Featured Images

ImperialStarShop Mat Review

Read More
Featured Images

Armada Display board – final

Read More
Featured Images

Armada Display board – some paint

Read More
Featured Images

Painting Squadrons

Read More
Featured Images

Braha’tok Gunship

Read More
Featured Images

Old Stuff and Spring Cleaning

Read More
Featured Images

Necromunda – Walls

Read More
Featured Images Work-in-progress

Necromunda – Ganger “Farok”

Read More
Featured Images

Necromunda – Leader all done

Read More
Featured Images

Necromunda – Two more Orlocks

Read More
Musings & Meta

Painting Motivation

Posted on June 9, 2010

Ok, so I’ll be honest with anyone who reads this – most of the content you’ve been reading over the last couple weeks was back-logged. Immediately after starting this blog I went into a frenzy of crazy painting action and back-logged a weeks worth of posts. It was glorious.

But now it’s hot out and I’m tired and I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing to make these Deff Koptas look good, and I have 3 tournaments I need to paint for (2 in July! I need to finish the Temple Guard for the 9th of July! Oh good god that’s only a month away…) and I haven’t painted much of anything in about a week. >.<

I think what I need is to get rid of the Deff Koptas. They are a bottleneck in my motivation.

Work-in-progress

Deth Koptas 1

Posted on June 8, 2010

This is another “oh, I’m mostly done” sort of post. I promise this is the last one – I’ve run out of projects that I’ve been meaning to finish! Everything from here on will be from the start (except for my battlewagon…which is partly assembled)

Paint Scheme

  • Bloooooo. These guys follow my Ork vehicle paint scheme of Regal Blue base, Space Marine Blue highlight. It’s a Space Marine theme’d Ork army.
  • The metal is just Boltgun Metal with a Chaos Black wash (remember, my Badab fails).

Conversion

  • I was trying for a long while before assembling them to figure out some awesome conversion I could do. In the end, I just added some extra metal plates and called it a day. They are like…6 piece models, almost snap together, and there wasn’t a lot of room for cutting and pasting.

I’m honestly not to certain where I need to go from here. It looks like there are a lot of little details on the models that need finishing – the straps on their hats, a highlight on the green meters, some extra colour on some of the little knick-knacks around the model. Little things.

Then the bases. Need a little bit of flock, since that’s the thing I’m doing for the Orks.

Lastly, the rotor blades need some colour. Likely a blue colour. I could also do that yellow/black hazard striping, since I put that on some of my vehicles as a strong contrasting colour, to ensure that they weren’t entirely blue. Slightly unnecessary here, as the orks themselves (and the large amount of metal) keep it from being a sea of blue, but it is nice to be consistent.

Work-in-progress

Lava

Posted on June 6, 2010

Photography+internet is a little odd to me. I feel like, if I can look at a picture, I should be able to distribute that picture. I mean…I’ve got it already. It’s on my hard drive, being displayed by my monitor. And yet I get the feeling (was unable to confirm) that it’s probably against the rules to take those photos on your computer and to use them directly. (This can be contrasted with movies/games/music, where you have to actively search for them to get them onto your computer, so you can steal them.)

Did you know that “smoldering lava” is the name of a particular card in the Molten Core raid deck from the WoW:TCG? I didn’t, but now I do, since that’s a good portion of what a Google search will bring up.

Annnnyhooo. I decided to link to the source instead. So click this link and lets talk about lava: http://english.cctv.com/20091130/103250.shtml. The link has 6 pages of photos, with 2 photos a page. So I’ll be talking about them like that.

Page number:

  1. This page didn’t inspire me.
  2. The first photo, with volcanic lightning excited me. I want to add volcanic lightning to my models. Seriously. That’s like two of the most badass natural events bound into one tight little package. Volcanic lightning. If you aren’t tittering yet, go look at the photo. But ahhh…I think I’d probably fail >.<. Any ideas on how I could incorporate this?
  3. This page has no pictures of lava on it…which is entirely useless to me.
  4. The first photo has a little bit of what I’m looking for. Notice that it’s a completely dark photo – grey, dark blue, smoke, rock, black. With strong highlights of this eye-piercing orange. Although this isn’t ideal for the Temple Guard, it’s getting close. It’s a little bright still.
  5. Here’s the money shot. First photo, magic-mud lava (I’m sure the scientists have a better name for it :P). Dark, black red in the center, with a slightly brighter dark red on the edges. This is how the TG should be done. Downside: the scales on these guys are tiny, edging will be a pain >.<
  6. Just a mountain here. Lame.

