army for some variety.
Later in the evening, I hosted a tutorial game of Necromunda to another friend of mine. She was keen on trying it, as I mentioned the game whilst talking about different board games.
As we were playing in a local pub, it was too dark to take any pictures. The rules were understood quickly (I had to do some recap as this was just my 5th game or so) and the game went on very well. She mentioned that it would be great to try it again, so hopefully I can get a new wargamer into the fold!
Wanted to give a small teaser regarding what is currently happening on my hobby table:
Spoiler:
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this small story time. Not going to write about every game I play, but I think it's fun enough to post picture or two from the fighting once in a while.
Automatically Appended Next Post: During the last year I have been painting mostly my Ulthwe army, while sidetracking to Krieg and Necromunda once in a while.
I have finally managed to finish an army, that contains most of the models I will usually use on the tabletop. While painting them has been joy (with a few exceptions), I require something different to do for a while (as mentioned earlier).
For all of you who come here to see the Eldar army grow: I'm not done with them. Far from it. I have a ton of models in different kind of states of completion which I will finish at some point. Some of them were donations from a friend of mine (you can read all about that in page 2) while others were gathered over my earlier hobby years. Most of all, these guys will see the tabletop more often from now on!
The space elves will most definitely return! Be it Eldar or their dark brethren.
Enough of jibber jabber and let's proceed to the matter at hand.
After receiving the playmat I ordered a couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a few group shots from the whole army. I thought displaying them would be a great way to wrap up this project.
Just as a sidenote for all you metalheads out there:
I get a lot of inspiration from music and most of my armies have some sort of "theme music" when I paint or play with them. I wanted to share a couple a song which captures the feeling of this army in my opinion.
"Sons of winter and stars! Rise! Rise!
Fly with us through the darkness
Sons of winter and stars! Rise! Rise!
And we shall embrace the stars
And we shall open the doors of time"
"From sorrow and pain I find my strength
The more pain I feel, the more I see
Now I'm watching my life flowing in the dark
Like streams of fear running through my heart
And it's wearing me down until I'm gone
Soon I'll join the endless whirls of stars"
"We are the Sons of Winter and Stars
We’ve come from a far beyond time
Forever the fire burns in our hearts
Our world shall never die
In the arms of the wind we ride till dawn
As the waves of the ocean grind so strong
We wander in the stars until we’re gone
Our fate is sealed by eternal sun"
The lightning conditions were far from optimal, so sorry about that.
There are some small things to do of course, like the cockpits seen on the vehicles. Those I will fix when I get an airbrush. They will be good targets to practice some gradients.
But all in all I'm very happy that I can finally cross a large project off my list.
I want to thank all you guys once more for all the support so far. It really keeps me going!
The next progress update might take some time, as I'm gone for the next couple of weekends. But stay tuned, I won't disappear this time!
Those army shots look fantastic, your paint scheme is lovely and it looks great to see a full army of it. That must have taken a lot of work. I enjoy the battle report photos too, very characterful and well chosen.
Theophony wrote: Is it wrong since the leg is mangled to hope it’s a scenic piece for striking scorpions, dark reapers or an avatar?
Not quite, but I can say this thing is even more mangled right now. It was an excellent candidate for the current project given the state it was in when I acquired it from a friend.
Update time. Did not take as long as I thought, as a few things got cancelled and I managed to get some hobby stuff done instead.
So, as I said I wanted to do something different. Well this is very different alright.
The next project will be rebooting my Waaagh! to the 8th edition.
Orks were the first army I started back in the day (more story on the first post) and I have collected something like 6000pts of them so far.
Luckily most of the relevant models have been painted, so no need to repaint the whole army.
I'm trying to fight the urge to do that, as all of the models were painted years ago. Even though I like to think that I have improved a lot since, I want to preserve the older models.
Some small mistakes and / or broken models will be fixed though.
For this project, I will be doing a headcount of all the models I have (more on this later), compile a few lists and paint the models required for those lists.
Some of the old models are in pretty bad shape, due to the fact that my young self was a fool and did not store them properly.
I will need to find a way to store and transport all my orky models: either in Feldherr cases or custom boxes with soft foam.
The Feldherr order arrived, so I have some foam cutting to do for the Eldar and Dark Eldar models, but all the orky stuff is so large that I need to order bigger foam trays.
Before doing the actual headcount etc. I will be completing a Dread mob.
I have always loved the Deff Dread. The model is just plain awesome and the idea of a huge metal box hulking accross the battlefield is just so orky.
Sadly the only Deff Dread I have has seen the tabletop only two or three times. This is due to the fact that it had some problems surviving.
This has changed since the 8th arrived, as they are a lot more durable and they don't cost a ton. What I'm thinking is: deepstrike three of them into the enemy lines!
I'm aware that this is still not a "competitive" unit, but I want to give it a shot. I also have ~10 Killa Kans to accompany them.
Just as a short note: I'm thinking of doing three list at first. One will be purely Speed Freaks (a lot of bikes, vehicles and everything that moves quickly), second will be full of dreads and kans (as stompy as possible)
and the third will be a more competitive kind of list. I'm not sure yet that what I want for the competitive one, but I will need it for all those more competitive games I play sometimes.
First Dread is the one I bought and painted years ago (very old image from the gallery).
I actually won a small painting contest ~7-8 years ago in a hobby expo with this one
I don't have the base anymore, as it got torn off at some point and lost during the half a dozen times I've moved since. The Dread is also a bit mangled, so that will need to be fixed.
The second one was a impulse purchase a couple of weeks ago.
Nothing special here. This time though, I decided to magnetize the arms so the saws would not get torn and transporting would be a lot easier.
And the third one being the project I've been teasing in the last post: A conversion from Space Marine Dreadnought that the orks have looted for proper usage.
I acquired it from a friend who is selling his Space Wolves (for another army) and I could not pass the opportunity.
It was once again time to take out the hobby knife, saw and clippers and get to work.
First cut the legs and shortened the lower hull a bit.
Added some Killa Kan piston legs.
Sawed the face off and bolted some orky bits on it.
I wanted to use one of the original arms from the dread, so that got upgraded with a Killa Kan drill.
The backside got upgraded too. Orks need a bigger space to fit a better and louder engine:
The dread conversion will also take part in the unofficial Dakka painting competition this month. This is just to motivate me to actually finish the model.
After I'm done building these, I might keep on building some stuff. I want to keep on building things until I start to feel the urge to paint again, so it would not feel like a chore.
Don't get me wrong, I love to paint. It's just that I've been painting Eldar for so long, that I'm trying to avoid something like "hobby burn out". It has happened before and that's not something that should happen.
Some of the older orky stuff I have done can be seen in my gallery (link in the signature).
Thanks for checking out and tell me what you think!
Waaagh!
I cut some bolts from plasticard. The pen is there for size comparison.
Glued the bolts on to get some texture on the top plate of the engine bay.
Also added an access hatch and some exhaust pipes.
I wanted to preserve the hole where a rokkit (pliers) had penetrated the dread. Some ripped off hoses hanging. They were no use anyway..
Some wiring made from greenstuff just to cover a messy area. This would not be visible when the model is on the table, but I'd know.
Finally finished all the close combat weapons. This fellow will be fully kitted for close quarters stomping.
Used two Killa Kan arms, grabbing klaw from the trukk and the original arm from the Dreadnought.
That's all folks!
I think I will do some cleaning up with a file and glue the thing to a base later today.
That Orkified dread looks brilliant, really awesome use of bits and looting damaged models is the best way to bring something back to the board! Especially like the hanging wires from the rokkit impact, adds a lot.
The new Dreads are magnetized, so it's easier to store them.
Sadly I did not magnetize the third one back in the day. Same with 10 Killa Kans that I have.
It's a nightmare trying to store or transport them. Need to figure out a way...
I also have an idea for Deffkilla Wartrike conversion. But first, I will finish these guys.
So next time, some painting!
Thank you for the suggestions! I think a magnetized tray / container will be the way to go!
Need to order some more magnets and start tinkering.
Kestral: Thanks! At first I thought about keeping it looking more like the original, but I got a bit carried away. The mek inside me kept yelling "not enough gubbins!"
Wall of text incoming:
I've been doing some painting for a few hours over the last two days.
Before going to that, I wanted to take the time to display some of my orky collections from the past years.
I did a little headcount on all the Orks. Long story short, the collection is somewhat the following:
- 120 boyz (51 shoota boyz, 60 slugga boyz, 9 heavy weapons)
- ~15 gretchin and a runtherd
- 18 Nobz with various different weapons. Mostly power klaws due to them being awesome in the previous editions.
- 12 Tankbustas (few old metal models, rest converted / normal rokkit boys)
- 18 Lootas (10 of them are magnetized to work as burnas too)
- 2x Bik Mek with Kustom Force Field (one converted)
- Bik Mek with Shokk Attack Gun
- Ghazkull Thraka
- Warboss from the Assault on Black Reach starter set
- Boss Snikkrot
- Mad Dokk
- 3 Deff Dreads
- 12 Killa Kans (2 unassembled)
- 3 Battlewagons
- 2 Trukks
- Looted Wagon
- 2 Dakkajets
- 17 Warbikers (some of them are actually Nobz)
- Half assembled Stompa
This translates to something like ~5000 points not including any upgrades or specific wargear.
So the "playable" number is somewhere between 5500-6000 points.
~70% of these are somewhat painted. Sadly I noticed that there are many models that have once again been left half finished.
I have also been pretty lazy with basing, as many have only black bases or some random sand glued to them. ~20% have a decent base on them.
Why did I do this calculation then?
Well mostly so that I can get a good grasp on what my next goals are. I'm going to approach this the same way I did with my Eldar a year ago:
Paint and finish a playable force. Yes, I have enough painted models to field on to board, easily. But there are a couple of lists I want to field that would have unpainted models.
I also need to adjust my earlier lists to better fit the new edition.
I took some quick pictures from some of the older models. I added spoiler tags for them, so if you are interested you can check them out!
First up a groupshot of my vehicles. It's a really bad picture, so the paintjob is not really visible. Half of the bikers are unpainted.
Some of these models can bee seen close in the gallery.
Spoiler:
We are going pretty far away with this one. This guy came with the Assault on Black Reach box set.
I think it's been like 8-10 years since I painted him.
Spoiler:
One of my earlier conversions: Warbiker with a flag. Made the pole from a wooden coctail stick. The transfer on the flag is clearly visible.
Spoiler:
I think this guy was made somewhere between 5th or 6th edition.
I wanted to field a Kan Wall list with two Kustom Force Fields. Never actually finished the list as kans got way worse due to hull points.
Did not even remember I had made this guy. Really surprised me as I went trough the collection
Spoiler:
A couple of magnetized lootas. Nothing special here, just wanted to show the shape some of these models are.
The weapons are just basecoated and the bases are just too rushed.
Spoiler:
The next one actually made me smile as I rediscovered it. The glorious Looted Wagon!
I never finished the one displayed on the first page of this thread. It is still sitting in my "trash pile" in the same condition.
Instead I decided to make one out of a third edition Whirlwind I found on sale many many years ago.
Here I had discovered plasticard and used it to make the "flames" in the front. The turret is still unfinished.
Spoiler:
One image without the turret
Sadly there are no more rules for the looted wagon. Hopefully they will release them later like in previous editions.
Until then, I will use it as a trukk without the turret.
Lastly, a half finished kitbash. I'm not actually sure what this guy was supposed to be. Maybe a painboy on bike or something.
I'm thinking of either making him a Deffkilla Wartrike or Bik Mek on a bike. Leaning towards the second one as I'm tempted to making it look like a "maintenance vehicle" with a ton of spare parts on the back.
Spoiler:
I will go even further back when I'm starting to finish all the unpainted boyz.
So, finally to the actual progress.
I started to paint the Dreads. Decided to begin with the original kit first, just to get my orky vibe going. After that, I will continue the kitbashed Dread.
My painting style for Orks is more the likes of "quantity over quality". This means that I try to find a good way to make decent looking models to the tabletop as quickly as possible.
There are so many models in this army, that I'm trying to avoid painting every little detail that no one would even see. If I'm being honest, it's pretty hard for me not to paint every little piece of wire that can be found underneath the model
Some of my older models were painted a bit too "efficiently" though, as there are orks with unpainted teeth, belts and even weapons. Also, my earlier "secret" technique of painting red over boltgun metal to make it look "worn" was messy at best.
When painting this model and comparing it to the old Dread sitting in the table next to me, I was happy to notice some improvement.
The old dread was at the time the very best I could do (image can be found in the earlier posts). Now, I'm able to produce a lot better result in a much shorter time.
It actually felt pretty nice.
Only two pictures this time, but the progress can be seen anyhow.
Clear colors, with roughed up edges and some rusty parts.
When painting Orks, I'm doing the weathering very differently compared to my Krieg vehicles. On these models, I try to avoid rust on any "painted" surface.
Still need some more weathering and a few details.
Let me know what you think!
And thanks for reading.
Again, sorry for all the spelling errors.
I usually get carried away with writing at the late (early?) night hours before bed.
I love seeing your ork force, thanks for sharing it with us! This is quite a large force, it would be great if you could find someone to play apocalypse with. A lot of great stuff here, but my favorites are your conversions. I love that looted wagon, I hope rules come back for it too. I also really like your converted boy on that trakked bike. First thing I tohught when seeing him was painboy. I'm looking forward to seeing this progress, good luck.
I used to never understand how people could amass that many points of one army and the last body count on my Eldar was 5k as well so I don't even understand me now.
5k of Orks on the other hand... Phew that's a lot! Fair play to you for picking a way to paint that gets them looking good and being well painted, your dread is showing that already!
Can't beat a good looted wagon either, I'm a bit miffed they got did of them because they were the main draws to Orks for me.
Syro_: Glad you enjoyed my display, appreciate it! We are actually planning to play an apocalypse game based on the Armageddon. Actually we have been planning to play that for years now. Maybe some day.
I have heard some rumors that the new Chapter Approved would contain rules for the Looted Wagon! Glad you also liked all the conversions. They are the most fun to do, if a little time consuming.
Many ideas, so little time.
Tyranid Horde: I'm right with you there pal. When I started my army, I thought that it would never get this big. Things happened and suddenly it got out of hand.
I used to buy a lot of models back in the day, even if I did not have even started painting the ones I already got. Well, I won't make that mistake again, at least on the same scale.
The other armies (Eldar, Dark Eldar and Death Korps of Krieg) have stayed at the 2000pts range. For them I usually only buy models that I actually use in games.
That being said, Orks have so many different kind of lists I'd like to field, so it's nice to have "some" diversity.
