A World In Miniature

97 - Blood Ravens Tactical Squad "Contemptus"

2011-01-26T19:11:00.011-05:00

Here we have the ten marines who make up my first tactical squad, "Contemptus." The Sergeant is armed with a Power Fist and the two specialists are equipped with a multi-melter and a flamer. The squad will also be mounted in a Rhino (which I have yet to paint). I have a 2nd tactical squad which I've also painted up (to be named "Fortis"). I'll put up a post with them next.

Squad Contemptus is a mixture of Black Reach and Tactical Squad kits. The Black Reach marines are easily distinguished by the molded Tactical Squad arrow on their shoulder pads. I've yet to apply water-slide transfers on my Blood Ravens, mostly out of sheer laziness. Usually, after I finish off a miniature, I just want to move on to the next one and so I neglect things like transfers, final highlights and even decorative bases at times.

At some point, I'm going to dive into painting a vehicle. I have all of the tools ready and at my disposal. I picked up a cheap airbrush from Michaels which I want to try on one of the vehicles. I'll probably also try using a standard spray can as well as manually brushing on the basecoat just to see which technique suits me best.

96 - Blood Ravens Scout Snipers

2011-01-22T00:06:00.007-05:00

I told you I had quite a backlog of painted miniatures. In this post, I give you 2 Scout Snipers. I had originally painted up a single standard Scout about a year ago, but after getting my hands on the Sniper Scout bits, I decided to go with a full 5 man Sniper Team for my Scouts. I debated whether to turn one of them into a Heavy Bolter support guy, but I liked the look of the Sniper Scouts so much I decided to go 100% sniper rifles.

The Scout depicted to the left has some minor conversion. His legs are from one of the Scouts mounted on the Land Speeder Storm kit. I added a bit of cork under his right leg to give the impression he's just emerged from a sniper's nest hidden amongst rocky ground. His cloak is also from another kit - some Warhammer Fantasy Battle kit that I can't quite remember right now. It's hard to see with the angle of the photograph but the fact that it doesn't cover his shoulder pads should tell you it's not from the original Scout Sniper kit.

The Scout to the right is pretty much standard Sniper Scout parts.

Alright, up next should be the remainder of the Blood Ravens miniatures I painted up during my hiatus - mostly Tactical Squad Marines. I managed to complete both of my 10 man Tactical Squads during the hiatus.

95 - Blood Ravens Sternguard

2011-01-20T20:30:00.006-05:00

Here are 2 more members of my planned 5 man Sternguard Veterans Squad. The veteran to the left is armed with the special bolter which fires 4 different types of ammunition that the unit gets as their default weapon. He's had some very minor conversions done to him; for instance, his right shoulder pad is from the Command Squad kit and his bolter is from the Black Templars kit with a standard storm bolter box magazine glued to its bottom. Again, paint-wise, he's fairly standard for me. I like how he looks suitably decorated - it definitely gives him a veteran feel without going overboard with the embellishments.

The veteran to the right wields the Heavy Bolter. I actually think he turned out really well. I love his pose (which was achieved by using a pair of legs from the new Blood Angels Death Company kit). He certainly has a sense of purposeful motion about him. His helmet is also from the Death Company kit. While not everything Blood Angels would fit well as Blood Ravens conversions, with some strategic scraping off of mismatched iconograpy and choosing of parts, there are enough in the new Blood Angels plastic kits to really allow a modestly-skilled modeler like me the ability to customize a standard Codex Astartes chapter like the Ravens.

94 - Blood Ravens Company Command Squad

2011-01-19T14:39:00.010-05:00

As promised, here are 2 members of my Company Command Squad - the Champion and the Meltagunner. I'm pretty proud with the way they turned out. The whites are much cleaner and opaque than I'd been able to achieve in the past and the overall models are just neater despite all the little embellishments they have. I especially like the Meltagunner. His pose is a bit too static in hindsight, but I'm pleased with how the paintjob turned out. Both miniatures are mounted on torn cork to simulate rocky outcrops. Gameplay-wise, I'm not sure how their elevated stature would impact them (negatively or positively - probably both in equal measure), but I felt for models that were meant to represent my HQ choice, they should stand out from the rank-and-file troops. Not much was added to the miniatures in terms of simple conversions, although I did give the Champion the Power Mace from the Black Templars upgrade kit to replace the Power Sword that came with the Company Command Squad kit.

Oddly enough, I've yet to tackle the Captain for the squad despite the fact that he's probably one of the first miniatures I ever bought (he comes from the Assault on Black Reach starter set). I think I'm still a bit intimidated by the amount of fine detail in his design; couple that with the fact that he's supposed to be the centerpiece to my Blood Ravens army and I suspect it'll probably be a while longer before I build up the courage to actually give him a whirl.

Alright, my next post will highlight 2 Sternguard Veterans that I painted in the past year. Stay tuned and thanks!

P.S. Quick shout-out to Bell of Lost Souls for kindly re-adding me to their blog alliance after my year long hiatus. You guys rock!

93 - Blood Ravens Assault Squad

2011-01-18T18:51:00.010-05:00

Next up - 4 members of my planned 10 man Assault Squad. Standard paint scheme for my Blood Ravens. At first, I wanted to pin them to their bases with transparent flight stands, but after assembling about 5 of them, I realized I had completely forgotten to do that. Such is life. Instead, you'll have to imagine that these Assault Marines had just touched down at their destination and are about to wade into close-combat with the enemy.

The Sergeant is armed with a Lightning Claw and Combat Shield primarily because I wanted to paint a Lightning Claw (none of my other Blood Ravens are kitted out with Lightning Claws). A Power Fist might've been a more effective kit, but what the heck.

Up next for tomorrow - the first 2 members of my Company Command Squad!

92 - Don't Call It A Comeback!

2011-01-17T21:15:00.007-05:00

Or do, if you'd like. Well, that was quite a long pause in-between posts. Let me re-introduce myself:

At one time, I maintained this blog 0n the hobby of miniature wargaming figures on a fairly consistent basis. That was about a year ago. Then I stopped because I thought applying to PhD programs in English Literature would be a good idea. I was wrong (and not because I didn't get into any - well, at least not entirely). Turns out, when your heart isn't into something which takes as much effort and dedication to get right, you usually end up wasting about a year of your life chasing shadows. So, instead, I've decided to follow where my heart was trying to tell me all these years and commit to becoming a high school English teacher. Teaching, really, is what I want to do. Researching and writing journal articles about obscure poets and poems was really the last thing I wanted to do. Thus, here I am, with my own life back and with the time to enjoy life in all its facets.

So, let's get right to it, shall we? Remember that project I was undertaking before this hiatus? The one about painting 365 miniatures in 365 days? Well, I obviously fell on my face with that one, but I wasn't completely dormant over this last year. I actually did get quite a bit painted up and my postings for the foreseeable future will be an attempt at catching you up on that. First up - two Blood Ravens Assault Terminators armed with Thunder Hammers and Storm Shields. Nothing fancy, but I definitely do think they are a step above what I had previously been doing. The past year has actually seen my abilities refined - not necessarily advanced, but most certainly perfected at my level of competency. There's really not much to say about these two aside from the interesting fact that the ink I used to shade them with was NOT GW's Citadel Washes (although I do love them). Instead, I used Liquitex inks (Carbon Black, Transparent Raw Sienna, and Transparent Burnt Umber) which I diluted with Flow Aid in order to achieve a consistency similar to GW's line of washes. The reason behind this was purely economical - the Liquitex inks come in almost triple the quantity for about a dollar more (if you don't count the judicious use of Michael's coupons) and all that's needed to wash an entire a figure are a drop or two of the inks to five or ten parts Flow Aid.

Oh, and the war-torn wall behind these fellows comes from a set of Heroscape scenery I purchased cheaply from eBay.

Well, hopefully this blog is up and running again. Stay tuned for more of my triumphant return!

91 - Pardon the Interruption

2010-03-13T00:51:00.003-05:00

I haven't done much painting these past few days because I've been on stomach-churning pins and needles waiting to hear back from PhD programs I've applied to. So far, the news has been grim - 2 rejections out of 4 applications. (Yeah, I know applying to only 4 programs was a very dumb mistake. If I don't get into either of the remaining 2, then I'll be taking out a loan in order to pay for a king's ransom in application fees next year. You know the old adage - throw enough "stuff" against the wall...)

I'm certain I'll know for sure by next week. Then after a brief mourning period, I'll get right back to painting. It might be skeletons, Cadian Shock Troopers and Necrons for a while after that, though, because I'll need to make up a ton of ground on my 365 project (which is still extant - never retreat! never surrender!).

90 - Hive Fleet Leviathan Genestealer

2010-03-10T23:51:00.001-05:00

Here's my first attempt at a Genestealer. Overall, I think he turned out okay. He was, as expected, pretty easy to paint. I gave him a Black Gesso undercoat then basecoated him in White. After that, I liberally applied a Leviathan Purple ink wash mixed with Pink acrylic paint and watered down with Flow Improver to get that more pinkish (or as GW calls it Warlock Purple) coloring. When the wash dried, I went over the miniature with White again to bring the basecoat back up then picked out details here and there - the claws with Black and a feathering of Opaque Red; the back spine and forehead plate thingie with Rhinestone Purple; and the gaps in the carapace with Opaque Red and a Baal Red wash.

You'll notice the base is incomplete. I still need to paint it with Dolphin Gray in order to make it match the Termagant base (and to adhere to the rules I set up for myself regarding this project). But, alas, this is a case of expediency trumping principles. I just couldn't wait for the PVA glue to dry before painting the base so I just went ahead and took the photos. As Sophocles wrote in his play "Electra": "The end excuses any evil." Shameful, just shameful. (Apparently, this project is not only making me paint the backlog of miniatures I have sitting on my shelves, but it's also breaking my will down bit by bit. And it's only week 3!)

Okay, up next? Maybe that Tomb Kings Skeleton Archer, but maybe not. I have a day off tomorrow, so I just might paint up something more substantial. Possibly my Guardsman Marbo conversion? Or my Ork Kommando conversion? Or finally that Blood Ravens Multi-Melta Operator who's been sitting at my painting station all primed and ready to go? Who knows?

89 - Necron Warrior...Again

2010-03-10T22:30:00.003-05:00

Heavens to Murgatroyd! Desperation has set in. I missed another day and am now 3 miniatures behind my pace. Thus, you all get another Necron Warrior. It's amazing how hard it is to find the energy, time, and motivation to paint these wee miniatures after a hard day's work (well, for me at least). Plus, the wife insists on quality time together in the evenings. Do her oppressive demands know no bounds?!? Just kidding.

So, Necron Warrior number 2. He was painted in pretty much the same way as my first Warrior - Black Gesso primer, a basecoat of Dolphin Gray, an extremely diluted Liquitex Carbon Black ink wash, then a highlight of more Dolphin Gray to bring the basecoat back up. The green bits were painted with Christmas Green and the eyes with Opaque Red. I then gave him a down and dirty and very quick drybrush with some White for more highlighting.

His base was put together with white talus and a strategically placed clump of dried moss all afixed to the base with brushed on superglue. Normally, I use watered down PVA glue for the basing materials, but I was worried the talus would be too heavy and irregularly shaped to properly bond with PVA glue, so I used superglue instead.

It seems to me that the two easiest armies to paint up in the Warhammer 40k and Fantasy Battle games would be Necrons and Tomb Kings respectively. Taking finances into consideration, I'm sure a person could completely paint a, say, 2000 point army of either of those two factions in a week or so. Especially the Necrons. Looking through their codex, I can't really imagine any models except for maybe the Flayers and the C'Tans who would require more than 1 primary color to basecoat. At least for the Tomb Kings, one has to worry about picking out details such as jewels, armor bits, and decorative stuff on many of their non-core choices. I don't really have a point here, and I'm certainly not bashing the painting abilities of Necron players because I'm sure it would take a long time to paint those models at a higher than table-top quality. I'm just saying.

Okay, another post will probably be coming fast and furious on the heels of this one. I've got a Hive Fleet Leviathan Genestealer completely finished at my painting station who is awaiting a decorative base and then some photographs. After that, I've got a Tomb Kings Skeletal Archer lined up, but I'm almost too guilty and embarrassed to paint him up for this project. But what can I do? The last thing I want is to fall so far behind that this project completely implodes. But I'd also like to spare you all the absolute boredom of 20 consecutive posts filled with Necrons Warriors, Genestealers, Cadian Shock Troopers, and Skeletons.

88 - Converted Gunnery Sergeant Harker

2010-03-08T23:58:00.005-05:00

Well, I had a lot of fun with this guy! Here's my converted Gunnery Sergeant Harker who will replace my current Veteran Sergeant in the "50/50s." I love converting models, so whenever I have the opportunity to mess around with miniatures, I'll do it. Since I've never been very happy with my Veteran Sergeant (in terms of load-out, modeling, and paint job), replacing him with another sergeant has always been on my mind. After re-reading the Veterans Squad section of the Imperial Guard Codex, I realized that not only would replacing my Veteran Sergeant with Gunnery Sergeant Harker improve the offensive capabilities of the "50/50s," but it would also be an incredibly enjoyable conversion job.

My Harker conversion consists of parts from a few differen kits. His head, torso, left and right arms are from the Catachan kit. The heavy bolter and his right hand are from a Space Marine Devastator kit while his legs are from the Space Marine Scout kit. Overall, he was fairly easy to piece together. I was surprised at how well in terms of proportions the Catachan torso fit with the Scout legs considering how much taller the Scouts seem when compared to a standard Catachan trooper. I guess it helps that the Catachan models are so top-heavy and muscular.

When compared to the actual GW Harker miniature, my Harker obviously doesn't quite resemble him. For one, their Harker is much more statuesque and lean; I wouldn't be surprised if placed side by side that the GW Harker would be a bit taller than my conversion. Also, I couldn't quite get the string of bullets effect of the GW Harker. I tried by attempting all sorts of contortions with the Space Marine Devastator bolt feeder, but I couldn't get it to fit well enough. That's probably my biggest regret when it comes to this conversion.

Again, I forgot to do one tiny thing with a model. For this conversion, I kept telling myself I'd free-hand the name ("Payback") of Harker's heavy bolter onto the casing of the weapon after I had highlighted everything, but then...I forgot. I'll have to take care of that later.

Alright, so boy am I glad I didn't resort to painting up a Shock Trooper, Skeleton or Necron Warrior in order to somewhat keep pace with this project of mine. I have my day-off coming on Thursday, so tomorrow I might try another non-rank and file model. I've got a converted Guardsman Marbo waiting in the wings as well.

87 - Necron Warrior

2010-03-07T21:50:00.002-05:00

Well, apparently Necron Warriors are just as easy to paint as Fantasy Skeletons and Cadian Guardsmen. A Gesso Black primer, a Dolphin Gray basecoat, a Black ink wash and then some light drybrushing with Dolphin Gray to bring the basecoat back up. Finally, a bit of highlighting with White along the edges.

I guess I could have painted the Warrior up in a different, more complex color scheme, but I'm the type of person who likes recreating the actual look and feel of the fictional universe I'm exploring. For instance, I originally wanted to create a DIY Space Marine Chapter when I first got into this hobby. And I actually did write up some background fluff for them and even designed multiple color schemes for them using the Bolter and Chainsword Space Marine Painter. (Very cool tool for those of you who aren't aware of it.) But I just couldn't settle on a color scheme to my liking because it seemed like all of the cool schemes had already been taken! So I picked the Blood Ravens and the rest is history.

A good side effect of painting up this Warrior is that I can now add another go-to miniature to my list of "Quick to Paint" models. Of course, this means I'll have to kind of, sort of commit at least partially to building a Necron army - a codex of which I have no knowledge of. Well, the Necron Warrior box comes with 12 of these guys so at the very least they'll give me 11 more easy days (although at some point I might feel guilty over how simple they are to paint I just might consider counting multiples of them as 1 painted miniature).

Alright, still 2 behind. I primed my converted Gunnery Sergeant Harker and my Blood Ravens Tactical Squad Fortis Multi-Melta Operator today so they're technically next in line. But both seem like they would take too much time and effort at the moment, so I just might fall back to painting another Cadian Shock Trooper or a Necron Warrior. (I can't waste these guys though. I have to think strategically to a certain extent and save a handful of these easy miniatures for when I really need them.)

86 - Shock Trooper for Third Squad/ 1st Platoon of the Cadian 265th Regiment

2010-03-06T18:01:00.006-05:00

Cadian Shock Troopers are almost as easy and quick to paint as skeletons! Whoohoo! Now I have 2 fall-back miniature types I can use when I find myself pressed for time.

Again, in my haste, I realized only after the fact that I forgot to paint in his eyes. A few of these miniatures I've painted up in the past 2 weeks have been missing painted bits here and there. I'm really going to have to establish a pace whereby I don't feel too under the clock where my miniatures end up looking like half-painted blobs of paint but also where I don't torture myself over minute details to the point where I refuse to put a miniature down and say it's done.

So, this Cadian Shock Trooper begins my 3rd Squad (the 1st Squad being my Veterans - "The 50/50s" - and the 2nd Squad being a standard rank and file squad with an attached mortar team) for my planned Imperial Guard platoon. He was pre-primed months ago so all I had to do was slap the Cadian color scheme on him and then give him a liberal ink wash with Badab Black, Devlan Mud and Ogryn Flesh followed by highlights of Hunter Green, Fawn, and Dolphin Gray. Well, actually, I replaced the Badab Black ink wash with a Liquitex Carbon Black ink because I was almost out of the GW wash. The Liquitex Carbon Black actually worked quite well...after I mixed it with about 10-15 drops of Liquitex Flow Aid. Without the Flow Aid, the Liquitex ink was not watery enough to slip into the cracks and crevices of the miniature. Instead, it kind of just acted like watered down acrylic paint and clung to the surface. After massively diluting it with Flow Aid, it then began to perform almost as well as GW's Badab Black. It seems like the key to GW's inks, then, is how ultra-watered down they are. I've also picked up 2 or 3 other bottles of Liquitex's inks as supplements to my GW inks mostly because they're much cheaper. I'll still primarily use GW's inks though because, honestly, they're awesome.

Okay, I'm still 2 miniatures behind. I probably won't have time to do another model tonight (the wife and I have to attend a friend's birthday soiree), but I'll try my darndest to get 2 done tomorrow. On the docket: a Necron Warrior (easy-peasy, I'm expecting) and maybe my Gunnery Sergeant Harker conversion if I'm feeling particularly ambitious. If not, then another Cadian Shock Trooper or possibly a Blood Ravens Multi-Melta Operator for Tactical Squad Fortis.

85 - Blood Ravens Tactical Squad Fortis Meltagunner

2010-03-05T19:11:00.004-05:00

Day 13, miniature 11; still 2 miniatures behind. Hmm, I sense more skeletons in the very near future. No, just kidding.

Say hello to the meltagunner of Tactical Squad Fortis of the Blood Ravens...er...huh, apparently, I haven't considered which company my Blood Ravens are a part of. I'll have to do some research into this. I know they can't be the 1st Company as that's usually the all Terminator veteran company in a standard Astartes force organization chart. They can't be the 2nd Company because they already have a published history (Dawn of War 2). They can't be the 5th Company because according to Blood Ravens fluff, that's the "Fated Fifth," a company that returned from the warp somehow...tainted. They can't be the 10th Company because that's the all Scout company. So that leaves 3rd, 4th, and Sixth to Ninth Companies. Anyone know if according to the Codex Astartes, those remaining companies have any prescribed specialities? In other words, are any of them primarily mechanized companies or jump assault companies or drop pod companies, etc.?

Well, there's really nothing all that special with this particular model. He's the 14th Blood Raven I've painted up, so it's getting rather mechanical painting these guys. At some point I'm going to either buy some blank water transfer paper or learn how to free-hand the Blood Ravens chapter logo onto their shoulder pads though.

Okay, so what's next? I've got a converted Gunnery Sergeant Harker I'd really like to paint but considering that I'm already 2 miniatures behind, I'm probably better off focusing on painting up more rank and file troops. I've still got about 30 more Cadian Shock Troopers to do so I just might go that route and try to pull back to even in my miniature count. But I've also got some converted Ork Kommandos that have calling to me from their place on the shelf. Hmm, well, we'll see.

84 - Vampire Counts Crypt Ghast (Originally the Reaper Ghast and Crypt Miniature)

2010-03-04T19:46:00.005-05:00

Woot! This guy was as easy to paint as I suspected. I needed that for sure. With him out of the way, I'm now 2 miniatures behind my schedule. I currently have a Blood Raven meltagunner basecoated Opaque Red sitting at my painting station. Hopefully, the motivation for painting I feel at the moment will help me finish him before bed.

Now about the Ghast - he's actually not from the Games Workshop Crypt Ghoul plastic kit. He's a Reaper Miniature I purchased almost a year ago, back when I first started this hobby. The first dozen or so models I bought were mostly Reaper minis; the detail, diversity, and, most importantly, cost of their line of miniatures really appealed to me. Before discovering cheap miniatures on eBay, the idea of paying MSRP (or even at a 20% discount) for GW minis made me recoil in horror. So I figured I'd ease my way into the hobby by painting some cheaper, moe affordable miniatures that were equal in quality (in my opinion).

I've pretty much segued almost entirely into GW models right now. I'll occasionally buy a Reaper miniature as a stand-in for a Warhammer Fantasy special character/ lord/ hero type because, again, the prices GW charges for these independent characters is mind-boggling. Why pay $50 for a Lord of Change when I can get a close equivalent from Reaper for $15? (In fact, I managed to purchase that exact Reaper minature for about $5 on-line from a secondary retailer.) Granted, the actual Lord of Change is much more detailed and probably larger and taller, but the Reaper equivalent isn't that far off. Or an even better comparison: why spend $20 on a GW Mounted Vampire Lord when you can get a similar figure from Reaper for $12? Now, again, the GW model is much more finely detailed but in this particular case, the Reaper miniature is pretty damn cool too. In fact, you wouldn't know it from the description of the model, but it comes with two heads - the helmeted one you see in the picture and a non-helmeted one showing the Vampire in all his dark majesty.

Just in case you're wondering, I don't work for Reaper or for Miniature-Giant (the on-line retail store I've linked to in the previous paragraph). I'm just a very frugal collector who, as it is, spends way too much money on this hobby. Anytime I can trim costs from this very expensive past time, I will (e.g., buying decorative basing material from general craft stores rather than from dedicated hobby stores/ manufacturers, buying stand-in minis from Reaper or some other maker rather than from GW, using craft paints rather than specialty paints, etc.). At this point, all of those things have served me rather well in terms of producing decent table-top quality miniatures. About the only thing I might replace in the future is my use of craft paints. If I get to a level of painting where I think craft paints are holding me back, then I'll make the invesment in Vallejo or GW or Reaper paints. I'm obviously not there yet.

Finally, a little bit about the paint scheme for the Ghast. I pretty much followed GW's online article on how to Crypt Ghouls - I basecoated him with Dolphin Gray, then gave him a liberal ink wash with Leviathan Purple. After he dried, I went back over the upraised parts of his musculature with a drybrush of Dolphin Gray and also added in some watered down streaks of Opaque Red into some of the deep crevices of his skin to give the impression of infected, torn flesh. The tombstone, by the way, was from a Halloween decorative kit that Michael's was selling over the holidays. I think for a set of 4 or 5 tombstones, I paid about $5. The relief seemingly carved into the front of the tombstone is actually a plastic Empire shield scavenged from the Warhammer Fantasy Giant kit. Overall, it took me about 2 hours to complete the Ghast.

