Terminator test

As I have previously mentioned I have 5 assault terminators primed and ready to be painted. I wanted to paint a test terminator first though, to figure out what works and doesn't work. I did want to work in white somewhere as the first company's color is white but I think that the shoulders guards in white, well, that is too much white and white is quite hard to paint well it seems. At least for me:)

I do like how the white helmet turned out though. More rough and grimy. I did all the red details with foundation red and a black wash. Darker than what the rest of the army has, but it sets them apart which was the point.

I also tried an Ogryn Flesh wash instead of my usual Gryphonne Sepia which looked good. I do think that the legs turned out a smidge too dark though, so I am thinking of lightening it up with some yellow before I wash it next time.

Here's the guy, let me know what you think!

Oh, and I experimented with a "light box" which was just a box with the sides covered in aluminum foil and two pieces of white papers. I took more pictures but the two first I took with the flash on, and lo and behold, it was actually a lot better *with* the flash! Who would have known? We'll see what the future holds! Again, all and any suggestions are welcome. One day I will have to test a red wash on yellow to see how it turns out.

Eldar seer council on bikes

No "hobbying" this weekend. Yup. I am more disappointed than any of you. My plan is to make a step by step guide on how I paint Imperial Fists using a sergeant. First tutorial type posting. I am also planning on trying to make a little "white box" to use when taking photos. Just a cardboard thing I plan on making white somehow.

What I have done is thinking. I do a lot of that stuff:) I have been thinking about making a jetbike seer council. I am far behind on my Eldar and don't expect to have anything playable for quite some time, so I am will just paint models up now and then and not care about lists or anything like that. Maybe I can have a little cache of Eldar for when any future codex hits :)

I have looked around the internet as much as I can to find any good ways to convert farseers and warlocks for jetbikes. I've found some cool looking examples out there, but I haven't found anything that really spoke to me, that really said "that is what you want, that is what is going to be *your* council!" Here's a few really nice examples I've found:

Meandering the dune sea

40k maunderings

moc065

Don't get me wrong, they are awesome, but they don't get me what I want. So what do I want?

* Jetbikes. Don't really plan much here. Maybe a flag or so. Maybe minor GW to make them stand out a bit.

* Farseer. I want a traditionally looking farseer, but I want her to fit on the bike. So robes and runes etc. Should look like it could be an official model. Either a nifty helmet or get an elf head from somewhere.

* Warlocks. Same theme here, but not as elaborate as the farseer.

So what could I do? Weapons seems like I can find in WHFB, but the huge problem is the robes. I can't find any good robed characters I could use that would fit. I don't want leather clothes and a cape/mantel. My thinking is trying to make them with green stuff, and then add some cool details either from other kits or green stuff. Problem is that I am a total noob with the stuff :( Anything I could kit bash would definitely be preferred. I would start with one of the standard riders or a shining spear.

I will put a magnet on the seat of the jetbikes so I can switch out drivers. Just have to solve the handle problem. Either that or remove the handles totally :) And now it strikes me that I could start with any model with good weapons, add the legs from a jetbiker, and have the robes cover the ugly seams. Hmm.

Going with an Alaitoc theme I want to base the bikes in a foundation blue (which I haven't decided) and then try to "stipple" it using an airbrush. Using a few different blue colors and one grey (black might make it look too camo). Paint up the underside in yellow/white, the seat in some other color, use the blue wash in a few places and a thinned out light blue on the edges. Tape off the front for some nice yellow patterns. Freehand/decals might be in it as well.

This is going to be more of a long term project, as the rest of my Eldar, but sometimes it is important to get out of painting the same stuff, and sometimes one has to try new stuff.

Any ideas is *more* than welcome at this point. But before that I have 12 marines and 3 vehicles to finish :)

Finished Meltagun and Sergeant

Here are pictures galore of my newly painted Meltagun Marine and his Sergeant. The banner is magnetized (gives me the option of painting a cooler banner in the future as well as stow it far better in its battle foam case), which I personally think is cool. I intend to give them a good coat of GW Purity Seal and then some 'Ard Coat on the eyes (hoping to make it shine a bit and generally look cool) but other than that they are done.

Notice the white 1 on the side to denote first squad. Also note that if you click to get the larger version you can see what I did to the meltagun. I decided that I wanted a bit more color so I painted it in foundation red and washed it liberally with badab black. Makes an awesome dark red! Maybe I should use that on my termies, together with white (1st company), to break up the yellow. I also plan on adding something dark brown to the wash to darken it more. I don't like a black wash on marines, and I don't like liberal washes on top of yellow (they tend to look kinda brownish and not like shadows on yellow).

Next should be the step by step of the other sergeant, and then termies, lysander, and five more assault marines. Then vehicles:) I should put something up on the side of my blog to show painted and queue!

Misc Imperial Fist WIPs

Time for some general progress. Here's the Sergeants shoulder guard. Looks pretty close to an AoBR one right? Me and my friend green stuff fixed that :) Sorry for the fuzzy shot.

