It's alive!

Hi all who reads my blog. Been pretty quiet in the last month and a half. My current gaming goal is finishing up my 1500 point Imperial Fists army, so that I can go forth and make the Minnesota (or rather Twin Cities) WH40k world shiver before my mighty army. Or more likely having my fair share of defeats and a few fun wins too:) Being busy first with an insane amount of coughing for weeks and also starting a new job the hobby time suffered greatly. I did a few little things, but nothing worth writing about, and I want to keep this blog about gaming.

So what have I been up to? Assault marines! I am for the first time trying a white primer, skull white from GW, and it was very hard getting a nice even clean cover. I wonder if it is already too cold here to spray outside. Black has treated my far better in the past, but then again I have never sprayed in this low a temperature before. We'll see how it goes in the future.

This is the first half of a 10 man squad. I have a sergeant with a power weapon and one guy with a flamer. I will fill it up with four more chainsword + bolt pistol and more one flamer. I also have modified the right shoulder guard on all five of them to have an assault four way arrow. On to pictures!

And from the side. Click on the image to get a slightly larger one. Sorry for the poor quality, the iPhone is wonderful in many-o-ways, but photographing minis is not one of them. Sometime next year I do have to look into a good camera. I just don't know what to look for yet.

Also got some of the chainswords painted. No proper highlight on one of them yet, but that is coming. The super-duper shoulder guards should be easier to see on this picture.

I created the shoulder guards by cutting out the shape in .25mm plasticard and gluing it to the shoulder guard. I liked the look of the tacticals from the Attack of Black Reach and tried to emulate that. That said, it was really really difficult. Not easy at all to make it perfectly symmetrical, which is how I envision the Space Marine's armor. We'll see how it looks painted. I am going back and forth on what kind of yellow I will try this time around. The future will tell!

I have also bought the Retribution of Scyrah force book. Damn Privateer Press makes awesome stuff! The quality is really good all the way through. And I have already put together a little 15p army. Couldn't help myself. I just have to finish my IF army before I start another project. Plus I want my Space Wolf army too. I might just paint an eldar council on jetbikes or some Ork Boys in between just to clear my palette.

I have also used the 25% rebate from battle foam. 251 fresh dollares later I had ordered a big ass (that's a technical term!) army bag that will fit many a marines, fists and wolves. I might just have to order a special one for my retribution forces in the future. Looks very slick. Maybe I will donate my old bag to my wife, on account of her starting to paint some Circle Orberos. We'll see how she feels about them after she has painted some. Pretty cool stuff, I will post pictures of the army bag and my wife's Argus when it arrives / are finished.

I hope to have the assault guys done soon, and after that comes Lysander + Assault terminators, followed by vehicles. War needs to be waged!

Warmachine league

Something I didn't expect happened today. I now have no less than six wins and one loss in the FLGS Warmachine/Hordes league. Six in a row even. And with a pretty themed up army even, and sometimes some pretty awful dice rolls. Life is sometimes funny :) Cygnar will prevail!

I also started to paint one more gobber today, but I think that I honestly failed with the skin. The drybrushing just made it look weird instead of a lean green machine. Gotta figure that one out. I've got no less than one lots (technical Mekboy term mind you) of Orks to paint even for my 750p list, and a lot of them have green skin to be painted. Or I could turn it around, after painting that many Orks I better improve my technique *somehow* :) And one nifty thing with Orks is, they shouldn't look uniform, so if I try out different colors and techniques, that is just Orky anyways.

In Space Marine land I've painted a termy today. The GW foundation colors thus far has been a hit. I recommend! Go buy!

Hunting the hunter

Time to paint some warmachine again! I have been real bad at painting my Eldars. I do have a squad of five Dire Avengers all glued up now, so I will more than likely give them a go. Question is, should I go for white or yellow helmets. I think I wanna go with standard Dire Avenger colors though, as I tend to enjoy having standard colors.

So back to the Hunter. I decided that I wanted a Cygnar look to it, since that is what I am going for in general, but I wanted to give it a little pathfinder touch. I did this by painting a few parts green instead of blue. Here's no less than four pictures, from four different directions! I did fail a bit with the flock so I have to add more, and I do want to "borrow" some water effect from someone so I can fill up the stream a bit. Still, I hope whoever reads this blogs finds it neat:) Haven't sprayed "purity seal" on it yet on account of the botched flocking.