83 - Converted Lord Commissar

2010-03-04T12:57:00.004-05:00

Well, I'm slowly falling behind my goal of 7 miniatures per week. At the moment, I'm now off my pace by 3 models. Boy, this is going to be harder than I thought. As I wrote in the post which launched this project almost 2 weeks ago, I do almost all of my painting either late at night during a workday (after the wife has gone to bed) or on my two off-days. The last two days, though, work has totally sapped my energy, so I got very little painting done Tuesday and Wednesday. However, I did cobble enough time together to paint up this converted Lord Commissar.

The Lord Commissar is essentially a Cadian Command sprue torso affixed to Cadian Shock Trooper legs. His power fist is also from the Command sprue while his bolt pistol from a Space Marine Tactical sprue. He is sporting a Pig Iron head and the tattered cape fluttering from his shoulders is actually a loincloth from the Warhammer Fantasy Giant kit. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with him. He's not as grandiose looking as Games Workshop's Lord Commissar, but that's easily explained away. I'm just going to say that he's been out in the field for months, furiously barking at his men to dig in and hold the line against the xenos scum so reinforcements can drop down from the sky and save their worthless hides. In other words, he's had to abandon most of the shining accoutrements of his office in order to better do his job.

Painting-wise, he's okay, if a bit rough in some areas (my highlights are still too harsh). Turns out this Lord Commissar was easier to paint up than I thought, seeing as how his uniform is black, thus allowing me to basically use the Black Gesso primer as the undercoat and basecoat. I'll probably need to clean up the highlighting around his peaked cap as well as the blotchy paint around and about his bolt pistol, but he's for all intents and purposes finished. I'd like to possibly add a few more fiddly bits to him at a later date - maybe a sword scabbard, free-hand designs on his shoulder pads, and a pistol holster for starters - but that can wait for now.

Well, today is my day off, so if I plan on sticking with this project, I better get cracking on the painting. I've got a Vampire Counts Ghast primed and ready to go at my painting station. I figure he's going to be quite easy. As far as I can tell, VC Ghouls are basically a single primary color (for the skin) plus some contrasting colors here and there for the detail bits. Hopefully, I can get him painted up quickly and possibly move on to another miniature before the day is done. Best case scenario: I'm back to where I started to begin the week - one miniature behind.

82 - Skaven Clanrat

2010-03-01T23:34:00.004-05:00

Finally finished with the Skaven Clanrat. As I wrote in my previous post, the new plastic Clanrats are very nicely detailed, so much so that it took me completely by surprise at how much fine effort was required to properly paint it up. I've got a couple of the new Stormvermin plastic miniatures laying around as well, and they look incredibly complicated. Considering Stormvermin are also Core units, I salute the efforts of all of the Skaven players who have to paint up 20 or 40 of them for their armies.

Again, pretty pleased with how this little feller turned out, although looking at it now, I probably should've given him a Black nose to make it stand out better. I also completely forgot to ink wash his teeth! Isn't it strange that the miniature with the most prominent teeth is the one I forget to shade while Imperial Guardsmen who have barely visible teeth always get the ink wash treatment? All in all though, I'm seriously considering starting a Skaven army. Aside from 40k Orks, most of my miniatures are human in nature and it would be a nice change of pace to be able to paint up more monstrous creatures. Also, the Skaven fluff is just awesome. How can anyone resist an army of mutated, overgrown rats who's politics are dirtier than our own?

Okay, I'm still 1 model behind in my project. This Clanrat makes it 8 miniatures in 9 days. I probably won't be able to make a serious attempt at catching up until Thursday (my day off). Still, the last thing I want to do is fall behind even further, so I have a couple of options on my docket for tomorrow - a Blood Ravens meltagunner, a Vampire Counts Ghast, or a converted Imperial Guard Lord Commissar. If I find myself really pressed for time, then the Ghast will step up to the plate for obvious reasons. If I find myself for some odd reason with ample time and motivation, then I'll do either the meltagunner or the Lord Commissar.

81 - Tomb Kings Skellies

2010-02-28T16:52:00.005-05:00

Day 8, miniature 7. Two skeletal spearmen for a Tomb Kings army (who will count as 1 miniature for the project). You all better get used to seeing skeletons on this blog because whenever I find myself falling behind on this 365 miniatures in 365 days project, I will resort to painting up skeletons. Not only are they extremely easy to paint but also extremely easy to make look decent with some ink washes and minor highlights. I got bogged down with the Clanrat so I broke the emergency glass and quickly painted up these two skellies. I thought the Clanrat would be easy but it turns out the new plastic miniatures GW have been putting out as of late are pretty finely detailed, even on the rank and file models. This is both a good and bad thing. Good in the sense that finely detailed models are always preferable to shapeless blobs of plastic; but bad in the sense that the notion of having to paint up 100 Clanrats and Skavenslaves is enough to make one run for the hills.

Do not fear, however, faithful blog followers! The 365 miniatures in 365 days projects is still on track! The Clanrat is almost finished; I only have one or two more basecoats to go and then an ink wash, some highlighting, a decorative base, and he'll be ready to go. That'll give me 8 miniatures in 8 days - bang on target. At some point, I'd like to start painting up more special characters rather than continue focusing on Troop/ Core choices, but for the moment, my painting acuity is still not quite at that speed.

Oh, by the way, I'm going to have to add a 7th rule to this project - I won't require myself to completely paint a miniature in a 24 hour period in order for it to count. In other words, I'll allow myself to start miniatures and then put them down to be finished another day. That way, I may actually get some more elaborate models done after a year. Still, the prime directive stays the same - after 365 days, I must have 365 painted miniatures.

80 - Termagant of Hive Fleet Leviathan

2010-02-27T23:55:00.000-05:00

Day 7 and here's my 6th figure of the week - a Tyranid Termagant in the colors of Hive Fleet Leviathan. A fairly easy model to paint although the fiddly bits around and in his fleshborer were a little annoying to navigate around. I can definitely imagine speed painting through dozens of these at a time - 2 primary colors, a 3rd color for the weapon biomorph and then a targeted ink wash in the crevices and voila! A finished termagant! I actually should get used to painting these critters seeing as I have about 30 of them in my army list and a further 30 more hormagaunts.

The termagant was basically about 3 basecoats of White and Purple and Red (for the detail bits) followed by ink washes of Leviathan Purple along the carapace and Baal Red in the joints and exposed flesh parts. I also applied a Thrakka Green ink wash to the Red bits. A drybrush of White was used to bring the basecoat back up and a Purple/ White mix was used to highlight the edges of the carapace. The base needs a little bit more touching up however. I was in such a rush to get started on the Clanrat that I painted the sand on the base before the PVC glue could completely dry thus removing granules here and there. As a result, the base looks a bit splotchy with too much of the black plastic surface showing.

Well, day 7 of this little project and I'm still 1 model behind. I've already begun painting up a Skaven Clanrat and I'm determined to finish him up before bed. It's a good thing tomorrow is Sunday as I imagine I'll be burning the midnight oil tonight. So far, I haven't felt burned out yet by all of this painting. In fact, I feel rather productive. At some point I probably should concentrate on 1 or 2 armies (my Blood Ravens are practically complete - only missing a Razorback - in terms of collecting the miniatures) just so I can finish one off rather than dispersing my attention and energies willy-nilly. But I have a terrible time staying interested in one particular line of miniatures for any extended period. Thus all the jumping around from army to army.

79 - Ogre Kingdoms Leadbelcher

2010-02-26T14:31:00.003-05:00

Technically, this Leadbelcher was supposed to be done yesterday, but I got bogged down trying to get his skin to match the Games Workshop's ogre skin tone. I had basecoated his skin Dolphin Gray then, following the advice from a White Dwarf article on how to paint monstrous creature skin, I added Baal Red and Leviathan Purple ink washes (to give the gray some life). The result was some weird pinkish hue that reminded me of a jellyfish. Well, a heavily muscled jellyfish carrying a big friggin' hand cannon. So, I drybrushed a very light skin tone onto the miniature then, still not being satisfied, I drybrushed the Dolphin Gray on top of that. The final result is pictured in this post. Again, I'm pretty satisfied. The paintjob was fairly clean and while the skin tone still doesn't match the standard Ogre skin tone, it's at least interesting looking. Maybe I can make up a background story wherein this Leadbelcher once accidentally set himself on fire or something.

I'm also starting to become bothered by the mold lines on my miniatures. I absolutely hate cleaning the models. The most I ever do is remove the most glaring and obvious of flashing, but I almost never trouble myself with the mold lines. Sometimes, the paint is enough to cover some of it up; sometimes the mold lines kind of blend into the armor and equipment of a model (like for Tau or Space Marine figures). But on more organic looking miniatures like this Leadbelcher, they stand out like Yao Ming at a little people convention. So I'm going to make the concerted effort to be a bit more fastidious when it comes to cleaning my models. It's a pain in the butt, but I guess it's part of the hobby.

Well, I'm still one miniature behind. Apparently, the weather gods are on my side because they gave New York a snow day thus providing me with a 2nd day off from work to catch up on my project. I have 2 miniatures lined up - a Hivefleet Leviathan Termagant and a Skaven Clanrat. I'm hoping both miniatures are as easy and quick to paint as they seem.

78 - Tau Fire Warrior

2010-02-25T14:11:00.005-05:00

Day 5, model 4. As you can tell, I'm one miniature behind, but since the rules I established for myself allow me to miss a day so long as I finish the week with 7 painted models, I'm still on-track, I think. I have a day off from work today and it's snowing/ sleeting like the dickens in New York, so I should have enough free time to get my fifth miniature painted up before I go to bed tonight.

So, what we have here is a Tau Fire Warrior painted up in the "dress colors" of the army. I chose the Fire Warrior as my next model because I thought the simple color scheme would make for a fast paint job; I was wrong. While it's true the miniature pretty much uses 2 basic colors (a dull orange and a dark brown), the fact that I had never painted a Tau Fire Warrior before conspired to slow my progress down. Unlike painting Cadians or Marines, my hand had to adapt to new brushstrokes as I worked my way around the model's armor plates, trying not to get too messy and painting over the brown fatigues underneath. I also had to find a color match for the Vomit Brown GW uses for their Fire Warriors. Since I use craft paints bought cheaply at Michael's and A.C. Moore, I couldn't quite find a single comparable color match, so I settled on a dark yellow/ orange called Marigold and then gave it a liberal Gryphonne Sepia wash after finishing up the basecoat. Overall, I was quite pleased with the color match.

Some of the highlights on the Fire Warrior are a bit harsh and messy. At some point, I'm going to really have to learn to either a) become much more steady-handed when applying stark highlights or b) become adept at blending. The former obviously is easier and will be the path I'll go down in the near future. Blending, I think, will come much, much later in my development as a figure painter.

No conversions at all with this model. I did realize, after painting up the model, that I forgot to attach the communications antenna to the side of his helmet. Bleh, I always seem to forgot some little thing. Oh well, I'll fix that after I finish my 2nd model for today which I've decided will be an Ogre Kingdoms Leadbelcher.

77 - Updated Sniper For My Cadian Veteran Squad

2010-02-23T23:17:00.002-05:00

Day 3, miniature 3. Wow...362 days and miniatures to go. I'm doomed.

Well, this fella wasn't too hard to paint up. I purposefully chose him because of his cloak. I figured with most of his body covered up by that big surface, it would take less time to fully paint him, and I was right. Thank goodness for cloaks! I also chose him because he was a Cadian model, which I've become very good at painting fast and clean. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with him. He could use a few more highlights, but he's table top quality, which is really the only thing I'm going for with this project. Hopefully, just the mere act of forcing myself to paint so often and so consistently will naturally improve my abilities so that at some point, I'll be able to exceed table top quality while still maintaining this blistering pace.

As the title to the post suggests, this miniature will be replacing the first sniper I painted up for my Veteran Squad. While I was fairly happy with the conversions I performed on the first sniper to make him fit the Cadian mold, once I got my hands on the two-piece sniper body from the Cadian Command Squad kit, I knew I had to use it in my Veteran Squad. Essentially, this new sniper is 100% from the Command Squad kit, but with one minor change - a head swap from the Empire Great Swords kit, I believe.

By the way, this miniature took me past midnight to finish up, which means I'll be adding a 6th caveat to my project - since I'm a night owl, a day for this project will be any time before I go to bed. So even if the clock passes midnight, thus signalling in a new day, as long as I'm still awake, I'll count the miniature I finish as being for the day previous. Yeesh! By the time I get through with this project, my addendums and amendments and codicils will be hundreds of page long, all leading up to the inevitable result - less miniatures for me to paint. Let's hope that doesn't happen!

76 - Bonus Post! Officer of the Fleet and Nob with Waaagh! Banner

2010-02-22T23:47:00.001-05:00

Well, a quick post showing 2 miniatures I worked on prior to embarking on this insane 365 miniatures in 365 days project I've got going here. To the left, you'll see my converted Officer of the Fleet for my Cadian Command Squad. He was put together using the torso, head, arms and shoulder pads of a Tank Commander (I believe the Baneblade one), a holstered pistol from the Tactical Space Marines kit, a sword from a Bretonnian kit, and the legs of a standard Cadian Guardsman. Getting the legs to fit with the torso was the toughest part of this conversion. I had to carefully estimate how much of the legs would be showing from underneath the great coat as well as cut the legs off in a such a way as to fit the underside of the torso without the miniature looking weird and wobbly. I personally think the end result was pretty good. The paintjob was decent, if a bit messy and rushed in some parts, but overall, I think the model is a pretty close stand-in for the actual Officer of the Fleet miniature which Games Workshop sells.

To the right, we've got the Nob with a Waaagh! Banner. The banner was obviously a total conversion seeing as how none of the available plastic Ork sprues sold by GW has anything resembling a Waaagh! Banner as described in the Ork Codex. For the banner, I basically just piled on bit after bit until I felt the banner was sufficiently grand and that the model would support its weight without toppling over. I had originally wanted the Nob to actually hold the banner in one of his hands, but it was impossible to keep the model upright even after gluing a metal washer to the bottom of the base. So, what's in the banner? I believe the base banner is from the Warhammer Fantasy Orc Warboss kit. I then added the bull skull from the Boyz kit (or was it the Nobz kit?) along the top of the banner; glued the metal mask from a Black Orc kit over the bull skull; decorated the rest of the banner with odds and ends from the Vampire Counts Zombie kit (the dangling severed heads), skulls (both Orkish and human) from various other kits, and a Lizardmen snake icon to represent the Snakebite Clan. I'm very happy with the results. Personally, I think any Ork Warboss would be proud to have one of his Nobz carry something like this into battle. This is only the first of two Waaagh! Banners I've converted for my Ork army. Believe it or not, but the 2nd banner is even more elaborate.

75 - Blood Ravens Tactical Squad Fortis

2010-02-22T23:18:00.001-05:00

Day 2 of the project is done! Here are 5 Blood Ravens Space Marines which had been sitting at my painting station, mostly in need of an ink wash and minor highlighting. I'll be counting them as 1 miniature as I did the Orkz from yesterday. I've decided to name this Tactical Squad - the first of two - Fortis, which is Latin for "strength." I have 3 more Blood Ravens to fully paint up before Fortis is complete - the Sergeant, Meltagunner, and Multi-Melta Operator. Fortis will also be mounted in a Rhino, so that's gotta get painted up too.

Previously, I had major issues shading the red armor with ink washes. I'd been using Badab Black and the results were less than pleasant. The Badab Black darkened the armor way too much, forcing me to spend extra time bringing the Red back up. It was a real pain. But then I read an article in White Dwarf (not sure which issue, but it was a current one, I believe) on how to paint, shade, and highlight Red which suggested using either Thrakka Green or Asurmen Blue to shade Red, depending on the effect you're going after. So I decided to use Thrakka Green on this batch of Marines, and I must say, I'm pretty happy with the results. The shadows aren't as deep as if I'd done them with Badab Black, but the Thrakka Green is definitely neater while still providing a decent level of shading. I selected Thrakka Green over Asurmen Blue because the Blood Ravens already have elements of Green in their paint scheme, so I figured it'd tie in better.

To the right is a more detailed look at 3 of the Blood Ravens from this batch. You'll notice the Marine to the far right has been given a Black Templar boltgun. I wanted to add some diversity to my Marines and seeing as how the Black Templar arms were so damn cool, I knew I had to include them. All it took was some careful scraping off of the Black Templar icon on the boltgun and it was good to go.

Okay, as I wrote up top, Day 2 has been successfully completed. Tomorrow though begins the real challenge as I have to paint up a brand new miniature from the bottom up for it to count towards this project. I haven't quite figured out which one of my hundreds of unpainted models to pick yet, but depending on how much time and energy I have left tomorrow after work and family obligations, I might either go with a rank and file model or a more elaborate character model.

Note: again, I've had to post these miniatures past midnight my time due to time constraints, but rest assured, they were finished prior to the midnight hour tolling! I'm very likely going to have to follow this sort of schedule for most of my miniatures in this project.

74 - Ork Boyz Mob #1! Waaagh!

2010-02-21T23:18:00.001-05:00

Well, here's my production for Day 1 of my 365 day project of painting 1 miniature a day for a year. Apologies for posting it so late, but I honestly had finished these guys before the end of Sunday but could only find the time to take pictures of them and then post them really late at night. The picture to the left shows 20 Ork Boyz led by a Nob along with a Big Shoota and a Rokkit Launcha. They are my first complete Mob of which I have 2 more to go. 7 of the miniatures had already been painted months back. The remaining 13 were in various stages of completion, although most required just an ink wash and some minor highlighting. Thus I will consider the 13 new members of this mob as 1 miniature for the purposes of my 365 miniatures in 365 days project.

As you can hopefully tell, these Boyz are from the Snakebite clan. They have been mostly painted in 3 uniform colors (two shades of Brown, Red, and the occassional Yellow). Their skin does not vary much in hue - mostly Hunter Green although some have starker Light Green highlights than others. Their weapons are also predominantly Dolphin Gray with smatterings of Red, Yellow, and Black mixed in. Their bases have all been decorated with various supplies I've picked up at Michael's over the past year. I highly recommend using standard craft supplies to base miniatures. The money you save by avoiding the hobby specific basing material is enormous and, in my opinion, the effect is practically the same. By the way, I used Games Workshop's ink washes for the shading, which I also highly recommend. Their line of ink washes are priced reasonably but the quality of those washes have never let me down.

To the right is a more detailed view of the Nob which leads this mob. The keen eyed among you will notice that he's a different Nob than the first one I painted up for this mob. The original Nob has been officially promoted to full Nob-hood and has joined one of my Elite Nob units. (In fact, I've made him the bearer of the Waaagh! banner!) This Nob is more humble. All of the bits above his waist are standard Nob bits (except for his close combat weapon arm, which comes from a Black Orc kit), but his legs are merely those of a lowly Ork Boy. I figured that Nobs tasked with leading the Boyz are probably the smaller Nobs. The truly monstrous Nobs would be more effective grouped together as shock troops. After taking the pictures, I noticed to my chagrin that I forgot to paint the skull I glued to his base.

To the left is a picture of two of the Boyz from this mob. The Ork to the left is a standard Boy from the Ork Boyz kit but I armed him with a chain from the Warbikers kit. The Boy on the right, however, was given bits from the Warhammer Fantasy Orc Boyz kit - a shield strapped to his back and the head and torso of a fantasy Orc. Seeing as the Snakebite Orks are a bit more old-fashioned, I reasoned that they'd look more like their forebearers from millenia past. I think the kit bash was pretty effective as it gives what could have been a pretty monotonous parade of similar looking Ork Boyz a bit of character and uniqueness.

Well, that's Day 1! Yes, I haven't yet painted up a miniature from gray plastic to highlighting and basing, but that day will come (very likely by Tuesday at the earliest). Tomorrow, I'm going to finish off 4 Blood Ravens Space Marines that I also had laying around my painting station and treat them as a single miniature for Day 2.

73 - Back! And On A Mission!

2010-02-20T16:24:00.006-05:00

First off, apologies to my mates in the Tale of Even More Painters challenge. Unfortunately, I was unable to participate in the last 4 challenges because of real life (holidays, work, graduate school applications, etc.). Overall, though, it was great fun and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. It really did improve my painting/ modeling/ conversion skills and, in fact, in the time I've been away from the blog, I've actually assembled and converted an enormous amount of unpainted miniatures in my (not very much) spare time.

Which brings me to why I've decided to resume updating this blog. I'm not exaggerating when I say I've assembled quite a horde of unpainted miniatures over the last 3-4 months. They sit on my shelves, their gray and white metal exteriors silently accusing me for being such a lazy bastard. Well, after watching "Julie and Julia" with the wife, I resolved to embark on a journey of my own. For the next 365 days, I shall paint one miniature a day! Here are the ground rules:

1) I am allowing myself to prep models ahead of time (i.e., clean, assemble, even prime). In other words, I don't have to start fresh with a model still on the sprue every day. So long as at the end of the day, I have a completely painted, shaded/ highlighted, and based miniature, I will consider that day successful.

2) If I happen to miss a day or two, I will force myself to make up the missed miniatures over a weekend or a day-off from work. Bottom line - I need to have 7 finished miniatures at the end of the week or else I will consider the experiment a failure.

3) Ultimately, real life can take many strange and unforeseen twists and turns. There may come a time when I might have to put this project on hold. (I can already anticipate a week to 10 day cross-country trip to the West Coast sometime in May-June which would certainly interrupt my painting.) If something truly out of my control (i.e., anything other than sheer laziness on my part) forces me to stop painting for a bit, then I will try my best to make up the loss in painted miniatures. At the end of 365 days, if I can count 365 painted miniatures then I will consider this project a success regardless of whether I painted one a day or 7 a week.

4) At some point in this experiment, I might have to convert my one miniature a day into x number of painting points a week. For now, though, I'll try to stick to my one miniature a day project for as long as possible. If I have to resort to painting points, then I'll set the number of points at something equatable - like 7 painting points a week with no carry-over points (i.e., even if I painted a vehicle or 2 monstrous creatures in a given week, I won't carry the 3 left-over points into the next week).

5) For the first few weeks or so, I'm tempted to finish up some partially painted miniatures I have laying around just to get warmed up. I have about 4 Blood Ravens and 6 or so Orks sitting unfinished at my painting station that really need to get finished. We'll see. I'll definitely fully disclose in my daily posts whether or not the miniature I finished was already partially painted or not however.

Well, that's that. I'm glad to be back blogging and painting. I'll have to start visiting the various blogs I enjoyed out there as well. See you all tomorrow with painted miniature #1!

Note: the image for this post was used without Games Workshop's permission. If Games Workshop objects to my using the image, please contact me and I will take it down.

72 - First Attempt at a Scenery Piece/ Diorama (TOEMP #7 Bonus Challenge)

2009-11-02T00:47:00.007-05:00

Well, it's not much to look at, but this right here is my first crack at creating a miniature diorama. It's not quite finished, obviously. A lot of painting still needs to go into it as well as some more landscape bits. Overall, though, I'm pleased with how it turned out. It may be rough around the edges (literally and figuratively) but it pretty much turned out the way I expected it to.

So, what is it? Essentially, it's the courtyard of a section of a bombed out Imperial city. The two wall pieces (made from foamboard) represent ruined buildings while the rectangular thing in the middle is a kiosk of sorts decorated with Imperial regalia and festooned with spotlights and speakers to blare out Imperial propaganda day and night. The plastic pieces come from a variety of kits - the piping along the walls and on the cobblestone floor are from the Stormblade superheavy kit and the Ork Stompa kit; the lamp post and the light fixtures are from the Manufactorum kit; the bits for the kiosk are from the Bastion kit; and the railing along the tops of the walls are from the Chaos Rhino and Land Raider kits.