The looted wagon was one of the main reasons I started orks, so it would be a bummer to see that go for good.
Pretty much done with the first Deff Dread.
Quick and dirty. Most of the checkers look absolutely horrible when observed up close, but Orks were never much of a painters anyway.
I left the base purposefully undone.
I got the idea of trying to use cork to make cooler bases. I've seen some amazing executions before, so I'd like to see what I can do with that stuff.
First iteration.
The stuff I acquired was a bit flimsy, but we'll see how it turns out!
A friend offered to donate me some of the stuff he has used before, so I will try that too.
I think they have rules for looted wagons in the new Chapter Approved but that's for open play only.
Your dread looks great, let me know how you get on with the cork, I've been meaning to pick up some at some point. Really like the yellowing of the tusks, it adds a lot!
Thanks! A bit sloppy here and there, but does the job alright.
Aww yes! Even if is in open play, I think I can field it in a game or two with my friends. Even if we play by the matched rules, we use the "rule of cool" most of the times.
A couple of days since the last update, but I've been progressing a little every day.
Firstly I managed to finish the cork base. It occurred to me that the material sucks paint like crazy. A couple of layers with a spray primer did the job.
Took a few repaints with different color combinations before I was happy with the result, but luckily as the material likes paint, thickness was not an issue.
When I was relatively happy with the result, I made a couple more.
One for each Deff Dread and the smaller one is for Ghazkhull Thraka.
During the process of rebasing the Dreads, a small catastrophe happened:
I was carefully removing the converted dread from the old base, so I could glue it on top of the new one.
Everything was going fine as I tried to be very careful and cut the seam between the legs and the base small portion at a time, until my hand slipped a bit.
One of the leg joints snapped and in the process both of it's "feet" got torn off.
After a couple of minutes of cursing and regretting my actions I realized that there was a silver lining:
as the joint was so weak, this could have happened during transportation or even worse, during a game.
I strengthened the joints by pinning them and glued them back together.
Turned out just fine. There should be no weak joints anymore, so I can ease my mind a bit.
While doing the bases, I was a bit impatient when waiting for the paint to dry. At this point my table got a bit crowded as I started doing a couple of projects at the same time.
Firstly, I started painting the converted Dread a bit and also got he idea of finishing / repainting all my lootas.
It was actually not a good idea, as I felt that not much progress was done between jumping from one project to another.
Anyway, first the lootas:
As can be seen from the image, all the magnetized weapons were a bit mangled, so those had to be fixed.
Then I inspected all 18 of them to determine if they needed a repaint. Five of them were in decent condition so they could be fielded on the tabletop.
Other 13 were in pretty horrible and / or unfinished state. Had to start thinking of repainting all of those. This was not due to the fact that the older models were "badly painted" or anything like that.
I had painted a bunch of decent models back then. The fact to the matter is that these guys were done so lazily. Some were just basecoated with a tank brush or something, some did not have any of their clothes painted etc.
I've said this before, but if I had a time machine I would go back and slap my young self
I don't have any pictures from the actual progress regarding the Lootas, but I did try to find a way to paint them quickly.
I experimented quite a lot with different skin tones and color choices, so that they would look decent without that much effort.
If I would paint all the Ork infantry with the same quality as I try to do with Eldar, it would take too much time and I would be exhausted.
Lastly regarding the Dreads once again.
Trying to paint the converted one, it was hard for me to choose which panel would be painted with this or that color so I'm trying a different approach: finishing it by painting the arms one by one.
This model actually takes part in the unofficial dakka painting contest, so I'm trying my best to make it look the part.
In the last two images the model is in it's current state: Happily standing on top of a new base without mangled parts.
Also wanted to take one more shot from the latest finished Dread with the new base.
I think those cork bases make a difference.
I got the small photo studio from Ebay (Thanks for Tyranid Horde for the suggestion!) and used in the last couple of images.
Really makes photographing single models much easier, as I don't have to steal all the lights around the house.
Let me know what you think!
Feedback is always very valuable, especially regarding the looted dread.
Amazing progress on those Dreads! They're coming along really quickly and to a high standard! And the bases look good also, although I think the tufts would look better if they were on the soil and not on the concrete.
Lovely orks Ezki, I salute you for getting that many painted in a fashion that looks great.
Tyranid Horde wrote: I used to never understand how people could amass that many points of one army and the last body count on my Eldar was 5k as well so I don't even understand me now.
5k of Orks on the other hand... Phew that's a lot! Fair play to you for picking a way to paint that gets them looking good and being well painted, your dread is showing that already!
Can't beat a good looted wagon either, I'm a bit miffed they got did of them because they were the main draws to Orks for me.
Tell me about it. I just added my latest purchases into my listbuilder spreadsheet on the "calculate the points for the whole collection" tab, and my Eldar came out to nearly 9k. And because I paint so slow, only about 1650 of that is actually painted. Sigh. I simultaneously feel I should stop buying, and also that 10k is so close I may as well carry on!
I'm also irritated at the loss of looted wagons. Like you, I feel they're one of the most fun things about orks. But then, there's nothing stopping you building one anyway just for fun, and against any opponent worth playing they ought to allow it to count-as one of the allowable units.
Cheers for the follow Ezki! Some great looking stuff in this update, your cork bases look excellent and your converted dread breaking was a blessing in disguise! Painting in sub-assemblies is definitely the way to go for models like dreads, sometimes it can be boring to do each and every piece individually but it's worth it.
Good job on grabbing a small light box too! You get some great looking images!
mcmattila: Thanks for the suggestion! It's not supposed to be concrete, but rather something like stone or "harder ground".
But a valid point nevertheless. I might need to add some more rubble on top of them, so the there would be more texture.
Bellerophon: Glad you like them! Still have to actually finish the Lootas though.
Wow that's a lot! It's surprisingly easy to keep buying more models if there are already tons of unpainted stuff laying around
I'm actually thinking of using the Looted Wagon as a trukk, as it's pretty much the same size.
Tyranid Horde: Usually I paint even the larger models fully assembled (mostly because I have assembled them years ago without magnets).
It might actually turn out to be more interesting to paint ths dread piece by piece, as it felt a bit overwhelming when I tried to base coat the whole thing at one go.
It was hard to choose which panels would be red, which ones would have checkers on them etc. Something I might be doing more in the future if and when I hoard more miniatures...
As requested by Excommunicatus, I decided to do a calculation for my Eldar force as well. I have not made one for a while, so might as well get it over with.
I will divide the force in two: one part consists of the models that I have bought and the other from the models I got from my friend a year ago.
To prevent this post taking too much space, I put the model listings in spoiler tags.
So first my own models. These are pretty much all painted, mostly to the "new standard".
Spoiler:
- 2 Farseer (one converted and one unpainted metal) + pieces from the finecast model
- 5 Warlocks (3 painted, 2 unpainted)
- Eldrad Ulthran
- One converted Jetbike character from Harlequin Troupe Master (used this as a Farseer in 6th edition)
- 20 Dire Avengers (10 painted, 10 unpainted)
- 22 Guardiands + 3x weapon platforms
- 10 Storm Guardians
- 5 Rangers (finecast, so the barrels are broken...)
- 12 Howling Banshees including 2 Exarchs (6 metal, 6 finecast)
- 6 Fire Dragons including Exarch
- 5 Swooping Hawks
- 12 Windrider Jetbikes + 6 unassembled (3 with shuriken cannons)
- 2 1/2 Vyper Jetbikes (really thick paint layer as I bought these used and did not strip them )
- 10 Dark Reapers (2 exarchs)
- 2 Wraithlords (Somewhat painted, will need to repaint the though)
- 2 Falcons
- Fire Prism
- Crimson Hunter
- 3 Wave Serpents
- Some Harlequins (10 basic guys, Shadowseer and a Death Jester) from the time they did not have a codex of their own. These were actually my favorite unit back in 5th.
Then to the models I got as a donation. These are also "mine", but we agreed that if he wanted to play 40k again some day, he could use these models.
He did not hate the game, but did not like painting that much so pretty much all of these are unpainted or just basecoated.
The ones that are painted are done following the Biel-Tan craftworld.
I don't usually count the following as being part of my army, but I'm allowed to convert / paint them to my own needs. If I intended to sell some of them, I would give the money to my friend of course.
Spoiler:
- Avatar of Khaine (the only model my friend actually finished. I won't dare to repaint this guy)
- Autarch (might paint this because the model is gorgeous)
- Farseer
- 3 Warlocks
- 6 Windrider Jetbikes
- Farseer Skyrunner (this I will convert to my own needs)
- 10 guardians (tried to strip these as seen on page 2. Paint is so thick that I threw them in my bits pile)
- 10 Dire Avengers
- 5 Warp Spiders
- 6 Fire Dragons including Exarch
- 3 War Walkers
- 2 Wave Serpents (painted as Biel-Tan. Very well painted actually, but these were bought from Ebay)
- Falcon (Same as above)
I might have forgotten something lurking somewhere deep in the storage.
Points wise: holy moly ~3600 points without specific wargear or upgrades (not counting the harlequins). A bit more than I would have imagined.
If I combine this with the models I got as a donation, this would go up to ~5400 points.
So, quite a lot. But again, almost 2000 points worth of models are something I might or might not finish, depending on which units I'd like to add to my army.
--------------------
Modelling wise there have been no progress, as christmas shopping has taken most of my time. Will try to do some stuff tomorrow!
I managed to play my first game with Orks in 8th edition last sunday though!
As this post is long enough as it is, I will try to keep it short.
We played a 2000 points game and decided to go with one the Maelstrom of War missions.
Classic match up against Tyranids. When I started back in 5th, I used to play nids almost every game.
We both had pretty different kind of lists. My friend had 202 drops on the field consisting mostly of cheap troops.
I had only 7 drops, as everything was hid in vehicles. I also had the three dreads deep striking with tellyporta.
This was close to the list I used to play in 6th and 7th. Without the Dreads of course.
(Very dark images, sorry for that)
The new battlemat really makes to board look a lot better. The on made from plywood is a bit wonky, so this thing hides it pretty well.
The Dakkajet moved with full throttle to snipe out the enemy's big guns from the back field.
It did not manage to do significant damage and was shot down pretty quickly. The other one almost managed to kill one of my enemy's primes, but he saved it with a command re-roll.
Boyz hurling towards the bugs eager to lay some dakka on them!
The lone survivor from the first Battlewagon surrounded by dozens of bugs.
"Cavalry" to the rescue. These guys managed to do pretty well actually. One of the dreads wiped a full squad of three Hive Guard and the other killed the Broodlord in a single round of combat.
At first I felt a bit overwhelmed and thought I would not have enough of killing power to destroy all the bugs. Especially after losing both Dakkajets and one Battlewagon with it's occupants during turn two.
I however managed to score quite a few objectives and as the Dreads really did some great work I was able to turn the tide.
Game ended in Orks victory by 9 - 4 in victory points. My opponent conceded at the end of turn 4.
Again a bit lengthy one, but thanks for reading!
Will be updating with some progress as soon as I can.
Looked like a fun game and I've never seen an Ork Army that isn't a horde! Playing the mission is always super important these days, especially if you can't table your opponent effectively.
Tyranid Horde wrote:Looked like a fun game and I've never seen an Ork Army that isn't a horde! Playing the mission is always super important these days, especially if you can't table your opponent effectively.
I like to play a bit different kind of Ork lists. Either everything hidden in vehicles or a walker based shooty list.
Not the most competitive, but I fare okay against the lists I usually play against. Might try the horde list in 8th though, as it seems to do pretty well from what I heard.
youwashock wrote:That shot of the dreds coming in is pretty sweet.
Cheers! They looked intimidating enough to draw almost all of the enemy heavy weaponry!
Been a few days, so I decided to do a small update before moving my focus towards the holiday at hand.
I finally finished painting all the Lootas. I meddled around with different paints and color combinations trying to find an efficient way to finish them as quickly as possible.
Tried to cut corners where ever I could using drybrushing and ignoring too small details (like the belt buckles where they would not be seen from the board etc.)
I think I found a way to finish basic Ork infantry models pretty quickly, but I still need to work on it. I got stuck a few times fighting myself whether I should paint or ignore some minor details.
It occured to me more and more, that painting very quickly is not something I'm good at. Or to be more precise, I tend to spend too much time on stuff that is not at all important.
I find it hard to cut corners and paint the highlights on a troop model with one color when I could do it with three. This is also something I wish to work on.
A friend of mine who works at our FLGS paints amazing looking "tabletop standard" models really really quickly. He actually has to, as he needs to paint the promotional models over a day or two when they are released. He jokingly said that he "has to school me a bit" on how to actually finish my models from time to time
I will of course reserve more time when painting characters, vehicles etc. They are after all the centerpieces of all the armies and offer good challenges to improve my painting.
So as a somewhat a "new years promise", I'll try to improve finishing more decent looking models rather than painting each Ork boy for an hour or two
I think the reading glasses I got last summer are part of the problem, as I can actually see all the small mistakes I make
Again, enough jibber jabber and to the pictures.
Just a couple of shots from the workbench before going away for christmas:
An example of where I "cut corners". Up close looks pretty sloppy, but from a feet away it looks actually pretty decent.
I also worked more on the looted Dread. All the arms are almost done and the body is basecoated.
Will post more pictures after the holidays!
The arms for the looted Dread are pretty much done.
Decided to do some metal chipping on the red areas after all. I found a technique that makes it look pretty decent, so going with that.
This one's a bit dark, but hopefully you get the idea.
I intend to finish the Dread tonight, or by tomorrow morning at the latest.
The body itself will need some more red on it, but not at all sure about the face at this point. Don't have time to strip it anymore, so I might have to go with that color.
C&C is very welcome!
On a side note, got my foldable gaming table from Urbanmatz. Will give it a go over the weekend as I'm hosting sort of a "40k party".
Got some friends coming over and we are going to batch paint some troops (I will do my shoota boyz and others will do whatever) and play a few games!
Managed to finish the Dread and even in time for the contest!
Bik Mek Skalgrakk was observing a Space Marine Dreadnought mowing down his freshly created Killa Kans to scrap. Enraged, he ordered every rokkit launcher in his command to fire at that machine.
Dozens of rokkits flew towards the apparatus, mostly missing or bouncing off of it's tough armour. Altough, a one lucky shot managed to find a weak spot and penetrate it's hull rendering it immobile.
Excited from the large explosion, Skalgrakk led the remaining walkers to rip open the smoking hulk and drag what was left of it back to his workshop.
