Wednesday 29 December 2010

Plastic Everywhere




During Chrismast break I could do any painting since all of my stuff is in Lublin, so I decided to put together and prepare everything I have to paint after New Years. So on the waitig list as mentioned before are Land Raiders, Rhino and Attack Bikes. I've already put together both Land Raiders. In order to be able to paint the interriors I left one side of hull and top loose. I'll glue them after finishing paintjob on transport compartments. Also as it can be seen in pics, side sponsons with both Lascannons and Flamers are magnetized so they can be changed to fit different rosters. There's third combination of side arms with hurricane bolters, but since there's no more sponson parts I'm forced to improvise and design them from scratch with plasticard, I already got the main shape, now I'll have to work on pole and on some details to make it less plain. As well as side weapons top turrets aren't attached permanently, for the same reason.

Now I'll be working on side hatches on Land Raiders and both side and top hatches on Rhino. Plan is to drill plastic parts, insert metal pole and make some hinges so doors can be opened and closed at will ;)

Magnetic revolution will also affect Attack Bikes, where there'll be option to switch between Multi-Melta and Heavy Bolter. It will require some work on couple of parts but what's plasticard and metal for ;)

I still have one Bike waiting to be assambled and another one
somewhere in the mail along with next Rhino but
I guess they will arrive after New Year so they will be last one in line.
If everything goes well and airbrush will arrive without delay I think paintjob on those should be done even by mid January, but as always when I try to predict optimistic end term, real life comes into work and all itinerary goes to trash. So for now I'm not saying anything in order not ot jinx it :D






Friday 24 December 2010

Merry Christmas Folks !

Hey there! I'd like to , on Viruk's and mine behalf, wish you all Merry Christmas. May you spend this jolly time with your family and friends. I hope you can catch a bit of distance to everyday trivia and focus on whats reall important to you. Also have an awesome New Year's Eve.

On that festive note, a Christmas pop-classic ;)


Tuesday 21 December 2010

Let's get this party started

Another batch of Ultramarines coming right up. This time fast attack/heavy support is on the agenda. 4x Attack Bikes, 1xRhino (well razorback actually but it will be constructed as rhino), 1x Land Raider, 1 x Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer. A lot off plastic and even more fun to do. I have some creative altering in mind like extra armour out of plasticard or some personalised battlefield add-ons. Also 2011 will officialy be the year when I'll get back together with my airbrush (yay!). I have some creative painting in mind, involving some extra damage/rust effects on tanks and some chrome "chopper style" suit for bikes. I won't probably be paiting any big freehands on Land Raiders....this time. Later that year I mean to buy LR just for me and to strip it apart to create some overview model with complete custom interior.


Still it's only the first part, I'm waiting for remaining Rhino and one more Attack Bike.
So far only picture of boxes since right now I'm at home and have only basic equipment. I'm hoping to get it out of boxes and to clean parts and get it ready for glue and paint back in Lublin ;)

And as for Christmas touch...one of my favourite English carols about one of our southern neighbours, Czech king Wenceslas :D (slightly off-traditional performance by Irish Rovers from...Canada )

Monday 20 December 2010

Cryx taking to the skies


Just released on the PP website. An entirely new Cryx 'jack. Looks very interesting and I will definitely buy it once it's available :)

Sunday 19 December 2010

Late night WIPs

Here's a quick look at what I'm working on at the moment. As you can see I'm continuing work on the Easterlings. The pic isn't great as it's already past 10 pm here and taking pictures with artificial light and no background set up is not a great idea. Anyway, this is just a WIP so it doessn't really matter that much at this point.
This time I'm painting only archers, 4 Kataphrakts and 2 Banner Bearers. The Banners will be the most interesting part here as they are nicely sculpted and have fairly big size (especially the larger one). I think I'll go for NMM here as true metalics don't usually look too good on this kind of surface.
I started with the armor. I like to have this part finished before moving on to other areas like clothes, weapons, quivers, etc. At this point I'm more than happy with my recent hobby shopping, especially the Gold set from Andrea. In particular the Light White Gold color. While painting gold, I would always mix gold with silver for the penultimate highlight. This paint has just the perfect shade for this stage.
I may finish this batch of minis in 2010 but with the busy Christmas schedule I cannot be sure. After these, I will work on several Harad minis and a mounted version of Saruman.
Alrighty then, time to wrap things up and call it a day. One more "Christmas" accent and see you in the next post :)

Wednesday 15 December 2010

BLT and his swarm

I've finally managed to deal with some of my own backlog. I've painted the remaining four bane thralls which means that the unit is now complete. I wanted to give them a cohesive look that would combine metallics with purple (a color of choice for my Cryx army - I'm trying to add a touch of it, at least to the units). I basically speed painted them as I only want a solid tabletop quality for my units, otherwise it would take ages to paint them all.
I really like the sculpts, the fact that they are all multi part means that there's great potential for alternative poses. I tried to give each of them a slightly different pose. Still, my favorite part has to be the skull, I like the brow-like thingy around their eyes, gives them a kind of demonic look (of course in the WM-tongue-in-cheek way). So, here's my first complete WM unit.