The most interesting part about this diorama is the flooring. I was able to find 2 large rolls of textured plastic in gray cobblestone (which I used for the courtyard) and red brick (which I used for the sidewalks) styles at my Michael's craft store. The rolls were intended for miniature Christmas dioramas but they are the perfect scale for hobby miniatures as well. Best of all was the cost - I think I paid about $15 per roll, and when stretched out, each roll is almost 6' in length and 2' in width. Compared to the insanely overpriced textured plasticard I found in hobby-specific stores, the price was unbeatable.

Well, I won't be counting this particular diorama complete for TOEMP's 7th challenge just yet. I still have 1 more day to try to paint it up a bit. I very likely won't be able to make it in time for the bonus points, but I'm glad I made the effort. It was a lot of fun and a great learning experience. Next time I try to make scenery,though, it will most definitely be something I can use on a tabletop.

Please click here for more pics.

71 - Tau Empire Stealth Team for TOEMP Challenge #7 Completed!

2009-10-30T12:31:00.006-04:00

The Stealth Team is done with about 3 or 4 days to spare. Depending on how busy my weekend turns out to be, I may have an opportunity to put together a scenery piece I've been mulling over in my head.

Well, these Tau models were fairly painless and quick to paint. Again, as I mentioned in the earlier post, there weren't that many colors in the overall scheme - lots of Black, lots of Purple. The only difficulty would be in the highlighting to make the subdued colors pop. And, let me tell you, highlighting is tough, for me at least. I still haven't developed a particular technique or level of comfort with it.

For instance, what looks like "battle damage" on these Tau Stealth units was actually my attempt at highlighting. But I couldn't get the lines on cleanly enough - too much twitchy hands syndrome. So, I kind of got frustrated and just started dry-brushing the highlights on. A lot messier, to be sure, but after looking over the results on the first Tau Stealth unit I tried it on, I kind of liked the unintended result. It did give the unit a war-torn, weathered look which, in my mind, fit the fluff behind the Stealth Teams (i.e., lone wolf units operating far ahead of the main army, having to live off the land and make due with whatever they had on hand).

Highlighting the Purple areas was a bit easier because of the large surfaces I had to work with. I probably should have given the Purple another, lighter highlight to make it stand out a bit more, but such is life. I also added a few touches of Red to the models to break up the color scheme a bit. After initially finishing the Purple on the models, I was a bit underwhelmed by how monochrome they all looked. I guess I'm from the school of miniature figure painting that believes every model must have at least 3 primary colors represented on it.

Here are the points breakdown for the Stealth Team:

Foot sloggers = 4 points
Lenses = 3 points
Beating Deadline by at Least 24 Hours = 2 points

For a total of 9 points. Now let's go work on that scenery piece, maybe...

Click here for more pics of the Stealth Team.

70 - Tau Empire Stealth Team for TOEMP Challenge #7 WIP

2009-10-25T16:17:00.005-04:00

Seeing as it's been over a week since my last post, I thought I'd put up some WIP pictures of my Tau Stealth Team. At the moment, they've received 3 thin coats of a Purple basecoat, after which I then glued all of the various accessories on to the miniatures.

All of the Stealth Suits are equipped with Targeting Arrays (those antennae like things afixed atop their heads) while the two non-team leaders are armed with Burst Cannons. The Shas'vre is armed with a Fusion Blaster and also sports a Hard-Wired Drone Controller and a Markerlight (which is glued to the top of his Fusion Blaster).

The interesting thing about Tau models, for me at least, is how difficult it was to find reference pictures regarding which bit does what. For example, the things I'm calling Targeting Arrays could very well likely be something else entirely. I really have no idea. Googling "Tau targeting array" only gets me images of fully constructed Tau models without any specific pictures highlighting which part of the model is the targeting array. Same thing goes for the Markerlight and the Hard-Wired Drone Controller. For the Stealth Suit kit this isn't too much of a problem seeing as how the load-outs for the Stealth Team is fairly limited. But I can just imagine the difficulty (especially for the obsessive compulsive among us) of putting together a Crisis Battle Suit or a Broadside.

Well, overall I'm making good time on these figures. Honestly, the color scheme of the Stealth Team really lends itself to quick painting. The Black primer acts as a basecoat and aside from the Purple over roughly 50% of the figure, there aren't very many other colors represented. The only time intensive part I can see down the line is the highlighting. Due to the subdued and dark color scheme, these models are going to test my highlighting abilities in order to make them properly pop.

Maybe I'll be able to finish this team with enough time to spare to put together a scenery piece for them. We'll see...

69 - TOEMP Challenge #6 Update III

2009-10-18T22:44:00.003-04:00

Standard Bearer and Medic completed! That brings the Company Command Squad to 6 completed members. I've begun basecoating the Officer of the Fleet, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get him done before the 20th of October. I spent most of today finishing up the Standard Bearer and the Medic, so I'm pretty burnt out on painting - don't think I'll be doing any more on the Officer of the Fleet tonight. And due to my work days being extremely busy and taxing, I'm not sure I'll have the time or energy to get to him before next weekend.

I'm fairly satisfied with the Standard Bearer, although painting the flag was much more difficult than I anticipated. In all honesty, it's probably the most difficult thing I've painted since I started this hobby! Is that strange or what? I think the reason I found it so difficult, despite it's relative size compared to a 28mm miniature, is just the sheer amount of detail on the flag. Couple that with the folds in the flag, and trying to keep the paint from going out of bounds was like herding cats. Of course, painting a molded flag is still leaps and bounds easier than free-handing one, so I can't complain. Still, I marvel at some of the clean paintjobs I've seen of banners and flags.

The Medic was very straightforward. Pretty much a standard Cadian Shock Trooper but with the Medic backpack and arms. I couldn't find the special Imperial Guard Medic Head (you know, the one with the stylized caduceus on the front of the helmet instead of the Imperial Eagle), so I had to resort to a normal Cadian head. Kind of disappointing, that.

Well, if I don't get to finish the Officer of the Fleet by October 20th, then I'll just consider this my submission for TOEMP Challenge #6.

Click here for more pics.

68 - TOEMP Challenge #6 Update II

2009-10-16T01:45:00.007-04:00

Again, to keep myself motivated, I thought I'd post what I've managed to complete for Challenge #6 up to this point. From left to right, we have: the Bodyguard, the Vox-Caster, the Company Commander, and the Plasma Gunner.

The Bodyguard is essentially a Catachan model with a Cadian torso and painted Cadian colors. Fluff-wise, I figured it would make sense that the bodyguard for a commander would come from a more "elite" fighting force. And it just so happened that the bits of Catachan troopers I had in my bits box allowed me to configure the model with equipment that the Bodyguard read-out allowed - close combat weapon and frag grenade.

The Vox-Caster is pretty much standard Command Squad kit parts.

The Company Commander, as I mentioned in the previous post, sports arms and shoulder pads taken from the Hellhound Tank Commander. I like how he turned out, although the Badab Black wash I added to his greatcoat to give it some dimension was probably slathered on too thickly. I very likely will have to go back over it with another highlight.

The Melta Gunner has arms from a Catachan trooper (again, as mentioned in the previous post). He was actually the toughest model to put together because I was having a hell of a time trying to find the proper left-right arm combinations for him. I was trying desperately to avoid giving him a pointing right arm since not only is my Company Commander pointing at something, but so is my Officer of the Fleet (not yet painted). I don't think seeing 3 different members of your Command Squad pointing in 3 different directions while screaming their heads off would give your rank and file troops all that much confidence that your HQ knows just what the feck it's doing.

Okay, back to the painting station to muster the motivation to finish the last 3 (4, if I decide to paint up the converted Lord Commissar) members of the Company Command Squad by October 20th.

Click here for more pics.

67 - TOEMP Challenge #6 Update

2009-10-11T21:22:00.006-04:00

Here's an update as to how my sixth TOEMP challenge is coming along. My GRE Subject Test was this Saturday, and now with it out of the way, I've allowed myself to relax a bit over the weekend by working on the hobby. For Challenge #6, I've chosen to do a full Company Command Squad for my Imperial Guard army. One of the extra requirements for Challenge #6 is to perform as many conversions as possible to your models, but as you can see from these pictures, I don't think I've fully embraced that particular requirement. You see, I'm still a wimp when it comes to green stuff. All I've yet used it for is to fill gaps in models and vehicles and while I hope to one day be able to fully sculpt detailed conversions with the stuff, that day is most certainly not now. But despite that, I tried to convert this Company Command Squad as much as possible by just swapping pieces here and there.

The picture to the upper left shows the 3 members of the Command Squad that are the farthest along. From left to right: the Plasma Gun Veteran, the Company Commander, and the Vox-Caster. I know it's hard to see, but the Plasma Gun Veteran has Catachan arms and a Space Marine Plasma Gun. I went with the Catachan arms to simulate how laborious it would be to actually operate one of these cumbersome special weapons; sleeves would either just get in the way or not offer enough ventilation from the heat. I had originally intended to make him a Meltagunner, but since meltaguns are at a premium these days (i.e., I had 1 meltagun to spare and I plan on using it with my Space Marines), I settled on a plasma gun. It works out, really, since with the Medic in the Command Squad, that gives me an additional layer of protection against overheating. The Vox-Caster is pretty much standard; I think the only change I made on him was to use a Heavy Weapons kneeling legs bit on him, but aside from that, everything else is straight out of the Command Squad kit.

The Commander pictured to the right is coming along rather swimmingly, I think. His head, torso and legs are from the Command Squad kit, but his arms (and molded shoulder pads) are from a Hellhound officer and the sword attached around his waist is from a WFB Bretonnian kit. I was actually a bit stumped as to what color to paint his greatcoat. I didn't want to go with Hunter Green because it seemed a bit "blah." I didn't want to keep it Black either or to paint it a brigher primary color like Blue. So I tried out Dolphin Gray and was pleasantly surprised with how well it turned out. He still needs another layer of basecoat, a wash, and some highlighting, but overall, I'm pretty pleased with him. (And he didn't take all that long to do either! The giant surface of the greatcoat really helped speed him along.)

The final picture (to the bottom left) is of the 3 other Command Squad members I plan on painting up. From left to right: the Bodyguard, the Regimental Standard Bearer, and the Officer of the Fleet. The Bodyguard is essentially a Catachan guardsman while the Regimental Standard Bearer uses parts straight from the Command Squad kit. The Officer of the Fleet, however, is a full conversion. I'm pretty proud of him. His torso is from a Baneblade Tank Commander. I carefully cut the tank hatch surrounding the bottom of his greatcoat away, then attached Cadian legs I cut off at the knees. This part worked out more seamlessly than I expected. The rest of him is a mixture of Shock Troop, Command Squad, and Baneblade Tank Commander bits with another Bretonnian sword strapped to his waist. At first, I was about to make him the Master of Ordnance, but I actually have a Hellhound Tank Commander laying around that I plan to convert into the Master of Ordnance using the same technique I applied to turn the Baneblade Tank Commander into an Officer of the Fleet.

Not shown in the pics is the Medic (primarily because he's unchanged from the standard medic that comes in the Command Squad kit). I also desperately want to put together an Astropath but I'm having a hard time finding the proper bits to convert one. I have a Reaper Miniature that I think could work as an Astropath, but he's a tad too big, scale-wise, to fit with the rest of the Command Squad models.

66 - TOEMP Challenge #5 Finally Finished!

2009-10-07T22:13:00.006-04:00

5 days past the deadline, 3 days past when I wanted to finish them by, but here they are - my Vampire Counts Skeleton Warriors command group. Almost zero highlighting done on them, but overall, I'm glad I took my time with them. Usually, I consider painting skellie models kind of a mindless activity - you know, just basecoat in White or Ivory depending on the look you're after, then wash in Devlan Mud or Badab Black and, voila!, you're done. But these 3 command group fellas (or at least the Champion and the Standard Bearer - the musician was kind of simple) had plenty of fun fiddly bits to fuss over.

All 3 Skeletons are, again, a mixture of Vampire Counts and Tomb Kings. The Musician, for instance, is basically a Tomb Kings Skeleton with a Vampire Counts shield; the Champion is a Vampire Counts torso, head, and swordarm on Tomb Kings legs; and the Standard Bearer is essentially a Vampire Counts Skeleton holding a Tomb Kings standard pole with a Vampire Counts banner affixed to it. Even though the primary reason for all this mixing and matching is one of necessity, I'm actually digging it. It gives the models a bit of a different look compared to if I had just used all Vampire Counts parts.

By the way - the piles of skulls and tombstones in the background are actually extremely cheap yet nicely detailed and pre-painted bits I found at my local Michael's craft store. They were selling them for Halloween dioramas, and they were exceptionally cheap - about $1.99 each for a pack of 6 skulls and 6 tombstones. They're also just the right size - well, the skulls are a bit big, but not strangely so. I also changed the background color for these pics, swapping out the powder blue for a light purple. Overall, these 2 minor changes to my usual light box set-up added nicely to the models, I think.

Okay, so TOEMP points wise, here's the rundown:

7 Foot Sloggers = 7 points (even though my previous rank and file Vampire Counts posting had 7 skellies, only 4 of them were newly painted)
Missing Deadline = -3 points

I wonder if the Standard counts as an Icon/ Symbol or Mark? Well, either way, it wouldn't really change my tally all that much. Grand total? 4 frikkin' points! Whoohoo! I'm livin' the high life now, baby!

Well, my GRE test is this Saturday, and after it's over and done with, I think I'll have time over the remainder of the weekend to start in on my TOEMP Challenge #6 committment. I'm going to paint up an Imperial Guard Company Squad, I think, composed of a Company Commander converted from the Baneblade Tank Commander, a Company Standard Bearer, a Vox-Caster, a Medic, and I really would like to put together a Meltagunner and a heavily converted Bodyguard, but I'll have to see if I have the parts and the inspiration and the time laying around somewhere this weekend.

Click here for more pics.

65 - TOEMP Challenge #5 Almost Completed

2009-10-02T02:05:00.001-04:00

Since I've discovered that blogging does help me stay motivated, hobby-wise, I figured I might as well throw up a post showing how far I've gotten with TOEMP's Challenge #5. The main option for the fifth challenge was to paint up a heavy support unit, but since the only heavy support unit I have in my collection is a Land Raider which I've yet to muster the courage to tackle, I decided to go the alternate route and paint up 60 points of Troops. My initial plan was to paint 10 Vampire Counts Skeleton Warriors with a full command, but due to time constraints, I paired that back to 4 new rank and file Skeleton Warriors plus full command. (I already had 3 Skeleton Warriors painted up, so I figured painting up 7 more would give me 10 - halfway to my planned 20 man block of Skeletal Spearmen for my Vampire Counts army.) Well, even that proved a bit daunting because as of October 2 (the deadline), I've only managed to paint up the 4 rank and file skellies while the musician, the standard bearer and the champion languish at my painting station. Oh, well...the best laid plans and all that.

So, here they are. The four up front are my newly painted skellies while the ones in back were previously painted. The eagle-eyed among you will notice that I've mixed and matched Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts parts for my Skeletons. This is because prior to committing to a Vampire Counts army, I was toying around with the idea of a Tomb Kings army, going so far as to buy a box of Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors and a box of Skeletal Horsemen. When I finally did decide to go Vampire Counts instead, I picked up some bits off of eBay and went about converting the Tomb Kings models into Vampire Counts models. I'm pretty satisfied with the results, although converting one type of skeletal footsoldier over to another isn't really all that difficult. I think the real challenge is going to come from converting the Tomb Kings Horsemen into Vampire Counts Black Knights.

Of the previously painted skeletons in the back of the pictures, I had to make some minor alterations to them in order to better fit them into my army list. I originally had assembled them with hand weapons, but I then decided that I wanted my Skeleton Warriors to have spears. So, I tore the weapon arms off of 2 of the Skeletons, trimmed the area around their shoulder joint, then glued spear arms onto them and re-painted the area.

Well, I very likely won't make the deadline again. I very much want to take my time with the command portion of this Skeleton mob, but who knows? I do have a day off tomorrow...

64 - Much Belated TOEMP Challenge #4 Completed!

2009-09-27T21:42:00.008-04:00

Well, how long has it been since my last post involving miniatures? Over 3 weeks, you say? Sorry about that, friends. Real life has utterly and completely ambushed me since the start of September. Not only has work begun in earnest after the end of summer break but I'm also knee-deep in the application process for Doctoral English Literature programs. If accepted to any of the 4 programs I am applying to, then I will begin my doctoral studies in the Fall of 2010. But in the meantime, I've got academic recommendations to lock down, Statements of Purpose to write, and (the biggie) a GRE Subject Test in English Literature to prepare for in early October. In other words...swamped.

I'd really like to apologize to the rest of my fellow bloggers who are involved in the TOEMP challenges. Sorry for being incognito these past 2 challenges and for not being very responsive during the email chats. I can't promise that real life is going to let up anytime soon, but I'll definitely try to regain a routine in regards to my miniature hobby. We'll see.

So, with that out of the way, here are the 3 Imperial Guard Cadian Heavy Weapons Teams I promised to complete for Challenge #3. Interestingly enough, the first 2 teams (a lascannon and a heavy bolter) were both done 2 or so days before the Challenge #3 deadline and the final team (the 2nd lascannon) was about half-way done. I was actually pretty certain I'd make the deadline. And then...real life. Well, I can't quite remember the deadline for Challenge #3, but I think I'm about 2 weeks past due. The picture to the upper left of the post is of the 1st lascannon team. If any of you have seen a very early post I put up of the lascannon team for my Veterans Squad, then you'll recognize that I've repeated the mixing and matching of Cadian and Catachan parts for the crewmen. There are 2 reasons why I do this: 1) I just don't have enough dedicated Cadian Heavy Weapons kits to make the quantity of Heavy Weapons I need for my planned army, and 2) I kind of imagine Heavy Weapons Teams being a bit more loosey-goosey with dress regulations due to the labor-intensive nature of operating the weapons.

The second picture to the right is of the heavy bolter team. The gun shield wouldn't fit properly, so I just left it off. Personally, I think it looks better that way, more like a Vietnam era M60 general purpose machine gun. The final picture to the bottom left is of the 2nd lascannon team.

Total Points earned for this challenge:

3 Heavy Weapons Teams + 6 points (I'm trying to push for including these models in the cavalry/ bikes category rather than the foot sloggers seeing as how each model consists of 2 crewmen plus a heavy weapon)
Eyes/ Lenses + 6 points
Missing Deadline - 3 points
Total: 9 points

For the 5th Challenge, I'm going to try to get 10 Vampire Counts Skeleton Spearmen painted up. Again, I very likely won't make the deadline, but I'm going to keep keepin' on.

63 - Remembering 9/11

2009-09-11T13:18:00.004-04:00

As a life-long New Yorker, I'd just like to take the time today to remember September 11, 2001. No politics in this post; this is neither the time nor the place for that sort of thing. Just a moment to remember what the city was like when the Twin Towers still stood. Being a life-long New Yorker, I think I'd only actually been to the Towers once or twice, usually to accompany relatives visiting from other states or countries. You see, as a New Yorker, you live with these great monuments on a daily basis, so they kind of recede into the background of your mind. It's not that you don't love them or treasure them or aren't in awe of them. You are. It's just that you're more like the proud parent in regards to places like the Twin Towers or the Empire State building or the Statue of Liberty - you want to show them off to friends, family, and strangers, but when the hubbub dies down and the pictures have all been snapped, they return to being those silent, comforting presences that remind you of where you are, who you are.

Note: comments are welcome, but please make them non-political. Thanks.

62 - TOEMP Challenge #4

2009-09-07T00:30:00.001-04:00

The TOEMP Bloggers have received their latest assignment! For Challenge #4, we are given free reign to paint up 60+ Codex/ Army Book points worth of any models we choose. Afterwards, we are then required to write up a short piece explaining why we chose said models (e.g., to work towards finishing an army, because said models have been sitting on our workshelves giving us a guilt trip for oh so many months, because we were particularly intrigued by the look and character of said models, etc.). Perfect challenge to not only keep us all painting but also to give us something to write about on our blogs!

I've decided to continue chipping away at my Imperial Guard army by painting up a Heavy Weapons Squad (2 lascannons and a heavy bolter). Working on the Sentinel kind of got me in the mood for working on characterful and evocative bases that told little stories, so that's what I'm going to try to do with these 3 Heavy Weapons Teams. I'll probably continue with the tale I began with the Sentinel by sprinkling Chaos Space Marines (or at least their body parts, all hail the Emperor! mwahahaha!) throughout the 60mm bases.

The deadline for Challenge #4 is September 16. Plenty of time!

61 - TOEMP Challenge #3 Completed!

2009-09-05T15:47:00.008-04:00

Thank goodness for holiday weekends! Starting the night before, I basically embarked on a marathon session to finish up the Khorne Bezerker and the base elements. Finally, I managed to put it all together around 4 PM Saturday.

The Bezerker is extremely rough, but since the Sentinel is supposed to be the focus for this piece, I'm okay with it. My strategy for painting the Bezerker was to basically make sure the Opaque Red basecoat was applied as smoothly as possible, and then to use the Antique Gold to quickly pick out some details here and there. I relied very heavily on Citadel washes to cover mistakes and provide some depth and shading on the Bezerker.

For the base, I decided against using the dozer blade from the Chaos Rhino as a fence due to its size. Instead, I replaced it with two smaller spikey bits from the Chaos Rhino sprue. The smaller one of the two I kept upright, but the larger one I placed laying down on the ground to simulate the violent onslaught of the Sentinel. Also scattered about the base are two hound head statues also from the Chaos Rhino kit, some moss, talus, and broken off cork bits.

So, scoring-wise, here are the points breakdown for completing this 3rd TOEMP challenge:

Foot Slogger - 1 pt.
Walker - 5 pts.
Walker Details (Hunter-Killer Missile, Plasma Cannon) - 5 pts.; not sure if this is what is meant by "accessories"
Meeting Deadline - 2 pts.
Beating Deadline by More Than 24 Hours - 2 pts.
Adding Extra Detail to Base - 5 pts.

For a total of 20 pts.

Overall, this particular challenge was a lot of fun. Obviously, real life interruptions forced me to rush a bit near the end, but I still feel the end result was acceptable. I eagerly await the next challenge in the Tale of Even More Painters!

Please click here for more pics.

60 - TOEMP Challenge #3 Update

2009-09-04T02:20:00.005-04:00

Unfortunately, real life over the past couple of days interfered with my painting schedule. I had originally intended to finish the Sentinel a day or two ago, but it's taken me until today to finally get it done. It's still not 100% complete though. I still need to thoroughly highlight it and get more coverage on the Hunter-Killer Missile before I'd officially call it done.

Overall, though, I like it. It was much harder to paint than I expected, but I think I slowed myself down by making some first-time mistakes that I hopefully will not duplicate. Some things I learned:

1) Prime a vehicle in the predominant color of the basecoat. In this instance, I should've primed the sentinel in Hunter Green instead of Black. I could've then gone over the parts I planned on painting in another color in Black, if I wished. Priming it in Black, on the other hand, forced me to spend way too much time applying the Hunter Green basecoat.

2) Don't bother painting the interior of a vehicle that will not ever see the light of day. With this Sentinel, since I glued the top of the cabin down, the few hours I spent painting the interior and the pilot kind of went to waste. I mean, yes, you can sort of see the pilot through the viewing hatches in front, but the rest of the interior of the cabin is basically invisible. At most, I'd paint the pilot and leave it at that. However, for vehicles where the interior can be seen by opening a hatch or a door, then I'll still go ahead and paint it up.