Back in camp, Skalgrakk started tinkering with the captured machine. Being a piece of "unreliable umie tek", one of it's remaining engines caught fire. The sudden burst of flames burnt Skalgrakks left arm to smolders.
Unfortunetaly, it was his good "tinkerin' arm" which would be irreplaceable.
Swearing for vengeance, he was left with only one option: to entomb himself inside the newly looted Deff Dread, where he would lead his older creations to battle and yell orders for his inferior Meks.
Turned out pretty nice.
Still don't like the color choice in the face plate. I think a light grey or rusty shade would have looked better. Oh well.
Took a while, but learned a thing or two which is always important. I think I would be able to paint something similar a lot faster now.
Now I just gotta think about what to do next.
I think it will either be some Tankbustas, Mek conversion or mass producing some Shootaboyz.
The urge to go back and do some Eldar or Dark Eldar stuff keeps growing, but I'm trying to keep up the Ork heat a while longer to finish a playable army.
Great looking finished piece! Especially like the bit of fluff with it, really cool. The weathering looks great too, not too over the top but enough to feel Orky.
Great work on that Dread Ezki! I kind of agree with you about the faceplate, it kind of gets lost a bit in the rest of the model. Light gray could work as you said, or maybe a brighter red?
Tyranid Horde: Thank you! The fluff was something that came to me while working with the piece. Glad that the amount of weathering was right.
Syro_: Thanks! Was an interesting project indeed. Maybe one of the biggest conversions I've made so far.
mcmattila: Cheers! Might try the lighter shade of red, it would be easy to do. If that does not look good, I might remove the plate, strip it and try a different color. That will be a project for some other time though.
IGtR=: Thanks for tuning in once more! Glad you liked the Eldar, was fun working with them! Will surely return back to them when I've finished a few more orky units and conversions.
As said earlier, I'm currently hosting a 40k party with some friends coming over to paint, play and have a good time. It's something we used to do a lot when we were younger.
Played one 2000pts game with the same orky list as seen above against a Battlesuit heavy Tau. Had a blast! Managed to snatch a victory, but with only three units remaining.
I will most likely post an update after the weekend showing some game pictures etc. from the weekend!
Keep tuned.
So the year has changed and it's time for new adventures.
What better way to end the year than host a 40k party with good friends, some beverages and tons of little plastic soldiers!
The weekend before the new year's eve we gathered in our home (and drove my girlfriend to have a girl's night somewhere else) to paint and play a few games.
We turned the whole apartment to a 40k nerd cave, with four painting stations for some social brush work.
We each had a project of our own that we were supposed to finish over the weekend: assembling battlesuits and mangetizing them, painting a bloodbowl team or finishing a squad of guardsmen.
Mine was to paint 20 shoota boyz that I had base coated years ago.
WIP image from the saturday night.
Completed on the sunday morning. A really quick paintjob to get them to the board.
Painting these fellows took something like ~7-7.5 hours including the bases. This comes down to 21-22 minutes per boy.
The kitchen area was filled by the new gaming table.
It proved to be quite handy, as I used to have to take the top off from the cupboard seen on the left and combine it with the table seen on the right.
This way it takes five minutes to get the table ready for some gaming!
Speaking of games, I played three during the weekend: two with my Orks against Tau, and one with Death Korps of Krieg against Nurgle.
All the games were played following the new scenarios from the Chapter Approved 2018 - book.
I have very limited pictures due to bad lighting and the fact that I forgot to take them during the intense battles.
The first game was the one mentioned in the previous post, but here's one picture from it as well:
Taken during the second turn. Orks are making things hard for the battlesuits!
Spoiler:
In the second game we had 1000pts of Krieg vs Nurgle Daemons:
(Most pictures here)
Spoiler:
Very fluffy infantry and artillery based list.
Tons of green mass. A bit messy, but the list consisted pretty much from plaguebearers, plague toads (not sure what these were actually) and heralds.
Both sides ready to rumble.
Getting ready and aiming the cannons
Grant me stillness and serenity as my enemies pound and howl.
Bringer of death, speak your name.
For you are my life, and the foe's death.
Smite the foe! Smash the enemy!
For the Emperor we bring death!
Reinfrocements arrive to lay destruction on the unclean!
The game ended in a tie at the end of round seven.
A true meatgrinder, as both of us had 2-3 small units left and no way to say who would have won if the game would have continued.
Kriegsmen actually did more damage in close combat with the regimental standard than shooting their lasguns. Something I have to make use of more in the future.
The last game was again Orks vs Tau, 2000pts.
Spoiler:
This time I wanted to try something very different and picked a list full of walkers and shooty stuff.
My friend on the other hand took a bit more anti armor, as he was not able to crack open my Battlewagons last game.
As an afterthought, it was not a good idea to try a "funny killa kan list" against broadside heavy tau, as 7 / 9 was destroyed before getting close to the enemy.
I had a good momentum during the second turn when my Deff Dreads arrived and managed to destroy one Riptide, all his crisis suits and a squad of firewarriors with the help of a Warboss with Killa Klaw.
That was quickly turned around though with the brutal anti tank weaponery and very good shooting. The Tau managed to destroy every walker and all three squads of boyz and I called it at the end of round 5.
This time, Tau was victorious!
Good times were had by all. Have to do this as soon as possible.
It just seems to be hard to get more than two people to match their schedules, with all the boring grown up stuff that we are supposed to do.
The last year was a bit hard for me personally, but hobby wise I managed to finish quite a lot of stuff.
Finished a playable Eldar army with a new color scheme, built a board for armies on parade, painted two gangs of Necromunda, did some terrain, loads of conversion projects and even got pretty much painting done with the Orks.
Painting and playing with friends also helped me a great deal when trying to cooperate with all the bad stuff happening.
Writing this blog also keeps up my hobby motivation and it's always nice to get some feedback. It's also good to give something back to the community: be it techniques, color or conversion ideas etc.
As I'm writing this, I realized that it would be cool to do some kind of collage from the past year. Might do that if I can get myself to browse trough all the pictures.
I'm aiming to finish even more hobby stuff during the year 2019, as I'm not going to have a 5 month break from the hobby. At least I don't intend to.
One of the upcoming projects will be to rebuild my Dark Eldar army. Already talked about it one of the previous pages, but the idea is to make a vampire themed force.
I still have to think about the color schemes, conversions, whether I want to have undead kabalites or not (from skeleton warriors or something) etc. I want to do it right.
If you guys have any suggestions, I'm happy to listen.
In the meantime, I started working on some more Ork conversions, but that has to wait as I had to order some more bitz and kits to finish those.
As I'm waiting for those kits to arrive, I have to find something else to do (paint).
Hope you guys had a good year, and will have an even better one this time around!
Thanks for reading!
That is so cool! It's really great that you had that painting get together, and then played all those games. I hope you had a great time, it sounds like so much fun.
Syro_: We had a really good time! It's amazing how much you can get done when getting motivated by the people around you.
So as I'm waiting for my conversion parts and a few models to arrive, I started working on a different small project for a while.
Couple of months ago, I promised to paint a Bloodbowl team for a school mate for some hobby funding in return. Decided to cross that off my list.
Seemed like a good time to do it, even though I still have a ton of Orks to paint. Just wanted something a bit different after painting twenty regular boyz in a one sitting.
Still keeping things Orky though.
This was the only model he had painted so far. I'm to follow the same color scheme.
So the "comission" was to paint these guys with red and blue color scheme, somewhat following the same scheme shown on the box cover.
He did not want any metal scraping or "battle" damage, so I decided to go somewhat comicy style with bright highligths etc.
First had to do some assembling. Most of them were already done, but the troll was still in the package.
This had to be one of the worst models I've ever build. The instructions were horrible and the parts did not have very good fittings.
Had to pin the leg so it would hold the model well enough.
This is where I'm now. Been working with them for a couple of days.
The models don't have to look pro painted or anything, just good enough to field on the board. So it's not stressfull to paint these guys.
They have a ton of details though, so it really takes some time. Especially as I have been a bit hooked on Total War Warhammer which I bought from the Christmas sales. A ton of fun when playing a campaing with a mate!
Hopefully I'll get these guys done soon enought and get back to my own projects.
Thanks for checking out!
As I'm writing this, I realized that it would be cool to do some kind of collage from the past year. Might do that if I can get myself to browse trough all the pictures.
Seeing all the cool retrospectives done by many fellow hobbyists motivated me to do something similar.
So, if everyone else is doing it, might as well so you guys have something to see / read while I'm really slowly working with the Bloodbowl team
It's also an easy way to show some earlier stuff for all those, who have just tuned in and don't necessarily want to browse trough the older pages.
Mind you, most of the images have been shown in this blog already, so no new stuff yet.
So, just as a brief note: I started writing this thing back in 2012. Seeing all the cool blogs around here made me want to start my own. That lasted for a two or three updates, as the 18 year old me was not patient enough to keep on writing. I tried to kick up this blog up again a few times, quitting after a post or two. Even had a few breaks from the hobby every now and then. The longest one was something like ~3 years I think. That ended on October 2017 when I suddenly felt like wiping the dust off from my old models and started to relearn how to paint.
At that time, the interest to start writing again hit me. I'm happy it did.
The year 2018 started quite slowly hobby wise. I had started repainting my Eldar army in the autumn, but got stuck working with the vehicles. The task felt so daunting, that I quit painting for a few weeks. Every time I picked up a brush, I tried to force myself to finish those tanks. This went on for a few months until some really bad things happened in my life. While trying to cope with it, I found that making miniatures and doing other hobby stuff helped me a lot. I also realized that if I wanted to get motivated again, I had to do something else than force myself to paint those tanks. Even though I managed to finish some models and play games, I did not feel like writing, so once again a nine month break from the blog.
The first thing I started working on in 2018: The Swooping hawk conversions
The second project was to convert some Wyches. These still remain unpainted.
Come September and the sudden realization that I really wanted to make a board for the Armies on Parade.
This would definitely be the biggest single miniature hobby project I've ever done. As I realized that I would have to document the techniques used in the project, I thought why not make a thread about it. After a month and a half of updating the project thread I wanted to keep it up with this one, once again.
The actual board. Placed in 4th place out of 6. In my defense, the quality of all the boards were exceptionally high this year.
Some images of this thing have been featured in the front page and once even on the Dakka facebook page. Hobby goal achieved
To finish things off, I will list the other stuff finished this year. As most of the updates on this thread are from the last twelve months, there will be quite a lot of repetition.
These guys were finally finished, after 10 months of hanging around half finished in my bits box.
My vitrine is getting filled bit by bit. I change the minis shown on the top shelf quite frequently depending what I need for gaming.
Also managed to play a lot of games. More than in the last 3-4 years combined actually.
All in all, was a pretty good year hobby wise.
I aim to keep on writing this thing, as I've finally found the motivation to do so. Most of the motivation comes from you guys.
So thank you all who read, comment, offer feedback or watch the pictures. It all means a lot!
Keep on warhammering!
Edit: added two more pictures from the Necromunda gangs.
Thanks Tyranid Horde!
Well it was not quite the New Year's eve, just the weekend before it. I might have wrote it down a bit wrong.
I'd like to try Bloodbowl too. Maybe after I'm done with this group the owner will let me play a game or two.
Painting and modelling really does help when going trough hard times. It's somehow soothing and offers you something else to focus on.
Finally got the Orks in the team done! Took a good while. Hopefully the "customer" is happy.
I will take better pictures when the group is completely ready, including the Troll and the random accessories.
Speaking of the Troll, already started working on it as well.
This thing is pretty fun to paint. Especially after doing over a dozen almost similar looking highly detailed players.
In addittion, I worked a couple of hours with my Tankbustas just to get some variety. These guys have not seen any action since... well pretty much never.
In 8th edition however, they are a lot better. So I decided to gather them all and finish their conversions.
Four of these guys are the oldschool metallic models. I got these as a birthday present from a friend of mine back in junior high (~2006-2007).
Since then couple of them have been somewhat painted and then left in storage. Almost all the arms had fell off, so had to patch them up.
I think these are cool in a way, so wanted to finally add them in my force.
Couple of these guys have their weapons converted from Deff Dread rokkit launchers.
Found an unused squig piece and I thought it would be appropriate to have an Ork releasing a bomb squig with a detonator in hand.
However I did not find a way to plant any explosives on it so that it would not look bad, so I can say that the Squig just swallowed them or something.
Half of the Tankbustas are just regular 'eavy weapon boyz with rokkit launchas, but they work well enough IMO.
Just a quick one this time, will get back to you after I get more progress!
I will always massively approve of anything relating to squigs - that looks really cool. I'm also really enjoying the troll, it's such a characterful model. Looking forward to seeing the finished piece.
Thanks for the cool retrospective, it's easy to forget how much we have accomplished in a year. I'm glad you decided to get back to working on the blog. It was also fun seeing that armies on parade piece again, that is definitely something to be proud of!
A very nice round up the the year. Great to see all the stuff you have done and a bit of the background to your blog
The Death Korps of Krieg Display board looks great, the others must have been to a really high standard for that to only get 4th. The little extra details like the map, gun rack and all the boarding really bring it to life I'd love to do one of those myself and its on the list of things to do but getting the time is the main problem.
The dreadnought came out really well great entry to the painting competition
Thank you for the comments guys, really appreciate it!
Midget Gems: Thank you! Glad you like it. The board was all about small details. I watched a ton of documentaries about WW1 trenchlines to get some ideas, like making small holes in the trench walls for ammunition etc.
And yes, the other boards were simply amazing so I don't feel bad. Just need to ramp it up even more next time! It was time consuming though. Luckily as a student I hade some "leisure" time, but with a full time job it would be a lot harder to accomplish something like this in two months.
If I did count right, the Looted Dread finished 3rd in the painting competition. Did not expect that at all!
I did finally complete painting the Blood Bowl minis.
It really took a fair amount of time, as I tried to tidy up some small mistakes that I might have left be if they were my models.
The close ups came a bit blurry as I used the wrong camera lens. Did not notice until uploading the images
You can also see that the small lightbox I have is way too small for a group of minis. I think I need a bigger one in the future.
In the last image the accessories can be seen attached to models. I don't know any rules for the game, so I just bolted them temporarily so that it would look cool.
Turned out okay in my opinion. The bases did not come out just the way they were ordered, as the texture paint I was provided did not crack. Did some washing and drybrushing to get some definition though.
My school mate AKA the customer was more than happy with the result after seeing the pictures. Hopefully he won't change his opinion when seeing these guys live.
As an addition, I worked a couple of hours with the Tankbustas. I will follow the same procedure as with the Shoota Boyz. Just a little more details added.
I will provide some images when they have a bit more color.