Basing

I have no less than three basing projects at the same time now. One for my Cygnar Hunter light warjack, another for my alternative journeyman warcaster, and lastly the first one for the Field Mechanic Goblin Bodger. I look forward to working more on them very very soon :)

I am building up a little greenstuff base for the Hunter. I want it to look like one of the feet has pushed up dirt into a little mound and you can see the brow dirt where it has pushed. The rest should get a good amount of dark green flock for a mossy / swampy feel. There will also be a stone (how the heck am I going to paint that?) in the form of a round piece of GS and a little stream in between. I am kinda torned about the stream as part of me wants to cut into the base to make it deeper, but cutting is so imprecise with a knife that I feel that I might just end up damaging something instead of doing good. I also dearly need to "borrow" some water effect from a certain pirate captain that sometimes shows up at my local gaming store. I hope his offer of borrowing some water effect still holds true. It would be awesome!

The alternative journeyman warcaster is getting the cork treatment to go well together with Haley and Haley's squire (Stryker's got his own, and quite frankly I should either get the alt. Styrker model and base that one or just rebase both him and the normal warcaster. My straight up static grass bases are quite boooring after all). I also like to use a little tin bitz color on it to get a quartz kind of feeling to the stone, and then I like to put some of that dark green flock I have on it, to give it a little mossy feel. Good times all around!

And then to the last one, the cool one. I have cut out a new slit for the model to be in, further to the edge of the base. This gives me more space to put the glass cylinder that is going to look like it has smoke and lightning in it, and generally rock and be cool. More to come on that one :) And tomorrow maybe I can prepare some pictures if I take them when it is light out. I want a gorilla pod + a *good* camera:)

Oh, and I want to work on those cool Eldar models I have as well. Gotta do that! Found this awesome Alaitoc paint scheme guide. But I will start out with a darker blue, sponge on a slightly lighter blue, and then an even more slightly lighter blue. But I want to keep it subtle.

Rhupert Carvolo - Piper of Ord

This is another Warmachine post. I will get by to the Falcon soon. I think it is that darn camo pattern that is making me hesitant to continue that project. Stippling is teh hard!

What I have done on the other hand is painted my first ever Mercenary, the very cool Rhupert Carvolo - Piper of Ord. Unfortunately it's not my mini. For no less than three reasons. First it's quite a useful solo in Warmachine, second it's a very nice model indeed, and lastly because it is the best mini I've ever painted! I am a little big pleased with myself :)

So here comes the pictures, I'll add little tidbits as it progresses from bare metal to model.

And we begin with just metal, and a good portion of green stuff. I wanted kind of a swampy / hilly kind of feeling and I just played around. The mini should be stuck in it pretty hard by now as it is logged into the green stuff.

Spray painted black, without complete success. It's quite hard to get an even coat that isn't too thick. I've obscured details far too often with thick paint and I am pushing myself hard to make sure I have less and less primer on. I don't think I need to prime it that hard really. And I've heard cool rumors that the Formula P3 paints actually covers so well that you can use it instead of primer. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Well, I actually would like to use an airbrush to coat with, I am plans to buy one in the future :)

Worth noting is that I for the first time when it comes to a metal mini decided to paint - assemble instead of the other way around. To get the glue to stick properly I painted on liquid mask in key places before I primed it. That way I just had to get rid of the mask when it was time to assemble :) If you don't own it, run down to your friendly local game store and buy a pot of liquid mask. Go now, the blog will be here when you return :)

Here you see my masonite board that I use for painting. It's quite good! Give it a go if you don't have a good painting "basis" or whatnot. You also see the pipers pipes being painted golden. I love painting stuff gold for some reason *cough* Cygnar *cought*.

And... rouges do it from behind!

I looked around the good old i-net for inspiration and I saw a range of different versions of the pipes. I opted for Vallejos London gray and then bone white, and finished off with some ogryn flesh wash. Here you see some bone!

Here's some bone from the front. I've laid down basic colors with a flesh color for the, eh, ehm, pig stomach thingie that the air goes into? Whatever it is, that's the color! Then green for the coat and dark brown for the pants. Our Piper is quite woodsy! And before I forget about it again, there is suppose to be a print from a warjack in the greenstuff, just that it is quite hard to make out :( Cool idea, epic fail. Maybe I'll get to incorporate it in some future model. I did use the foot of a hunter to press down though, so that part was at least authentic :)

And another rouge piccy..

Our piper is one serious rock star, look at all the light! Yeah yeah, that's just a crappy way of saying "bad photography dude!", but I can't be faulted for trying:) I have gently drybrushed the hair and beard with London Gray and I was really really pleased with the result. It looks far better IRL than on this picture. I was thinking of washing it with black, but nah, I decided against it. It would have made it too dark, not good.