11 photos, 3 ones that have anything to do with my project, 1 that is probably “the one”. Success!

Work-in-progress

Lizardmen Temple Guard 2

Posted on June 4, 2010

I worked on these guys scales a bit. (I showed up at 6:30 at GW, tables were all full :P)

Scab Red, with a Chaos Black wash on the scales. My other lizards have a vibrant Blood Red/Blazing Orange/Sunburst Yellow scheme on their scales, imitating lava. These guys I hope to have similar fiery colours, but much more muted. Maybe I should look at some pictures of hardened lava to see if it gives any inspiration.

For some reason, whenever I paint Badab Black it ends up shiny. I hate it. My other washes don’t do that. Which is why I’m using watered down Chaos Black as a wash instead.

    Featured Images

    Tyranid Hive Guard 3

    Posted on June 3, 2010

    Last post on this guy, since I’m calling him done.

    Since the last post I added:

    • A 1:3 mixture of Hawk Turqoise and Scaly Green to the top edges of his skin, and every opening.
    • Goblin Green base rim, and some flock on top of the grey gravel.

    It’s funny…looking at the photos, the pink and the green highlight are really stark. But sitting at my desk, while I’m painting them, they are relatively calm.

    I’m wondering if next time I should paint the HT+SG highlight directly over the original SG base, and then wash over that. I worry that the highlight will get muted by the wash, and also that the skin will be ridiculously shiny (it will be – just a question of whether it’s bad or good ridiculous).

    Looking at it now, I’m pretty happy with the green rim. When I was painting it I was thinking “Oh god…goblin green rims…how old is this army anyway?” It’s been years since I painted with the goblin green. But I think it’s a nice colour to go with the yellow and green of the model itself.

    I’m really happy with how his armour turned out. More of that in the future.

    Links to the other two posts, for ease of reference:

    My next 40k project is to finish the Deff Koptas! That will be another project where I start writing when I’m already 3/4s of the way through, but there’s still some work to be done.

    Work-in-progress

    Tyranid Hive Guard 2

    Posted on June 2, 2010

    I worked on the Hive Guard weapon a little bit. I’m not 100% on it right now. It looks pretty good…but it’s too much…bone. Too plain. Probably good, but not my usual style :P.

    • Bleached Bone base coat.
    • Devlan Mud all over.
    • Bleached Bone effectively dry-brushed over raised areas. Protrusions on the left, all of the holes on the shaft of the gun. This is a really light coat, subtle is the name of the game.
    • Solid Bleached Bone on the “spears” that it shoots, followed by a very watery coat of Skull White. Watery mostly because my White is almost dry…but also so it’s more subtle. Looking at this photo…maybe to subtle.
    • Dwarf Flesh on the cables, followed by a light touch of Tentacle Pink. Interestingly, it’s a lot more of a “light touch” in reality than it is in this photo :P.

    I also (not photographed) brought the Bubonic Brown further up on the top-most ridge of his back armour. I realized that it was silly to have a highlight that didn’t start at both ends of the scale. Looks a lot better now.

    The skin is next and then it’s done! (oh, and a little work on the base…)

    Work-in-progress

    Lizardmen Temple Guard 1

    Posted on May 31, 2010

    Lizardmen are my current favourite Fantasy army and, even better, the first army to have had an updated army book that didn’t ruin the army for me (O&G, Chaos both ruined…).

    I was reading the Warseer forums one random day, and came across a some random person commenting on how he was thinking of converting up some undead Temple Guard. This idea just latched onto my brain and wouldn’t let go. I picked up a Lord Kroak model and painted him up, purchased some Temple Guard…who then sat there on my shelf for several months waiting for me to do something.

    You see – I’ve never worked with green stuff in any significant way. I’m more of an Orky sort of converter – grab some random bits and glue them together until it looks mean and green. This project would require slightly more finesse.

    I asked a friend of mine to show me how to putty up some bandages – his work is brilliant. He took one and did it in about a minute, and it looked gooooood. Damn him and his crazy skillz. But you know what? It turns out that making fake bandages with green stuff is a lot easier than you would think.

    I’ve been working on these guys really slowly for almost a year (rough guess). Most of that time was puttying one model at a time, once a week at the local GW if I couldn’t get a game in on Fantasy night. They are a long-term project so far…but I’m planning on using them at a couple tournaments I’m going to this summer, so they need to be finished “soon”.

    Paint Scheme

    • Codex Gray drybrushed, with Fortress Gray overtop on the skin. The point is to make them look old and dusty. My other lizards are a similar shade, but darker.
    • Graveyard Earth bandages. No idea what I’m doing from here, but biege is the plan.