3) Make sure to use the right pieces when putting the vehicle together! This was just me being distracted and unobservant. For the cabin of the Sentinel, before I knew it, I had glued the open-topped side panels onto the cabin frame instead of the armored side panels. As a result, the top hatch wouldn't fit neatly onto the cabin. I had to resort to doing some cutting with my hobby knife and then filling in the gaps along the sides with greenstuff. I'm actually pretty happy with the greenstuffing (on top of this being my first attempt at putting together a vehicle, it was also my first attempt at using greenstuff to fill gaps and make corrections). Up close, it looks obvious I greenstuffed, but from a reasonable distance, the greenstuff appears pretty seamless.

All of these 3 mistakes cost me a lot of time and motivation. While I enjoyed working around these issues, they also tested my patience with the model, and that's not a good way to maintain interest in something.

Well, I've got roughly 2 more days to finish the rest of the base (the Khorne Bezerker and some sort of barrier to simulate a defensive position) if I want to complete this challenge 24 hours before the Sunday deadline. It's Labor Day weekend in America, and my wife and I don't have anything planned (except possibly watching "Inglourious Basterds" on Saturday or Sunday), so I should have plenty of time.

59 - TOEMP Challenge #3 WIP

2009-08-29T20:51:00.005-04:00

So, the third challenge in A Tale of Even More Painters is to either paint up a Special Character (plus retinue, if applicable) while writing up a data sheet for him/ her, or alternatively, to paint up a Fast Attack/ Special Unit with extra points being awarded for creative basing.

I decided to go with an Imperial Guard Cadian Armored Sentinel. I could've chosen to paint up a Space Marine Captain with Command Squad, but at this point, I'm so sick of basecoating red that I thought, for sanity's sake, it was best to move on to another color scheme for the time being. The Sentinel is going to be exciting to do for a couple of reasons:

1) It's the first vehicle I'll ever be assembling and painting.

2) I love decorative bases, so this challenge is right up my alley.

3) It's been almost 2 months since I've added anything to my Imperial Guard army.

I've included some work in progress pics of what I have in mind for the Sentinel. Basically, it's a mini-diorama depicting the Sentinel about to crash through the front lines of a Chaos Space Marine defensive position. At the moment, only the Sentinel has been glued to the base. I'll be painting it up first before I add the fence and the Khorne Bezerker. The fence comes from a Chaos Rhino, I believe. I think it's part of the Rhino's dozer blade. I'll very likely also be adding rocks and rubble and shrubbery and such stuff as finishing touches.

I honestly can't wait to start painting this sucker up. Hopefully, under the deadline (Sept. 6th) as well.

58 - Update on TOEMP Challenge #2 Entry

2009-08-27T16:55:00.009-04:00

Here I present to you my official Challenge #2 submission. Not a big difference from the original entry in post 56, but a bit more characterful, in my opinion.

Since I had 2 days or so until the end of the official deadline (August 27), I decided to revisit my Blood Ravens Terminators. I was always disappointed with how uniform the Black Reach Terminators looked - pretty much every Termie was armed in exactly the same way and posed in exactly the same position. Due to this, the painting process for these 4 models was a bit boring. (Add in the sheer drudgery of trying to achieve a decent level of coverage of red paint over black primer, and the monotony became almost intolerable.) So, I rummaged through my bits boxes and stumbled upon some Chaos Terminator doodads that I thought might just do the trick of personalizing my Terminators just a little bit. I also took the time to go over some rough spots with more paint (primarily the helmets to achieve a brighter white than I had earlier) as well as give the heraldic shields near their left shoulder pads a Devlan Mud wash to add a little bit of depth. (Thanks, Gregory, for the catch and the tip on that one!)

Some might say that adding Chaos bits to Loyalist Marines goes against the fluff, and I can understand that point of view. However, if one reads the Blood Ravens fluff closely, one will notice that this particular Chapter of Space Marines has very close and ominous ties to the forces of Chaos. For instance, out of all of the Space Marine Chapters, the Blood Ravens are the ones most at ease with employing psykers - they have a higher percentage of Librarians within their ranks than other Chapters. There is also the 5th Company of the Blood Ravens (known as the "Fated Fifth") which disappeared into the Warp, the rumor being that they were corrupted by a renegade Librarian within their midsts. Now, the current members of the 5th Company wear badges of penitence and shame upon their armor, although the reasons for doing so are never spoken of. Finally, there are many hinted at connections between the Blood Ravens and corrupted legions such as the Word Bearers and the Thousand Sons. Thus, I think it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for the Blood Ravens to festoon their armor with "Chaos-y" regalia - not out of an attempt at becoming Chaos, but more due to the Chapter's willingness to dance with the dark side. Plus, at the end of the day, the spikes I added to the Terminators are just spikes, right? I purposefully avoided anything that might be too Chaos-influenced (like symbols of the Four Powers or the Chaos Undivided star or trophies that used actual Space Marine heads or body parts, etc.). Why would it be considered beyond the pale for elite fighters such as these to decorate themselves with icons that might strike fear into the hearts of their enemies?

Because of this new submission, my Points Total for Challenge #2 is now:

Foot Sloggers - 10 points
Lenses/ Eyes - 5 Points
Meet Deadline - 2 points

For a total of 17 points.

As usual, click here for more pics.

UPDATE: I was just informed by 73rd that models on 40mm bases count as 2 pts. per model, so the total points for my Blood Ravens Terminators just went up by 5! Woot! The original post was edited to reflect this change.

57 - TOEMP Challenge #2 Is Complete!

2009-08-25T17:42:00.009-04:00

5 Blood Ravens Terminators coming right atcha! Some definite problems with them, but overall, I'm satisfied, not least because I managed to beat the deadline by about 2 days. In all honesty, I have to admit that I started to lose interest in painting up these Terminators about a day ago and was kind of just rushing through the finishing touches. Thus, they have plenty of issues I'm unhappy with - for instance, some of their helmets aren't as uniformly white as I'd like; I didn't really feel like properly bringing the Opaque Red basecoat back up after the wash step; and I hardly did any highlighting at all.

The most glaring things missing from the models are the freehand Chapter symbols and heraldic markings I originally wanted to paint onto the right shoulder pads and the small shields near the left shoulder pads. I did try to freehand the Blood Ravens symbol onto one shoulder pad, but again, the result was so horrifying, I had to get rid of it. I had to admit to myself that at this point in my hobby-life, I have zero ability to freehand. I can barely draw a circle with pencil on a blank piece of paper as it is. I'm going to have to practice freehanding more before giving it another go; in the meantime, I'm going to buy me some water transfer paper and just go with decals.

One more thing - I keep telling myself that when I'm painting a model that's primarily red, I will not prime it in Black. Unfortunately, I forgot my own reminder with these terminators. I think part of the loss of interest I experienced with these models was how frustrating it was getting proper coverage with red acrylic paint over a black undercoat. I think 75% of my time painting these models involved layer after layer of red basecoating. Very boring. Very monotonous. I probably won't prime in white when painting Blood Ravens since their red is more on the dark end of the spectrum. I think I'll experiment with just priming them red from the get-go and see how that works.

Okay, let's tally up the points for these fellows:

5 Foot Sloggers = 5 points
5 Lenses/ Eyes = 5 points
Meeting Deadline = 1 point
Beating Deadline by at least 24 hours = 2 points

So 13 total points (unless I give the freehanding another try hehe). Can't wait for Challenge #3!

Click here for more pics of the Terminators.

56 - TOEMP Challenge #2 WIP (Blood Ravens Terminators)

2009-08-21T17:16:00.009-04:00

Since we received our details for the second challenge 3 days ago, I've progressed rather nicely on my Terminator Squad. The pic on the left shows 2 Terminators from the 5 man squad practically nearing completion. The Termie on the far left is more advanced than the Termie on the right, but both are almost done. A few more basecoats, washes, highlights, and then fancying up the bases a bit are all that's left, really. I have to say, the Terminators have been a bit monotonous. I dunno. Their poses aren't all that different, their battlegear are almost identical, etc. etc. Even standard Space Marines have more customizability. Of course, these are the Termies from the Black Reach set, so lack of customization should be expected. And, yes, I could've performed a few conversions on them myself (such as cut a Termie or two in half and pose their torsos in a different direction), but I was being lazy. I do want to try freehanding the Blood Ravens Chapter logo onto their left shoulder pads and some heraldry onto the small shields near their right shoulders, so that will hopefully boost up the interest level a bit. Or boost up the frustration level considering how abominable my last attempt at freehanding (the banner on the Sternguard conversion) turned out.

The pic to the right presents the 3 remaining Terminators I have left to paint - 2 standard shooty Termies with the Terminator Sergeant in the center. The Terminator Sergeant looks fun, if a bit intimidating. I think I'll either do him next (just to break up the monotony) or save him for last. I'm afraid that if I save him for last, I'll end up rushing to make the deadline, but the advantages of doing him last is that I'll be able to commit all of my painting mistakes on the standard Termies and thus apply the hard-earned wisdom on doing the best job on the Sergeant.

So, 6 days left to essentially paint 3 Terminators. No sweat!

55 - Snakebite Clan Orks 2,505 Points Army List

2009-08-20T01:30:00.005-04:00

My submission for the TOEMP Challenge #2 is coming along nicely. I've decided to paint up a 5 man squad of Blood Ravens Terminators (the shooty kind that came in the Black Reach set). I would've liked to continue building on my Ork army, but it turns out I don't have any Ork Elite or Heavy choices in my current collection! (I've decided to use the 5 Nobz - at least 2 of them - which came with the Black Reach set as leaders for my Ork Boyz mobs, plus 5 Nobz doesn't quite reach the 125 pts. minimum for challenge #2.) Since I've also committed myself to building up a Blood Ravens army, painting up the Terminators works just as well. As an aside - the intended purpose of the TOEMP to get the participating bloggers up and working on their backlogs has been a splendid success, at least for me. I don't think I've ever painted this many models in such a short time before. Before I know it, I'll be able to buy new models again! (Don't think I've forgotten about my committment to the Painting Points system either!)

Since posting will be a bit sporadic due to my focusing on meeting the deadline for Challenge #2 (August 27), I'm going to put up a few army lists over the next week or so just to keep the blog active. So, without further ado, in honor of the 8 Orks I painted up for Challenge #1, here's my Ork army list.

Snakebite Clan Army List - 2,505 Points

Legend:
Completed
Work In Progress
Assembled
On Sprue
Not Owned

HQ - 200 pts.
Warboss attached to Nobz (Elite choice) mounted in a Battlewagon
- power klaw, shoota/ skorcha, boss pole, 'eavy armor

Big Mek
- kustom force field, cybork body, boss pole

Elites - 745 pts.
Nobz (10)
- stikk bombz, 4 big choppas, power klaw, 'eavy armor, Waaagh! banner, Painboy

Lootas (10)

Kommandos (10)
- 2 burnas, Boss Snikrot

Troops - 990 pts.
Ork Boyz (20) x 3
- big shoota, rokkit launcha, Nob w/ big choppa, 'eavy armor, bosspole

Nobz (10)
- stikkbombz, 4 big choppas, power klaw, 'eavy armor, Waaagh! banner, Painboy
- Trukk w/ red paint job, reinforced ram

Deff Dread
- close combat weapon, kustom mega-blasta, armor plates

Fast Attack - 365 pts.
Warbikers (3) x 2
- Nob w/ power klaw, boss pole

Deff Koptas (3)
- 3 twin-linked rokkit launchas

Heavy Support - 200 pts.
Battlewagon
- killkannon, 'ard case, grot riggers, armor plates, wreckin'ball, 2 big shootas

To get to 2,000 pts., minus:
- Deff Koptas
- Deff Dread
- 1 Warbikers Mob
- 5 Kommandos
- wreckin' ball, grot riggers from Battlewagon

54 - TOEMP Challenge #1 Completed!

2009-08-18T12:14:00.012-04:00

Well, I really tried to get this challenge in under the deadline. I had the final 4 Ork models fully basecoated and sitting on my painting table, waiting for me to get home from work. All I had left to do was shading, highlighting, and basing. After dinner and spending some time watching the teevee with the missus, I headed on over to my painting table and got started on finishing the first TOEMP challenge. I thought I'd be able to get these last 3 stages done on each of the remaining 4 models that night because in my experience, the basecoating was the most time/ labor intensive part of the whole process. The shading, highlighting, basing stages were more just polishing up techniques. What I totally forgot to factor in was the time I had to spend waiting for the ink wash or the glue to dry! Because of that, I missed the first deadline by 1 day. I had all of the models washed and based last night, but finished up the highlighting and the photography this morning.

So, here they are - 8 Snakebite Clan Orkz in about 4 days time (for a total of roughly 8-10 hours of actual painting). We have a Nob with a big choppa and 'eavy armor (I didn't have time to put the bosspole on his back), a Big Shoota Boy, and 6 rank and file Boyz all armed with sluggas and choppas. The stage I really skimped on doing was the highlighting stage. At most, I gave each Ork a drybrush across the upraised textures of their skin with Christmas Green lightened with a mix of White. Had I not been under the pressure of a deadline, I probably would have taken the time to highlight more bits and bobs (like their weapons and pants and buckles). Overall, though, I'm pretty happy with them. Putting the last touches on the 4 Orks this morning felt really good. Taking photos of the 8 of them together felt even better. I now officially have a 10 Ork mob at my disposal (counting the first 2 Ork Boyz I painted months ago)!

The challenge was really fun, despite coming during my busiest work week in the summer. By Monday, I had just finished 10 straight days of teaching summer entrance test preparation workshops at a local community college. Still, the painting challenge allowed me to unwind every night in between grading practice tests. So, bring on the next challenge! Keep me motivated!

BTW, this is just a quick post to get my results up. I'll edit this post with a link to my Picasa gallery later in the day after I snap more individual pictures of the Orks.

EDIT: Here's the link to the Ork gallery with more pictures of the Ork Boyz from the TOEMP Challenge #1.

53 - 4 Ork Boyz Done! 4 More to Go! 2 Days Left! (TOEMP Update)

2009-08-15T22:14:00.007-04:00

Just a quick update on the status of my TOEMP challenge #1. The 4 Ork Boyz I posted about yesterday have officially been completed - shaded with washes, highlighted (although not as much as I've recently been doing, solely due to time constraints), and based.

I believe I will take Kuffeh's suggestion in my previous TOEMP Update post and try to extend the choppa on my Black Reach Nob. With that minor conversion, I'll be able to reach the 75+ point threshhold for challenge #1 while shaving 2 models off my to-paint requirement. Now, this little strategery honestly has nothing to do with trying to "win" the challenge or anything quite so unseemly. The Ork army lists I've drawn up have always had the Nobs who lead my Ork Boyz mobs wielding big choppas - due to being a noob, however, I had assumed the Black Reach Nob models were already equipped with big choppas because their close combat weapons looked different (more elaborate) than your typical Ork Boy choppa, but after reading the Ork Codex more closely and searching the web a bit, it turns out big choppas are universally two-handed weapons.

Of course, at this point in the challenge - with 2 days left on the clock - I'm not going to complain too loudly about not having to paint an extra 2 Ork Boyz models hehe.

So, I've got the Nob, the Big Shoota Boy, and 2 remaining rank and file Ork Boyz left. They are primed and I will attempt to put down some basecoats tonight (at the very least, get the skin done). I'm wondering - is there a deadline on Monday for TOEMP submissions, 73rd (of Unforgiven Angels)?

52 - TOEMP Update

2009-08-14T21:30:00.001-04:00

Well, the August 17th deadline is right around the corner, and I've been trying to fit in as much painting time as I can in between work and various social obligations. While it's definitely been a challenge, it has also been a great learning experience. For one, I realized just what a friggin' slow painter I am! I'm about ready to move into the shading, highlighting, and basing stage on the 4 Ork Boyz I started 4 days ago. All told, I've probably put in about 4-6 hours total on these 4 models, a much faster pace than I've managed before. Consequently, the paintjob is a little bit "messier" as well, but I'm pretty satisfied overall with the results.

Up next are the remaining 4 rank and file Ork Boyz. I'm hoping that they'll go much faster since I've learned a few things about speed from these first 4 Ork Boyz. Regardless, even if I manage to finish them in a day or so, that'll leave me with another day or so to finish up the Nob and the Big Shoota - highly unlikely, I'm afraid at this point. I've been toying with the idea of just doing 6 rank and file Boyz plus the Nob and Big Shoota for a combined 73 points (since I already have 2 painted Ork Boyz from earlier to round out this 10 model unit), but that leaves me 2 points short of the stated challenge of 75+ points. I guess I could consider the Choppa the Black Reach Nob I'm painting a counts-as Big Choppa, but I dunno if that would be kosher for this challenge? Better yet, does anyone know if the choppa the Assault on Black Reach Nob model is carrying can legally be considered a Big Choppa under the WYSIWYG rule?

51 - Unforgiven Angels "Tale of Even More Painters"

2009-08-10T00:20:00.002-04:00

I've decided to participate in Unforgiven Angels "Tale of Even More Painters" (TOEMP) painting challenge. In a nutshell, it's a group of bloggers coming together to support and motivate each other to accomplish various painting goals within established deadlines. The deadlines are about 10 days apart (with the first one coming on August 17), and the challenges, I expect, will get progressively more difficult as things go along. While there are nominally "prizes" (e.g. digital trophies to be displayed on your blog for best all-around job done for a given challenge), I'm mostly interested in participating in TOEMP as a motivational tool. I've got quite a hefty backlog of miniatures sitting forlornly on their sprues, and I've promised myself, my wife, and my wallet that I'd forge my way through that backlog before purchasing any more miniatures. So, for all of you out there who have blogs and are looking for a motivational way to help you work through Miniature Backlog Syndrome, then I heartily suggest you join us in TOEMP! Together, we will conquer this mountain of textured and shaped plastic!

Now, let me give you a quick peek at what Challenge #1 entails for TOEMP:

Due August 17th, the bloggers committed to TOEMP must paint up at least 75 points worth of Warhammer 40k or Warhammer FB miniatures. (Epic 40k miniature painters must paint up at least 150 points worth.) The points are determined by the point cost of the models in their respective army books (i.e., not based on painting points). Thus, I've decided to make a dent in the Ork army I've been planning by painting up 85 points worth of Ork Boyz. In the most general language possible, this means 9 rank and file Ork Boyz with 1 big shoota between them and 1 Nob with 'eavy armor and a bosspole. (Hopefully that's vague enough to not get me into trouble.) For a more in-depth look at the rules and guidelines for Unforgiven Angels' TOEMP challenge, just click the link all the way at the beginning of this post and follow the instructions on that page.

Wish me luck! I've got 8 days to paint up 10 models - a faster pace than I've ever managed. I obviously still want to maintain some level of quality but I really do want to try my best at meeting this deadline. I already have 4 Ork Boyz lined up at my workstation, and tonight, I will start basecoating their skin and maybe more.

50 - The Big 5-0!

2009-08-07T17:27:00.011-04:00

It's been almost exactly 5 months since I started this blog, and more than 9 months since I picked up this hobby in earnest. I still remember the first 2 miniatures I painted - a metal Star Wars female smuggler figure which came with the Star Wars Galaxies Collector's Edition box which I've had in my possession for, oh, 6 years now, but never actually did anything with, and a plastic Lord Recluse figure which was packaged with the City of Villains game. At that time, I knew nothing about thinning paint, I had the brush control of an 8 year old boy loaded up on Jolt! cola, and techniques such as drybrushing or using ink washes to supply depth to the figures were foreign to me. Needless to say, those 2 figures were put out of their misery.

After those 2 kinda miniatures, the first legitimate miniatures I actually purchased were 2 Games Workshop Warhammer Fantasy Battle figures - an Empire Templar Grand Master of the Blazing Sun and a Sigmarite Warrior Priest. I bought both figures working under the assumption that I'd give this hobby a try by painting up some individual miniatures rather than to invest in a regiment box only to discover I really didn't have any interest and thus waste 10 or 20 figures as a result. Boy, was I wrong. For anybody out there who is curious about entering this hobby, but not sure how to start, let me advise you from experience - do not start your painting hobby with Special/ Independent Characters. They are designed and sculpted for more experienced painters. I almost drove myself insane trying to figure out how to properly paint all the fiddly bits and varied textures of the Templar Grand Master. The Warrior Priest was less intimidating, but I still had to make 5 or so attempts at painting him before I was even semi-satisfied in the result. The Grand Master, on the other hand, is still sitting unpainted on my workshelf after having gone into the Simple Green wash for the 4th time about 2-3 months ago. I'm almost convinced that had I started with, say, a simple Empire State Troops box, my early experiences with this hobby would be far less frustrating.

Well, after those first 2 disastrous attempts at Games Workshops figures, I decided to switch over to Reaper Miniatures for a couple of reasons - 1) since my painting skill was nowhere near the level required to properly paint those 2 Independent Characters, wasting GW level money on anymore figures (or even troop boxes) seemed irresponsible, and 2) Reaper's price point was right up my alley and I could buy 1 or 2 at a time rather than commit to 10-20 figures at a time. So, from early January to late February, I invested in about 20 Reaper Miniatures. At roughly $3 per figure, it seemed like a reasonable investment over the span of two months. For anyone interested in Reaper (which I highly suggest - they may not be Warhammer legal miniatures for table top gaming, but as hobby miniatures they are affordable and of an excellent quality), I'd suggest two on-line retailers for good service and excellent discounts - Miniature-Giant and Miniature Market.

This is not to say I did any better with Reaper Miniatures in terms of painting quality, but at least I wasn't feeling guilty about slapping on thick layers of paint on $15 figures. For me, Reaper's line of miniatures were my apprenticeship in this hobby. They allowed me to work on brush control and painting in thin layers, and because they're metal, allowed me to dunk them many, many times into Simple Green without fear of the cleaning solution melting or warping the figures.

The next step in my slow descent into the insanity of addiction in regards to little miniature figures was when I discovered the absolute steals and bargains one could find on eBay. Of course, eBay is far riskier than buying it from a dedicated retailer, and often in order to get the really, really good deals, you have to purchase the sprues without the box (in order to cut down on shipping, apparently), a careful and cautious approach to eBay has pretty much allowed me to to accumulate almost $2000 worth of miniatures at practically 50% the cost. Granted, because eBay offers so many bargains, I also ended up buying much more indiscriminately than I would have had I only had a 20%-30% discount available to me, so the amount saved was kind of rendered moot by the quantity purchased. As for eBay dealers who I've found to be excellent sellers with large inventories and A+ customer service, I'd recommend Discount Games Store, MacPac51, and Wizard Games (also known as Red Dragon Games). I'm sort of reluctant to give shout outs to these guys (especially the first two since they also offer free shipping!) because the last thing I want to do is have more people bidding on their auctions and thus lose out on some of the more incredible bargains available!

Well, this about wraps up post number 50. I've noticed that traditionally, most blogs devote a retrospective to their 50th post, so here you have it. Post 51 will be coming fast on the heels of this one because I've decided to participate in a cooperative painter's contest that Admiral Drax blogged about and I want to tell you my plans for it! See you soon and thanks for visiting.

49 - Tau Empire Kroot Carnivore

2009-08-07T00:41:00.003-04:00

I must say, this Kroot Carnivore model has been one of the most enjoyable miniatures I've painted thus far. It almost makes me want to collect a Tau Army, but since I've already committed to 3 for sure (IG, Loyalist SM, and Ork) based solely on the fact that I have the most of those 3 factions (primarily because of the Black Reach set), and I really, really want to paint up some Tyranids (which would make 4 armies), I don't think I'll have the resources to add a 5th 40k army. Or at least that's what my wife tells me. Well, "tell" probably doesn't quite capture the impending violence in her voice - "commands" is probably the better word!