Hopefully other units will follow in the future. I'm thinking about Bile Thralls as I like the sculpts and they have some potential within the game. But then the Satyxis Raiders look even more impressive. As you can see, the hobby aspect is the most important criterion for me ;)
Bane Lord Tartarus was a challenge. First of all, the sculpt. Lots of parts that needed to be glued in a position that made painting some of the areas of his armor a bit tricky.
Before painting I quickly checked for some background information on the model. This sometimes helps, at least it can give some inspiration. In this case it turned out to be a good idea. As a human, Tartarus was known as Horfar Grimmr, a powerful Molgur chieftain who suffered an agonizingly slow (one month of "purifying" tortures) death that was supposed to remove the taint from his soul. His tormented soul wandered in the shadows for centuries to be retrieved by the lich lord Tenobrous who joined with remains of some of the defeated warrior-kings. Together with a rune-inscribed armor and the unholy axe Rivender, he became a force to be reckoned with. His most impressive skill is the ability to travel easily between the human and the spirit realm.
This story is nicely reflected in the game as he can turn killed warrior into a grunt in his Bane unit. With Reach, Weapon Master and special attack (Thresher), he is able to wreak havoc in the enemy lines (at least before he's taken down since he's not too tough...).
Knowing the background, I tried to give him a more ghostly look. I also wanted to make sure that he stands out among the Bane swarm. started with the whirlwind-like thing at the bottom. I liked the effect and decided to add more of a similar color on the model. I ended up making it a bit too bright but I'm rather pleased with the effect anyway. It took me a while to come up with an idea to paint his axe. Initially I wanted to give it a greenish-blueish look but in the end decided that some variety would be a better option. My younger brother said that now it looks a bit like a living organism. I like this idea :)
Now I have another batch of the Easterlings waiting for me. Archers, cavalry and two banners. I think I'll end up finishing them in January as the last days of December will probably be quite busy.
Almost forgot - for today's music corner, a song that somehow seems suitable ;)

Tuesday 14 December 2010

Santa Claus is comin to town

In fact this year he's arrived a bit earlier. I took the liberty of ordering my gifts by myself (with my wife's kind consent ;) and used the opportunity to stock up on some of the Andrea paints. I've already written about them earlier . Basically the idea is that you buy a set of six shades of a given color. I've found the black set more than useful so laying my hands on other ones was just a matter of time. I decided to get a white, flesh, silver and gold set. Seemed like the most useful choices for me as I find it hard to get a satisfying effect using GW's metallics (especially when I work on larger flat surfaces). I really like the soft tones of colors in the white set. I will give it a try when I begin working on a mounted Saruman model that's also a part of the large commission I'm working on at the moment. The flesh set also looks very promising as the colors are nicely matched in this one. The gold set will definitely come in handy as I use this color frequently. I was a little surprised by the inks as the bottles are slightly different than the ones I'm used to - see the picture. It seems like an interesting solution. The only problem is that the black ink in the gold set was not packed very well and I had to spend a while removing it from other bottles and from the box.

Buying sets like these might seem like a solution for lazy painters. This is probably true but not entirely. Andrea's paints mix very well with other acrylic paints. Also, if you want to get a really nice effect mixing them is still a must.
And to be honest, I'm a sucker for buying paints. I probably have more than I really need and a number of them is rarely used. I treat it as a part of hobby. Collecting miniatures, collecting paints, almost like two sides of the same coin. And since I paint large numbers of minis I like to have more options available at hand.
Four "military" colors from Reaper and a pigment fixer from MIG complete my Christmas list. I really like paints from Reaper as they have excellent coverage and good consistency. The downsides are that the bottles are a bit smaller than P3, Vallejo, etc. and they tend to clog after a while.
Now that all the paints are nicely assembled, the only thing lest to do is to start using these. Christmas break is getting closer so I may find some time for a solid painting session.
And here's yet one more classic. Somehow I am drawn the music from 40s. It seems to me that singers didn't try to go all gaga about how controversial and original they were and simply put their energy into making really good show. They definitely had what many of today's artists lack; authenticity and charisma.

Monday 13 December 2010

Pick of the week

I'll venture slightly off the beaten track and leave the world of painting miniatures for a brief moment. Let's move to another realm, one that doesn't have much in common with reality. This one's pretty cool, so who cares? With the official debut of the Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides trailer there can be no other piece of news to fill this one, aye lads?

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Chariots of fire

The chariots are finally ready, it took me a while to add the final touches. Overall fun minis to paint but the amount of details and the number of parts make it a bit annoying at times. Definitely not my best work up to date but a pretty decent effect methinks.
The charioteer goes first.

Not much to say really. I simply followed the color scheme I used with the Khandish infantry and cavalry I'd painted earlier. The king required more effort as with the dominance of red I wanted to make sure I used different shades of this color.



It looks quite impressive once assembled and painted but when I think about putting it in a package and having it sent to the commissioner... I quickly switch to other more nagging issues.



I am going to switch back to painting WM minis for a while now. The second half of the Bane Knights unit has been waiting for a long while. I'm also still hesitating how to paint Tartarus. A very nice model with great potential. I will probably go for a partly metallic, partly ghostly look. Still, the axe leaves me wondering what to do about it. I will definitely feel nice to finally paint some of my minis as I've been busy doing commissions for a longer while. I want to have them ready sooner than later so I'll need to strike a balance between quality and quantity here.

And to finish off, here's a classic. I'm an avid jogger (especially in winter, somehow jogging in the most enjoyable for me during this season of the year) but I haven't seem this movie yet. I'll need to watch it one day.
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