My Sergeant has had his backpack magnetized and so has the banner. Easier to stow it and I can switch them around if I want to. I chose to go with red as that is a common second color for the Imperial Fists and I use that for the eagle on the chest and any fabric on the marines. This is Macharius Solar Orange plus a liberal amount of Baal Red. I am quite happy with the results. I think I will add some writing and probably a "1" for the Squad number. Maybe I should include Chapter (VI) and Company (5th), hmm.

Here's some WIPs of the sergeant and a Meltagun marine. AoBR comes with a flamer and I thought that it would be better to have a Meltagun instead. It should provide some extra potential killingpower if needed. Hopefully the Ass Cannon will clear any vehicles first though :) On the right side you can see my first attempt at some freehand. A simple "1" as a test. I think I need to fill it in with white again and clean it up a bit with black, but I think I might go with it. This way I have not just the arrow but also a number to show that the are the first squad. I might just go for painting on arrows on the second squad. Only time will tell:)

I will glue on the loincloth when I am done painting. Just too hard to get it good before painting everything that is behind, and the meltagun isn't glued on either (finally I was smart enough:)). If you look closely on the power sword you can see that I have used a blue wash on it. Thought that it could be a good base before I paint anything else on it. Still want some lightning on it!

I also have a secret project visible to the left :)

Tacticals and a little Dreadnought

Putting on decals is really hard. At least on shoulders. Here are "the gang". It is missing a power sword sergeant (I wonder how often someone fields a chainsword and boltgun sergeant) and a meltagun marine. I also realized that I need to fix my lascannon marine so he's got a tactical up arrow as well. I have greenstuffed up arrows for the two new marines (pictures coming in the future when I start to work on them) and it looks pretty nifty all in all.

I like the AoBR tacticals, thinking of getting more of them. Maybe I should have two fourth company squads too :) The downside is needing two more Razorbacks :)

Here's a slightly better view of the decals. And again, how the heck to you get them to conform to the shape of the shoulder? I do have Micro Set and Micro Sol, yet I get wrinkles etc. And there is no way I am freehanding that, it is far too hard for someone with my handling of the brush. Maybe in the future:)

And here we have a little dread! Chose to put the logo on the left weapon arm instead of the leg "plate". Thought that it felt better that way. I have put some basing sand on him, we'll see how that goes. He is getting close to finished, even though he is out of the list. Maybe he will make a comeback :)

In the background we have some sergeants (power fist and power sword, with magnetized banners. Cool huh!). But that is for a future post!

I also popped by The Source this weekend for their Black Crusade 2010. There was a massive amount of people there and series of gigantic Apocalypse games. It was a brief visit and I scoped out the local scene a bit. Some nice looking minis there, and one insanely expensive piece of terrain in the form of a Thunderhawk. Dark Angels Thunderhawk. A freakin' Thunderhawk as a piece of terrain. Awesome:)

I really do need to get some games in (blah blah, don't have my army up and running. Me stupid!), I am getting itchy for some gaming. I also realized that my painting is pretty good. I think I have looked at the works of far too many great painters online and effectively use that as a frame of reference. Stop being so freakin' awesome you internet people! :) But seriously my painting is pretty OK for being me :)

I am very strong!

This is my cutter. Or rather it was, because when I tried to clip some metal Eldar Rangers it...broke! I broke it from my fantastically non-existing hand strength. I find this both amusing and intriguing :) Moral of the story, be careful with your tools.

I got myself a cheap replacement. Hope it survives longer :)

Assault marines done (painting at least)

I finished painting my assault marines this weekend. So half of them are now done. Got a pretty ok recipe for the colors now. Should be able to finish the last five fairly efficiently. Started to use Astronomican Grey as a base for certain parts and then hit it with Sunburst Yellow. That brightens it up real nice and good and lightens up on the big patches of yellow. Hopefully you can see it :)

This one ended up with a flash.

While this one ended up without a flash. Can't decide which one turned out the best. I do need a better camera though:) (it is a theme on this blog it seems)

This is a bit Beatles inspired (hint for the age-impared, look up Abbey Road). I still need to give some cool effect to the sergeant's power sword. Some lightning or similar. To show how bad ass the guy actually is :)

Also note the green assault crosses. Looks pretty good when I got all five of them painted. At least I think so:) Feel free to have opinions in the comments!

And the final shot shows the weathering pretty well. Just have one weather effect, but it turned out pretty ok. The sot from the engines looks pretty realistic, but wow you had to be careful with the black to not overdo it. I really didn't want to repaint:)

So power sword, Imperial Fists decals on the shoulder, some Purity Seal, and I think that I will finish with 'ard coat on the eyes. I hope that it will turn out! I also need to pimp them up with some extra purity seals and the likes. Especially the sergeant.

Trying to finish up the tacticals as well. Put together an extra melta guy and two sergeants (power swords). They will be next on the list.

Oh what do you guys think of the bases?