Why was this model a blast to paint? Let me count the ways:

1) The large expanse of alien skin texture prompted me to experiment in glazing, or at least what I understand to be glazing. Basically, I basecoated Hippo Gray over a Black undercoat. I then added 2-3 layers of thinned Bridge Gray (a much lighter version of gray than Hippo Gray) over the basecoat before washing the whole thing in Asurmen Blue. I followed up by applying another 2-3 very watered down layers of light skin tone (almost Elf Flesh in color) across the elevated areas of the skin before washing it again with Ogryn Flesh. The final step was to take that same light skin tone and give it a light drybrush across the uppermost portions of the skin. The result is something I'm pretty happy with. The depth of the many layers of color playing across the rough textures of the model's skin doesn't quite show up in the photographs, but in person, it almost looks like the Kroot's skin is both incandescent and like worn leather all at the time same time.

2) I also tried out some blending techniques on the Kroot's crown of quills, and again, I like how it turned out. I first basecoated the quills with medium skin tone, washed it with Devlan Mud to deepen the shadows, then brought the skin tone back up. After that, I gave it another wash, this time liberally with Baal Red, and drybrushed Opaque Red along the tips before the wash dried. The wetness of the wash combined with the little bit of Opaque Red acrylic paint allowed me to create that blending effect along the quills.

3) Finally, the assorted bits and bobs that came on the Kroot sprue makes it very easy to personalize these guys. The Kroot fluff also lends itself to plenty of opportunities for conversion. In fact, since I no longer plan on making a full Chaos Space Marine army, I think I'll be incorporating some CSM bits into any future Kroot I assemble. Maybe a CSM shoulder pad here, a CSM chest piece there, etc. to reflect the scavenging/ mercenary ways of the Kroot.

Right now, I guess it's a toss-up between the Tyranids and the Tau Empire as my 4th 40k army. I have some Gaunt and Genestealer sprues laying around, so I'll paint one or two of them up while also painting up a Tau Fire Warrior, and then compare the level of enjoyment I had painting each army's rank and file troops before deciding for sure.

But what I really have lined up next are 3 miniatures I've been eyeing for awhile now - an Imperial Guard Platoon Command Squad Lieutenant, a Bretonnian Man-at-Arms, and a High Elf Spearman. They've all been partially assembled and primed. Stay tuned!

Please click here for more pics of the Kroot Carnivore.

48 - Skaven Plague Monk

2009-08-06T00:13:00.001-04:00

Finally! A post about a finished miniature! This is part 3 of my also-rans series (i.e., the models which finished far behind in the tutorial poll to the Blood Ravens Sternguard) - a Skaven Plague Monk. A pleasure to paint, really, but a bit limited in terms of possibilities for creativity or for experimenting with different techniques. Pretty much a straight forward paint job - although at this point, I'm incorporating highlights much more into my regular painting regimen.

Zero conversions on this little guy - all of his parts are 100% from the Plague Monks sprue. I did drop him on the floor about 3/4s of the way through painting him (much cursing and frothing at the mouth ensued) which required me to glue his flail (or is that a plague censer?) back together about 1/4th of the way up the chain - note the mishapen section of plastic there. Good thing he's a Skaven Plague Monk. I can just explain that the unsightly bit is the result of the filth and rot that Plague Monks revel in, etc. etc.

For his robe, I used Hippo Gray (which is a very dark gray - the first couple of layers barely stood out from the Black undercoat), washed it with Badab Black, brought it back up with more Hippo Gray, then highlighted it with Bridge Gray along the edges and upraised parts. The hood and mantle were done in Burnt Umber, washed with Badab Black, brought back up with Burnt Umber, then highlighted along the edges with Autumn Brown. His skin (face and hands) were done in Skintone then given a controlled wash with Devlan Mud. I wanted to achieve an animalistic color to the skin so I didn't bother to bring the stained basecolor back up with more Skintone. Finally, his weapons were basecoated with Bridge Gray, then given a very thin glaze (I believe that's the term - I watered down the acrylic paint to the point of wash consistency) or two of Red Iron Oxide in order to give it that rusted appearance. I finished it by washing it with Badab Black and highlighting it slightly with Bridge Gray.

For more pics of the little guy, click here.

47 - Blood Ravens 2,500 Points Army List

2009-08-05T00:49:00.004-04:00

Still working on the Kroot Carnivore and the Skaven Plague Monk. I'm pretty much just highlighting them and putting the finishing touches here and there, then they'll be ready to be photographed. ETA a day or so.

Meanwhile...here's another army list! Again, I'm mostly doing this for housecleaning reasons - I tidied up the sidebar by removing the full army lists and instead replacing them with a linked Army Lists Archive. But the only way (as far as I know) to create a link is to actually publish a post on the blog. I realize I could've backdated the posts, but since my blog's been a little quiet while in the aftermath of the Sternguard tutorial, I figure might as well pick up the slack with some hobby related posts.

So, without further ado...

Blood Ravens Army List - 2500 points

Legend:

Completed
Work In Progress
Assembled
On Sprue
Not Owned

HQ - 445 pts.

Captain
- power sword, boltgun

- Razorback

Command Squad
- apothecary, company standard, champion, meltagun, plasma gun

Librarian (attached to Terminator Squad)

- terminator armor, stormbolter, Null Zone, the Avenger

Troops - 565 pts.

Tactical Squad (10)
- meltagun, multi-melta, sergeant w/ power fist

- Rhino

Tactical Squad (10)
- missile launcher, lascannon, sergeant w/ power weapon

- Rhino

Scout Squad (5)
- 4 sniper rifles, heavy bolter, camo cloaks

Elites - 595 pts.

Terminator Squad (5)
- assault cannon

- Drop Pod

Sternguard Veteran Squad (5)
- heavy bolter, plasma cannon, sergeant w/ power fist

Dreadnought

- heavy flamer, extra armor

- Drop Pod

Fast Attack - 450 pts.
Assault Squad (10)
- 2 flamers, sergeant w/ combat shield & lightning claw

Land Speeder Squadron (2)

Space Marine Bike Squad (3)

- sergeant w/ power weapon
- biker w/ meltagun

- biker w/ flamer

Heavy Support - 445 pts.
Land Raider
- multi-melta

Predator

Vindicator

- siege shield

To get to 2000 pts., minus:

- Predator

- Sternguard

- Drop Pods

- Land Speeders

- Scouts
- Flamer from Space Marine Bikers

Again, all comments, criticisms, advice, etc. are welcome.

46 - Imperial Guard Cadian 265th Regiment 2,500 Points Army List

2009-08-04T01:32:00.009-04:00

Even though I don't see myself playing a game in the near future (due to work and family life conspiring to strip me of any free time other than the late-night painting/ hobby sessions I can scavenge up), I've found that drawing up army lists can be a productive thing for hobbyists for a couple of reasons:

1) An army list can serve as a very focused shopping list for hobbyists who find themselves buying kits and models without any kind of rhyme or reason (guilty as charged). Not only can that sort of buying habit be expensive but it can also result in miniatures languishing on sprues many months later because you honestly have no idea why you even bought them in the first place. But if those miniatures are part of an army you're constructing...well, that's your motivation right there.

2) An army list can help you build up momentum and maintain motivation for painting. Sometimes painting one miniature here, one miniature there can result in the desire to paint kind of petering out and dissipating. But if you're able to see a mob of 30 Ork Boyz slowly appearing before your eyes, or a full regiment of 20 Empire State Troops all resplendent in their colorful uniforms and heraldry lined up in neat blocks on your hobby shelf, the grandeur of it all might possibly make you want to add to it. In other words, using large, organized units of miniatures to get you motivated is like that social psychology experiment they ran many years back: when the researchers had just 1 or 2 people stop and start staring up at nothing in particular on a busy city street, none of the passing pedestrians bothered to see what they were staring at. But when the researchers had 5 or 10 people stop and stare up at the sky, suddenly almost every passing pedestrian would also stop and see what was going on. It's the power of numbers reaching a critical mass.

3) Army lists are just fun to put together and as a result, the very act of doing something fun that's hobby related helps to maintain your interest in the hobby as a whole.

Now with the preamble out of the way, here is the Imperial Guard Army List I've been messing around with for the past couple of months. Rather than keeping it posted up on the sidebar, taking up space and cluttering the page, I'm going to publish it as a post, and then create a nice, tidy link on the sidebar instead. In the future, all of my army lists will be done this way, and the sidebar will thus contain a collection of links to army lists rather than the entire lists. Of course, publishing them as posts isn't purely for housekeeping purposes. As a novice to the wargaming aspects of the hobby, I welcome comments and criticisms. In the event I do eventually play games with my armies, having them be fun to use (as opposed to poorly put together) would be great.

Imperial Guard Army List - 2,502 Points

Legend:

Completed

Work In Progress

Assembled

On Sprue

Not Owned

HQ - 372 pts.

Company Command Squad

- Colonel w/ bolt pistol, medi-pack, Regimental Standard, vox-caster, plasma gun, Bodyguard, Officer of the Fleet, Astropath

- Chimera w/ camo netting and hunter-killer missile

Lord Commissar attached to Veteran Squad

- power fist and carapace armor

Elites - 305 pts.

Ratlings (5)

Storm Trooper Squad (10)

- Sergeant w/ power weapon, flamer, meltagun

Guardsman Marbo

Troops - 740 pts.

Platoon Command Squad

- Lieutenant w/ power weapon, Platoon Standard, vox-caster, autocannon team

Infantry Squad (10)

- flamer, vox-caster, missile launcher team

Infantry Squad (10)

- grenade launcher, vox-caster, heavy bolter team

Infantry Squad (10)

- meltagun, vox-caster, mortar team

Infantry Squad (10)

- grenade launcher, vox-caster, autocannon team

Heavy Weapons Squad (3)

- 2 lascannon teams, heavy bolter team

Veteran Squad (10)

- Gunnery Sergeant Harker, vox-caster w/ shotgun, demolitions charge w/ shotgun, meltagun, heavy flamer, sniper rifle, lascannon team

- Chimera w/ heavy stubber, dozer blade

Fast Attack - 438pts.

Armoured Sentinels (2)

- heavy flamer w/ hunter-killer missile, searchlight, smoke launchers and camo netting

- plasma cannon w/ hunter-killer missile, searchlight, and smoke launchers

Devil Dog
- searchlight, smoke launchers and storm bolter

Valkyrie
- lascannon

- heavy bolters on sponsons

Heavy Support - 645 pts.

Leman Russ Battle Tank

- multi-meltas on sponsons and pintle-mounted heavy stubber

Leman Russ Demolisher

- heavy flamers on sponsons, pintle-mounted storm bolter and dozer blade

Basilisks (2)

Again, any comments, criticisms, tips, advice, etc. are heartily welcomed, although it should be obvious from my list that I'm not out to create the hardest army possible. After all, only 3 of my infantry units are mounted in Chimeras, so I'm clearly not pursuing the all-mechanization strategy that seems to be very popular out on the interwebs. Also, if there's a more streamlined way for posting army lists, please tell me. I know that it's verboten to post unit/ upgrade costs on a point by point basis, but I'm unclear as to whether or not there are other protocols for posting army lists.

45 - In The Meantime...A Painting FAQ

2009-08-03T01:10:00.003-04:00

Well, it looks like that Sternguard tutorial kind of took a lot out of me. I've been painting still, but a bit more slowly than a week ago. I do have 2 miniatures (the Kroot Auxiliary and the Skaven Plague Monk) almost ready to be photographed and posted about, but for now, they're both probably still a couple of days away. So, in the meantime, I'll provide a link to a Painting FAQ that I found very helpful when I first started with this hobby. It was compiled way back in 1995 (is it possible that 1995 was almost 15 years ago?) by Brenda Klein from apparently months of discussions on the rec.games.miniatures usenet forum, so some of the tips, tricks, and advice might be outdated, but in my opinion it's still very worthwhile as an introductory source for new and intermediate painters. When I first started painting miniatures, I honestly had no idea what was meant by terms like "washes" or "drybrushing" (let alone how to do them!), and more often than not, most tutorials tended to assume that a person would be familiar with them, and as a result would give only the most cursory of definitions about those techniques. Thus simple, straightforward FAQs like the one Ms. Klein compiled were invaluable in helping me understand the foundations of this hobby at a time when annoying obstacles and frustrations might've made me abandon it.

44 - Blood Ravens Sternguard Tutorial Part VI

2009-07-30T14:42:00.003-04:00

Well, I'm going to make this the last post in my Blood Ravens Sternguard tutorial for a couple of reasons: 1) I'm personally getting bored with the model! 2) I intended to do a tutorial on free-handing the Blood Ravens insignia onto the banner, but realized that I really, really stink at free-handing! So I quickly wiped the offending blotch off the banner and decided to keep quietly working on my free-hand on unfortunate pieces of plasticard rather than ruin perfectly good models. 3) A 6 part tutorial on a single model seems like more than enough. Too much perhaps.

So, what I have here (pictured on the upper left) is my Blood Ravens Sternguard, 95% complete. After basecoating the fiddly bits with 3-4 thin layers, I applied controlled washes over the whole model - Devlan Mud was used on the Old Parchment (except for the shoulder pads - I wanted to keep them pristine) and Antique Gold parts; Badab Black on the Bridge Gray and White; and Baal Red was applied liberally over Opaque Red of the power armour and the banner. When I apply washes, I try to maintain as much control over the flow of the ink as much as possible. I'll load up the tip of a 0 or 00 brush with some of the wash, then carefully let it run along the recesses and cracks of the area I plan on shading. I just find a more controlled wash helps you cut some time off the next step when you bring the basecoat colors back up plus it also avoids the dreaded dried pooling effect that sloppy application of washes can sometimes produce. (I've read that adding a small drop of dishwashing detergent to the wash can help avoid the pooling effect, but I've only tried it once or twice. I don't know - I'm sure it works, but the result was so marginal for me that I just stopped doing it, mostly out of forgetfulness. Usually, unless something is so amazingly effective and obvious, I won't try to integrate it into my everyday practice.)

Overall, I was happy with how the Citadel Washes worked, as I have been since buying them 4 months ago. Games Workshop may rightfully get slammed for a lot of things, but they done good with their Washes, in my opinion. The only thing I wasn't happy with regarding this model was the liberal Baal Red wash I applied on the power armour. The result was splotchy, darkened areas all over the armor as opposed to just in the recesses. My thought process was that since the basecoat was a bit flat and the coverage of the Opaque Red wasn't 100% perfect, the Baal Red wash would fill in the coverage for the Opaque Red while at the same time adding some shine and depth to the armor. Well, it did add shine, but it didn't add uniform coverage, that's for sure. I had to go over the wash with more Opaque Red basecoat to minimize some of the splotchiness, but as you can see, I wasn't completely successful. I think I've learned a valuable lesson for any future Blood Ravens I'll be painting up: do not use a liberal application of the Baal Red wash on the power armor; instead, apply a controlled wash of Badab Black to the recessed, then use paint layering (from dark to light) to give the illusion of depth.

The base was basically decorative sand glued on with white glue, then painted over with a basecoat of Brown Velvet followed by a drybrush of Desert Sand and light wash of Devlan Mud. The thorny bush looking thing was decorative moss purchased at Michael's glued down with superglue, and the small brown rock bit was a piece of cork also held down with superglue.

Looking back, I'm not completely satisfied with either the model or the tutorial. I tried to make the tutorial as comprehensive as possible, and I think that was partially why it might not have been effective as it could be. It seemed too sprawling, included too much repetition and the laying out of too obvious steps. As I said in my last post, I think in the future, my tutorials will focus more on highlighting interesting things I might have picked up in regards to the various aspects of the hobby rather than on the more mundane things. Tutorials focused on clever conversions seem to be very popular with readers, so I might focus on that. As for the model itself - well, my interest in it waxed and waned as this process trudged along. This is the longest I've ever spent on a model. The first tutorial was posted on July 24, and it's taken 6 days to reach the end. I'm usually able to paint up a model in 2 or 3 days. By the Part VI, I did not want to even look at the miniature let alone paint it.

Okay, so as for what's up next on the blog? I have no idea! I have the Skaven Plague Monk and the Kroot Auxiliary still left over from the also-rans of the poll, but I also have an Imperial Guard Platoon Commander beckoning to me from my workshelf. We'll see...

Click here for more pics on the Sternguard WIP.

43 - Blood Ravens Sternguard Tutorial Part V

2009-07-29T15:12:00.001-04:00

The picture on the left shows the Blood Ravens Sternguard with his right arm wielding his pimped out bolter and backpack attached, and primed with Black (brushed on). It's slowly coming together. I then proceeded to paint the backpack and arm Opaque Red, his shoulder pad Old Parchment, and his bolter Bridge Grey. I also finally decided to just paint over his knee pads Opaque Red because I desperately want to avoid making him overly colorful. He's a hardened space marine, for goodness sakes! I keep returning, for reference, to the image of GW's Sternguard as well as the two Tactical Blood Ravens I've already painted up in order to get an idea as to whether or not I'm on the right track. Primarily, I want this Sternguard to stand out from the Tacticals while simultaneously not going overboard with the bits and bobs. In other words, I want him to look like a well-decorated veteran of the Blood Ravens various campaigns against heretics and xenos scum but not so much so that he becomes a walking display board for The Bitz Barn.

3 thin basecoats later on the arm, bolter, and backpack, and we get the result show on the right. You'll notice that I've added a handful of embellishments (with 2 thin basecoats) to the model - a banner pole, a tabard over his right shoulder pad, a crux terminatus on his backpack, and a belt decoration from a Terminator sprue to his right shin guard (which was an attempt at copying the effect on the GW mail order only Space Marine Sergeant seen here - note the Imperial Aquila on his left shin guard). If I were more confident with my greenstuffing, I would have integrated the belt decoration more seamlessly into the leg of my Sternguard, but I'm not. Regardless, I'm pretty satisfied with the effect, and I can always come back at a later date and try the green stuff when I feel I'm ready for it. At this point, he's practically done. I'll very likely add 1 or 2 more layers of basecoats to the embellishments, then make an attempt at free-handing the Blood Ravens Chapter Marking on to the banner as well as some free-hand work on the shoulder pad tabard. After that, I'll move on to the wash stage, the bringing the basecoat back up and highlighting stage, and finally end with painting and sprucing up the base a bit.

By the way, check out Thomas Schadle's rendition of the Blood Ravens. His painting ability almost makes me want to throw my own Ravens into a tupperware container filled with Simple Green and start over. Ah, but then I notice he's done very well in the Golden Daemon competitions (even winning the L.A. Slayer Sword back in 2005 for his Blood Ravens Librarian) and realize how silly it is to compare myself to him. He's painting at a major league level, while I'm very obviously toiling away in Tee Ball at the moment. My wife remembers when I first started this hobby, I would constantly bemoan my lack of ability especially after browsing through the awesome paintjobs on CoolMiniorNot. Viewing the finished products of such accomplished painters almost made me want to quit until 2 things happened: 1) I noticed that so long as I kept practicing my painting, I actually got better (fancy that!); and 2) I finally came to the very sane understanding that a handful of months invested into anything is not enough time to become very, very good at it. (Unless we're talking about falling down. Maybe a couple of weeks would be enough to get very good at falling down, but you know, not even. Just ask circus clowns and stunt men/ women how hard it is to fall down convincingly without cracking your own head open. But I digress...)

My apologies for this tutorial going on so long. In the future, I'll cut out some of the more mundane aspects of putting these miniatures together and jump straight to the painting technique. I still need to refine my tutorial presentations to give you all a better look into how I paint, but I always knew that designing tutorials would be difficult. Hopefully, I've learned something from this first initial go of it.

For more pics of this work in progress, click here.

42 - Chaos Marauder

2009-07-28T01:07:00.001-04:00

Here's a brief intermission from the Blood Ravens Sternguard tutorials by continuing with my unofficial series of painting also-ran models from the first poll I set up way back in post 31 - I present to you a Chaos Marauder!

Quite an enjoyable figure to paint. The large skin surface allowed me to continue refining my work with skintones and shading. This marauder's skin was done very similarly to the Cadian/ Catachan Heavy Weapons Team I posted a few weeks back - a basecoat of Skin Tone (about 4 thin layers) over Black primer, followed by a generous wash of Ogryn Flesh, then finishing up with bringing the Skin Tone back up while avoiding the deeper recesses and adding some Skin Tone mixed with White along the upper curves of the muscles.

I worked on this figure in between putting together the tutorial on the Blood Ravens Sternguard. The motivation level to paint is still high. I still get a kick out of seeing the figure come together from dull gray plastic to something colorful and characterful and three dimensional. Again, I really have no plans on putting together a Warriors of Chaos army, but the very act of painting a varied amount of models keeps the hobby fresh for me. Of course, it's quite a hit to my wallet, but leisure is costly in our world, I guess.

I think I'm starting to develop a personal style, which is great. In my brief journey through this hobby, I've seen many beautifully painted models, all with their own personality and technique. For instance, the European style and its emphasis on subtle blending, non-metallic metals, and realism looks drastically different from the more "traditional" Games Workshop style of exaggerated highlights and cartoonish super-heroism. Both are excellent examples of how to paint models, neither better than the other. I guess at the moment, I'm more working in the traditional style than the more modern European (Spanish and French, in particular) methods. It seems like the Europeans include a greater degree of advanced techniques into their miniatures. Of course, it also seems like the European style is more geared towards display models (what with their emphasis on elaborate and completely non-pragmatic decorative bases) rather than table-top ready models. Hmm, you know you're dealing with an art form when an individual trained as an English Literature academic is able to talk mumbo-jumbo and mentally masturbate over it!

The next post will resume with your regularly scheduled tutorial on the Blood Ravens Sternguard. I believe there will be 2 more installments in that tutorial before I put it to bed.

For more pics, click here.

41 - Blood Ravens Sternguard Tutorial Part IV

2009-07-27T00:43:00.001-04:00

After laying down the Opaque Red basecoat, I proceeded with painting in the details and fiddly bits. The picture on the left shows what the model looks like after one thin layer of Delta Ceramcoat Old Parchment on the helmet, the shoulder pad, and the purity seals; Americana Antique Gold on the chest design, the belt skull, and the purity seal medallions; Delta Ceramcoat Bridge Gray on the belt, the joint connection bits, and the pneumatic chords on the power fist; and Delta Ceramcoat's Christmas Green on the tiny electrical wires scattered throughout the power armor and eye lenses of the helmet. As usual, all of the paints were thinned with Flow Aid until the consistency of skim milk. This first layer of detail work took about 10 minutes, after which I placed the model aside for about 5-10 minutes in order for the paint to dry.

The detail work is actually my favorite part of painting models. Oftentimes, the basecoat is already prescribed for you - an Ultramarine will have a blue basecoat, a Blood Raven a red basecoat, a Cadian Guardsman a green and khaki basecoat, etc. It's the fiddly bits, however, where one's creativity is challenged. You get to decide, for instance, what color you want to make the wires or the purity seals or the lasgun casing or whatever. Now, you can't just willy-nilly apply a rainbow's worth of colors to the details because that'll just result in a cluttered, motley appearance to the model (which doesn't usually work unless you're painting up Eldar Harlequins, I guess). Rather, your color scheme has to not only reflect your own personal creativity, but also honor reality to a reasonable extent.