The Blood Bowl Orcs look great! Really nice highlights on the red armor panels. Did you by any chance use the GW crackle paints for the bases? I haven't gotten them to properly crack either..
Mcmattila: Thanks for the comment! Yeah I used some GW crackle paints. Tried couple of different ones, and I got it cracking only in couple of occasions. Did not look good though. Even tried to google for tips and instructions but still no success.
Tyranid Horde: Cheers! Even though I'm not usually a fan of mixing blue and red, but this time when all the main colors are present it actually looks quite decent.
Youwashock: Thanks! Maybe I will do something similar in the future. Maybe in a bit smaller scale though.
Did some more painting during the last couple of days and got the Tankbustas finished!
Followed the same quick procedure as I did with the boyz: no extra highlights, just some drybrushing and washing and ignored the smallest details.
That's usually against my perfectionism, but this is the only way I can get these on the board quickly enough. Playing the game is something I enjoy at least as much as painting and I dislike having grey models on the battlefield.
Also given the fact that these guys are on the board for a really brief time after their transport is destroyed made me not want to spend too much time.
Without any more rambling, picture time!
The whole bunch.
Took a quick closeup from the squig guy.
I also found an old metallic Rokkit Launcha boy. This was one of the first 40k Ork models I painted, so I wanted to keep it untouched.
Painted somewhere between ~2007-2009.
After mass producing 20 Boyz, 15 Tankbustas and that Blood Bowl team, I got a bit tired of painting greenskins. Mass producing a squad every now and then is okay, but it's not very challenging as I don't try my best when doing that.
That's why I wanted to do something a bit different for my next painting project:
I ordered a squad of Death Riders back when I was doing the Armies on Parade board. These guys were supposed to be displayed on it, but I did not manage to paint them before the deadline.
As an addition, this squad could be a good entry for this months painting challenge. It was finally time to start working on them.
I had also ordered the upgrade kit to make a Command Squad plus some bits from various kits (including Dark Eldar, Ork and Imperial bits).
So I already started working a little with these guys. Swapped the shoulder pads for the command ones and added a flag.
Technically it's not a Krieg flag. I don't actually even remember that where this flag actually belongs to as it was a part of the big bag of bits I ordered.
Just thought it would look cool and would give some more color to the otherwise grey and brown palette of my kriegers.
Adding the flag was easy enough: I trimmed the pole a bit shorter and drilled a small hole on the flag itself to fit it nicely.
The shoulder pads were a bit trickier on the other hand, as they were part of the mold. As an addition, the ones from the upgrade kit had a bit of residue on the bottom side which would be fitted on the shoulder.
Some very careful trimming was necessary. I'm actually quite surprised that I did not break any, as the resin is very delicate.
The progress might be slowed a bit due to school and work, but I'll try to get these finished before the painting challenge ends.
Thanks for looking and keep on Warhammering!
Edit: Woah, seven pages! Did not think that I would get this far when I started writing again. Once more, thanks for the support and all the comments guys!
Edit 2.0: Added couple of more pictures.
Tyranid Horde: Thank you! The goggles were maybe the detail I put most (read: some) effort in. Hope I won't disappoint you when these are finally done
Excommunicatus: Glad you like 'em! Thank you for the info. Will try to "kriegify" it a bit by some freehand text.
I added a couple of more close up pictures to the previous post from the Tankbustas. I realized that the group shot I quickly took from my hobby table did not actually show anything.
Another reason for not doing more close ups from some of my quickly painted models, is the fact that I'm sort of afraid of the camera. It shows every single mistake I have made.
Because of this, I sometimes put a lot more effort to basic troops than needed. For some armies that is fine, but when having tons of almost identical models, who cares?
Little by little I hope to learn to ignore those mistakes and will happily accept showing more close ups from the "not so well painted models".
With that cleared, some more progress with the Death Riders:
Applied base colors to them all. They have so many details, so I tried to thin my paints enough that they would not get covered.
Using a wet palette really helped with this step.
Next up I'm going to try my hand at blending the skin of the horses and the flags.
I will show some more images when progress is made.
I think it gives some nice variation to the hobby by alternating between batch painting and doing higly detailed models that require more effort.
I've been practicing the blending for a couple of days now.
The progress has been relatively slow, as I have not been able to paint as much I would have liked.
Other hobbies, like a couple of my hobby cars demanded quite a bit of attention. Then there is of course my job, studies etc. boring things.
I tried a few different techniques with these guys, but I'm not yet sure which method I like the best. Most of the transitions have been done with wet blending, but there is a lot more to be learned.
More research and practicing have to be done.
I wanted to paint the horses in two different colors: lighter reddish brown (chestnut?) and a much darker brown. I thought it would give some variation to the unit and would make it look a bit more colorful.
The color scheme for my Krieg is pretty dark and I wanted to keep it that way. Some more contrast will hopefully be gained when I finish their snow bases.
Without further adeu, let's cut to the chase.
I also took a couple of shots with a white background. This way the colors pop a bit more and the transitions can be seen a bit.
The darker colors did not turn out as good as I've hoped, but they are good enough for now. I might have to make the lighter shades a bit more bright.
Some of the transitions could be smoother, especially on the flag. Regarding the horses though, I'm pretty happy how they turned out so far.
Doing the first one, took me a few hours. The second one was a lot faster and so forth. It's quite a lot of work still, but I think I've learned something at least.
I think I'm calling the mounts done for now, and maybe return to fix some transitions or mistakes when I have finished the remaining parts of the models.
In addition to the Dakka unofficial painting contest, I'm aiming to try my luck at the Fang painting competition at our FLGS. These guys and a few other models will take part in that.
I hope to finish these before the deadline.
This is quite a different task compared to batch painting Orks, where I spend 20-30 minutes tops per model. This is also a lot more interesting and teaches a lot.
I noticed that in order to keep up my painting motivation I have to variate between batch painting and other times challenge myself to try my best.
This way I hope to learn a few new things every now and then in addition to finishing a bunch of models for the tabletop quickly.
Tell me what you think. Feedback is always appreciated!
Thanks for looking and keep on warhammering!
Emperors will: Glad you took a look and enjoyed the minis.
For infantry, I used Mechanicus Standard Grey and did a layer of highlights with a mix of that and some Dawnstone. After that a wash with a 50/50 mix of Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade. For the last step, bring up the edges and highest parts with dawnstone.
At least that's how I remember it, as I painted my Krieg infatry a couple of years ago. Trying something new with the current project. Also the mixing of washes might be a bit unnecessary. The same result might be achieved with just Nuln Oil.
For vehicles the same grey as a base, then a layer of washes, brown / black drybrushes etc. until it looks worn enough.
Mcmattila: Heh, a classic. Thanks for the comment and glad you like them! I agree that the small flags need some more contrast, have to fix that soon. I also have to glue one of them back, as it snapped right off while rotating the model..
Did some more work with the big flag though.
Will try to get some pictures tomorrow, as it's currently 5.40am and I really really should be sleeping
Painting is more or less done, just some really small mistakes that need fixing.
I've been working with the bases since last update.
I wanted to add some extra stuff on the bases to give these guys a bit more detail. They are an elite unit after all.
First of I started creating some sandbags, broken off fence pieces and barbed wire. This comes as a recap for those who read the Armies on Parade blog (link in the signature), but wanted to share the procedure here too.
Sanbags were done using Milliput modelling paste. First step was to roll the paste into a long and thin form and then fold it from the middle.
This way it's easy to create the "seams" for the sandbags.
Folded and flattened.
Using a pair of scissors (my girlfriends favorite ones of course) I was able to cut the paste into appropriate sized bags. I'm using scissors, so the edges will get flattened a bit to make it look more like a closed bag.
Some mild trimming might be necessary.
This stuff needs a bit of water, so it won't crack and get stuck on the hobby surface. I also like to use gloves for this, as it prevents fingerprints emerging during the process.
The barbed wire is made from a cheap metal wire bought from a hardware store. When I say cheap, I mean something like 50 meters for a little under 3€.
It takes a bit of work, but from that roll you can do ~8-10 meters of barbed wire.
Luckily I had some twisted wire already (using a powerdrill and a pen), so the only step was to make the spikes using pliers. I wont go to the details too much this time, but that too can be found from the other thread or propably from Youtube.
Completed wire. It is a bit out of scale, so next time I'm buying some wire I might choose the thinner one. Then again, this is supposed to stop targets bigger than average human.
Next up I got the idea of creating a skull of a Kriegsman with a helmet still on. I have some leftover kriegers from the Gorgon Transport Passenger kit, so I have some spare heads available.
I removed and and drilled it hollow to be added on top of the skull. The skull shown in the image got replaced, as that one looked a bit weird with a helmet.
WIP bases:
Still some painting left to do and as a last step adding some snow. I think I'm going with a mix of white acrylic, some PVA glue and baking soda. It has yielded some good results before and looks realistic enough.
I have heard some rumours that it might turn yellow or into black gunk, but hopefully not. My earlier experiments have not been changing color over the last 4 months. If that happens, I will have to change the bases.
Thinking of painting the edges back to black. Looked a tad better in my opinion. My other Kriegers have brown base edges, so it will look a bit different compared to the rest of the army.
But, these guys are going to the painting competition so I think I will have to make that sacrifice. As a positive note, at least the command squad will look apart from the rest of the riders in the future.
Progress also slowed down a bit, as I was stupid enough to cut my thumb during the process of removing the Krieg helmet. Quick trip to the first aid station where they glued my thumb back together and everything was okay.
Luckily it's not that bad, could have been a lot worse. Not the first time I get my fingers patched when playing around with a sharp knife. You'd think one learns from the first time...
Nevertheless, I will get these done by tomorrow and try to get some shots from the completed models.
Cheers for looking!
Tyranid Horde: Cheers! Hope you get yours done too!
Syro_: Your are right, it takes a bit of time. I have not clocked it too accurately, but I would say it takes ~ an hour to do one meter of this stuff. That's enough for ~8-10 bases, depending on how much I want to use it on each one.
Youwashock: Yeah me too. It's a nice detail. Strengthens the impression of how much the kriegers care for their wargear, or in this case war animals.
Phew, finally done. Just in time for the painting challenge.
Still learning the camera, so some of the images are a bit darker. I took something between 200-230 images with only a dozen or so more or less successful ones.
I tried some texting, but that is something that's always been hard for me. I wanted to add the number 239 in roman numerals, as I named my kriegers as 239th Siege Regiment back in the day.
The higher areas could be a bit lighter. My last experiment made it a bit too dark.
Skull with a krieg helmet. A bit messy as the pliers made some markings on the sides. I did not want to try and trim it with a knife in my hands again..
Took me a good amount of hours to finish these guys. Even if there are some small things I could have done a bit better, I'm still very pleased with the result.
There are of course still some small things I could have done better, but this is a learning process after all.
Nevertheless, it was a lot of fun painting these, as I really tried my hardest to improve my blending. This project taught me a lot. I think these are one of the only models where I did not use a single stroke of drybrushing, excluding the bases.
Speaking of bases, the black edges look better in my opinion.
I'd like to think I have improved quite a bit during these last ~15 months I've been back at the hobby.
Maybe I will get faster at doing more advanced techniques in the future, so I would be able to ramp up my tabletop standard with the basic models as well.
Even though my current bigger project is to finish a few more Ork units, I think I'm doing my final squad of Krieg guardsmen next.
Then I could honestly say that every single Krieg model I own is completed. If the single Heavy Weapon team is not taken into account, as I bought it just for the AoP board and never used it after all. Aand I still have one leman russ, but that's not necessarily a Krieg model. Right...?
Feedback is always appreciated, so let me know what you think and what I could have done better.
PS: My thumb is getting better and I can get back at assembling stuff
Yeah, these are just brilliant! I loved the blending you've used on the horses' musculature, really appropriate for a war horse! The reds are lovely beside the browns and the flag blends are excellent too!
I find that you should paint what you want within reason, Greenskins are great and all, but sometimes it can be refreshing to get a different set of colours on your palette. At least that's what I tell myself
Excellent pieces! You may have said earlier, but did you do the base coat and shading on the horses with acrylics, or did you use the old oil-based paint "brush on, rub off' technique? Very realistic coloring and poses- horses, riders and bases, all. Really top notch.
Yup, amazing work! While the lettering might need more practice, the flag is otherwise beautiful, really nice contrasts on the colors. Your base work is also spot-on.
Thank you for all the compliments and comments! Means a lot.
Tyranid Horde: Thank you very much. Yeah it truly is good to change the palette a bit from time to time. I've finally learned that trying to force myself to paint something just because I had planned to do so is not always the best option.
Youwashock: Thanks man! Glad you like 'em.
Meer_cat: Cheers! I used Citadel paints, like I've been doing since day one. I started with a dark brown basecoat (black + Mournfang Brown mixed together) which I then washed with Agrax. From there I gradually worked my way up step by step with ligther shade of brown each time. On each step I glazed the transition line trying to smoothen it out even more. It worked okay, but I wan't to explore other techniques in the future.
Syro_: Thanks for the compliment!
Mcmattila: Thank you! Tried to work with complimentary colors on the flag to make it stand out, as the colors at the other parts of the models are pretty muted. Glad it paid off.
I think I have to start practicing my texting with a brush the same way we did it elementary school with a pen: repeating each letter hundreds (at least it felt like it) of times on the paper
I dropped three entries to the FLGS for the Fang contest yesterday and will see the results during the weekend. I've heard that nothing makes you learn faster than competing, so that's what I'm going to do then.
It's not about winning or anything, just for the motivation to try and do my best for certain models. It's also nice to get some feedback from different sources, which helps me improve my painting even more.
As I already mentioned, I'm sticking with Krieg for one more unit. I have an unfinished squad of advancing guardsmen laying around which I decided to finally finish.
Three of them had been assembled and primed already. So the first step was to assemble the remaining 7 of them.
Not the first time I complain about assembling resin models, but it really is something I dislike doing. Playing around with super glue and super sensitive sculpts is a pain. Had to even take a break and head to one of my nearest hobby stores to buy some rapid cure which helps with gluing a lot.
Still I managed to glue some bits on my fingers, multiple times.
In one of the early posts I showed some of my other guardsmen which were cut from the Gorgon Transport Passenger package. The negative side to them was that there were no distinct Watchmaster (squadleader) models.
I had two from other kits and two more converted, but that was not quite enough so I always had to nominate a couple of basic guardsmen as the Watchmaster.
Devided to put some extra bits to use and fix that problem right now:
After watching a video from Tabletop Minions, I wanted to try a technique presented in that video. The guy talking learned that liquid greenstuff works well when trying to get some texture on cloth.
