Space Wolves

I'm alive! I wonder how many blog posts in the history of writing on the Internet has begun that way, and ended for that matter!

But after getting rid of one gallbladder and four wisdom teeth (wisdom, get rid of them early, hurts more when you are older!) I am now back to painting again. Feast your eyes on what I am up to right now. A Space Wolves drop pod (the first of many, many drop pods!).

I find it hard to decide what colors I should use on a model. I had specific issues with the colors on the fins. Ended up being gold:)

Hellpit Abomination

First up, one of my friends, a real life Skaven Warlord. One of my 13 (!) pet rats. Reginald.

The Hellpit Abomination model is absolutely fantastic. I am far from the first one to get his grubby little paws on one, but for those of you who haven't, the thing is a thing of beauty. Goes together way better than one would ever think. Makes me want to just get all the "hero" models Games Workshop is so fond of and paint them up.

Gave my new airbrush another spin. A Badger Krome. It's quite nice and really helps with making nice transitions. Let's face it, I am no good at blending, so this is a good way to compensate for now.

I went for a green mossy look on the stone.

Metal and blue veins.

Tried out two of the new washes, or shades as GW likes to call them. I must say that I am a fan. Flows better than the old ones and looks good. I went straight over the green in the "scars" with the Reikland Flesh so I will go over them again with some green glaze. The new paint line really is better than the old. I like the new metals as well. All of them are really good.

Different angle. Enjoy:) Need to touch up the green with some more yellow highlights, make the warpstone glow!

Thing is, I've got one more of these to put together and paint. Think I need to come up with some way to make it look different. Too bad I can't paint it up like the white one on the cover of the box. That one is absolutely fantastic!

New paints

White base (on a white primer), Casandora Yellow all over the model, Ceramite White highlight, and to finish it up Lamenters Yellow all over again. That's my new yellow "recipe". Doesn't get any easier to paint yellow as far as I am concerned!

Tried out a few of the other new paints and I am pretty happy with them in general. Used some old ones too. So a mix so to speak:)

It's the metal stern guard with a metal Imperial Fists backpack. In the future I will avoid metal models like the plague. They are terribly to work with for me.

I have no idea of how to add anything to the pauldrons. It's hard to enough to freehand normally, and with all that gunk on them…

Opinions more than welcome!

Vindicators almost done

Taking shape. One of them is missing a gunner and the loading crane thing and still needs a decal and finishing the tracks.

Then both need a Devlan Mud airbrush to give it a muddier feel and a little black dry brush for soot around the exhausts. Keeping those two last steps light as to not overdo it.

Now I just hope they can destroy my enemies!

Weathering

This is Vindicator #2. It needs details, washes, tracks, and some airbrushed mud. I used Chardon Granite for the weathering, just putting it on a piece of pluck foam and "dabbing" it on where it would be worn. The color worked really well in this case. At least I think so:) Click (or tap) the image for a larger version to see for yourself.

So, looking good or looking bad? Thinking of adding a few larger scrapes to the Siege Shield too.

Imperial Fists Gunner

Tried something new. I pre shaded a marine with Tausept Ochre and here's the result! It's still missing the lenses on the bottom part and Imp Fist logo on the shoulder, other than that it's ready for the table top. I think I'll paint up the Devastators using this method as it is cleaner than the post shading. I just need to remember to paint in the black before I do yellow:)

Looking good/bad?

Current state of the Vindicator, Vindi #2 has hit the assembly lines and Vindi #3 is still sitting on a shelf waiting for me to buy it:) Planning on making the third one the lead one so it will get a few extra bits and bobs. Going to paint on some large scratches (black, bolt gun, mithril) and use a piece of foam to give it smaller scratches. Then end it with a spray of devlan mud on the lower parts all around.

Also found myself some matte varnish today so I can airbrush it on. Going to give it a go and if works well I am going to use it before any tape touches a model again.

Painting

I have gotten questions about what I use to thin my paints with. Here it is! 1/4th of the Liquitex on the left, 1/4th on the W&N on the right and to top it off 2/4th of water. I use tap water but I've thought of trying to pick up some distilled water instead.

Is this the best thing ever? No, not really. But I like it:) I picked it up on the internet and it's suppose to be Jennifer Haley's old recipe. I might try out some other one in the future when I run out of these. In fact, I really recommend learning about the various tools that are out there.

Another version I've heard of is just using airbrush medium. Should work.

What I do then is to drop a few drops of the mix on a palette, get some of the paint, and mix it directly on the palette. I don't mix up a big blob but rather mix in a little of the mix into the color until it gets the right consistency. Figuring out what works for you and how to get a good mix that goes on smooth is an absolute must. Bad coverage and streaks is not a stylistic choice, it just looks bad :)

So how do you guys do this?

Painting yellow!

I've fallen behind on my blogging, but funny enough not my painting. I plan on getting photos of everything painted and put in on the static army pages (I.e. Imperial Fists and Skaven, and probably a misc as well) and start chronicle things from here on.

I've been trying out Vallejo's white airbrush able primer. It works really well, with one exception, tape can rip it off (with disastrous effects on the valkyrie I'm painting!) back to the plastic. I would love to get hold of an airbrush able primer that really bit into the plastic (and resin) since I never ever anticipate trying to strip any paint off anyways (I just paint something else from my big pile of plastic crack:)).

So I started out with the white primer, then I pre shaded with Tausept Ochre. I didn't really clean up the Tausept well which I will do next time around. Apart from that minor snafu adding on the Golden Yellow  afterwards went really well. The Tausept turned out to be a bit orange in shade which actually looked quite nice. See for yourself:)

45 degree hazard stripes. 15mm "wide" (I measured 15mm between the dots on the top and bottom and then drew lines between them, they aren't actually 15mm wide per se). I really need to find a better tape, this type pulls off the paint (even when careful!). I didn't have it on nearly as long as on the Valkyrie, which probably saved me some headache, plus the pieces that happen to peal off (small) ended up on spots I intended to paint other colors anyways.

After airbrushing black. Looks pretty cool already :)

With bolt gun painted on. Going to paint the wings/skull red and give the metal a thing wash of badab black, followed by a devlan mud on the bottom quarter. Then some nicks in mithril silver and it should be off to battle we go. I do have a little experiment I'm thinking of though for the back of it. Going to paint in some "light" from the headlights on the tank on the back of the shield (the little flaps are there to represent that you can open them to let the light through). Going for light blue xenon light:)

So, how's that for painting yellow?