The picture on the right is of the model after 3 layers of thinned paint on the detail bits. Practically done - total painting time about 1 hour if you count the intervals waiting for the paint to dry. The basecoating of the detail bits usually takes less coats and time because of how little surface space is involved. You want to be sure, though, that your paint is thinned down even more when you basecoat because of how easy it is for the paint to creep into the really fine detailed and textured areas and clog up the works, leaving you with a shapeless mess.

As an aside - I use a Size 1 Round paint brush for both the basecoating of the large areas of the model and the detailed areas. The only times I switch to a larger or smaller brush are if I'm priming (whereby I will use a Size 4 Flat brush) or if I'm painting tiny, tiny areas like eyes and jewelry (whereby I'll use a Size 00 Round). I've yet to invest in a truly great brush (like a Kolinsky Sable) because a) I just don't think my skills are at that level yet (which is also why I'm still working with craft paints) and b) I'm terrible when it comes to keeping my brushes clean. I mean, I'll swirl my brush in the water glass after every 2 or 3 dips of the brush head into paint, but after I'm done for the night, I very rarely thoroughly clean my brushes. So until I become more conscientious about that, it's $4.99 cheap brushes for me.

At this point, the model is practically ready for shading via Citadel washes. I still have a couple of decisions to make though. For instance, what color do I want the knee pads to be? (I'm leaning towards just painting them Opaque Red, but a part of me wants to do them in Old Parchment like the helmet and shoulder pads.) Also, the Antique Gold studs on the Heresy-Era shoulder pad seem to blend too much into the Old Parchment - I think I'll actually paint the studs Black. Finally, what else do I want to add to this figure? I've got 2 tabard pieces ready to be primed and glued on, the right arm with the Sternguard bolter, the backpack, a banner possibly, and maybe the Dark Angels helmet wings. I'll leave those decisions for Part V.

40 - Blood Ravens Sternguard Tutorial Part III

2009-07-26T01:18:00.001-04:00

Rather than devote an entire post to basing (especially since at this point, all I've done is apply some watered down glue to the base and dip the model into decorative sand), I will move on to the actual painting of the model.

The photo on the left is of the model primed in Black. You'll notice that I've gone ahead and attached the power fist and the Heresy Era studded shoulder pad. I've left the left arm, the Sternguard bolter, and the backpack off (as well as any fiddly bits I might decide to add later) because I felt they'd get in the way of the painting. For this model, I brushed on the primer. My preference is always to brush on primer rather than use the spray can because I feel it gives me more control over where the primer goes. Now, if I have 4 or 5 or 6 or more assembled models that need to get primed, then I'll use the spray can on them, but mostly out of laziness. Overall, I'm just not a big fan of spray on primer or varnish. I've had too many bad experiences with them even in the short 7 months I've been at this hobby.

The Black primer I used was thinned down using one drop of Liquitex Matte Medium. The reason for using matte medium is twofold: 1) never apply acrylic paint directly onto your models because the paint will go on too thickly and blot out the subtle textures/ details; and 2) I've had no luck thinning paint down with water - the paint just loses its consistency and adhesion too much for my taste when I use water.

After priming the model and waiting for the paint to dry, I went to work on the basecoat. The paints I used, unfortunately, are craft paints of the Folk Art, Americana, Delta Ceramcoat variety, so I'm not going to be able to give you a "counts-as" comparison to any of the specialty model paints like GW, Reaper, or Vallejo. I'll use the exact names of the craft paints though just in case. Also, I afix the model's base to the top of a Delta Ceramcoat 2 ounce acrylic paint squeeze bottle with some Elmer's poster tack in order to avoid touching the freshly painted model with my fingers as I spin and rotate it whichever way during painting.

The first basecoat I applied was Delta Ceramcoat's Opaque Red on the power armor portions of the model. I thinned the acrylic paint down with one drop of Liquitex Flow Aid, so that the consistency of the paint (and I'm sure you've all heard this before) was like skim milk. Again, I prefer Flow Aid over water because of two reasons: 1) it reduces the surface tension of the paint and thus gives me more control over where it goes (watered down paint has a tendency of running itself all over the model); and 2) it reduces, to an extraordinary degree, brush marks on the model. The image on the right shows what the model looked like after 1 coat of thinned down Opaque Red.

One of the most important virtues I've learned since picking up this hobby 7 months ago is patience. In the beginning, I'd try to get the basecoat on as quickly as possible. As a result, I'd do myself more harm by not only painting wet paint on top of wet paint (which is akin to trying to dig a hole in soft sand), but I'd also glop on too much paint because I was so eager to get opacity on the basecoat. These days, I take my time. This first basecoat was done in 15 minutes, but I don't apply another coat until the first one is fully dried. Usually, it just takes a 5-10 minute wait for the paint to dry, so in the meantime, I'll work on anther model or read or watch TV or surf the net or something.

The picture on the left shows the model after 2 more layers of Opaque Red (for a total of 3 layers). Not quite done yet, but almost there. Red is a notoriously difficult color to achieve opacity, so it doesn't come as surprise to me that it might take 4 or 5 thin layers to get the proper coverage for the basecoat. With another color - say Blue (if I were doing an Ultramarine) - I'm pretty certain I'd be done with the basecoating at this point. But since I chose the Blood Ravens...

You'll notice that I've kept the non-basecoated parts of the model fairly neat and clean. What I'll do after, say, basecoating the legs is immediately go back over the knee pads or the belt or the purity seals with a damp brush and take off the inadvertent paint smudges. I find that this serves two purposes for me: 1) it trains my brush strokes to be as neat as possible; and 2) it introduces me to the very helpful skill of "erasing" paint with a damp brush. This second reason has really served me well as I've progressed in this hobby. Before, when I tried to get rid of stray paint, I'd end up destroying whole swathes of nicely painted surfaces. Now, I'm much more surgical with this ability.

The picture on the right shows the model after 4 1/2 layers of basecoated Opaque Red. The power armor's pretty much done at this point. Overall time: about 1 1/2 hours (15 minutes per layer plus roughly 5-10 minutes wait in between layers for the paint to dry). I'll start the detail bits next, which I'll save for Part IV.

Click here for more pics of the model in progress.

39 - Blood Ravens Sternguard Tutorial Part II

2009-07-25T02:02:00.003-04:00

I am now going to turn to the conversion of the standard Tactical Marine bolter into the Sternguard bolter. Let me first direct you, though, to WeeMen's post on converting the Sternguard bolter here, as it was a big reason why I even thought this particular conversion was possible.

The picture on the left shows, from left to right, a Rhino storm bolter, a scope from a Tactical Marines sprue, and a standard Marine bolter. The plan is to remove the box magazine from the storm bolter and graft it onto the standard Marine bolter in such a way as to mimic the appearance of the bolters on GW's Sternguard metal models. Now, this should be a very simple conversion - 2 small bits removed, one bit tossed away, and the second bit glued onto the Tactical bolter. The only tricky part is how small these bits are. One bad, hasty cut with the hobby knife, and some piece of important gray plastic is going to get ruined.

So, first, I go to work on the storm bolter. I suggest you place the storm bolter flat on a cutting surface and cut down with your hobby knife initially where the box magazine meets the barrel. Cut all the way through with slow, steady cuts. Very likely, all you will need are 2 or 3 of these cuts with pressure downward being applied with each cut. Then work on the side of the box magazine touching the rear of the storm bolter. When both side cuts are all the way through to the other side, you can then cut horizontally, along the top of the box magazine. This cut should also be done slow and steady and is, in fact, the most difficult one to execute because of the awkward angle. However, this cut doesn't need to be done all the way through because a half-way cut on both sides of the storm bolter (i.e., as if you were scoring foamboard) should be deep enough where you can then pry the box magazine loose with a plier or just with some elbow grease. The finished result should look like the image to the right.

Now, before doing any clean-up on the detached box magazine, you should proceed to converting the Tactical bolter. This is because you don't want to file down the box magazine too much until you can gauge what sort of fit is going to be required when you graft it onto the Tactical bolter.

For the Tactical bolter, you're basically going to do the same thing - i.e., remove the magazine so that all that is left is the bolter. You can also remove the pistol grip because when you glue the converted bolter onto the Space Marine right arm, you're going to have to remove the grip anyway. The cutting you will do on the Tactical bolter is going to have to be even more careful and measured than the storm bolter operation. This is because we didn't really care how badly we damaged the storm bolter while we do care if the Tactical bolter gets marked up, for obvious reasons. After cutting the magazine from the Tactical bolter, you can now go ahead and file down the gap in the bolter so that it creates a smooth, even space for the box magazine to slide into. See the picture on the left. (Note: even though the pistol grip is present in the picture, I removed it shortly after taking the picture because it was already hanging on by a, er, thread of soft, gray plastic, or something.)

Okay, and now for the final step (a two-parter) - we must glue the box magazine removed from the storm bolter onto the space left on the Tactical bolter from its removed magazine. First, dry fit the box magazine to see how much you need to file on both the box magazine and the Tactical bolter in order to get a even, flush fit. You want to line up the box magazine so that it sticks out the right side of the bolter. So, in other words, line up the bolter along the left hand side of the box magazine. Once you've smoothed out any rough, uneven edges, apply a little bit of glue on the Tactical bolter and then press the box magazine down into the gap. Hold the box magazine in place while slowly, carefully sliding it into place so that it is straight and not on a tilt. When you are satisfied with the placement of the box magazine, hold it the glue sets a bit, then lay it aside to dry. After the glue has dried, you'll want to finally attach the scope to the top of the bolter. If you look closely at the bolter, you'll notice an upraised piece near the rear. This is where you want to glue the scope. Now, make sure you file the scope down so that it fits smoothly along this small, upraised piece, then glue down and hold. After a minute or so, you should have the finished product pictured on the right.

Part III of the tutorial will be a short one involving basing and priming the model. And then with Part IV, we'll jump right into the painting!

38 - Blood Ravens Sternguard Tutorial Part I

2009-07-24T01:22:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the first of hopefully many tutorials on my blog! By popular vote (big thanks to everyone who voted!), the first set of tutorials will detail how I approach - from conception to assembly to painting to basing - a Blood Ravens Sternguard Veteran. Now, seeing as this is my first attempt at putting together a tutorial, please feel free to include suggestions in the comments. My goal in doing tutorials is to help people in some aspect of the hobby in the same way I was helped by tutorials when I first started out. So, if my tutorials are hard to understand, lacking in detail, just plain unhelpful, tell me so and, with your suggestions, I'll try to make them better in the future.

Quick note: because I won't be using green stuff (I think) in this Blood Ravens Sternguard conversion, I'm left with merely trying to piece together a model from the existing bits I own. I hope the conversion will still turn out fairly characterful and different from the standard Marine. Maybe in the future, when I'm more confident with my greenstuffing abilities, I'll attempt a more radical conversion of a model using green stuff.

Research

Before I ever put paint brush to miniature, I always invest a little bit of time into researching the look, feel, and fluff behind the model. The time spent researching obviously varies depending on whether or not I've painted a particular type of mini before, whether the mini is of an elite/ special type as compared to a rank and file type, and whether I plan on converting the figure very much beyond its original form.

The image on the upper left - courtesy of Games Workshop - is of their Sternguard Veteran Squad set. Pretty cool looking bunch, and I'll be using them extensively as source material for this tutorial on how to conceive, assemble, paint, and base a converted Blood Ravens Sternguard Veteran. I've also found a few other images of converted Sternguard scattered around the web which I've found pretty inspiring (here, here, and here). The first link to Weemen has been particularly helpful, especially his tutorial on how to convert standard pattern Space Marine bolters into specialized Sternguard bolters. The Sternguard conversions for the second link begin after the Honour Guard conversions, and I must admit, those Sternguard WIPs are absolutely stunning and pretty much blow anything I will show in this tutorial out of the water. Check them out; they're awesome.

Gathering the Bits Together

After doing the research, I began sorting through my bits boxes and relevant kits to find the parts to make the Blood Ravens Sternguard. Based off of the images I linked to above, I knew that my two biggest challenges in regards to this conversion would be: a) making the miniature grand and eminent enough compared to the standard Tactical Space Marine without making it look like an overburdened Christmas Tree, and b) converting its Sternguard bolter.

With those two thoughts in the back of my head, this is what I ended up with, parts-wise (see image on the right). The torso, leg, and shoulder pads bits come from the Command Squad sprue; the backpack, bolter, scope, and right arm come from a standard Tactical Squad sprue; the power fist and tabards come from a Sergeant upgrade sprue; the helmet wings and Mk. 6 beakie helmet from a Dark Angels sprue (I will file off the dagger design on the beakie helmet as best I can in order to better fit this model into the Blood Ravens image, but I'll keep the wings which radiate out from the dagger and along the sides of the helmet because the Blood Ravens do incorporate wing icons/ symbols into their chapter design); the small shield on the bottom right comes from a Terminator sprue; and the storm bolter comes from a Rhino kit.

My plan is to convert the standard pattern bolter into a Sternguard bolter by combining it with the storm bolter from the Rhino and the scope from the Tactical Squad sprue. I'm still undecided whether or not to use the helmet wings - seeing as he's a Blood Ravens Veteran, I think the wings will fit, fluff-wise. We'll see.

You'll also notice that the gathered pieces still need a lot of cleaning up of the mold lines and excessive flash. I won't bore you with the details of that step of the tutorial - suffice it to say, it's my least favorite part of this whole endeavor, as I've probably written about already. I do have one small bit of insight regarding the use of the file in cleaning up models: I've noticed on many YouTube tutorial videos that people tend to scrape their file across the mold lines in a saw-like, back and forth motion. In my experience, moving the file in one consistent direction (say forwards only) tends to result in more consistent and cleaner mold removal. I think this is because files are designed with the rough edges only going in one direction, but I could be wrong. I personally think the longer one is involved in this hobby, the more quirky beliefs one develops - even if those quirky beliefs have no basis in fact. Which is perfectly fine, of course. I'm firmly in the camp that believes this hobby of ours is a legitimate artform, and as in every artform, eccentric and personalized methods oftentimes work just as well as the "standard" methods, if only because they allow the creator to work within a comfort zone.

Assembling the Model

After cleaning as much of the mold lines and flash as I could possibly bear, I began assembling the model. I always assemble my models in the same order - 1) put the torso bits together, 2) glue torso to legs, 3) glue head to torso, 4) glue model to base. I put off gluing the arms (for the most part) and backpack to the model because I don't want them getting in the way when I'm painting the chestplate or the back of the model. In order to figure out for sure whether a particular piece of the model will obstruct painting, I'll use putty to dry-fit the extremities of the model together (see left). Well, looks like the bolter arm will for sure get in the way, so I'll leave it off until after I've painted most of the model. I might glue the power fist on because it looks like it's in the clear though. Also, eeew, looks like I missed cleaning up some of the mold lines on the arms and the helmet. Argh, back to the salt mines then with my tools of ignorance - the ever reliable hobby knife and file.

As this post is already getting a bit long, I will save the conversion of the humble Tactical bolter into a Sternguard bolter for part II.

37 - Iyanden Craftworld Eldar Guardian

2009-07-23T00:04:00.006-04:00

The Eldar Guardian gave it the ol' college try during the Tutorial Poll, but came up 6 votes short of the Blood Ravens Sternguard. Still, since by the 2nd or 3rd day of the poll, the end result was pretty much a given, I thought I'd pass the time waiting for the poll to close by trying my hand at the Eldar.

PUN ALERT! PUN ALERT! I call this piece, "How to Get A-head in Warhammer 40k." Silence. Crickets. Taps microphone. Hello? Is this thing on?

Who said Eldar are just the interstellar versions of the pansy elves from fantasy? As you can see from this particular Eldar model, I made a teeny-tiny conversion in the form of a shriveled human head being clutched in his right hand. The head quite likely comes from one of my Imperial Guardsmen. (In actuality, I think it comes from a Vampire Counts Zombie Regiment sprue.)

I'm pretty happy with the paintjob on this model. I picked the Iyanden Craftworld for the color scheme because I hadn't yet worked with a bright color like yellow. The yellow I used was Cadmium Yellow for the basecoat coupled with a Gryphonnia Sepia wash and then Lemon Yellow for highlights. The blue was True Blue and a very light, sparsely applied Asurmen Blue wash. I chose green as the color for the various decorative gems and bits scattered throughout his armor; since yellow and blue mixed together form green, I felt it made sense, color theory-wise. I also highlighted much more thoroughly with this model, and the results are about average, in my opinion. Still a bit harsh, but I'm just getting used to the interplay of shadow and light at this stage in my highlighting training. I think to fully master the art of highlights, I'm going to have to dive into the various layering/ blending techniques at some point in the far, far future. Right now, I'm just happy my brush control is at the point where I'm able to apply small highlight dabs and jots here and there without totally ruining the underlaying paintjob.

Overall, a very enjoyable model to paint due to its balanced combination of clearly defined sharp edges and soft curves. While I don't plan on collecting an Eldar army, I do have 2 Eldar Guardian Squads (which is where this miniature came from) complete with Heavy Support Weapons in my collection. I'll very likely go back to them every once in awhile when I need a break from my main armies.

BTW, Part I of the Blood Ravens Sternguard tutorial is practically complete. I'm just dotting the i's and crossing the t's. I should be able to post it sometime before or during the weekend.

Again, click here for more pics.

36 - FtW Collaborative Post on Motivation

2009-07-21T16:46:00.013-04:00

What motivates me to paint miniatures? Well, I think at this point - only 7 months into the hobby - motivation hasn't been a major issue. I'm still in the honeymoon period, I guess, because I try to get a little bit of painting and modeling in every night. In fact, I find it very therapeutic at the end of the day. Painting miniatures is almost like my version of zen meditation - I get totally wrapped up in the tiny details of a model, the careful brush strokes, the layering of paint, etc. Get some good grooves going in the background (currently on my playlist: Orgone, the Black Keys, and the Postal Service), and everything else just fades away into the background.

But I also have a track record of getting really involved in something (be it a television show, a band, a video game, etc.) for about a month, totally devouring every scrap of information about it, dedicating hours of every day to thinking about it, and then...poof...30 days later, I abandon it and move on to my next obsession. Now, if this ever happens with me and miniatures...well, then, that's almost $800 worth of models collected over 7 months down the drain. Not cool. So, while I may still be enthusiastic about the hobby right now, there's no time like the present to start planning for burn-out. Here's my top 5 tips for getting motivated and re-energized about the hobby:

1) Paint a variety of models. Don't just stick to one army or one genre or one game system or one company. If all you're doing is painting Imperial Guardsmen day after day, and all that's awaiting you on your painting table are more Guardsmen, then it's not hard to see why you'd be burned out after a couple of squads. Instead, spice things up by painting a High Elf hero character or even some Reaper or War Machine or Hasslefree miniatures every once in awhile.

2) Start a blog. This isn't because I'm an attention-whore. In actuality, I started this blog purely to chart my own progress in the hobby. Having people come and visit every once in awhile is just a bonus (and a great one, at that!). For me, at least, blogging is a big motivation to paint because I'm just naturally drawn to filling up a blank screen (or a blank piece of paper) with my thoughts. And since my blog is about miniatures, the best way to have anything to talk about is to actually paint up a model. I guess it's the English Lit. major in me.

3) Don't beat yourself up for putting a half-painted model down and picking up a new one. I'm that way with a lot of things - my apartment is filled with half-read books piled on the coffee table, on book shelves (naturally), on end tables, nightstands, etc. Every once in awhile, I'll pick one of them up and breeze through it in a day or two because my mood at the time was just in tune with the book's subject matter. It's the same with half-painted minis. I won't force myself to slog through a mini I'm rapidly losing enthusiasm for because that's the best way to turn this hobby into a job, in my opinion.

4) If you're not in the mood to paint, then assemble. If you're not in the mood to assemble, then convert, etc. etc. This hobby is multi-faceted enough to cater to a host of different interests and moods.

5) Read blogs or watch YouTube videos about the hobby. Sometimes all it takes to re-ignite that interest in the hobby is to read and watch someone else's enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is contagious, after all.

35 - Coming Down To The Wire!

2009-07-20T11:27:00.008-04:00

Just a quick post to remind everyone that the poll from Post 31 will be active until 11 PM tonight. I can't remember if it's 11 PM EST or PST, but either way, it ends today!

At the moment, the Blood Ravens Sternguard conversion is leading the Eldar Guardian by 4 votes, 9 to 5. So if there are any Eldar Guardian fans lurking in the wings, now is your chance to come in and pull off an upset!

Thanks to everyone for voting. I'm pretty excited about starting this series of tutorials. Hopefully, I'll be able to produce something useful. Stay tuned!

EDIT: Whoops! It looks like yesterday wasn't the last day! Today is the last day until the poll closes. 17 hours to go...

EDIT 2: The polls have closed and a World in Miniature News is ready to call the race for - the Blood Ravens Sternguard with 12 votes! Coming in a distant second was the Eldar Guardian, but don't worry Guardian boosters because while I was waiting for the poll to officially end, I went ahead and painted up the Guardian anyway. I should be posting the results of that paintjob within the next fews days. All that's left on him are the wash and the highlights. Again, thanks to everyone who voted!

34 - Hi, My Name Is Paul and I'm A...

2009-07-19T00:57:00.004-04:00

It's become very obvious to me, seven months in to this hobby, that is has the potential to be very costly. Now, all hobbies are obviously luxury pursuits - we do them because we enjoy them not because we need to do them to survive. As a result, hobbies, by their very nature, will require disposable funds. The problem, as I see it now, is that certain aspects of a hobby can become compulsive, almost like an addiction. When it comes to this hobby of miniature figures, the compulsion for me is the collecting. It doesn't matter that at this point it would take me two or more years to get through every unassembled figure I own, or that the great majority of these figures are part of armies I have no intention of collecting, or that there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason behind my pattern of collecting (other than, "Oh, those guys look cool - must have!"), I still find myself buying kits on a weekly basis. Now, I've managed to off-set this compulsion somewhat by only buying at rock-bottom prices off of eBay, but the volume of my weekly purchases is threatening to overcome even that minor advantage.

So, I've decided that I have to do something to reign in this burgeoning addiction. The plan I will adopt is very similar to the one lone pilgrim has popularized on his blog - the Points for Painting formula. However, since I've already gotten such a head-start in my collecting of figures, I'll be adding a slight modification to his formula.

First, I'm going to start myself 25 points in the hole. Thus, according to lone pilgrim's formula, I'll need to paint up 25 infantry models or a dozen cavalry/ bike (and I'm going to add Independent/ Special Characters into this category) models or 2-3 vehicles before I'll allow myself to buy any more model kits.

Second, after digging myself out of that 25 point hole, I'm going to adopt a 1:1 ratio for determining what I'm able to buy next. In other words, painting up 10 infantry models will allow me to buy a 10 figure infantry kit, a 5 figure cavalry kit, or a vehicle kit, etc. Hopefully, this will force me to not only slow down on my compulsion to collect, but also re-connect the collecting part of this hobby (which has grown all out of proportion in terms of its importance) with the assembling/ painting/ basing/ diorama/ gaming parts of the hobby.

The bottom line is that I really need to get ahold of this strange need to buy every single model kit I can lay my hands on. If any of you have any other suggestions or if you too suffer from this particular compulsion, please feel free to post your suggestions or stories in the comments section.

Oh, and by the way, the poll is still active, so keep voting if you'd like.