Did this only on one model, so I wont ruin all of them if it goes south.
Also created one plasma gunner. The pose is a bit funny, as I was lacking spare parts and my greenstuffing skills are not that good.
Decided to make him look like hes loading the gun rather than aiming it. Hopefully he blends well enough in between the other 59 guardsmen so it would not look so funny.
The current state of the models.
Painting these with a simple "few color" standard is quite fast, so I'm trying to get these done today or tomorrow at the latest.
I'm having a friend come over to do some painting and he is bringing with him the Orky stuff I ordered a couple of weeks ago, so I can get back to my unfinished conversions.
Painting kriegers first time in a long time made me feel the heat for them again. The only problem is that I don't have any more of them laying around.
I'd like to get some more Death Riders, Grenadiers and artillery in the future. It's just that they cost more than a small island from the Baltic Sea, so I think I have to wait a bit longer until I can justify ordering more of them to my pile of shame
A hobby filled weekend is behind me and I got quite a bit of stuff done.
I spent most of Friday painting and playing some RE2 remake with my girlfriend, some D&D on Saturday and finally had a couple of friends over today to do some modelling and painting.
Well spent end of the week I would say.
First of, I got the squad of Krieg Guardsmen painted. For some reason these images are a bit dark, as I used a phone this time. The auto setting did not work as intended.
Not much of the detail is seen from the pics, but then again they don't have that much of it.
A quick brush up and ready for some good old bayonet charges. I used few of the same materials for the bases as I did for the Death Riders.
I would really love to glue some actual bayonets to these guys, as a few of them comes with the kit. The problem is that they break extremely easy and after a game or two most of them would be lost. Happened a few times before...
Today me and a couple of friends conquered our kitchen table and turned it to a painting station. An unnamed to be Knight played getting his machines of war ready to lay some fire on the heretics.
After having such a good time before the New Year's Eve during the 40k "party", we decided to arrange similar sessions every now and then.
It's a lot of fun to do some modelling in a good company and share ideas and help each other. Usually I do modelling / painting that does not require too much focus, as it's easy to get distracted.
I jumped a bit from project to project, but got a few things forward.
Some new stuff arrived with my buddy:
- 20 grots
- Kit of Meganobz (mostly for conversion bits, but might build them nevertheless)
- A Mek Gun (no idea why I ordered just one of these things)
- AoS Ork Shaman to be used as a Weirdboy
I got the Grots assembled and primed. Decided to go with grey this time to get a bit lighter colors. I'm also going to experiment with speed painting the skin for these with just a wash and a simple highlight.
Got a bit of work done with a conversion of a Bik Mek on a bike.
This one is an older image from when I started the project a few weeks ago, but lacked the bits to keep it up. Just never showed it, as there was not much progress.
I cut the front off from an old Wartrakk and sacrificed one regular bike to give a cooler looking front wheel.
I had to cut of the shock absorbers a bit to make it fit right.
As the original bike had some brake linings, I wanted to do some new ones for this one too. BTW I just really like the attention to detail that GW does for these modes, I mean the brakes on the bikes have all the parts in them: brake calipers, linings and discs. As an automotive hobbyist this really pleases me. For this reason, I try to make this vehicle look appropriate.
Used a thin metal rod to make two new linings. Looks about as "good" as the one I did for one of my real cars. Good enough for an Ork though
Did one for both sides. I also used the same rod to create new footrests for the Mek. They are not actually seen in the image, but they are there.
A bit messy, but I will clean it up after this is finished some day.
A few more bits here and there, namely the Kustom Force Field and head plus the weapon for the actual Mek.
Also wanted to add a grot orderly to the back. I thought it would be a cool idea to have him weld the force field in place, as these guys were in a hurry to get some fighting done.
Neither of the characters are glued in yet, as I want to paint them before hand. Might even change the positioning a bit.
Any ideas?
I'm thinking about making a Warboss on bike and the Deffkilla on Wartrike after this conversion. Getting a lot of inspiration from movies like Mad Max and Doomsday for my Speed Freak force.
Two out of three HQ:s will be Index options, but that is okay with the people I play with.
Lastly, one of my friends recently ordered a bunch of stuff to start an Imperial Knight army. As he was magnetizing them, he struggled with the bases. He wanted something appropriate for an urban setting, but was not sure how to proceed. I did a couple of quick drafts for him to give some inspiration, as I really love making bases.
The road base is pretty much complete, but the one on the background is still in works. We called it a day, but I will finish that one too if he does not do it before the next hobby day.
Next up I will start working with either the grots, the Mek or something totally different. Not sure yet.
My progress might slow down a bit, as I really have to start doing some school work finally so I can graduate one day. Just have been hard to find the motivation. Oh well.
Quite a lot of stuff. Thank you for reading and as always, feedback is appreciated.
Tyranid Horde: Still meddling with the Mek, but more on that in the actual post. The asphalt road was sort of an experiment, which turned out pretty okay. It was really quick to do, so I might use the same technique in the future if I start doing more urban bases.
Hi again.
It's been a short while but some progress has been made. There is nothing very exciting to show you guys this time, but in order to keep this a habit I wanted to post an update anyway.
I finished all the 20 Gretchin I assembled a week ago.
The paint job was done really quickly. Including basing, it took something between 5-15 minutes per guy, depending on the details. I did however do the extra bit and drilled the barrels this time. Will do that in the future for every new model.
These fellows will be used mostly with the grot shields - stratagem, so they won't be on the board for long.
Another quick project was to finish up the Deff Rollas for my two remaining Battlewagons.
Nothing fancy here.
Anyway, I just wanted to get these quickly out of the way, so I can focus on more interesting and demanding projects.
There were a few boxes of unassembled Ork stuff, which I started working on during the week.
I got the Deffkilla Wartrike and three Meganobz assembled. I left half of the components unglued, as it would be a paint to paint them otherwise. No pictures from those, as they don't have anything special done to them. For now at least.
The Mek Workshop was bought mainly for cool conversion parts and scenery bits. I actually tried to fit the V8 engine bit from that kit to the Deffkilla Wartrike.
I thought it would have been cool to replace the original part with this one, with an exhaust pipe going straight up for every cylinder, Mad Max style.
The problem was however, that I could not find a way to fit it properly. In every configuration, it would have looked a bit weird. Add to that my perfectionism regarding the actual functionality -> how the power would be transferred to the wheels from that engine in it's current position. After an hour of pondering, I decided to build the model in it's original configuration. Even though upon release I did not much care for the design, it has started to grow on me. Regarding the engine, I have some ideas to fit in another vehicle.
A little bit more work with the Bik Mek on Warbike. Well, not as much work as gluing some parts on it and removing them again.
I can't seem to find a proper way to insert those side panels on the back. They keep falling off no matter how I glue them on. I also have a hard time deciding what I want to put on the bike.
It's time to channel my inner Mek and start working with it some more. Hopefully I will get it assembled soon enough!
As for the painting challenge this month, I'm still thinking about my entry. It will be either the Meganobx or the Wartrike. Leaning a bit on the latter, as I have a heat for speed freaks at the moment. Been watching a lot of Mad Max movie clips and documentaries about the cars they used in order to get some inspiration. This has really fueled my motivation to finish the speedy side of my Ork army. The Kan Walls etc. can wait
In order to finish the current Ork project, I will try to finish the following models: Three Meganobz, the Wartrike, Weirdboy, Bik Mek on Bike and maybe convert a Biker Warboss. If the Mad Max heat gets a proper grip from me, I might do some conversion work with the Trukks and Battlewagons I have completed years ago.
A bit messy update, sorry for that. I have slept only a few hours and my concentration is all over the place.
Anyway, thanks for looking and keep on hobbying!
Huzzah! I got the Big Mek built finally. Started the conversion project in November last year and due to lack of ideas it was halted multiple times.
First some images from different states of the build:
I decided to cut the idea of having the large side panels on the back. They would have looked okay, but as mentioned in the previous post it was hard to make it work. I grew tired of fighting the plastic and started looking for other options.
There were a bunch of wires in the Meganobz kit, that would be used for the tellyporta blasta. I will not have a use for that weapon at the moment, so I cannibalized the parts from it to make the Kustom Force Field a bit more interesting.
Drilled some holes on the back and replaced the exhaust pipes with better looking ones.
Used a Killa Kan front plate to create an armor plate on the front. As vehicles usually have a face like appearance, I thought it would be appropriate to replace the headlights with spikes.
The gun is converted from a cannibalized Warbike.
Then to some pictures from the final stage:
The final positions of the crew will be decided when they are all painted up. For this picture, I positioned the little helper grots like they are arguing whether to pull the lever on the back of the force field or not.
Hopefully all the details will be more visible when I get some paint on it. It's also a bit messy, as the original model has seen some **** over the years.
I also have to figure out what to do with the base. Not even sure if I'm going to use the base shown in the images.
As for now, I got a bunch of stuff to clean up and coat with primer.
Been building stuff enough to last me a while, so the next few updates will (hopefully) display some painted models. For these, I'm going to put a lot more effort than the gretchin or tankbustas.
Thanks for reading and tell me what you think!
Liking all the little details you've added to your Trike, from the grots to the expelled bullet casings. The casings add a nice bit of motion to the model.
Shame that you couldn't fit in the V8, I guess you'll just have to go off the usual "It works because the Ork believe it will" ethos.
Sounds like you had a great weekend (probably a while ago now). The grots turned out very nicely. I'm also liking the mek on the bike, I'm looking forward to seeing it continued.
Great job on the Mek's warbike/wartrakk! It's a bummer that the side armor plates didn't stick, but I think that the current iteration with the arguing grots looks even better, and they're more visible without the armor. For future attachment issues though, you could try pinning. Even if the pins would go straight through the armor plates, it would be easy to hide those in an ork vehicle with some bolts or such.
Tyranid Horde: Heh, that's true. I already have a couple of ideas for some kitbashing, so the engine will be use there.
Mcmattila: Thanks for the suggestion. I thought about pinning too, but was not sure wether they looked good or not and did not want to drill excessive holes. I agree that the grots look a bit better, as they add some character to the model.
Managed to do quite a bit of progress on the bike. It's now painted and the crew has been glued in their places.
My sister borrowed my camera, so I had to use my phone for these shots.
As far as painting goes, it's not my best work. The base model was a bit messy due to all the violence it has suffered over the dozen or so years of storage.
That being said, I'm still quite happy how it turned out. I think it captures the orky "maintenance bike" - feel well enough.
What's left to do is the base. I have a few ideas brewing which I will start iterating today. I also started to do some small work on the Deffkilla Wartrike, but more images on that later.
I will also take some more precise pics from the mek when I'm done with the base.
Captain Brown: Well this thing had been sitting on my storage box for over a decade, so I was not very quick to find any use for it either
Did a first (or maybe last) iteration of the base for the Mek. I got excited about making road bases after doing one of these for my friends Knight army (on the previous page) and decided to give it another go. I wanted some variation from the similar looking bland wasteland bases I've been doing for many years for the Orks.
This is how it will look when I glue the model in place. The casings coming out of the gun got ripped off during the painting process, but I will glue them back on when the model is securely on the base.
Still thinking about adding some more details on the base. I'm also not sure about the color of the asphalt: I think it should be a bit darker. I might iterate a bit more still, we'll see.
While thinking about the base, I did some base coloring on the Trike as well. Did the first layer of metallics and washes. This thing will have a very Mad Maxey color scheme: lot's of dirt and rust.
That's all folks. A really quick one but wanted to keep you guys posted!
"Big Mek Gazzruk was replacing an engine to a trukk hit by an Imperal rocket. He strapped it on with a few ropes in order to finish the repair work quickly. It would stay in place for a while, but there was no point creating proper engine mounts: the trukk would not stay intact for long. The owners were rarely bothered to take care of their precious vehicles.
Gazzruk lift his head and grunted. There were still a half a dozen of vehicles and a bunch of bikes in line to be fixed before the raid to an imperial manufactorum in a few days. He was overwhelmed by all the maintenance and repair work. It was difficult to find proper help these days, especially when one of the best Meks in the tribe, Skalgrakk, had been entombing himself inside a looted Dreadnought. All the Boyz were too dumb or too big to be able to help with hard to reach places. Best option would be gretchin, if only they would not be used as shields by the larger greenskins. Drix and Brix were the only lucky two grots he had been able to snatch to his workshop, but this was not enough. Besides, all this repairing took away from the time that could be better spent inventing and creating new stuff. Something had to be done.
Gazzruk browsed trough his workshop and was able to find an old contraption he never had time to finish. This device would be able to cast a protective field around it being able to block even the meanest of ranged weapons. If only he could make it work, he would be able to bolt it on his customized warbike. With glowing eyes, Gazzruk channelled every bit of wisdom bestowed upon him on birth, inserted all the wires he could find and finally welded the thing on his bike. If this thing works, he would be able to protect all the other vehicles, make some field repairs and maybe bash in a few heads during the raid."
---------
My camera is still at my sister's house, so I apologize for the poor pics. As stated before, I will take better ones later on.
This bike is the least rusy in the force, as Gazzruk takes a good care of it.
In addition to this, I continued working with the Deffkilla Wartrike. I actually got the vehicle itself finished.
My girlfriend was not home, so I took the opportunity to blast some Motörhead trough the speakers, took the dirtiest of drybrushes and went to town. I payed no mind to any advanced techniques and rather let the music guide my brush strokes, trying to make the vehicle as rusty as possible. Even decided to add some flames as a tribute to hot rod - culture, with clearly visible transitions. I don't remember when I have had as much fun when painting. Even though I enjoy painting minis, a lot in fact, it very refreshing to paint with a feeling rather than trying to create a display mini. My neighbours might not agree, but what the heck.
I'm very pleased how it turned out. It does not look very good up close as all the metal parts have been drybrushed, but in my opinion it does the job pretty well.
Now it's just a matter of painting the crew and creating a base.
Music plays a huge part in my painting, especially when trying to decide what to paint and how to paint. I have a theme album or a music genre for most of my armies, and I think Motörhead works perfectly for speedfreeks.
I think I will keep working with orky vehicles and bikes for a while as that's what I really enjoy doing at the moment. That might of course change if I feel like it or change the tunes I'm listening to
Thanks for reading! Any feedback is always appreciated!
It's been a while. I caught a flu last weekend and have not been feeling like doing much hobbying. Still a bit sneezy, but feeling better.
Finally managed to post the pictures from Big Mek to the monthly painting contest and currently trying to catch up with all the other hobby threads I've missed.
