Happy Halloween

WAAAGH!

:)

1st Company tests

I've done some previous tests but this will be the final test model before I go "live". I intend for this to be the new look of my Imperial Fists, with the 1st Company being the firsts to get it and then it is vehicle painting time™.

So my plans were pretty grand, I would being with a wash, so I would go from this (I got some poor coverage on the white, more on that later. I am also trying out a new primer which can be seen in the picture below):

To these:

 

I tried six different washes. From left to right, top to bottom: Leviathan Purple, Ogryn Flesh, Gryphonne Sepia, Badab Black, Devlan Mud, and Baal Red. I can really see why there are people who can get really cool results with Inks and Washes as they hug the mini quite well in many ways and help with showing off details. My idea was that I could paint over the already shaded mini with yellow and get a nice looking effect. This is what happened:

Thinned down Golden Yellow, with I think three layers. What do you all think? I can tell you what I though, "By Dorn's dirty underwear, this will never fly!". Yes, didn't quite work out as well as I thought. I don't want to pin my hopes on my airbrush either (which is what I am using on the vehicles later on) so I decided to put some more Krylon white primer on the mini. It was at this point I realized that I really should put more primer on as I really need the good white to paint on top of. I will give my Assault Terminators an extra bath in white before they get painted.

So I tried painting with a thinned down 50/50 mix of Iyanden Darksun and Golden Yellow instead which worked well. Covered nicely over the white as well. So I base coated the rest of the mini as well and here's the result!

The plan is to wash everything that isn't yellow the normal way, and use a good brush to careful apply Gryphonne Sepia only in select spots. Then give the yellow a coat or two of Golden Yellow and finish it up with some highlighting and the likes. I think this will be my recipe and I am starting to like the 1st company so I want to paint up some more of them. Like Vanguard Veterans and some Sternguard Veterans. Planning on some conversion for those as well.

Stay tuned for more and don't forget the competition!

Paint to win an Eldar Fire Prism/Night Spinner!

It's time to bring out the bitz box, the bartering skills, and your painting tools of choice! I'm holding my first ever painting/modeling competition. Let's start with the prize. A brand new, still in plastic wrap, Eldar Fire Prism/Night Spinner. Shipped for free to the winner. Sounds pretty good doesn't it? If you are an Eldar player you sure could use it, if you just like to paint it is one awesome looking model (I have one myself that I am going to paint in the future), and if you don't want anything to do with the Pointy Ears you should be able to trade it with someone who does for something you fancy more. If you win and do paint it up yourself, please post photos so I can see the result.

What do you need to do to win this prize then you ask? You need to impress me with your enthusiasm, skill, ingenuity, and ability to finish a project. To be eligible to win you need to follow these rules:

• Send me
• Three WIP photos from various stages of modeling/painting.
• Three photos of the final entry.
• Follow the theme. The theme is loosely "Mirror world". Model and paint something like something else. Turn good guys to bad guys, one race/codex to look like another another. Go wild, be funny, slick, clever, cool, different, or surprising. Be subtle or obvious. Give someone an evil beard like Evil Spock or Flexo from Futurama. Have fun!
• The final entry needs to be painted. Anything from base coated (with a dip perhaps?) to golden deamon will be accepted.
• Email me the photos by the 20th of December and include contact information. I will repeat that last one, contact information. I will have the email you sent from, but I need to get hold of you so make sure it's an email you check often enough. If I can't reach you by the end of the first week of January 2011 the prize will go to a new winner.
• Any and all contributions to the competition can and will be posted on this blog by me. I will do my best to comment on all the entries but I will not give criticism. All entries are welcome and you have nothing to fear.
• I will select one winner from all entries. So what do you need to do to win? I will simply select the entry that I like best and upholds the spirit of the theme the best. If the criteria seems a bit murky, the best thing to do is to create an entry that you yourself really would like to see.
• The winner will be announced, on this blog, on the 23rd of December. I will be the high Inquisitor and my judgement is final.
• If you are too lazy to look up my email address: flekkzo at gmail dot com.