33 - "The 50/ 50s" Heavy Weapons Lascannon Team

2009-07-17T00:06:00.009-04:00

"The 50s/ 50s" are finally at full strength! My Veteran Squad now consists of: Veteran Sergeant Greyloch, plasma pistol and a chainsword; Corporal Marsham, lasgun; Specialist Samori, vox-caster and shotgun; Specialist Condan, meltagun; Specialist Chule, heavy flamer; Specialist Ruddard, sniper rifle; Specialist Slagan, shotgun and demolition charge; Specialist Blacker, lasgun; and Specialists Kajall (spotter) and Glutter (lascannon operator). Since their capabilities seem to be more geared towards anti-armor, I'll be mounting them in a Chimera to give them added mobility. I realize they're not optimized to the fullest (Ruddard, the sniper, for instance, doesn't really add much to the anti-tank specialization of this squad, Sergeant Greyloch probably should be wielding a power weapon instead of his chainsword, and Chule very likely would be more effective armed with another meltagun rather than his heavy flamer), but their composition was selected based less on min-maxing and more on 2 criteria: 1) what would be fun to model and paint, and 2) what bits I had available laying around.

The Lascannon Team took much longer than I expected. Overall, it took me about 3 days of painting at about 3 hours a day (so a total of 9 hours). It's not perfect, not by a longshot, but I'm fairly satisfied with it. I like how the skin turned out on the two troopers. I basically painted a skintone over a black undercoat, then drenched it with an Ogryn Flesh wash. I finished up by bringing the skintone back up with a layer or two while being careful not to paint over the wash darkened recesses. Specialist Kajall (the spotter) endured a painting mishap when a blob of red paint dropped onto his face. After much vile cursing and exasperated sighs, I managed to salvage his mug by removing as much of the wet paint as I could with a moist brush and then applying very thin layers of skintone to cover the red while trying very hard not to a) thicken the paint on his face too much (especially since the painting surfaces on the faces of these miniatures are at such a premium) or b) marr the 1st layer of skintone basecoat I had already painted on.

You'll notice that these two "Cadian" troopers have been put together using a lot of Catachan bits. Well this is primarily because the Catachan Heavy Weapon Squad kit was the only one I was able to buy off of eBay at a reasonable price. So what I did was improvise/ convert a little bit - I partnered a Cadian Shock Trooper torso with a Catachan Heavy Weapon legs for Kajall, and for Glutter, I attempted to give the appearance of a Cadian trooper by using the Cadian head on a Catachan torso and legs. Finally, I painted them in Cadian colors to further add to the illusion. Also since this team is part of a Veteran Squad, a fair amount of irregularity in uniform and equipment can be expected and tolerated.

Not much highlighting was done (again) on this team (aside from the standard bringing the base colors up after shading them with washes), although I did make an amateur's attempt at painting Kajall's big muthafrakkin' machete in the non-metallic metal technique.

Okay, well thanks for voting in the poll, all! There are still 4 days left, so please keep voting (over at Post 31) if you'd like. Between now and the end of the poll, I might paint up another miniature. Or I might just start getting everything ready for my first attempt at putting together a tutorial.

Click here for more pics.

32 - Cool Highlighting Technique for Vehicles

2009-07-15T17:58:00.003-04:00

I found this video while searching YouTube for tutorials on putting together Rhinos, Vindicators, and Land Raiders (oh, my!). In a nutshell, the guy (who goes by the handle AwesomePaintjob) in the video suggests using colored pencils for hard lining the edges of vehicles as an alternative to using paint brushes. The result seems pretty good and as the guy says in the video (paraphrasing): "While some of us may be unused to doing detail work with a paint brush, we've all used pencils before."

Remember, the poll from Post 31 is still active, so please vote if you haven't already. Thanks!

31 - First Ever Poll!

2009-07-13T17:00:00.008-04:00

When I started this blog, it was primarily to keep myself motivated in terms of assembling, converting, painting, basing my large collection of back-logged models. I wanted it to serve almost as a journal for my hobby, helping me keep track of the various techniques I tried, how successful those techniques were, and, most importantly, providing me with a visual representation of my growing finished collection.

Now, at this point in the blog's life, I'd like to start contributing to the tutorial aspect of this on-line community. For me, that's one of the best parts of this hobby. About 7 months ago, when I really began this hobby in earnest, I would've ended up with destroyed models, horribly disfigured fingers, glued skin, and miniatures with paint caked on 3" thick had it not been for the ready availability of some incredible on-line tutorials (both blogs* and videos**) to guide me through the rough early patches. So, I'd like to add to the collective wisdom by adding some hopefully useful and informative tutorials to this particular blog as well.

Which brings me to the point of this post - I'd like to open up a poll to the handful of people who stop by occasionally to my humble corner of the hobby. This poll will list 5 miniatures, and the miniature which receives the most votes after, say, a week will be the miniature I devote a series of tutorials to from assembly to maybe some minor conversions to painting to basing to photographing.

Which Miniature Should I Do A Series of Tutorials On?

Thanks in advance for voting!

Edit: Oh, I totally forgot to conclude this post by explaining what those astericks (* and **) referred to in my initial post. I wanted to name-check and give shout-outs to a few blogs and YouTube videos that I found very inspiring and informative as a beginning hobbyist over 7 months ago, so here goes:

* Blogs: From the Warp, 42nd Cadian, Santa Cruz Warhammer, Necrotales, the Painting Corps, Jakob Rune Nielsen, Dr. Faust's Painting Clinic, and Jenova Project (among others, obviously)

** YouTubers: Shiznaft1, Redxgamer, Jawaballs, AGProductions, and Way of Saim-Hann (a.k.a. Fritz40k)

Okay, thanks for voting, everyone. Please feel free (for those of you who haven't voted yet) to keep voting until next Tuesday.

30 - Chaos Space Marine of the Black Legion

2009-07-13T00:34:00.006-04:00

As promised, here's my first Chaos Space Marine, painted in the colors of the Black Legion. Is it just me or do Chaos Space Marines seem much larger and more imposing than your standard Loyalist Marine? Standing this guy up next to my two Blood Ravens makes the latter two look like red Stay-Puff Marshmellow Men.

So, for this fellow, I used true metallic paints. I've avoided using true metallic paints for the most part because I didn't really like the way they looked way back when I first started painting miniatures. In hindsight, my displeasure with true metallic paints probably had more to do with my lack of painting ability in the beginning and less to do with the quality or theory behind true metallics. Personally, I like how this Chaos Space Marine turned out using true metallics. My earlier efforts with metallic paints oftentimes produced a muddy, messy and caked-on appearance, but this most recent attempt turned out pretty clean. Eventually, I'd like to incorporate the non-metallic metals technique into my repertoire and use that consistently for the metallic surfaces of my miniatures, but that's still a long ways off.

I think I've settled on the 4 Warhammer 40k armies I'm going to collect up to 2,000 - 2,500 points each: the Imperial Guard, the Blood Ravens Space Marines, the Orks, and Chaos Space Marines. Nothing too out of the ordinary - I'm certain these 4 probably represent the top 4 selling armies for Games Workshop. I initially wanted to collect a Witch Hunters army, but the metal figures are way too expensive to purchase even at a 20%-30% discount, and eBay doesn't ever seem to have them up for auctions. Still, I might collect an HQ, a few Troops, and a Seraphim Squad or two just to ally in with my Guard and Blood Ravens armies on occasion, if only because the Sisters of Battle miniatures look like great fun to paint.

Okay, so the madcap painting pace continues - I'm knee deep in painting up my first Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons Team: the lascannon team for my Veteran Squad, "The 50-50s." By the way, I've intended to put together some tutorials for a while now (beacuse it really can't be all that interesting just reading blog posts on finished products), but I'm still trying to figure out the best way to do them. Once I start painting, I kind of lose all track of time and space, and before I know it, the basecoat is on and I'm starting in on the detail work. Maybe for my next model (after this heavy weapons team), I'll specifically incorporate a step by step tutorial from assembly to painting to basing. Something like that might slow me down too and prevent the dreaded painting burn-out that I'm afraid is right around the corner. I might actually put up a little poll listing the miniatures that you would like most to see a tutorial for. I've got a lot of random kits laying around so the options are pretty diverse actually.

For more pics of the Chaos Space Marine, click here.

29 - Tomb Kings Skeleton Warriors

2009-07-11T22:44:00.003-04:00

The frantic painting continues! Painting skeletons is almost like doing warm-ups before entering the big game. They're easy to do yet have enough textures and conversion possibilities to keep them interesting. What we have here are 2 more Tomb Kings skeleton warriors to join the spear-wielding skeleton warrior I painted earlier. These two are carrying hand weapons and shields. The one on the right (with the ram's head) actually has the legs of a Vampire Counts skeleton. While the fit wasn't perfect at first, with a little trimming, the two skeleton bits from the different kits came together seamlessly, I think.

And what of the Chaos Space Marine I mentioned in my post just before this one? He's practically done. I just need to snap some pictures and maybe throw on some more highlights before posting him.

At some point, I'm going to crash and burn from painting miniatures at such a rapid pace. But considering how much of a back-log I have, I guess it's a risk worth taking. What's next (other than the Chaos Space Marine)? Who knows? I've got some Blood Ravens stuck to my painting dowels with poster tack. Maybe they're next?

For more pics, click here.

28 - Orks! Waaagh!!!

2009-07-10T00:29:00.006-04:00

The painting's coming fast and furious! I guess that's what happens when a) you're a teacher who's work schedule lightens up dramatically during the summer months, and b) you're in the process of quitting smoking (day 6 of going cold turkey is in the books!) and need something to keep your mind from giving in to the hourly cravings.

When I attempted my first ork miniature, I didn't find it at all interesting to paint. The palette seemed very limited (green everywhere and dark, earthy tones). The fact that the ork miniature I painted was from the Black Reach set, and thus was very limited in its customization possibilities, might have also made it harder for me to become invested in the model. I seem to have more fun painting a miniature when I feel I've been able to inject some individual personality into it - the less customizable a model, the less interested I am with it.

Well, my second attempt at a Black Reach ork was a totally different experience. I had a lot of fun painting this beastly fellow. I wanted to maintain the Snakebite Clan theme I began with the first ork, but after studying the unpainted miniature for a little bit, I realized I could add a bit more color to it without totally turning it into something jarring and clownish. To keep the paint schemes coherent between the two orks, I selected a few colors that overlapped between them - for example, both models have Fawn colored pants and Brown Velvet leather straps; their sluggas are also painted in the exact same color schemes. Where I added more distinguishing and vibrant colors were in this model's topknot (Opaque Red) and his armor plates (Antique Gold with a Gryphonnia Sepia wash). I also went to town highlighting his skin - an initial layer of Green Isle then a careful highlighting with a 0 sized detail brush using Apple Green and finishing it off with a heavy wash of Thrakka Green. Overall, I'm very happy with the highlighting on the ork's skin. As I mentioned in my earlier posts, these next few months will be my highlighting months. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, highlighting (very likely through the layering of gradually lighter colors up from the base color) will be a natural part of my painting process.

Alright, my next miniature will most definitely be a Chaos Space Marine done up in Black Legion colors. It seems like 95% of my predictions of what I'm going to paint next turn up wrong (to paraphrase a famous military aphorism - "No painting plan survives contact with my capricious moods." But since I've already begun painting said Chaos Space Marine, I'm pretty sure this particular prediction will come to pass.

For more pics of the ork, click here.

27 - Imperial Guard Cadian Shock Troops (Second Infantry Squad Complete!)

2009-07-08T13:27:00.006-04:00

Well, except for the Heavy Weapons Team (very likely either a mortar or a heavy bolter) that will be attached to them. These final 3 grunts are all armed with the humble lasgun. The trooper in the middle is in the process of hurling a fragmentation grenade at some mutant monstrosity bearing down on his squad's position. The man on the right is pointing at said mutant monstrosity and urging his fellow troopers to pour on the lasgun fire. All in all, I give these 3 and their fellow squadmates about 15 seconds before they're all ripped into bloody gribbly bits and consumed. Which is par for the course for the Imperial Guard. I think their junior officers, upon graduating from War College, get a field manual entitled, "They Can't Kill Us All, Can They?!?"

I thoroughly enjoyed painting all of these Guardsmen. They make an excellent canvas for practicing basic painting techniques, and due to their uniformity, you can very clearly mark your progress from one trooper to the next. It's quite a good thing I liked painting them so much (and the fluff which accompanies them) because according to my army list, I think I have 30-40 more of these Guardsmen to paint up (and that's not even counting the 2 Command Squads).

Up next - I might just jump right in an finish off the Imperial Guard assets I have left (that would be around 6 Heavy Weapons Teams and 3 members of a Platoon Command Squad), or I might shift gears and work on some random miniature I have laying around. I really should resume painting my Blood Ravens as that army is practically complete (I'm mostly missing vehicles which I've yet to find at the appropriate rock bottom price on eBay). We'll see...

Click here for more pics.

26 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad w/ Heavy Flamer Operator

2009-07-02T23:00:00.010-04:00

Well, it's been almost 2 weeks since my last post. Sorry for that, but recently my wife and I went on a "Lost" marathon, watching 4 seasons in about 10 days. Pretty crazy, but kind of worth it, I guess. Seasons 2 and 3 were fantastic, but the show started to slip a bit in season 4, and season 5 was just very disappointing. Hopefully the 6th and final season will wrap things up satisfactorily (unlike BSG's last season - yeesh, what a travesty considering how great the overall series was).

Okay, so what I've got here is the 8th member of my Veterans Squad - Specialist Chule, heavy flamer operator. I had a lot of trouble with his figure. First, the arms that came with the heavy flamer didn't fit properly on a standard Cadian shock trooper torso. I'm guessing it must be designed specifically for a Command sprue torso. So, I had to substitute a left arm from the shock trooper sprue (the one with the hand holding the handle for the flamer), cut off the hand, and then use putty epoxy to fill gaps in the left shoulder and the left wrist. Then, I discovered that the fuel tube was not long enough to connect to the fuel tank. In order to remedy this problem, first I tried to use more putty epoxy, but the angle was so awkward and the putty so difficult to work with that I gave up. For a couple of days, I figured I'd just leave the gap and not worry to much about it, but the perfectionist in me could not abide the flaw. Thus, I improvised and glued a bit (the coiled rope thingie painted Antique Gold) from somewhere (I can't remember right now) to cover up the gap in the tube. As for the rest of the miniature - it has a Pig Iron Productions gas-mask head, a skull on a chain bit from a Flagellant sprue, and a purity seal from some Space Marine sprue. Very minor conversions compared to what I've done on my other vets, but I'm just glad they're almost done.

Paintjob wise, Specialist Chule ain't all that great. There's some very noticeable sloppy painting here and there, but overall, he's acceptable, I think. My plan is to finish up 3 more Standard Guardsmen for my Third Infantry Squad, and then move on to painting the Heavy Weapons Teams for both the vet and the infantry squads. To the right is the partially assembled Lascannon Team for my vet squad. My infantry squad will be joined by a Heavy Bolter Team. I'm very pleased with the heavy weapons kit - it's almost like a mini-diorama! Hopefully, this change of pace will rekindle my interest in completing some more of my Imperial Guard army.

As usual, click here for more pics.

25 - Tariq, Dune Ranger

2009-06-20T02:25:00.006-04:00

Reaper rampage! I realize the From the Warp bloggers group is primarily dedicated to Games Workshop miniatures and wargaming, but you'll have to excuse my forays into other manufacturers' miniature lines. On occasion, painting armies gets tiresome. While I enjoy the characterfulness and fluff of GW's miniatures, the monotony of, for instance, applying Hunter Green, Fawn, Skintone over and over on my Imperial Guard troopers sometimes sinks my desire to sit down and paint. Of course, it's the very characterfulness and fluff of GW's worlds that also consistently pull me back to Warhammer miniatures. Hey, like the commercial once said: "Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."

This Reaper miniature is called Tariq, Dune Ranger. He's a wonderful sculpt by Julie Guthrie, very detailed and incredibly fun to paint. His outfit is well-designed, tailor-made for ink-washes and strong, contrasting colors. When I first approached the planning stage for painting Tariq, I worried that I'd go overboard with his color scheme and turn the poor guy into a walking rainbow. But the way he's sculpted kind of channels you into making smart color choices. While the model may seem overloaded with little embellishments and layer upon layer of different textures and surfaces, he, in fact, can be broken down to a mere 4 distinct parts - his armor, his undertunic, his billowing cape, and his tassled sash. Thus, rather than be seduced by the many overlapping parts on this model to start applying colors willy-nilly, I settled on 4 primary colors for those 4 distinct parts - Bridge Grey for the armor, Ivory for the undertunic, Green Isle for the cape, and Coastline Blue for the tassled sash. I then used Antique Gold for the fine details.

Tariq's base is constructed from a large piece of torn up cork from a cork board, real sand, and bits of moss purchased at Michael's. The actual base is two pieces of 25mm round wood glued together.

I think Tariq turned out pretty well. I've been browsing through some of the pictures I took of my earliest efforts at painting miniatures, and I'm very happy with how I've progressed. I still remember how disenchanted I felt with my first few miniatures - the messy lines, the clumpy surfaces, the poor color choices.

Well, I promise my next few miniatures will be Games Workshop related. I've finally received my Cadian Heavy Flamer bit in the mail which means I can finish off my Imperial Guard Veterans Squad (minus the Heavy Weapons Team). But maybe not. I honestly don't feel motivated to paint up more Imperial Guard. Maybe I'll try a High Elf or Eldar model.

Click here for more pics of Tariq.

24 - Foundry Miniatures Painting and Modeling Guide Review

2009-06-17T15:39:00.012-04:00

The internet has definitely made the hobby of painting and modeling miniature figures much less frustrating and more accessible to the beginner. There are innumerable sites available that provide excellent tutorials, tips, and videos on everything from priming to base coating to basing to varnishing, etc. But as a lover of books, nothing beats being able to flip through pages, taking your time studying photographs of well-painted figures, devouring step by step instructions from the comfort of a sofa or your bed or your workstation. And in my opinion, Kevin Dallimore's Foundry Miniatures Painting and Modeling Guide is one of the best how-to paint miniature figure books out there, especially for the beginning hobbyist. Here's my review of the book.

Pros: 176 pages of glossy, high-quality pages filled with Dallimore and other painters' miniatures. Dallimore breaks down the book in a sensible way - from painting miniatures in one color for the beginner (essentially, painting models purely with basecoating, eschewing the more advanced techniques of shading and highlighting) to the more involved two-color and three-color methods (where he explains how to use lighter and darker colors either through ink washes or layering to achieve a greater sense of depth). Dallimore particularly spends a great deal of time on how to paint flesh properly and convincingly. The step-by-step tutorials are invaluable. Unlike other how-to books where the author might show a picture of a primed figure in one photograph and then a fully painted figure in the next photo accompanied by some vague textual descriptions about how this magical process was accomplished, Dallimore walks the reader through every single step in the painting process. Photographs of the work in process figures are shown from multiple perspectives and varying degrees of completion. He also does an excellent job of explaining the more mundane aspects of painting such as the proper way to drag a brush across the surface of a model or how thinned out the paint should be for a particular painting technique. While the great bulk of the book focuses on painting figures, about 30-40 pages are also given over to general tutorials on basing, converting, and building scenery/ dioramas.

Cons: There is a lot of repetition in this book. Dallimore admits this up-front in the first few pages of the guide, but it still doesn't make reading the same exact descriptions of the same exact painting techniques any more enjoyable. While it's understandable that a certain amount of repetition would be required when explaining the painting process in a step-by-step manner, I can't help but feel that much of that repetition is just filler. Also, Dallimore adopts the technique of demonstrating the one-color, two-color, etc. methods on the same figure. Again, while I can see the logic behind structuring a how-to guide in this manner (after all, it allows the reader to see just how different these various techniques are when you see them applied to the same figure), the sheer monotony of seeing the same figure over and over gets a little tiresome. In addition, the guide doesn't really address in any detail the super advanced techniques for painting miniatures, such as Near-Metallic Metals or glazing or wet blending. A four-color method is also mentioned in the introduction, but never really expanded on, or at least I couldn't find anything more advanced beyond the three-color method. There also isn't an index. Granted, the Table of Contents is pretty thorough, but I actually remember one instance when I wanted to find the page where he talks about painting tattoos and had to basically flip through the book page by page in order uncover it. Finally, Dallimore's painting style might not be for everyone. Personally, I find it appealing in a cartoonish/ characterful way, but certainly not at the level of many of the more recent Golden Daemon winning painters, especially from Europe.

In conclusion, I'd highly recommend this guide to all beginning model painters and even intermediate painters. I'm not sure if more advanced/ seasoned painters would get anything out of it because my feeling is that the longer you've been in this hobby, the more you've developed a particular style and technique that works for you. It retails at $39.95 hardcover, but I was able to purchase it off of Amazon for $26.37 (a 34% discount with free shipping). Well worth the price, in my opinion.

Photographs of front cover and interior pages taken from Foundry's webpage advertising the book. The webpage can be found here.

23 - Juron, Mystic Knight

2009-06-15T14:55:00.004-04:00

Well, I decided to take a break from the Games Workshop models and instead turn my attention to the large batch of Reaper Miniatures I have scattered about my workstation. Reaper Miniatures were, in fact, my introduction into this hobby. It was always the painting/ modeling/ diorama aspect of miniature figures that first caught my attention, and Reaper's line of models immediately appealed to me with their detail, diversity, and, most importantly, affordable price point!

What we have here is Juron, Mystic Knight from Reaper's Dark Heaven Legends line. This is my 4th attempt at painting him. My first 3 attempts were pretty miserable, but that's to be expected considering how new I was to the hobby when I first purchased this figure. I'm mostly satisfied with this most recent paintjob, although my Juron's resemblance to Batman is purely concidental! It was only after I started painting his chest symbol Antique Gold did I stop and mumble to myself, "Blue cloak, grey breastplate, yellow symbol on his chest...holy subconscious - I've turned him into the Caped Crusader!"

Interestingly enough, this Juron paintjob was not only a marked improvement over my earlier efforts, but it also took less time to do. At this point, much of my Beginner to lower Intermediate level painting skills have become muscle memory and instinct, which is a good thing. The fact that one can see gradual improvement over time so long as one continues to practice makes this hobby potentially much less frustrating. Of course, it all depends on what you want out of this hobby. If it's the wargaming aspect that interests you, then speed is probably more important when it comes to painting your figures than anything else. And that's perfectly fine. Being able to consistently achieve table-top quality is a skill in and of itself. If it's the hobbyist aspect that interests you (like it does for me), then the fact that you can chart your progress month by month makes you more likely to press on, anticipating that next milestone achieved on that next model. Now, I'm pretty sure at some point I'm going to hit a plateau with the progress on my painting abilities. Some of the miniatures on sites like Cool Mini or Not, or in the pages of White Dwarf take my breath away with their subtetly of shading, glazing, and attention to detail, and at this point, I can only dream of approaching that level of quality. Well, when I do reach that plateau, I'll just move on to another aspect of the hobby - I'll become more adventurous with my conversions, finally start sculpting with green stuff, dive into the mad and elaborate dioramas I have planned in my head, maybe even start wargaming if I have the time, etc. - before going back to painting. Regardless of where I am in the hobby, in other words, it is a deep enough and complex enough hobby that I believe I will constantly be finding something interesting about it for years to come.

Please click here for more pics.