Yesterday I however managed to finish the base for the Deffkilla Wartrike, so that's officially done!
I also did a few quick objective markers. We were having a game last weekend and discussed with my friend that we need some actual markers, rather than just dice or tokens from different game systems. The first three are more of a "general purpose" objectives. I don't even quite remember where I got those pieces. I kind of want to say they were from some Infinity kit, but definitely not games workshop. The last three are more of a Eldar ruins - style. I thought about making a few objectives for each of my armies someday, but until then I think these will make do.
A few images and words from the game in the spoilers for those who are interested.
Spoiler:
So, the game in question was once again our classic match up: Orks vs Tyranids. These two forces have been clashing together since the early fifth edition, back when we were still learning the game. Well who am I kidding, we still are learning the game
We played one of the new Chapter Approve missions, where the objectives move every turn (forget what it's called).
2000 points of orks. Pretty close to the list I displayed couple of pages ago, but this time with bikers and the Deffkilla Wartrike. "Battlewagon blitzkrieg" style list, with many nasty targets for the enemy to get rid off. I have wielded the bikers only a couple of times in the previous editions, and every time they have let me down. I decided to give them a chance in this edition.
The bugs getting ready to repel the loud smoking machines. 60 Gaunts, two Tervigons, two Hive Tyrants (one flying), 9 Hive Guard, 12 Ravenors and some other stuff I don't quite remember.
Engines revving, the boyz are ready to make some minced meat!
Sadly I forgot to take more images in the heap of the game.
Tyranid player went first and managed to blow one of my Battlewagons with his Hive Guard, even trough the Kustom Force Field. This made the Orks pretty mad, so they put the pedal to the metal and managed to pull off a first turn charge with a Battlewagon. Bikes and Dakkajets advanced and opened fire, making some really good damage. I was lucky enough to destroy almost all of my opponents anti tank during my first turn, so the rest of the game was pretty straight forward for me. Tankbustas did some mean work against the big bugs and the bikes really tore trough the Ravenors. I managed to table him at the end of turn three.
I really did not think that this list would fare so well. Maybe against something with a little more anti tank it would have been harder. I was really surprised about how the bikes did, but then again they did not get shot that much. Maybe because they have not been doing much over the years, but I can imagine that they will be one of the first targets to be shot from the table the next time around.
Anyway, had a blast. Good game and looking forward the next one!
The only thing so far missing from my Speedfreeks army is a Warboss on a bike. I pondered quite a bit how to convert him and the idea finally hit me.
I realized I have only one of these:
An old bike model that was given to me by a friend who quit the hobby years ago. I have used this as a regular bike, but I thought I could do some more work for it. It is very recognizable compared to the new bikes, so it would be appropriate for a Warboss. The funny thing is, that the biggest guy will have the smallest bike, but thinking about making it a tad bigger with some conversion work!
That's all today, will keep you posted when I get something done once more. I have been drawn to Harlequins and Eldar in general after watching a couple of battle reports. Not promising anything, but a few Space Elves might appear once again in the near future!
PS. Sorry about the lazy writing and possible typos. Not in my prime right now due to the flu.
I'm glad you're starting to feel better, flu is rough. It's great that you were able to get the wartrike into a game so soon after finishing it. Impressive game, nice job on the win. I'm not sure if I have heard of tabling an opponent at the end of the 3rd turn.
Great stuff. I really like your bikes and the road bases. The mek with ride along grots is particularly excellent.
Not sure about the Boss on the classic bike - it is a nostalgic figure, but in many ways a very limited one. There is a classic old figure of two orks riding on a tiny bike though.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Those objectives are great too.
That Wartrike looks sweet! The base you've put it on is awesome too!
Great looking objectives, they're something I haven't put a lot of emphasis on but seeing yours is giving me a little bit of inspiration! Good game too, lots of Battlewagons can be a hard thing to deal with!
Syro: I was really surprised too. Not very common to finish up a game that quick without one of the players giving up.
Kestral: Glad you like the mek! I hear you regarding the bike. If it would have been in mint condition, I would not have laid my hands on it in a manner of speaking.
The biker was however painted by my friend when he was ~11 years old and repainted by me a few years later. This resulted it being full of knife marks, glue residue and broken parts. It would have been quite a lot of work to restore it.
Tyranid Horde: Making objective markers is something I've been postponing for years and years. Happy that I finally got to it. It was really quick too: it took an hour max to create all six.
Looking forward to see if you get the inspiration to create some markers yourself!
I have completed building and converting the Warboss on bike. I did not have time to post any WIP updates during the project, but I will post some images from different stages.
Firstly I wanted to make the bike a little bigger, so I combined the original "shock absorber poles" to the ones from the newer kit. I also drilled a hole to the back in order to fit a boss pole with a gretching hangin from it. I did not glue this one on, as I'm almost sure it would snap at some point.
A bit of a messy image, but hopefully you can see the bike. Next step was to start adding some details: replaced the original exhaust pipes with ones from the Killa Kan kit and added a "front bumper" using a part from the Mek Shop kit. I actually cut some spikey shapes on the bottom and trimmed it a bit to make it look more fitting.
I also replaced the guns with a one barrel on the other side and a two barrel on the other. A Warboss needs to have more barrels than the regular bikers, am I right? I liked the original guns, but they were soaked in glue and paint so it would have been a paint to try and make them look decent.
The bit under the bumper is there just to hold it in place while the glue is drying.
The first iteration of the Warboss himself can be seen from the image. What bugged me about him was that the power klaw arm was from a regular boy kit or something, so the hand was thinner than the nob hand on the left.
I played around for quite a bit and finally managed to find a combination I was happy with:
I had to find a Nob arm that would be in appropriate position related to the bike handle and combine it with a biker hand. It still needs a bit of trimming and cleaning.
During the heat of the building process this happened:
Oh well, I needed to reorganize my bits anyway...
Bike cleaned (mostly) and primed. I added a couple of orky glyphs, a gun holster and made a brake lining from metal wire to give the bike some additional details.
Test fitting with the Warboss and the bosspole.
I'm pretty happy how this is turning out. Looking forward to get it painted!
As a bonus, I have another update too.
I wanted to make another post for this, but as I'm not sure when I have time to update this in the near future due to more or less busy schedule, I will combine these two projects into one post.
On thursday I'm once again challenging one of my friends to a game at our FLGS. It will be a 1000pts game and I will be playing Eldar. While iterating different lists, I thought that I wanted to try something different. Then I realized that I have not tried Harlequins in this edition!
I have eight Players, a Shadowseer and a Death Jester. The Players are old metal models, which I bought years ago. They were my absolute favorite unit in 5th and 6th (and the least favorite of most of my friends) and I fielded them in every game. Some quick shots in the spoilers.
Spoiler:
These guys were painted eight years ago. At the time, it was pretty much the best I could do. I was also very pleased about the paint job back then.
It's not that bad actually, but the color choices I made do not make much sense. They look a bit messy.
The reason I have not used these since the release of their first own codex is that all the stuff I own can't be used in a same unit anymore. I did not want to commit to a fifth army (yet) and therefore did not buy more models.
After properly realizing that I can actually have a mixed detachment, or a patrol one, I got the idea of trying out these guys and gals again. The problem was however, that I had only eight of them. Two troupes would need at least 10.
After a dive to my bits box I managed to find some leftover parts from my Swooping Hawk project (back in 3rd and 4th page of this thread).
Already started brushing some base colors to them and trying to find a scheme I'm happy with.
I will try to find a scheme that blends well with my Eldar army. I will try out some blending on the black areas and try to see how they would look without mixing too many colors.
I only have two of these guys remaining. This does not automatically mean that I will be buying more Harlequins in the future, but this might be a fun painting project. But then again, if they do well in the game, who knows?
I don't think I will be able to finish these before the game, but trying to get them into playable condition.
A bit of rambling, but hopefully it was readable.
Thanks for checking out!
Just been through the whole blog! Some great stuff you’ve been producing Ezki. The wings on your swooping hawks are particularly awesome, if you do any more I’d love to see a tutorial on how you did it. The Orks’ are looking great too, the 3 Deff Dreads and the Mek Boys grots (sounds like a euphemism...) being my favourites so far. Tempting me to move on to greenskins when I get the chance!
Looking forward to see how the toned down Harlequins come out, spectacular if the rest of your Space Elves are anything to go by!
A nice selection of Ork Bikes you done recently Ezki
The Big Mek on bike conversion really works, its nice to see an older model reused and give fresh life. Good luck with it for this months painting challenge, I'm sure it will get quite a few votes.
The Flames on the Trike look great as well,
Disaster with the bits collection, hope it didn't take to long to reorganise. It would take me days if that happened with my horde of bits. Looking forward to seeing what you do with the Warboss on bike
Thank you all for the comments and compliments, it means a lot!
@Youwashock: Glad you like him! Somehow I thought you might be interested to see some Aeldari kin again
@Syro: Yeah it took a while, but luckily it was only the one box. The bad part was that I can still find some bits from under the furniture etc. Also ever stepped on a lego? Cute, try stepping on a pointy gretchin head
@Captain Brown: Thank you very much!
@Gobert: I'm flattered! Really glad you went trough all the stuff. The page count is getting bigger and it's not a small task to browse trough.
The Mek and Dreads were really fun to do. Regarding the Swooping Hawk wings I'm actually planning to do some Scourges at some point. I will try to remember to take pictures from each step and write a small guide. In the meantime I'll try explaining it the best I can:
The wings were mostly drybrushed using the following Citadel paints in this order:
- Primed with chaos black spray
- Mourfang brown
- Mix Trollslayer Orange and Mephiston red (~50/50)
- Trollslayer Orange
- Mix of Trollslayer orange and Ushabti Bone
- Very very thin drybrush with Ushabti Bone
I divided the wings in smaller sections, depending how the feathers were placed. I started applying the paints to each section going from darker on the top to lighter on the bottom. Each lighter shade worked also as a highlight to the previous darker color. Only color I used for every bit of the wings was Mournfang Brown.
@Midget Gems: Thank you sir! I can only imagine that if you were to spill out your bits box
@Bellerophon: Cheers! I'm also a fan of more grimy and rusty looking orks. Even though the bright and goofy style might look good, that's really not my cup of tea. Orks in my mind are grim and brutal warriors rather than all goofy, so I'm trying to fit the colors accordingly. And you are correct, I was able to find a few bits that were "lost" in the bitz box
Once again some progress has been made!
I managed to finish painting the Harlequins last week. I tried to find a balance of okay looking paintwork and a quick way of doing it.
Ditched the idea of trying to wet blend all the black parts, as I'm still learning it and doing it would be so slow. Main reason for this is that if and when I get more of these guys I will be able to get them to the tabletop fairly quickly.
Tried a couple of shots with white background, but it did not help much with the picture quality.
I really need to invest into better lighting equipment. The contrast on the models is pretty muted, but still more visible than in the images.
I'm still pondering about the blue color on the spirit stones. I might try orange, as it works well with purple in my opinion. The only problem with that color is the golden belt, which makes the stone disappear. Maybe I figure something out in the future.
As for their performance, they did some good work in the game. My list was a lot different than usual: no vehicles and a lot of playing around with stratagems and psychic powers to make the force tick. The first turn went pretty bad, as I failed almost every one of my casts and draw bad cards for the tactical objectives. Tides turned however during the second turn as the clowns started slicing trough the guardsmen and my reserves arrived. I had to rely on hiding my small units behind a LoS blocking terrain and play around my opponent with different tricks, like a true Harlequin. I was also a bit scared of his gunline, as he tabled me in the last two games we played (one with Krieg and one with Orks).
My 1000pts force for the game
I also did some more work with the bike over the weekend:
The bike needs a bit more work with highlights and details. The boss and the banner have been base coated and washed, so next it's time for layering and highlighting.
I will try to finish him up during this week.
Getting close to completing my Speed Freek force, just a couple more things! Also regarding the Harlequins, I'm seriously considering of buying one more Troupe to get a full battalion of these guys to field every now and then.
More Harlequins sounds good to me. Green could work for the stones. Looks good with purple, stands out against gold. The diamond patterns came out great. The weathering on the bike is really working. That banner top is a fabulous bit.
For the Harlequins, try a blue or a green background...they fade too much into the grey because of their colour scheme and white only seems to work for me with lots of natural light.
Also a big thank you for the suggestions. I took your words to heart and played around a bit:
youwashock wrote:Green could work for the stones. Looks good with purple, stands out against gold.
That was a good idea. The stones stand out a lot more now. It was the first time painting green stones, so the colors I chose could have been a bit better. I'll play around with them a bit more when I get more clowns on my table.
Captain Brown wrote:For the Harlequins, try a blue or a green background...they fade too much into the grey because of their colour scheme and white only seems to work for me with lots of natural light.
That was it. Luckily there were multiple different colored backgrounds with the lightbox. Before seeing the wonderful images in your threads I never thought that blue would make a good background. Live and learn...
I was able to finish the biker Warboss earlier this week, but did not have time to take pictures earlier.
The update rate for this thread is slowing down a bit, as I have less and less hobby time due to the school work piling up. It only gets worse as I'm closing on my graduation (~6 months or so).
I will try to find as much time to work with models though, as hobbies are one of the main things that keep me sane during stressful times.
Anyway, time for some pictures!
The base looks a bit too small, but I did not want to put him on a larger base. This way it will be easier to move him around with the other bikes and vehicles.
I took the extra step and tuned the white balance in these images with Photoshop. It's something I've learned a few years ago, but for some weird reason never actually tried with miniature images. Maybe the reason for that is that I feared the colors would look too unnatural, even though it's quite the opposite. These were taken with my phone, but I think they still came out pretty okay. The difference in white between the three images might be from the actual light or just from my inexperience with the software. Well, learning more every time.
Also for some reason these images are quite sharp, even if they are almost full sized in the dakka gallery. Most of the times my images become blurry and I have to use some other hosting service. Not sure if this is because of the packaging used in there or just that my pictures are not sharp enough in general. Any ideas? I don't mean to blame the gallery itself, but just want to know if it's something I'm going wrong.
Regarding the model itself, I think it came out nicely. The bike looks a bit meaner than the regular ones and it surely is distinguishable from the others.
Cheers for the recipe on the orange wings, I might have to steal it in a very different context though!
Great conversion on the old warbike, it’s well disguised! Nice detailed touch with the brake cables, it’s the details that make the conversion. Always love a grot hanging off a vehicle too!
Wow so many replies, thanks guys! I really appreciate it. Glad you enjoyed the biker boss.
Gobert: Go right ahead! As I've mentioned earlier one of the reasons I write hobby threads is to share ideas and techniques with fellow hobbyists.
