They are painted!

Here comes the lads! A full 10 man Tactical Squad with the optional heavy weapons and the sergeant. I tried putting some extra color on the sergeant by using London Gray on his "extras" and then bathing it in Badab Black wash. Turned out pretty good. I have mostly yellow and black on the models, with some mithril metal color lightly brushed on skulls and weapons and the likes.

The yellows turned out quite dirty and rough, so they do not look like shining plastic storm troopers ready to rock the Milky Way, but rather a rough bunch of guys. Oh well, first time painting Space Marines, can't expect too much:) Hopefully I made some improvements in my brush handling techniques along the way.

Next up I should start to assemble, magnetize, and paint the Razorback. I want to paint the insides so I will need to assemble, paint, assemble, paint, etc. I should also at least assemble the second tactical squad so that I have my army at full strength and can play with it :) I need opponents!

I'd love me some comments, good and bad. I think the thing that is most obvious though is the low amount of highlights. I tried drybrushing them on and that might not have been a total success, plus the Army Painter spray didn't work out. I will buy me some Iyanden Darksun paint and see how that will turn out for me instead :) The sergeants red cloth did get some highlights that turned out quite well though, even if the method was total madness (wet blending was intended, but, well, ehm, let's not continue down that road).

Oh, and they need their Imperial Fists transfers on the shoulder pads, and some stuff on their bases (gravel + static grass I think). More to come :)

More Imperial Fists

Time again for some Imperial Fists! For some reason it felt easier to paint these guys as they are not my favorites. It's different with Cygnar, Eldars, and Orks. I have all chosen them with more emotional commitment. But even then these guys are starting to grow on me. They are freakin' hard to paint though, even though I am running with the simplest of simplest when it comes to color scheme. Let's face it, it is yellow, with black, and just a little red and bleached bone (for the purity seals, and you need to know what that is to find it in any of these pictures!). With that in mind it stills is a pretty cool color scheme. Who knows, maybe I'll decided that the other tactical squad is from another company, and thus will have red, or blue, or silver, or something else for the "trim" :) I do think that when I do the next squad I will make sure I paint then assemble when it comes to weapons so that I can paint the imperial birdie in black (or red, or whatever company I choose).

So on to the pictures, to the hotness itself! Check out these, ehm, Fists:) Here you see my very first yellow (army painter spray primer, looks like desert painted tanks) primed marine to the left. In the middle the experiment with london gray + yellow (I believe that it is Gold Yellow from Vallejo Game Color, but can't be sure coz the print came off and now I can't see the name) which turned out pretty, well, so so. And then the paint a bunch 'o layers marine to the right. It's just simply black primer (the Chaos Black primer rules!) and yellow on top, then a GW wash on top of that and some drybrushed gold yellow + some brighter yellow. Some brushed bleached bone for good measure as well on the black. These guys remind me of yellow storm troopers for some reason:)

Here the gang has been joined by two new recruits. Same yellow primer, but with slightly less sucky results. The primer gave me a really uneven and nasty finish. Even color but really rough texture. The tank in the desert feeling is *very* strong. This time around I tried being more careful and with slightly better result. I still don't know if I shook the can too much, too little, not chop sue enough, or whatnot. I did try applying the yellow color in a new way though. I did the same thing as if I would drybrush it on, with a drybrush brush (Citadel small drybrush), but didn't bother drying it off much. With some violent application it covered way better than the other technique, and quite fast too! Try it if you are in a similar situation. The guys furthest out to the left and right have one coat on each. I will apply at least one more, more than likely two, but by three I might be tired of it and will jump over to the "wash that bugger" step.

Should be pointed out that I will add the Imperial Fist transfers. I do feel envy of the insane amount of transfers that the ultra marines get, but damn it, no more Smurfs now! I do enjoy knowing that I will have one blue, one yellow, and one green army for 40k though:) And a gray one as well, because there is no way I will be able to keep away from the Space Wolfs:)

And before I sign off, there might be a mod in the pipeline for me. I've got an Assault Marine Sergeant with a power first that needs to become a tactical squad Sergeant. The best course of action seems to be to cut the power fist arm off and attach it to the original Sergeant. The Assault one has too different of a chest and it will look stupid. Silly GW for not including *all* freaking options, they should do that!

