Browsing Tag

lizardmen

Work-in-progress

And now for something completely different – lizardman scar-vet battle standard

The tank weathering takes a small break (I have another 3-4 tanks to go through before the end of August…), before the flyers come out (ZOMFG, want!) to do some touch-ups on a model I’ve been slowly working on for a little bit now.

It was a few months ago that I realized that I really wasn’t enjoying playing my Slann list. I don’t like the magic phase in Fantasy, and I prefer to boycott it whenever possible. Game balance makes this difficult, and so I had been playing a magic heavy list since Throne of Skulls last year. A random comment on our way back from GottaCon made me realize where my heart truly is – DINOSAUR! (you can see him in the title banner for this blog!)

BSBs are pretty much mandatory in 8th Ed, even for an army typically known for not needing a LD bonus, so I set about making a list that worked for my playstyle and desires.

Enter – the dinobus! The center piece of this 1500 point army, the dinobus is roughly 530 points of 14 Cold one Cavalry, and 135 points of Cold One riding Scar Vet banner bearer! (yes, the dinobus is roughly half of my total army, and isn’t very hard to kill. I don’t care – it’s awesome!)

I wanted to do a conversion for the BSB, and so here we have it. This is draft 2. Draft one was about 20% less awesome – with the base being very plain and the cold one mouth closed and not at all ready for battle. RAWR!

Thanks for reading!

Featured Images

Kroxigors – Final 2

The other photos of these guys weren’t so awesome, so I took the time last weekend to take some better ones. Some sunlight, a white box and a few ambient lights later and I have some decent photos.

Also, Cin might be right. Dude on the left is pretty adorable :P.

Featured Images

Kroxigors – Final

Alright! These guys were 3/4s finished when I got inspired to paint/assemble again, so they were an obvious choice for finishing up. I’m VERY happy with how they turned out (although slightly embarrassed about the blurry guy on the left…bad photographer!). Went to GW tonight, almost had a game but there was a couple people there ahead of me, so I sat down, pulled out some models and a paintbrush and had at ’em. The result – finished kroxigors. Awesome. 🙂

Particularly pleased with their backs. Horns down the center are a simple Scorched Earth, Dessert Yellow, Bleached Bone combination, heavily watered to allow for decent blending (actually, now that I look again…these photos all suck…damnit >.<). The scales are my favourite part – again, really simple – Mechrite Red, Blood Red and Blazing Orange. My favourite thing is that I don’t think I’ve ever successfully done a very light edging of a strong highlight colour. Whenever I try, it usually ends up looking to strong, to thick, to blocky. But this time…oh this time, I took my time, had the right amount of water and it worked out wonderfully. You really should see them in person, they are amazing.

This gives me hope – it means that I should have two really amazing looking units, and two pretty good looking units and my army is just going to pop off the table with the strong reds/oranges against the cold gray. Very excited to start working on the next 10 Temple Guard (yes…I assembled another 10 of them…).

Work-in-progress

Kroxigors 1

Got down to some minor painting this evening at GW after a solid game. Put a layer of dry brushed Codex Gray and a wash of Badab Black on these bad boys. Got home and pulled out the new camera (I don’t think I mentioned a new camera) and the mini-studio and took a few photos.

I like it! Not as nice as my dads DSLR, but not nearly as expensive either :). Oh, and the kroxigors are pretty cool too :).

Work-in-progress

Painting fail

So I left Astronomi-con, as usual, filled with passion and bluster and all that good stuff, ready to take on the painting world.

And I promptly fell into high-geek-mode in League of Legends. >.<

So, I post for you, tonight, the first model-based activity I’ve partaken in for a month and a bit:

The movement tray!

<.<

It’s not done. >.>

Ok, so none of us is impressed.

However, what will go onto this movement tray should be pretty cool. I finally got over my anger at GW and ordered Kroxigors for a skink and krox unit. (The anger was related to the fact that I couldn’t impulse-buy Kroxigors…that I was FORCED to order them in…piss me off…still).

So I present to my collected readership (of 1 or 2?) a poll. I have several things I want to work on next (somehow, all for my lizardmen army). So, should I…:

  1. Paint the kroxigors that I’ve just ordered. No conversions planned. A little boring in comparison to some other things I’ve worked on recently, but that’s a-ok.
  2. Work on a skink standard bearer conversion. Lizardmen don’t really need a standard bearer…but they’re just so damned useful in 8th edition that I can’t seem to leave him out.
  3. Convert some chameleon skinks. I can’t stand the metal models, and I think it’s finally driving me to do some conversions of these.
  4. Paint Chakax. I have the model and it’s awesome, and I promised I’d paint him here, but never got around to it.
  5. Put together the “front row” of the skinks with javelin and shields. I think GW current rules say just the front row…anyway, I have 24 skinks with blowpipes I’m using in this unit right now. I’d use 10 from the box for chameleons, the rest would become javelin/shield skinks.

I think that’s about all I have on the planner right now. Anyone have any thoughts? And “All of them!” isn’t an answer – I need to prioritize!

Featured Images

Temple Guard Banner Final

I got the banner done in time for the tournament.

I recommend not following my steps exactly. This process could have been done better.

So, last we spoke I had assembled the banner and was moving onto painting it. I laid the fabric flat and started painting. You can see the result below – not spectacular, but not bad.

Someone commented that it wasn’t bright enough, in the sea of my bright yellow spotted saurus, which this is definitely a flaw. The issue here is that it is relatively difficult to get a bright colour down, as it just soaks in and diffuses into the black fabric.