22 - Blood Ravens Scout

2009-06-10T20:53:00.005-04:00

This Blood Ravens Space Marine Scout was pieced together from bits I purchased off of eBay. I had originally thought that by buying parts separately, it would be cheaper than buying the full sets (even at discounted prices), so long as I promised myself that I'd only buy the bits if the price was right ($.99 to $1.04). Well, it turns out my theory was right and wrong. It certainly is cheaper (if you have the patience, of course) to scrounge sets together via buying the bits individually. For example, under the most ideal of circumstances (which almost never exists because bits like legs and the heavy bolter usually sell for far more than the $.99 to $1.04 price range I set for myself), I could've pieced together 5 Space Marine Scouts (with accessories and all of the alternate weapons arms) for around $10. The MSRP for a Space Marine Scout kit is $20 while discount on-line stores like Chaos Orc's Superstore sell it at a 25% discount for $15. Not much of a difference, plus a whole lot of headaches to go along with it.

I guess the lesson I learned from this is that bits purchasing should be reserved primarily for conversions. This might seem like an obvious conclusion for the more seasoned hobbyists out there, but for a beginning collector who felt queasy at some of the high prices being charged for these plastic miniatures (coupled with just how addicting collecting these little buggers can be), I was seduced by how cheaply some bits sellers were auctioning their stuff for on-line.

Okay, enough rambling about the high cost of living. Painting-wise, I was fairly pleased with how it turned out on the Scout. My lines are becoming very clean and neat, the surfaces are smooth and the coverage is acceptable, for the most part. Red, as usual, is still difficult to get full coverage with. I tried Delta Ceramcoat's Opaque Red this time, thinking that the "opaque" in its name actually meant something. And it does, to a certain extent. It certainly covers better than the other craft paint reds I've tried, but it still takes many multiple thin layers to achieve proper opacity, especially over a black undercoat. I'm thinking for my future Blood Ravens, I'm going to try the 2 undercoat technique - i.e., prime the parts of the model that won't be painted red in black, and prime the parts that will be painted red in white. It sounds like a mind-numbingly slow process, but I guess I can try it with 1 or 2 of them and see how it goes.

Highlighting-wise, I used Bridge Grey to highlight the wrinkles in the Scout's legs and arms. I was also far more careful with highlighting his face. Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the parts I highlighted, but, of course, large swathes of the model remain un-highlighted. One day, I will try the layering technique that Simon mentioned in his comment to my Veterans Squad post on my Space Marines' armor.

As for the color scheme for this Blood Raven Scout, I couldn't find any visual references anywhere on the net except for this figure on Cool Mini or Not. It's a really awesome paintjob, in my opinion, so clean and smooth, but the color scheme didn't fit my image of what a Scout from the Blood Ravens Chapter would look like. So, instead I merely shifted the Blood Ravens Space Marine colors around for my Scout - the black trim from the Space Marine shoulder pads became the black of the Scout's pants and sleeves; the off-white of the shoulder pads themselves became the off-white of the wristguards; and, obviously, the red.

Okay, well, this is getting a little long-winded, so click here for more pics.

21 - Imperial Guard Shock Troops - Flamer Trooper

2009-06-07T14:05:00.007-04:00

Next up - the flamer trooper for my standard Guardsmen squad. He's missing the decals on his shoulder pads and a varnish, but for all intents and purposes, he's finished. I'm pretty satisfied with his paintjob - nothing special, not too much highlighting (in fact, almost none other than bringing the base color back after shading the model with Citadel Washes). As I've mentioned in my earlier posts, I've continued to use craft paints up to this point - all of my Guardsmen (Veteran and Standard) have been painted using Delta Ceramcoat Hunter Green and Bridge Grey, Americana Fawn, and Folk Art Skin Tone. While the craft paints have been, on the whole, acceptable, their covering properties are definitely a bit on the transparent end (especially after being thinned, which they must be in order to avoid being slathered on too thickly). I've recently been looking into investing in some dedicated miniature model paints - Vallejo, Reaper, or Games Workshop - but the cost of these paints still seems prohibitive to me.

I've tried to paint the Standard Guardsmen (Third Squad/ 1st Platoon) in a cleaner, less grittier style than my Veterans. The reason, obviously, is to imply that the Standard Guardsmen squads are constantly getting influxes of fresh-faced replacements to replenish the heavy casualties that Imperial Guard units are infamous for enduring. Thus, at any given time, Standard Guard squads are full of troopers in newly pressed, crisp uniforms, flak armor that still have that new factory smell, and the deer in the headlights look. This squad has the 265 decal on their left shoulder pads (and the Cadian structure symbol on their right shoulder pad), so I'm working under the assumption that they belong to the 265th Cadian Shock Troops Regiment. A cursory Google search doesn't reveal any canonical references to the 265th Cadian Regiment, so I guess I'll have to sit down and create some fluff for them on my own (Yay!).

So, this flamer trooper makes 5 Standard Guardsmen from Third Squad. 3 more lasgun troopers to go and then a Heavy Weapons Team (either autocannon or heavy bolter) to round them out. At this point, I'll have used 16 of the 20 available models from the Cadian Shock Troops box I purchased five or so months back (before they went OOP). That leaves 4 models left. I've already begun converting those 4 remaining models for my 1st Platoon Command Squad (I've got enough bits collected and set aside for a Junior Officer, a Standard Bearer, a vox-caster operator, and a veteran with a special weapon). After that, I might move on to trying my hand at converting (with green stuff) some Ogryn from an Ogre Kingdoms Leadbelcher set I have. More likely though, I'll head back to my Blood Ravens as I have plans to convert some regular Tactical Space Marines into Sternguard. Unless, of course, I'm able to find some Heavy Weapons Squad boxes cheap on eBay, but ever since the recent release of the 5th Ed. Imperial Guard Codex, it's been impossible to get IG stuff cheaply. Interestingly enough, it's also really hard to get Space Marine Scout boxes cheaply on eBay. Considering everything I've read on the Interwebs about SM Scouts are that they're not all that good, I'm a bit confuzzled as to why people seem to want them so badly.

Again, click here for more pics.

20 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad "The 50/ 50s" (7 out of 10 Completed)

2009-06-04T17:08:00.006-04:00

As a new member of the From the Warp Bloggers Group, I'd like to make my first contribution to the group by adding to the Collaborative Post on the Imperial Guard. This post is more of a summary of all of my past posts on the construction and painting of my Veterans Squad, "The 50/ 50s" (so named because this jaded, cynical group of hardened veterans understand that life and death is merely a 50/ 50 flip of the coin, oftentimes, and skill ain't got nothing to do with it). To the left, you will see the finished 7 members of "The 50/ 50s." In the top row, from left to right, we have: Specialist Samori, the vox-caster operator and newest member of the squad; Sergeant Greyloch; Specialist Ruddard, the sniper; and Specialist Blacker. In the bottom row, from left to right, we have: Specialist Slagan, demolitions expert; Corporal Marsham; and Specialist Condan, meltagun operator. The squad is still missing its heavy flamer operator (next up as soon as I get my heavy flamer bit in the mail) and its Heavy Weapon Team (a lascannon, I think).

Now, I'm not really all that interested in min-maxing this squad. I mostly chose its composition based on what I wanted to paint or how I envisioned it in my mind. While I'm not counting out ever playing a table-top game of Warhammer 40k, at the moment, I really have no time to pursue that.

A close-up of Specialist Samori is to the right. His head comes from a Space Marine Scout, his vox-caster is Catachan, the banner streaming from the antenna of his vox-caster is a Dark Elf Warrior bit, the shotgun has been cut and converted from a Space Marine Scout, and his right arm is from the Command Squad sprue. His paintjob neither improves nor slips from my current level of painting. I did continue my attempts at grasping highlighting by adding some to the banner (to decent effect), but I think proper highlighting is still a few months away.

Some comments on how I put this squad together - Corporal Marsham (bottom row, middle) was the first Veteran I "converted" and painted. As you can see, he's pretty much a standard Guardsman but with a few bits glued on him here and there. Specialist Blacker (top row, far right) was the second, and his conversion was taken one step further than Marsham's - I cut off his left hand and glued on a hook from a Chaos Space Marine Rhino decorative bit. Also, his head comes from a Space Marine Scout. As I became more confident and more engrossed in the conversion aspects of this hobby, each subsequent Veteran underwent more and more elaborate conversions - Specialist Ruddard, the sniper, is wielding a converted sniper rifle; Specialist Condan operates a meltagun from the Space Marine Tactical Squad box and required a lot of cutting and filing in order to make it fit on his model; etc. What I came to realize is that converting models is incredibly good fun! It's heretical to say, but it's even more fun than painting them! I've gotten to the point where every remaining unit in my Imperial Guard list is going to be scrutinized for conversion possibilities. I'll be asking myself: "Hmm, do I really have to buy a Cadian Command Squad box? Or should I see if I can convert one from bits laying around?"

After completing my Veterans Squad, I will be building a diorama for them. I would like to incorporate magnets into the diorama, or at least design it in such a way that the miniatures can be removed from the diorama easily. I've seen tutorial on the web, but many of them seem to require a drill bit of some kind which I do not own (nor plan on getting in the near future). At this point, I think I'm looking at using plasticard or even sculpting putting to create depressions in the diorama to accomodate the base of a miniature.

Well, click here for more pics of my Veterans Squad, and feel free to visit my blog for more in-depth posts on each of the individual members of "The 50/ 50s."

19 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad Demolitions Specialist

2009-06-01T00:30:00.010-04:00

As predicted, I couldn't help but resume painting my Imperial Guard Veterans Squad. Converting models is almost as fun as painting them, honestly, and my Veterans Squad has been my most highly customized unit of models to date. To the right, we have Specialist Slagan, the squad's demolitions expert. In his left hand, he is holding a "counts-as" demolition charge (which was originally a meltabomb from a Space Marine Devastator's sprue, I believe). His head, as mentioned in the WIP post, is from Pig Iron Productions. Pig Iron sells them 10 to a pack and they're really great for adding individuality to models. Scale-wise, they're perfect fits for Games Workshop's models, and even though the helmets aren't exact matches for the standard Cadian pattern helmets, they're close enough especially when you paint them the same color. Slagan is also wielding a shotgun appropriated from a Space Marine Scout and on his back, he is humping a backpack from a Catachan Heavy Weapon sprue. Also, if you look carefully, I finally applied decals to my Imperial Guard models. On Slagan's right shoulder pad is a white skull - the symbol I'll be using to identify my Veterans from the more rank-and-file troopers.

I wouldn't consider Slagan's paintjob good or bad. It's a bit messier than the level I've been achieving as of late, but overall, it's of the same quality. The confidence I gained highlighting the Vampire Counts Zombie from the previous post completely disappeared with this model. As I wrote in that post, when I'm forced to pick out highlighting points on my own (rather than simply following the obvious peaks and valleys presented by a model like the Zombie), I often still make poor choices. I do like how Slagan's backpack turned out though. I personally think the worst part of the model has to be the demolition charge. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably re-paint it green, black, and grey with maybe some red thrown in, but the yellow just didn't work at all.

Well, the Veterans Squad is now 6 strong. I have the vox-caster operator (whom I haven't given a name yet) ready to go at my workstation, and then the heavy flamer operator still awaiting my attempt at buying cheaply either a Cadian Command Squad box or a heavy flamer bits off of eBay. I've also been scavenging on eBay for a cheap (and when I say cheap, I'm talking 50% or more off the MSRP before I'll actually buy something) Cadian Heavy Weapons Squad box to round out my Veterans Squad.

Click here for more pics.

18 - Vampire Counts Zombie

2009-05-29T00:57:00.005-04:00

This Vampire Counts Zombie was very easy to paint. Broad swathes of solid colors, very little in the way of fiddly bits, and plenty of nooks and crevices in the sculpt to allow for clear and distinct shading. And because it was quite a simple model to paint up, I used it to practice my highlighting to a degree I've yet to attempt. If you look closely, you can see the second - lighter - colors I added to the basecoat of the tunic and the undercoat of the pants. The tunic was painted in Rookwood Red (an Americana craft paint) and the highlight was an Opaque Red from the Delta Ceramcoat line. The pants were the original black primer highlighted with Bridge Grey also from the Ceramcoat line of craft paints. Finally, the hair was also given the highlighting treatment. I basecoated it in Bridge Grey (over the black primer), then highlighted it with white before shading the valleys with the Badab Black Citadel Wash.

Personally, I'm pleased with the progress I made concerning highlighting with this model. Granted, it was a very easy model to experiment with. As I said before, the lack of tiny fiddly bits definitely made the highlighting process less imposing. Also, the many folds and wrinkles in the tunic and the pants were almost like signposts telling me where to apply the highlights. My highlighting usually turns ugly when I'm forced to guess where exactly the light would catch a certain part of the model. I guess that comes from a lack of artistic training in my life - I just don't naturally see shading and lighting. This deficiency in my painting is most glaring when it comes to the near-metallic metal technique. If you look at the pitchfork the zombie is wielding, the highlighting and shading there are non-existant at best and miserable at worst.

A word on the skin color for the zombie - this was fun to do. First, I basecoated with Bridge Grey, then I slowly added very thinned down layers of Light Flesh (from the Folkart line of paints). I was going for a pallid, but not pale look. I wanted some of the Bridge Grey to seep through in order to give the zombie a dessicated appearance. When I was satisfied with the coloring of his skin, I then added some Opaque Red lines (following the contours of his muscles and facial structure) to signify broken and rent skin before finally giving it a wash of Ogryn Flesh. Because the wash darkened the skin too much and gave it a very un-undead like flush, I gave the skin a few light, thinned down coats of Bridge Grey and then Light Flesh before calling it a day.

For more pics, click here.

Next up - I'll probably head back to my Imperial Guard Veterans Squad.

17 - Space Marines - Blood Raven

2009-05-26T00:38:00.006-04:00

As promised, here's the second member of one of my planned Blood Ravens tactical squads. Paintjob-wise, he doesn't look all that different from the first Blood Ravens Space Marine I did, but this second one was definitely a lot easier to do. Getting red acrylic paint to cover well is still a pain, but I've learned not to thin it down as much as I would with other paint colors. Based purely on my experience, the colors green (of all hues), white, black, and yellow have a strong opacity that allow me to paint them on over a black undercoat and achieve solid coverage with just a couple of coats while red, grey, and brown seem to take many more coats to achieve the same level of coverage. I've read on many miniature painting sites as well as in some miniature painting books that red is a notoriously difficult color to attain coverage with, so it's really just my luck that I chose the Blood Ravens as my Space Marine chapter of choice. Oh, well, hopefully after my 30th or so Blood Raven, I'll have mastered the art of getting coverage with red paint and can then impart my hard-won wisdom to you!

Again, this Blood Raven comes from the Assault on Black Reach set, so no conversions were done on him. The Black Reach marines are 3 piece snap fits - the body (including legs, torso and head in one piece), the boltgun (with both hands attached), and the powerpack - but the lack of convertability is more than offset by the low price you pay for the almost 50 models (marines plus orks) which come in the set. I do have a Space Marine from the Command Squad set (which allows you to mix and match legs, torsos, heads, arms, etc. to a greater degree) primed and assembled and ready to be painted, so I might experiment with some conversions on that figure. I've also got a fully converted Sternguard Veteran (patched together from Tactical Squad, Combat Squad, and Command Squad sprues) in the works. Either way, my next paintjob will probably also be a Blood Raven. Maybe. Hmm, I just might paint up some of the Warhammer Fantasy figures I've got sitting on my shelf...we'll see.

As usual, click here for more pics. Oh, and I know I still need to put chapter markings, squad markings, etc. on these Blood Ravens. I still haven't decided how I want to do it - transfers or free-hand. I had terrible luck with transfers on my Imperial Guard (which is why they also do not have markings on them) and my free-hand skills do not exist. I'm probably going to give transfers another try though, one of these days...

16 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad Meltagun Operator

2009-05-24T00:23:00.007-04:00

I initially planned on having Specialist Condan wield the grenade launcher for my Veterans Squad, but after some deliberation (plus, more importantly, the arrival of some special weapons bits I purchased), I decided to give him a harder hitting weapon - a meltagun. It took a little converting though to put the meltagun in Condan's burly hands. First, I cut the grenade launcher that was originally attached to his right hand. Then I trimmed off the grip of the meltagun and glued the meltagun onto Condan's now weaponless right hand. Finally, I detached the stock of the meltagun in order to make the weapon fit snugly under his right arm. Nothing all that complicated, but it is interesting how this one hobby challenges you simultaneously in so many different ways. Obviously, the primary challenge (for me, at least) is mastering the painting process. However, learning how to convert figures in ever more complex ways is also an integral challenge of this hobby (and one I oftentimes find even more enjoyable than painting). And finally, activities like basing, building dioramas, scratch-building vehicles and buildings, sculpting bits and even whole models with greenstuff/ putty/ epoxy contribute to the depth of this hobby in a whole host of ways. Finally, throw in the wargaming aspect (if you are so inclined to participate in that aspect of the hobby), and you have a truly multifaceted craft to sink your teeth into.

Personally, I think Specialist Condan's paintjob has been the cleanest and smoothest I've produced thus far. My brush control has really improved by leaps and bounds since I first picked up this hobby. To anyone who has just picked up the painting of miniature models, do not be discouraged by your first attempts at the hobby. When I first started painting these models, I literally could not keep my paint from smudging and wandering and dotting everywhere except where I wanted them on the miniature. Brush control is muscle control and the more you paint, the more brush control you will inevitably develop.

So, my Veterans Squad is up to 5. I have 2 Veterans primed and ready to go (1 vox-caster operator and 1 carrying the demolition charge), 2 spots reserved for a Heavy Weapon Team, and a final spot probably going to another Veteran carrying a special weapon (plasma gun or heavy flamer, maybe?). Still, I don't want to burn myself out on Cadian Guardsmen, so I think I'm going to head back to my Blood Ravens Space Marines for a little bit and try to get a few of them painted up next.

Click here for more pics.

15 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad Sniper

2009-05-21T00:11:00.013-04:00

One shot, one kill. Specialist Ruddard reporting for duty, sir! It might seem like I'm churning out these miniatures fast and furiously (what with the ork post going up just yesterday), but in the spirit of full disclosure, the Ork Boy had already been practically completed and sitting on my desk waiting to be touched up and varnished for about a week when I started up on Ruddard. So, I'm still painting about 1-2 miniatures a week. Which probably seems very slow, for sure. Now, this isn't for lack of motivation. In fact, painting during the wee hours of the night, after my wife has gone to bed, is incredibly relaxing to me. I just paint very slowly. And carefully. And I think I almost enjoy assembling and converting models and building bases more than painting, so alot of my hobby time goes into that as well.

Specialist Ruddard, astonishingly enough, was originally intended to be the sergeant of my Veterans Squad. The pic on the right shows what he looked like when I first assembled him. Gone are the pointing right arm, the Catachan head, and the left hand chainsword with sergeant's arm patch. Instead, I replaced his head with a hooded Wood Elf Glade Guard, his right and left arms with standard Cadian lasgun arms from the Shock Troops sprue, and glued a Glade Guard cloak to his back. I also made some conversions to his lasgun - I cut the barrel off an Empire Pistolier's rifle and used it to extend the lasgun's barrel, glued a scope from, I believe, a Space Marine Command sprue, and made a bipod from a Dark Elf Repeater Crossbow. Overall, Specialist Ruddoch has been my most enjoyable and satisfying conversion to date. I think I did a decent job converting a Standard Guardsman into a reasonable facsimile of a Cadian sniper. Click here for more pics.

Also, the paint job represents my ongoing attempt to incorporate highlighting into my painting routine. At the moment, my highlighting skills are tentative and clumsy. I still do not have the brush control to paint thin enough nor straight enough highlighting lines along the upraised edges of things. Also, my blending skills are non-existent. Well, I didn't expect it to be easy.

I'll close this post with a pictorial comparison of my Veterans Squad and my Standard Guardsmen squad. I like how the conversions for my Veterans has allowed them to look every bit the grizzled survivors of hellish dystopian battles while my Standard Guardsmen almost look like children in newly minted uniforms in comparison.

14 - Orks! Waaagh!

2009-05-19T23:53:00.006-04:00

Well, a couple of weeks after painting my first Ultramarine, I present to you my first Warhammer 40k Ork! All in all, he was fairly easy to paint. He would've been even easier had I stuck to the black Clan Goff paint pattern that the Assault on Black Reach painting guide demonstrated, but I'm not too confident in my ability to use black as a primary color. Black as an undercoat is fine, but attempting to bring black to life through highlighting and layering and such still confounds me. I've read on various on-line and print miniature painting guides that black and white are two of the hardest primary colors to work with, and I can believe it. So, I changed the color scheme of my first ork, making him more rugged and outdoorsy rather than Mad Max/ Hell's Angels leathery as the Goff Clan is apparently supposed to be emulating. In hindsight, it looks like I subconsciously painted my ork as a member of the Snakebite Clan.

This ork is also my first attempt at integrating highlighting into my regular painting routine. Not too impressive at all, the highlighting, but it's going to be a slow process. As I mentioned in my previous post, it's taken me almost 6 months to become comfortable with my brush control and my shading (via washes) so I'm not going to rush myself in regards to gaining proficiency over the more advanced techniques up ahead. By the way, he's not quite done. I'll probably add some more bits to his base, then touch up the paint job a bit before matte varnishing him.

Personally, the ork wasn't all that interesting to paint. I dunno. I can't imagine having to paint up the numberless hordes of them necessary to field an army in 40k, but I guess to each his or her own. For all the monotony that the Imperial Guard seems to present, I've had far more fun painting the 7 (and counting) Guardsmen I've assembled than I had painting this one ork. But since the Black Reach starter set comes with, oh, almost 30 ork figures, I better find something to like about them soon.

As usual, click here for more pics.

13 - Imperial Guard Veterans Squad Sergeant

2009-05-15T21:14:00.012-04:00

Welcome to the Imperial Guard, Veteran Sergeant Greyloch! Just finished shading him with Citadel washes (Ogryn Flesh for the skin; Badab Black for the flak armor, metallic parts, the cloak, and the insignia bits; Devlan Mud for the khaki parts of the uniform) and bringing the upraised areas back up to the basecolor. For the eagle-eyed among you, you'll notice that Sergeant Greyloch has changed a bit from the WIP photos I put up in my last post. His base model was originally to be a standard bearer for my Hardened Veteran squad, but it turns out...Hardened Vet squads don't get standard bearers! Only Command Squads do. On top of that, I had armed the standard bearer with a plasma pistol which is a weapon only a Sergeant of a squad can wield. Now, even though I don't plan on playing games of Warhammer 40k in the foreseeable future (and thus aren't barred from breaking the army list rules and rewriting them for my own purposes for fear of having my work wasted when I'm not allowed to field my conversions in a game), I personally find more enjoyment in creatively interpreting the rules as they are written. I guess it's the same reason why I find poetry with definite rules regarding rhyme sequence and metered lines (English sonnets, for instance) more interesting than free verse.

As for the paint job - I think I'm able, at the moment, to consistently put out table-top quality figures. In Greyloch's case, his paint job doesn't seem worse or better than any of the last 2 or 3 Guardsmen I've done (although I did mess up Greyloch's left eye). I believe from this point forward, I'll be focusing on improving and mastering my highlights. It's taken me about 5-6 months to get this far; I'm hoping after a year, I'll be moving on to the more advanced techniques of wet blending, layering, glazing, and, of course, near-metallic metals. I've also decided to hold off on buying proper model paint until the end of the year.

Oh, and I've settled on a nickname for my Hardened Veterans squad! I'm going to call them "The 50/50s" because according to their fatalistic and cynical view of things, life and death are determined purely by the flip of a coin - 50% of the time, the bullet (or something even worse) finds you and tears you to bits, and the other 50% of the time, the bullet whizzes past your ear.

For more pics, click here.

Up next - an Ork Boy from the Assault on Black Reach starter set that I've almost completed.