    Conversion

    • The bandages were relatively easy. Roll out a line of putty, flatten it and then wrap it around various body parts. Make sure you keep your putty tool wet (I use saliva…despite that being a potentially unhealthy idea). Once it’s wrapped, draw lines in the putty with the knife edge to make it look wrinkled. Rinse and repeat. A lot of work, but not hard.
    • While transporting, the banner fell off of the banner-bearer. About a year ago I had been working on a hand-drawn design for a banner. I took this as a sign that I should put this design on this unit. We’ll see if I have time.

    Musings & Meta

    Where we paint

    Posted on May 31, 2010

    I’m in the enviable position of having a Man Cave. My roommate moved out last year and, instead of finding a new one, I just expanded to fill the space. A little repainting (robin’s egg blue is not condusive to anything) and moving of furniture, and I was ready to go.

    I’ve got a full closet for storing kits and boxes, army cases, even my gaming table. I’ve got an old dry bar that I’m using as a display cabinet and place to store my rule books, codecies and magazines. There’s my computer desk and bookcase, and up against the patio door is my painting table. It’s an old Ikea Ivar shelving unit with desk, drawers for my paints, and shelves for my terrain and WIP stuff.

    I never use it.

    It took me a while to figure out why. It’s a great space. Lots of desk space, good natural and artificial light, a PC full of MP3s, all my supplies handy, a decent chair… and no TV. It seems that I’d rather be hunched over a coffee table in my dim living room with a movie on than comfy in my Man Cave.

    Work-in-progress

    Ultramarines Land Raider Convertible 2

    Posted on May 30, 2010

    I didn’t get as much done this weekend as I would have liked. I had hoped to have the tank assembled and primed.

    I did manage to solve the question of whether to have the doors ahead of the weapons, or behind. In most of the pictures in Imperial Armour 2, the Land Raiders have thier lascannons in the aft, and the doors forward. The pictures of the Crusader/Redeemer in IA2 and the models in the codex and White Dwarf have the weapons forward and the doors aft. Since I didn’t really like the look of the having the lascannons forward, I made the obvious choice.

    Magnetize everything!

    I added magnets in both doors so that I can mix and match as needed. It also keeps the door open for a Land Raider Terminus conversion if I find some extra predator sponsons. I used some sprue to span the doorways, and filed the ends down to fit between the track-halves. I used some 1/16″ thick card to make sure the magnets are close enough together.

    This side was easy, since it has the flat interior door. The other side has the control panel/equipment door. I suppose I could just use a flat piece of card instead. that would ensure having the same amount of clearance for the magnets on all doors. Besides, no one will ever see the thing anyway…

    Oh, and to tie in with Craig’s post, I’m using the camera in my cell phone. 😀

    Photography

    Photography?

    Posted on May 30, 2010

    I have an ok camera. At least, it was ok 4-5 years ago when I first got it. It has a 12x zoom, aperture priority, shutter priority, manual focus, up to 1600ISO, up to 2200x2something resolution. Everything I barely knew how to use at the time. At the time, everyone was jealous of me, and I thought I was the king of the camera-related world.

    Now…the world has moved onto DSLR and I have a point’n’shoot with a big pointy zoom on it.

    Since I’m planning on taking a bunch of pictures of models for this blog, I looked a bit into improving the quality of the photos I’m taking. A couple easy pieces of advice came out – lots of light, get a tripod, make sure you use a white background so the model stands out, use the highest aperture you can – great ideas, and very shortly I’m going to implement all of them, so that anyone reading this no longer has to look at the state of my painting desk when I take a photo :).

    One piece of advice stood out though – buy a macro lens. Which, given the nature of my camera, would require me to purchase a DSLR with interchangeable lens.

    You can purchase a DSLR for about $500 these days, which is about $4-600 cheaper (for the cheapest) than last time I looked at them. But do I really want a $500 DSLR? Am I buying crap? I’m not the kind of person who likes to buy crap, I tend to look at the “middle of the road” when it comes to purchases of this nature. But then you’re looking at $800+, and then getting more batteries and the right lenses and then you’ve spent $1000 on it.

    I spent $1000 last month on buying a new engine part or two for my motorscooter. I use that 3-4 times a week. Before I started taking pictures for this blog, I used my camera twice a year, somes less. In the last few days I’ve pulled it out every day to take a picture of something on my desk (you just haven’t seen them all yet…).

    So I think, for right now, I’m going to leave it at the less expensive pieces of advice. But maybe…if I end up with a couple hundred in gift cards for my birthday (coming up in a week and a half), maybe I’ll look a little more seriously.