I finished painting it and went to give it a wave…and discovered that white glue doesn’t set immediately. >.> Whoops. I lucked out, in that the multiple layers of paint gave it a bendable quality, so I bent it as much as I could without cracking the paint and then watered down some white glue and painted it on. I repeated that process 3 times before I could get a wave on it that looked any good.

Some people at the tournament recommended:

  • Paper. Actually, the person I was talking to was complaining about how his banner ripped. So he didn’t recommend it, but it’s an option.
  • Pop can aluminum. Warning: You must ensure that you file down the edges, lest you lose flesh one day.
  • Tin foil. I thought this would rip as well, but apparently you use layers of it and super glue them together to create a relatively thick piece of tin foil cardboard that won’t rip. Pretty smart, assuming you don’t wrinkle it in the process.

A tournament update to follow in a day or two. Later!

Work-in-progress

Temple Guard Banner 1

I mentioned that the banner for my Temple Guard snapped off in the process of transporting them around. I also mentioned that I took it as a sign. There’s a reason for that.

Last year sometime I had another brilliant idea. I would make a custom banner for one of my units (not the Temple Guard at the time) – I had a book of mythical creatures, I had a computer drawing tablet, I had the ability, I could do this!

Unfortunately, reality set in. I couldn’t figure out how to get a drawing from a computer into reality. Paper was a bad idea, and any sort of plastic/laminate I’d need to see a specialized printer to get done, and none I looked at would do anything quite so small!

So I gave up on the idea, after having some some effort into drawing something that looked pretty good. A year (or so, time flies…) later, banner snaps off and it’s time to bring the idea back.

I have some fabric lying around that I used to make my Ork hut. I cut up a regular Saurus banner pole, stuck a spearhead on top of it, and then puttied the fabric onto the pole. A paper clip pin on both ends, and we’re ready to go.

I did a few sketches, after measuring out about how much space I was going to have, and managed to drawing something that vaguely resembled a Quetzalcoatl – a mythical South American creature that apparently taught the Aztecs how to do agriculture. Who knew? It’s a snake with wings, essentially.

After I’ve painted the image on it, I’m going to use white glue to stick it into a more dynamic, waving position. But for now I’m happy that it’s flat and relatively stiff, so I can paint on it.

Featured Images

Lizardmen Temple Guard Final

I don’t recall when I started working on these guys. It was last year sometime I think. Actually…I could probably look this up, since I bought the unit shortly after the new temple guard were actually released. Looks like it was around February of 2009. So going on a year and a half.

However, at long last, I present…

Continue Reading

Work-in-progress

Lizardman Temple Guard 4.1

So close…I finished off the scales last night, thanks to a clever colour tip from Patrick that I wouldn’t have thought of. A watery coat of Bleached Bone over the watery Blood Red that was painted only on the edges – it highlights the edges without making them bright like the Blazing Orange that I used on the regular troops.

And then a quick highlight on the various straps.

Todo:

  1. Hanging dead heads. There are 4 of these that need a different colour.
  2. Eyes. Whoops, forgot the eyes >.<
  3. Some greenery on the bases.
  4. The musicians drum.
  5. …the banner. Which won’t be done this week, I suspect. If you remember, the banner snapped off and I took it as a sign that I should do a cooler banner…well that hasn’t happened.

No photos this time, but next post should be a finale (except the banner…which I’m considering a new project :P)

Work-in-progress

Lizardmen Temple Guard 4

I went to my dad’s last night to make use of his nicer camera. We played with the settings and lighting a bit, and found some cool things (which are easily found elsewhere on the internet) (which I will be writing about in a later post :P).

But THIS is a Temple Guard update!

Last we spoke, I’d finished the bandages and then put a base coat on everything. I’ve done a lot of work on these guys since then, but there is still more to go. If you remember my last post, you’ll see a lot of that technique here.

  1. Finished the metal parts. I started with Tin Bitz, then mixed that with some Boltgun Metal (which completely overpowered the Tin Bitz…it was not like mixing colours at all). Then did a highlight of just the Boltgun Metal. Lastly I washed all of the metal with Devlan Mud.
  2. The bone is done. Started with Bleached Bone, washed with Devlan Mud (I bought a lot of the mud recently…) and then did a really gentle highlight/feathering with Bleached Bone on the raised surfaces.
  3. Started a very tentative highlight process on the scales. This is Scab Red with a very watery Blood Red gently placed at the tops of the scales.

The scales are scaring me a bit. I have a few ideas of how to do it, but the model as it stands right now is much to bright, even while before I added the Blood Red it was much to dark. So I did a test piece to see if I could think of what I wanted to do. I think I have a plan, but I’m worried that it will look terrible. So I think I’m just going to do it on this one guy to start, and see how it goes.

  1. Scab Red with the Blood Red, as you see below.
  2. Blazing Orange in the tiniest amounts possible, while still looking orangey.
  3. Baal Red wash over the whole thing.

If you head back to my Lava post, you’ll remember that the goal is deep, dark red in the middle, with a glowing brightness at the edges. This is beyond my skill, and the first step in producing something that will look good is to admit that :). The scales are too small, my patience too small, and my eyes prefer bright colours so I tend to over highlight.

The plan I’ve got will let me paint up to a colour that is bright, and then wash down to mute it a bit, while re-darkening the middle of the scales. I choose the Baal Red over more Devlan Mud, because the Mud doesn’t look red enough! The Baal maintains the red tinge I’m looking for.

After that, there are some straps that need a little bit more brown, and a couple heads that need some ugly colours, and then I’ll inspect each model to ensure it doesn’t have any colours over the lines. Lastly I need to paint the blasted drum of the musician >.>.. Annnnnd then I need to start thinking more about the banner that I mentioned I had planned.

Later!