For the Emperor!

Imperial Fists!

I think that I will swap out the Space Wolfs for some Imperial Fists instead. I'll go for the Space Wolfs when the new codex is out (only rumors I've read on the net, but you do know that everything you read on the net has to be true now don't it?). This means that I'll have Alaitoc Eldars, Imperial Fist Space Maries, and probably Goff Orks. I can fight myself basically:) I just need to assemble one tactical squad of 10 plus a razorback and I am in business for 750 points. I will cut down my original Tactical Squad to 6 (to fit in the Razor) and give the new ones some new nifty options. Endless hours of fun!

Greetings Space Marines fans. I thought that I should show proof of glueing, and here's a full Black Reach Space Marine army. A bit over 500 points I think. Neat huh? :) I tried some improved techniques for the photo so I hope you guys can see things more clearly this time. I think you do have to click on it though to get a good idea of how it really looks (the thumbnail seems quite blurry). I still have some issues with lighting the scene and I will have to go on a scavenger hunt to find a bunch of good lamps to use (since the sun seems to be hiding these days).

Next up, painting these sucks Chaos Black, spray style! Then either over to the Ork assembly line, Cygnar painting station, or I might just want to start painting the marines. I still want them to be Space Wolf colored though, which I still don't know if it is a good or bad idea. But Ultra Marines? I already have chosen blue *twice* for armies, can't have it on a third (thinking of Goff painting for the Orkz, simply because it is Orky).

I am also thinking of those foundation paints that GW puts out. This time maybe I'll just buy the *box* instead of buying them individually *cough* washes *cough*. Or I could just go for the gray and green colors:) I just wish I owned all paints in the range so I never had these problems, oh well, there is always The Future!

Sniffin' Glue

No pictures today, but I do own a Gorilla Pod and have read up on photography. I hope that future pictures will look much better than the horrors I've produced thus far. Maybe, just maybe, you all will think that I paint better if I post better pix, or you might actually see at what level I do paint :)

So why post anything? Because I've had some progress, I have previously glued up the Dire Avengers, I have cut out a whole bunch of Eldars from the sprue from which they came, and ta taaa, I have cut, cleaned, and glued the full Space Marine army from the Black Reach box. I will proceed to do the same for the Orks, and then possibly glue some stuff to the bases and then go all out and spray the whole bunch 'o them Chaos Black. Lots of paintin' to do!

And my Centurion still sits there on my table waiting to get painted:)

Oh, and there was some joy today as my packages from Germany arrived. Soo much packaging for such small things, but I now own a bunch of magnets that will magnetize a bunch of stuff for my 40k armies. Deffkoptas, Shining Spears, Falcon, Wave Serpent, and a lonely Autarch on a Jetbike will all get really nifty magnet connected flying bases. More to come!

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.

This is a top view of my Bodger experiment. I green stuffed the base pretty much all over and filled up the hole with green stuff and secured the "tube" there, sticking up from the ground. I can't for the life of me decide if I should go with a grayish look where I drybrush in darker and lighter greys to make it look cement-like and get some stains on there, or if I should make it more into a "out in the field" type of base.

Out in the field definitely *would* make it look a whole lot more in place though, making it look like they are Field mechanics and not In a factory mechanics. Although do I get cover saves from being in a factory that I carry with me? Who knows? Who knows? Pray tell!

Other than that I need to fix the shiney top and again I don't know what to go for. Black and yellow? Just greasy black? Metal at the top end only like a battery? I don't have a clue! Help me out internets, give me a clue from the intertube!

And to top it off we have a full frontal fantasy, ehm, full metal fantasy Goblin Bodger from the front. Complete with dog tags and blue Cygnar jacket. And muscles. Bet this little guy gets all the Goblin ladies knickers in a twist we he gets home. He better survive the battle first though, not known to be sturdy our little Goblin friends!