Rouge! Should point on that since the last picture the old guy has gotten his skin painted. I used an unholy little mix as the flesh color I have is far too light. I have had problems with skin in the past and the quality is at least rising. Who knows, one day it might look like *gasp* skin!

Well look at Carvolo now! He's got a bunch of highlights and washes and is starting to look a whole lot better. The little armor piece on his right arm now has a metal color with some rusty looking stuff on there as well. I also did a london gray + light bluegrey highlight + mithril metal scheme on his arm and washed it aplenty with black wash. Turned one super! And yes, he is standing on three pots of paint :) Also note the little blue thing hanging from his belt. I *had* to have something blue on there didn't I? *cough* Cygnar again *cough*

I come back to this angle, I am now starting to wish that I was painting a female mini. Hmm. I do have Epic Haley that is primed white, maybe I should paint her soon :)

And now Carvolo's got a sword! I was quite pleased with the sword, I went for a kind of rusty, used look. Reading the fluff and everything I got an image of an old man, that doesn't take good care of himself. I just wonder what awful thing that has happened to him. Maybe it's somewhere in the fluff!

And now with not one but *two* arms! Looks a whole lot better put together. And the green flock adds to it as well. I wanted to go with a swampy look, but I also wanted to have fake water in the little *puddle*. That did not happen. Maybe it will in the future! If someone tries it, I recommend trying to get a little brown or green or blue or something in the fake water, when it is completely transparent it looks a big gel like. I will have to experiment in the future!

More blurry pics!

And a Rogue :)

The guy just looooves the lime light!

The hair, the toes, etc. I like the details. Got nice details but not the insane orgy of details as I am used to from Cygnar minis.

And to finish it all off, we go Rouge!

That's all folks! If you want to see the mini in real life it can be seen at my (!) friendly local game store. It's not *my* store, I just go there and spend far far faaar to much money. Oh which store you ask? It's Game Maniacs in Katrineholm, Södermanland, Sweden. If you can, come on in and take a peek at it. Yeah yeah, I am proud of it, I will admit that much :)

You don't know where it is you say? Well, try http://www.gamemaniacs.se and then I am sure you can find your way:)

Oh, and it took my about 10 hours or so to clean, base, paint, assemble, spray purity seal, and be done with it. I am *not* a speed painter for sure, but it still goes much faster than before :)

Field Mechanic Bodger

My Falcon project has been standing still for a few days, but my next piece will definitely be pilot who I plan on completing before I take the next step. Lots of stuff to paint and a really cool model. But what I have painted on the other hand is one green bodger. It ended up quite different from PP's own version and it sure looks different to say the least. After looking at the PP pix though I thought that maybe I should change the color of his pants to blue. Also damn I can't paint cool leather at all! Maybe I will be able to do so in the future:)

Here are some very very blurry pics:

On the last image you can see my painting "plate" or whatever it's called. It's a piece of "masonit" (whatever that is in English, masonite or something perhaps?) that is hard and has proven to be quite useful. I use it for a small variety of purposes, the most important one keeping my parents tables safe(r) :) And what you can't see is that I forgot to paint his teeth, I so gotta do that tomorrow! Upon closer RL inspection I also see that I need to touch up a few minor problems. But all in all it looks pretty neat, for being me who painted it, and the pants actually looks OK, so no bluification. This is the first of the bodgers I've painted so now I have my little "bodger prime" to use as a refence. We'll see how that turns out :)

The little bugger is also very unbased. Something I might change in a way I haven't done before. I got really inspired a few weeks ago and decided that I wanted to make the bases look like they were in a warjack factory. Or possibly just have some extra 'jack parts that they had dropped. And I did have some luck as No Quarter #22 features pictures of 'jack factories! One idea I have is to use a glass fuse (5mm x 20mm) and cut a whole in the base so I can get it lower in as I can't cut it easily and I want it to sit at an angle.

To get that effect I have decided that I need to use some green stuff to make the base slightly higher so it doesn't look so out of place. I have also thought of removing the metal part on one side and simply put some different colored cotton in there to make it kind of smoke/electricity looking. I also have some cog wheels in the pipeline to add to another base. Maybe some wiring on another. I hope to have some cool looking bodgers with a field mechanic that I can field in the future. I do need to take a long *hard* look at those trenchers though, as I'd like to see if I can't make some good use of them! So much painting, so little time :)

Next time I hope to have some Eldar Falcon progress to show, but there should be regular Warmachine updates too, and hopefully I can get some better picture quality even with my unly bad camera!