I agree that it's all about the details. I enjoy adding a hint of realism to every vehicle I convert, so that they could actually work in theory.
Tyranid Horde: Thanks man! I actually managed to find a few small bits that were lost somewhere into the box. Turned out better in the end
Syro_: Cheers! Graduating has already been postponed a bit as I was supposed to finish my studies this spring. Just had to take some time for myself due to hardships over the last year or so. Not stressing about it too much though. All in it's due time
I have been working with something completely different once again.
The topic of this months dakka painting contest is "Space Marine". At first I thought about skipping that one, as I don't have any marine armies. As a matter of fact I have not actually painted a single marine over the course of ~16 years of wargaming.
Then it hit me: I had a bunch of Wolfguard Terminator bits that I was supposed to use for some sort of conversions that never took place. I acquired them from a friend when he decided to sell his Space Wolves in order to buy some knights.
I have always loved the idea and look of terminators, even thought about making an army out of them back in 6th. Especially the viking feeling of the Wolfguard or the spiky chaos terminators tickle my fancy.
I dived right into my bits box and spread all the marine parts on the table. In order to get myself into the right mindset I turned on some Amon Amarth (viking metal) and started to dry fit different bits together. After an hour or so of wondering the cocktail was ready: I would assemble a single assault cannon wielding Wolf Guard Terminator and place him on some sort of snowy base.
In addition to this, I have always wanted to try my hand at painting non metallic metal.
I remembered that I had found a great tutorial for it a few months back. After browsing trough it again I decided that this would be the time I would try it for the first time.
It might be a bit overwhelming to try painting every metal part with NMM, so I decided to do it only for the gold parts.
Before trying the new technique on the model itself, I tried it on a couple of shields I had in the bits box. They did not turn out very well, but it gave me a basic idea how the colors would work together.
Early stages.
After base coating the model I dived right into the golden parts.
Mixing colors and trying to decide how the light would reflect from the surface took a quite a bit of time. As you can see, I still have a ton to learn.
The current state of the model.
The non metallic gold looks okay in my opinion so far. I was just not able to make it shine properly, even though I used pure white for the highest parts. I might have to add another layer.
What I've learned though, is that fixing something again and again only results to having thick layer of paint and ruining it in the end. So I might settle for this as a first attempt.
As an addition I practiced layering with glazes just a bit on the armor. Did not spend too much time with it though, as mashing too many new techniques on a single model will be overwhelming.
One thing I'm not happy with at all is the barrel of the assault cannon. Still thinking about trying some form of grey to make it look better (like in the first image).
And I still have to figure out something for the shoulder pad. I suck at free handing, so I might paint it with a single color and do some layering with glazes.
I have been working with this for almost a week now. This is one of those times when I'm wondering if it's worth it, as I have a ton of modelling projects that I could do for my current armies. So progress wise this does not move things forward, but on the other hand learning new things is always fun.
I did not post any earlier updates regarding to this, as I was not sure at the beginning if this was something I would actually finish. Too late to turn back now
Tell me what you think and any suggestion are taken into account.
Certainly an impressive bit of painting. Lots of depth. Taking the assault cannon back to grey could be a good idea. There is a bit of a disconnect having the metallic and non-metallic right next to each other. All in all it is looking very good.
I agree, the metallic looks a bit weird to next to non metallic gold.
I took a step back and decided to paint the weapon back to gray. In addition I tried some highlighting and layering with bluish grey, in order to create non metallic steel kind of effect.
Also finally glued the model together.
Here's some more WIP images:
The black shoulder pad looked a bit too pale, so I decided to do some sort of free handing to it. I found an codex image with a similar kind of logo, so I chose to use that one.
Painting it took a while, a lot longer than it should have. I'm not a good at drawing, which straightly translates to painting. I've became better at this over the years, but still lot to learn.
Also wanted to add some runes on the back. The runes actually spell the word "Fang".
The pictures are very dark, as I took them by my working desk during the painting process.
Slowly getting there...
Next up some cleaning and finally building the base. It feels weird to post so many WIP images from a single miniature, but that's the only thing I've been working with recently.
If you hadn't painted the cannon back to grey I would have asked why you didn't do NMM on that along with the NMM you've already done. The grey cannon is much better and the freehand is ace. Looking forward to the finished piece!
youwashock wrote:Legit. The freehand looks very good, and the barrels mesh much better now. The ammo hopper on the back is a great bit of detail to break up the grey.
Tyranid Horde wrote:If you hadn't painted the cannon back to grey I would have asked why you didn't do NMM on that along with the NMM you've already done. The grey cannon is much better and the freehand is ace. Looking forward to the finished piece!
Cheers guys!
The barrels do indeed look better. The initial reason not to paint it at the same time as I did the gold, was the fact that I had no idea which colors to use. I had once tried NMM steel in the past using only grey, but that did not work out very well. I think I got a bit discouraged by that. But after somewhat succeeding with the gold I wanted to give it a go using a new guide I found.
Syro: The terminators are a classic and very iconic models from the 40k range. Glad you like it!
Also thank you Kestral and Captain Brown!
The last step for this project was to create the base. I wanted to create a snowy base with some rocks on it to fit the northern feel of the Wolf Guard.
As far as the materials go, I used some cork and tree bark as the rocks, some Noch rock compound to fill the gaps, mix of baking soda, water and PVA glue as snow and lastly some texture paint to fill in the blanks.
As an extra bit of detail, I started thinking about making some icicles to hang (propably not the right word) from the ledge. Did not have any idea how to do it, but after searching around a bit I managed to find a couple of sources stating that they could be easily melted out of flying base stands.
I fired up a candle and started playing around with some of the old snapped stands. I knew they would come handy some day, so I did not store them for nothing all these years
It was not as easy it looked:
The first iterations went horribly wrong. During the very first attempt the stick actually caught fire. Not badly though so no danger there, but it blackened the whole stick rendering it useless. Note that I'm a voluntary fire fighter so I'm "qualified" to play with fire a bit
Few tries later I managed to get a batch of decent looking icicles. The trick is to learn when the plastic is just at the right temperature and how hard you can stretch it, or it will snap in half. Using some sort of pliers is also very essential, as the material gets really hot. When the stretched pieces cooled off (takes just a few seconds) I cut them out, getting two icicles out of every stretch. Using a file I made the thinner edge a bit pointier.
I experimented a bit more with different kind of paints and polishes to see what kind of finishes I would get.
The image is very dark, sorry about that.
- The most noticeable difference was with blue wash. It turned out a bit too dark, so by mixing the paint with water might give a nice mildly blue finish.
- Lahmian medium and the matte nail polish had a very similar finish with each other, offering a sort of a cloudy surface. Icicles are rarely completely transparent, at least if they are large enough.
- The old citadel gloss made the surface very reflective, as expected. This could be used to make smaller melting icicles with sunbeams reflecting from the dripping water.
- Rightmost is just plain plastic without any paint. This looks good enough too, but I think adding some paint will make it more interesting.
Couple of layers of gray, some snow and a few grass tufts later the base was ready:
And with that, the model is complete!
I'm actually quite pleased with it.
First marine I have ever painted, likely won't be the last.
Once again learned a great many things with this project and most importantly, it was really fun to do.
I need to keep practicing the NMM in the future, but that technique is reserved for display and / or competition models only. With my speed it would be a pain to try and apply it to tabletop models. Investing in a painting handle or something might also be a decent idea, as I noticed that some paint has been chipping off from the edges as I held the model in my hands. Luckily it can't be seen too well with bare eyes.
Thanks for looking! Any feedback is always appreciated.
Wow, great terminator Ezki. I've always had a fondness for termies.
The NMM looks pretty good for an early attempt. I've never tried it myself but I think, looking at the wolf head on the cannon, it probably needs more dark tones on it. At the moment it looks quite mid-tone dominated and most good NMMs I've seen tend to be quite heavy on the dark, transitioning up to really bright highlights, but not too much mid. I think? Still, good effort!
I love the display base and the icicles too, great way to make the mini pop.
Boss. Super good work. The base is a work of art all in itself. You should definitely paint some more marines. I will need to remember that icicle trick.
Youwashock: If I get an inspiration to paint more marines, I definitely will! Not going to start a marine army anytime soon, but for modelling projects they really are fine pieces.
Bellerophon: Thank you for the feedback. This kind of constructive critisism is always very welcome!
You are correct, it might need some more dark tones. Currently the lighter parts don't pop as much and there is too little contrast. Lot to learn still.
This is the look I was after:
Spoiler:
Note, I do NOT own this picture.
Nothing to show this time. I've been working 6 days a week in addition to running the youth department in voluntary fire department, building a PC for a friend and getting my hobby car to shape for the summer.
Spare time has been really limited and will be for a while. Will try to grab a brush later this week!
mcmattila: Thanks! If you find a suitable model I bet you will pull it off really well!
Captain Brown: Thank you very much! Really enjoyed your's too! Totally missed the voting though, as I have been absent from the forums a while :(
Three weeks since last update, boy does time fly.
Not much has happened since I finished the Terminator. Studies, other hobbies, work and all sorts of distractions have kept from painting. The sunny days have also made it hard to stay at home. Well, spring and summer have always been a bit quiet on the modelling field for me. And speaking of hobbies, my co-worker got me back at playing Airsoft. It's something I used to play a lot when I was younger, but have not touched any of my stuff in six years. Tried a couple of games out of nostalgia and got stuck with it once again. Another hole in my wallet...
But enough of that. After all I have something to show you guys at least!
As promised earlier, more Harlequins!
Not much painting done. I have just brushed the first layer of purple on them. When I get these done I will have a minimal battalion to field! Does that count as an army? I'd like to think not, so I can say that I still have "just" four armies
Also did some modifying to my Succubus conversion for the very WIP vampire / horror / wych elf themed army. There was a single picture of her a few pages back, but here is the new version:
As a comparison, the older version:
Spoiler:
And the source of inspiration once again for those who have not seen the older pages:
Spoiler:
NOT my image.
I decided to swap the wings for a different kind, which suit the model better in my opinion. The older ones were fine too, but I wanted her to stand in more relaxed position. Her head is a new one (I think?) from the Realm of Chaos kit. It was donated to me by a friend after I casually told him that it would fit my model perfectly. This way I would not need to mold the horns out of greenstuff. The model looks a bit like it could fit in a Slaanesh themed army too, but hey ho. Anywas, I wanted her to look like an actual succubus rather than a regular wych with some more details. I'm going to attend to the monthly painting contest with this, so I might have to postpone painting those Harlies a bit. With very limited hobby time I doubt that I will get both done by the end of the month.
Then for something really cool!
I was asked to take part in play testing of a new Mordheim campaing that is in the works! It is in early stages, but playable.
There is a group of ~8 players plus the actual designer playing together, discussing about rules etc.
As I was new to the game, I had to spend a few moments browsing trough the rules. Luckily we are playing a couple of test scenarios with the regular rules so that everyone gets comfortable with them. I picked up on the rules pretty quickly, as they were quite close to the old Warhammer Fantasy rules.
As I have a thing for vampires at the moment, I decided to go with the Undead warband.
There were a lot of miniatures available for borrowing, so I was lucky enough to complete my warband and test the game. Later on, I will definitely create some models of my own.
Our battlefield:
My zombie horde advancing trough the ruins.
My warband was very Zombie themed. I wanted to have a huge horde which would be able to overrun the smaller gangs. The problem was that they were really really slow, especially for my usual play style in 40k. I might rewrite my warband for the actual campaign.
Had a lot of fun. I'm excited to start a new small(ish) modelling project for this campaign, as it lets me paint all those cool fantasy miniatures with an actual purpose.
More to come in the future!
If you guys are interested, I could share some more detailed stuff of the actual campaign as it progresses. We don't have any non-disclosure agreements, so it's okay to write from the games.
Not sure how accurately I can describe the rules, but that gets clarified in the future.
Airsoft! Used to do a little of that, myself. Still have a couple guns stashed away. Maybe when the kids are older we can shoot up some soda cans or something.
Exciting new minis. Digging the updated Succubus. And never sad to see Eldar. Love me some Mordheim, too, so lots to love in this update. My favorite gangs were Undead, Sisters, and Mercs. Skaven could be a lot of fun, too.
Looking forward to what you'll do with Mordheim! I've long been interested in the setting and the modelling opportunities, though not so much in playing the actual game.
Good to see you back Ezki, and with some promising looking models.
The succubus is particularly nice. I agree the new wings suit her pose much better. She could definitely fit in nicely with a Slaanesh force
The zombies should give you some nice conversion opportunities if Mordheim plays like my imagining with character development. Given your Elven leanings will they be undead elves?
Gobert: Thank you! Character development is in a big role in Mordheim, although zombies or wolves do not gain any experience. Using elves as a base for zombies might be cool. I'm also thinking about "raising" zombies out of all the other warbands that I face during the campaign. Will see that in the future, as conversions take a lot of time and this might be a one time thing. Hopefully not.
CB: I'm sure to give that hint to the owner of those terrain pieces
mcmattila: I'm also very interested in the setting. Warhammer fantasy style minis with 40k level grimdark theme? Count me in!
Midget Gems: Thanks! Mordheim seems to be rarely played where I'm from. It might also be that I have not met the right people.
Youwashock: Thanks man! Lots of cool gangs in the Mordheim setting. My choice was easy as I already have some undead models and it was pretty much the only gang not picked by anyone yet.
Progress has been slow, but I'm getting there:
Yeah, one of the wings fell off. That is luckily an easy fix which I'll do when it's painted.
I decided to go with bluish skin as per the original source of inspiration. The colors on the clothing were chosen the same way.
Will have to repaint the wings, as I messed up the blending totally. This happened mostly because it's so darn hot in my student crib without any air condition and the sun shining to the living room all day. Makes it hard to concentrate properly, all the way to the point of getting annoyed and angry at my paints
The deadline for the Dakka painting contest is in ~21 hours, so I'll try to finish her up before that. I won't have time to use every technique I could, but trying to make her look decent.
It's also time to start learning when to call a model complete. Something I'm still struggling with.
Coming along nicely! Bummer about the wing. Maybe stick a pin in there, too? When to call it done is something many struggle with. I am trying to learn that myself.
Saw your finished model over on the painting challenge thread and I dig the blue skin! Keen to see what else you've got planned for this army of yours.
Youwashock: Yeah I think pinning is the way to go once again. Only problem is that the part where the wing is attached is so thin.
I think calling something ready is a general issue with anything related to creating something from scratch, be it painting, drawing or composing music etc. One of the hardest skills to learn.