If you have any questions just comment on this post and I will answer it promptly. I hope that this will be a chance for you to get away from painting squads of ten, twenty, thirty models and use some colors you don't use so often.

Most importantly, have fun and enjoy yourself. I will be looking forward to the entries coming in!

Getting ready for Halloween, WAAAGH! style :)

Carved my first ever pumpkin today. I don't yet have a candle to put into it but I did a quick dry-run with a flashlight and it looks far more awesome with the light on.

So what do you guys think, should I make this into a tradition and have Ork themed pumpkins carved every Halloween?

Stay tune for something awesome coming up soon on the blog!

Imperial Fists army update

I've updated my Army page with the "final" version of the Assault Marine squad. I write "final" because there are a few more things I want to do, but they will have to wait until I've finished more of the army.

Here's a link or you can press the link at the top of the page.

I'm back (again!)

Hello everybody!

I'm back! I wonder how many blogs have exclaimed that at the top of its lungs only to be silenced again shortly after. I've been slowly getting back to my hobby after moving (yay house!) and now I finally felt that I had done enough to warrant a post and a glorious return to the painting-but-not-playing-yet scene. I'm sure my list will have both gone in and out of the metagame several times over before it will be all done. But first things first!

This is my painting table. Or this was what was going to be my painting table. It ended up being the home of our two pet rats (Skaven!) instead. For those of you who are pet inclined, the white one is called QT Pie and the black one Koko Puff. Sure wasn't me who did the naming! We've got three more coming in at the next of the month, so maybe I can get some better naming going :)

I am going to let the table double as my airbrush table though, so sometimes the little pets will have to move to the dining room table while I spray yellow (or maybe grey blue since I now own a Space Wolves battleforce!). I still wonder if I need more ventilation / something to cover my mouth when airbrushing. Anyone with advice please write a comment. There is a window just next by which I plan on having open at least.

This is my painting table! Look at all the crap on it! I was entertaining the idea of clearing it up before taking a photo, but that would be cheating. So there it is, my painting station version 1.0. I'll snap shots when I start upgrading it with more nifty stuff. Right now it's a cheap Wal-mart plastic table with a lot of stuff on it :) See if you can spot anything interesting :)

And now to my lovely Assault Marines.

There are now ten (!!!) of them. Only order of business left is letting the decals dry. Spray some Purity Seal on them, and repaint the eyes with 'ard coat. Done and done! (Yes, I am still thinking of adding something on top of the jump packs. A VII or a 7 or assault Xs or something. Just don't have any decals in green :(

Pretty sure WAAC min-max players will hate on me when I show up with these guys, but I've determined that I will gain more from loosing at first and really learn to play well with interesting units rather than point and click winning.

So what does the future of this blog hold? I've started on another test termie model to try out a completely different way of painting yellow. If it turns out it should be far far faster, hopefully look at least as good, and be the new look for all 1st company marines/vehicles/captains. And what I have in the pipe is five termies, Lysander, Land Raider, and two Land Speeders (with rokkits!). So clearly painting the rest of my army is part of what is next.

I also have some for fun models, for instance my Eldar (blue and yellow!), the Legion of the dead (BDay gift) and also a box of death company which I have mixed feelings for. Should I paint them as the death company or mod the crap out of them to be Vanguards. *hmm*

I don't own it yet, but I have thoughts of konvering a boxed set of chaos space marines into Sternguards for my Imperial Fists. Could be fun! Also have a dread to assembled and wreck havoc with :)

Any games my IFs will play will also be retold. Win or loss. I've got a number of people around these parts I'd like to get it touch with and play some games. None of them know me (might read my blog though, are you?:)) but they have blogs and have spilled their beans about being Minnesotan:)

Oh, and the two most interesting things coming up. First a way for me to get tons of Ragnar's company plastic shoulder pads (two per box of ten wolves, what gives???) that could be profitable for a donor, and to top that one off a competition!

See you all in my next entry :)