50th post and Gretchin Marine

I just noticed before I started to write the post that this will be my 50th post. I am a bit impressed by myself and quite happy that I am staying with this blog even if the frequency sometimes are quite uneven. The time for hobby related activities vary quite a bit but I hope I will get more time over at the end of next month when my wife and I move. I will live closer to work which will shave off my commuting time. Fifty miles a day has been exhausting!

My Gretchin konversion begun with a post by Woroxon (http://bit.ly/azEnDi). If you don't follow his blog I recommend taking a peak at it. I have seldom had the pleasure to read a blog by a guy who loves the hobby more than him and approach it with more joy and glee, or should I say WAAAGH! :) His awesome Ork konversions are more than worth checking out. Oh, and that contest, you'd be a fool not to enter it. I have:)

The konversation started out with some choppin' of the hand and gun and some good old glueing. Later the hand holding the sword fell off and I ended up pulling on my Dok gloves and pinned it. Should hold better after that! I also gave the backpack and shoulder pad some battle damage courtesy of a file. I wanted to have two shoulder pads but there was no way I could get it on the little bugger:)

And here we have him all painted up. With quite a light toned skin. I wanted him to stand out among the Orks and Nobz. I also painted the Imperial Fists colors far brighter than what I normally do (the second squad Sergeant is just about done and stage by stage pictures should come up soon) just for fun. It turned out quite well and it was quite quick.

Prime white, add watered down bubonic brown, then sunburst yellow and highlight with bleached bone. Mordian blue gave me the blue trims and blood red + wash the reds. The green I did with a bright green sprayed on with my airbrush (first use of it) and then added Thrakka Green.

The blue trim was chosen to represent the 9th Reserve Company that consists of devastators, hence the devastator symbol as well. I also chose a plastic looking color instead of metal for the battle damage. Does a space marine's armor really have a metal color? Thought I'd play around and try something else :)

Click on this one to make it WAAAGH! sized and get a look from different sides. Also note the base, painted in Warboss Woroxon style with brown and dark green. It was a lot harder getting straight triangles than I thought. Live and learn!

And until next time, and another 50th posts, WAAAGH!

Terminators and seer councils.

First, if you have ever thought of getting a seer council, check this out: http://www.thehogsofwar.com/2010/05/eldar-seer-council-jetbike-conversion.html

I might just go that route and screw the hard to do conversions. Just make some small stuff :)

Here's a new revision of the test terminator, plus an older model I painted some time ago that I repainted parts of (and forgot a black wash on the red! Gotta do that!). I painted the Iyanden Darksun / Golden Yellow - 50/50 mix directly on the shoulderpad and, lo and behold, it looked great from the get go. I might just change the formula to white, the mix, wash, highlight. That will make my painting far faster. Maybe I'll give the model a good black wash before the mix tough. Damn, I feel another test coming up :)

The white shield is done with Necronomican Grey, a watery wash of Chardonite Granite, followed by a N. Grey and a Skull White drybrush. Good bad? Let me know!

Don't know if it shows up but the "bumps" on the powerfist have little gold "blobs" on them. Just like you would do rivets on a weapon with mithril I thought gold would look interesting on an Imperial Fist. YMMV.

The old model also have a different paint scheme for the crux terminatus. My personal preference is the newer one :)

I decided to paint hard edges in white on the shoulder pads only. Brightens them up a bit :) Also the side guards are grey with white edges. I am still unsure about that. Maybe I should go red to really light it up?

The shoulder pads also needs a good old black fist, to look the part.

Shows how different the helmet looks in yellow vs white, and also how the black wash helps the red looks better (remember, I forgot...). They sure look like they mean business :)

If there is a reader out there that has a right shoulder pad for a terminator and wants to donate it to me, well, let me know :) I am one short for an assault cannon terminator. I wouldn't mind a "shoulder rocket launcher thing" as well. Yes, got an empty head and am too lazy to go check the Space Marine codex:)

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 :)