As a game programming student, I have noticed that perfecting small things with some features for too long becomes an issue every now and then
Tyranid Horde: Thanks pal! It was so late in the night that I did not have time to update the same pictures here yet.
Can't wait to start working with the rest of the army. Sadly I think the project will be moved to late summer / autumn, as I "have" to finish the Mordheim warband during the campaign. During summer time I'm also a lot less active when it comes to painting.
Excommunicatus: Well it surely looks like one too. Maybe the brainwashing works both ways?
Bam! Got the model finished just in time.
I sort of failed with the skin a bit, as I tried a bit too much and the paint ended being too thick. Painting skin is one of the big things I want to learn to do properly, especially with models like this.
Still pretty alright for a model painted in two afternoons. Aesthetic wise I'm happy with it and I think pose turned out well. I'm also glad that the layering and glazing on wings looks somewhat smooth. Used pretty much the same technique as with Eldrads cloak a few pages back, only with a little bit darker colors.
So, now I can say that I have finally started working with the Drukhari project. The next step will be either painting the Wyches I converted a year ago, or making one more Succubus and two Archons. I'm still a bit stuck with the color scheme for my vehicles and Kabalites. Maybe something similar to this. Also still not sure how to convert the Kabalites, or just use them as is. For this project I think my strategy will be proceeding with one unit at a time, adding them to my existing army. This way I can play with them, even though all the models are not converted. It would be a bit too daunting to strip / prime the whole half painted army I already possess.
Only one model finished during the last month! Not very good. But as I predicted the painting tempo has been getting slower and slower when we are moving closer to summer.
It's hard to justify sitting at my desk while the sun is shining and the urge to fix my hobby car is getting the better of me. I'm also working full time during the summer without any summer leave, so that eats a lot of the currently available time.
But to be fair, I have painted more models in the last six months than in last ~3-4 years combined
As I said in my reply to TH, I'm quite sure that the Drukhari project will be started at late summer at the earliest. The Undead Warband for Mordheim will be taking a huge chunk of my limited hobby time (not that it's a bad thing!). Not making any promises to any direction though, as my mind tends to wander around and the urge to paint something totally different might strike me at any time
I started assembling my undead warband for Mordheim.
My list will not have any zombies at the beginning, as they played a bit too slow for my tastes during the practice rounds. In 40k I'm used to a bit more fast moving units.
I will not rule them out completely, as I might recruit a handful of them in the future. They are cheap after all. I also got lucky and rolled the spell that lets me to turn slain enemy characters into zombies. It won't be useful during the actual battle, but will surely offer some interesting conversion opportunities. If I'm able to slay any characters, that is...
My warband will consist of the following:
- Vampire
- Necromancer
- 3 Dregs
- 3 Ghouls
- 3 Dire Wolves
I got pretty much all sorted out, except the Dregs. I'm not too keen on the original models and I find it hard to find something suitable for conversion. Or I just have not looked hard enough..
Any ideas?
Assembled the Vampire (Isabella Von Carstein mini), Necromancer (basic AoS Necromancer, although thinking about using the old Heinrich Kemmler mini) and three Ghouls (AoS Ghouls).
The picture is bad, but works just as a proof that I have actually managed do something
As the campaign will use test some new rules and scenarios that have not been published yet, there will be some interesting challenges.
One of the scenarios during the first round will take place in a tavern of sorts. We already discussed about organizing a terrain creating session, but as I love crafting terrain and props I promised to create some tables. As for the material I chose 2mm thick balsa wood. It's thicker than I usually use, but they should be sturdy enough to hold the weight of some of the metal models. No being sure what kind of tables would suit the scenery best, I decided to do a few iterations.
Using a compass(not sure it's called that?) I created the shape and cut it with scissors. After that I used a hobby knife to separate the circle into planks.
Scissors were not the best tool for the job, as they shattered the edges a bit. Lesson learned.
The bottom parts don't look that neat, as I added some hot glue and extra planks to make them even sturdier. Some of the metal minis weight a ton..
Six in total. Some are neat and some worn out. I used a set of wire brushes to enhance the texture. This time I bought a set just for modelling purpose instead of using my rusty and oily brush from the garage.
Using a black acrylic paint as a primer, Mournfang Brown as a base and Agrax Earthshade as wash they are almost complete. Just a bit of dry brushing to make the texture pop a bit.
Borrowing a tip from Syro_ I cut some actual playing cards to make some miniature versions to work as small details.
Now the tables just need some legs, but I will have to make a visit to the garage as I need some better tools for the job.
Hey, thanks for the shout out, Ezki. It's fun to see someone else using playing cards and mini playing cards. I hope it works well for you. The tables are looks good so far, and no worries about the bottoms being messy, mine was too. I don't know anything about Mordheim, but I looked up Dregs, and I can see why you aren't fond of the models. I may be way off with these suggestions, but I've think try fantasy cultists, militias, and angry mobs. Does anything like these work:
Youwashock: Yeah I think she fits the theme pretty well. I hope I'm able to pull some sneaky flanking maneuvers.
Syro_: No problem! I'm happy to give credit to the master crafter
Thanks for the links. Those look like good suggestions! I also tried to find someone from ebay who would sell me some Empire Free Company minis, but the postage to Finland seems to be pretty high from everyone. And by high I mean at least the same price as the miniatures themselves..
Trying to keep a consistent rate of updates for this project, so I'm posting even the smallest things I'm able to do. Even though every step might not be so interesting, but at least it helps me too keep up the habit.
So I went to the garage to cut some table legs. I stuck a 5mm x 5mm wooden stick to a vice and cut 1.5mm long pieces with a small fine edged saw. The electric pad saw I have would have made the job easier, but that might have been too harsh and could have messed the stick. The plastic bag was a good way to catch all the small pieces.
Some sanding to trim the hard edges and saw marks.
Someone once said, that lazy people figure out the easiest ways to do things. It seemed daring to brush all ~30 legs with black acrylic, especially as the wood sucks so much paint in.
I got this stupid idea that I could not stop thinking about: place them all in a small cup, pour some paint in there, cover the top with my hand and start shaking.
It actually worked out pretty well! I would not do this for anything detailed or any pieces from minis, but these don't have to be so neat.
Using a paper towel I cleaned all the excess paint and placed them on a plate to dry.
All the legs painted with first layer of brown and washed.
I also dry brushed the tables and glued a few of the legs in place. I did not bother to sculpt any detailed cool looking legs, as these won't be very visible and they are there more to keep the tables sturdy rather than anything else. Some of the playing cards are already glued on one of them. I might do a few cards that would be the other way around, but the idea is to get these done pretty quickly. We'll see.
Nice thinking with those table legs. Also the table surfaces look even better than before in that last pic, did you do more work on them or did the camera jsut capture your work better?
Syro: I actually added the final layer of really fine dry brushing with Ushabti Bone to make the texture pop a bit more. It gives the wooden surfaces a nice finished look.
Meer_cat: Heh, that could be a fun detail. I might add a Dead Mans's hand if I get around doing more cards.
And they are done!
I cut a few pieces from an envelope, dipped them in seraphim sepia wash and covered with a mix of 50/50 PVA glue and water.
I could have been a bit more accurate when cutting some of the cards, as the pattern is a bit off in some of them. Oh well.
Also did a few quick coins by cutting some pieces from an Drukhari spear.
After taking the images, I applied a coat of varnish. This way the paint might stay on during intense wargaming
The Mordheim group was really pleased with the tables, especially the campaign organizer / designer. I'm happy that they were acceptable and were put to good use:
We played the first campaign turn this week and my game was yesterday. We had four different scenarios, and each warband played one. The one I played was called "Stand aside and let me pass". The battle took place in a big town with an ~6 inch wide alley going trough the middle. On the alley stood two retinues from different settlements: Sir Faustus von Reikwald from Sigmar's Haven and Diego Altriste & Luigi Stiletto from Bigansburg. Each retinue had six bodyguards, which were placed all over the field. Every bodyguard had a bribe token, which we were supposed to collect with our heroes. The winning team would be able to keep one of the collected bribes. None of the retinue characters could be attacked in this scenario.
My warband getting ready to fight. Sadly I had to proxy some models, as most of the stuff I have ordered did not arrive in time. I was only able to paint the three ghouls, as time is pretty short. I will post some pictures from them when I get the bases done.
I faced a group of Reiklanders. Every character from my opposing team had bows, which made the battle a bit hard for me, as the undead are not very good at ranged combat. My opponent also had years of experience from Mordheim and this was only my second game. You can guess the rest
A couple of poor images from the game. Did not remember to take more in the heat of the battle.
I was able to take the first kill with one of my ghouls charging to one of the buildings, taking down one of my opponents archers. A couple of turns after that he got some very lucky rolls and managed to take all three ghouls and one direwolf out of action. At that point, I routed voluntarily. The game was really fun nevertheless.
Even though the game did not go my way, I was pretty lucky with the post game rolls. During exploration phase I was able to find a couple of swords and a stranger, which my vampire decided to turn into a free zombie
As every warband gets some experience from participating the battles, I was able to roll quite a few advance rolls. All my three dregs got a new skill (yet to decide which skill) and my ghouls increased their attack value to three. That's quite good in this game. Best thing was that I managed to upgrade one of my ghouls into a hero. It will really help me in the future campaign turns.
Before the next game I have to decide if I want to buy more troops for the warband and which skills to acquire. Really looking forward to the next game.
I'm also trying to find the time to start painting the heroes, so I won't have to play with unpainted models.
Extra attack for the ghouls is cash money. Dregs all leveling is also a big plus. Sounds like a good time. Looking forward to seeing that Vamp painted.
Youwashock: Yeah, I'll be sure to put the Ghouls into good use! Also looking forward to painting the Vampire.
Did some more work with the warband during last weekend. I had some spare time so I tried a couple of new things in the process.
Sorry in advance foor the poor quality of images, as they were just really quick shots during modelling.
Firstly I built a few Zombies and two more Ghouls. One of the Ghouls is the new hero that I was able to acquire.
For two of the Zombies I used skeleton warrior heads, just to get some more variety.
I ordered a cobblestone rolling pin from greenstuff world. I have always wanted to give this a shot and this project was the perfect candidate for it.
It took a few tries to get the right amount of greenstuff on the bases. Too thin and the texture was not visible enough, too much and it became messy.
I decided to make ~20 of these in total, so I could try different things. Some of them are not covered completely, as I intended to put some texture paint on the blank areas.
After the greenstuff had dried for good ~24 hours, I cut the excess stuff from the edges and primed them with black.
Few of them painted. Dry brushed with different shades of grey, washed with black and lastly a bone color dry brush. I glued some planks on two of them for variety.
I think they look pretty nice. I'll definitely use the rolling pin in the future. Might even order a couple more with different textures!
The Ghouls I painted earlier on new bases:
Started painting the Vampire, Zombies and two Ghouls. I got interrupted quite a few times during the weekend for various reasons, so my progress was a bit inconsistent.
I also could not decide what to paint, so did a little bit work for every model.
Thinking of finishing all the henchmen first, as they are very quick to paint. Tabletop standard is more than enough for them I think.
For the Vampire and Necromanced I want to dedicate a lot more time, so they will be painted when all the other "mandatory" stuff is done.
This new campaign requires us to carry all our belongings in containers. Every valuable item (wyrd shards, money, weapons) have to be in chests or bags that are carried by the members of the warband.
If the enemy manages to dispose of the carrier and pick up the carried items, their contents get transfered to their new owner. One way to combat this is to buy multiple containers, so the enemy won't know if some of them are empty.
For the moment my warband has just one chest. As I don't like borrowing minis or markers, I decided to make a prototype:
Still needs some highlights and maybe some details, but other than that it looks good enough. I will have to make a few more as the campaign progresses.
Currently we have nine players in the campaign. After turn one I'm leading with the most warpstone shards (4), as I only sold a couple of them. Mostly because undead henchmen can't carry weapons, so I save quite a lot of money.
On the other hand my warband rating is lower than most. Maybe things will change during the next turn.
My next game will take place sometime during the next two weeks. I will try my best to get all the models painted before that, but no promises.
Tyranid Horde: The more I delve into the world of Mordheim, the more I regret not playing it earlier! Especially love the setting.
Gobert: Thanks for the comment! Well let's say that they are more of a "I did not try to paint every single small detail in three different shades" - standard. Lot's of dry brushing and cutting corners. Anyway, happy to hear that they look acceptable!
Cheers Youwashock, Meer_cat & CB!
One more hobby filled weekend behind me and I got quite a bit of stuff done. Playing the second campaign game next Thursday, so I'm trying to finish as many models as I can.
Finished painting the new ghouls. One regular and one hero. Took a couple pictures from all of them in a group:
Next up some zombies. I tried some sort of glow effects on the eyes with mixed results.
The pics came out a bit dark, but at least the colors are somewhat visible:
Chest finished. Decided to leave it as is, with some small edge highlights and one more layer of ushabti bone dry brush.
I might do a couple of more of these as the campaign progresses and more storage space is required. I think I'll try a few different things when that happens.
Another possibility is that I buy some sacks and try to create a few out of greenstuff.
I finally decided on a few minis that could suit as dregs. I ordered half a dozen miniatures from a couple of manufacturers (Reaper and other world minis). I'll decide which ones I use when they arrive and I get to inspect them with my own eyes. I also have five dire wolves sitting at a desk in the campaign gaming area, which I will acquire next week. They are from some polish company where a friend of mine did an order. Sadly I don't remember the name. If the wolves prove to be the wrong size, badly sculpted (doubt it) or some other way not don't fit my plans, I will get a box of GW dire wolves.
While waiting for the models to arrive, I decided to do some painting on the vampire:
I'm pretty happy with the dress so far. Need to do one or two more highlight layers and maybe darken the recesses a bit.
The skin is something that I was genuinely afraid to paint. It turned out a bit better than I feared it would, but still can't seem to get it right. Even if I thin the paint so that I have to do 2-3 layers, it looks messy. I think the problem is that sometimes I might do too many passes with the brush, which creates micro texture on the surface of the paint. At least I have identified one of the problems in my technique, which is a plus. Only way to fix it is: practice, practice and practice.
Just a quick update for today to keep the flow going.
Painted a couple of hours today and made some progress on the vampire:
Still far away from completion, but I'm getting there bit by bit.
Edit: Noticed that the goblet looks like a mess in the picture. That's mostly because it has some small details that have been base coated with one color. Anyway, trying the non metallic gold once more with this one.
You've got some cool models here - I'm particularly fond of those ghouls. Great sculpts, and you've done a really nice job on them. Looking forward to seeing more progress on the vampire.