Angelic Host Day 3 : Furious Angels

Yet another work day passed and resulted in even more progress on BA SG Standard Bearer. Only wings and small details left to do ;)) I really like how power sword came out , how it breaks down colour scheme of the model.

And music piece suitable for Blood Angels ;)

Angelic Host Day 2 : Send me and angel

So...Another day passed and I'm one step closer to finishing that Standard Bearer. If everything goes to plan I'll finish him today ;)


And suitable music I guess is a piece by Scorpions :

Angelic Host Day 1 : Iron man

Yesterday I had a bit of time, so after preparing for a meeting with a client I decided to dust my set of Sanguinary Guard I purchased last year, so far I've only finished one...in may :) Now I'm getting back to that glorious minis, again refreshing my NMM skills (which still are long way before they are in decent shape).

This time it's standard bearer with power sword. For now I've finished main metallic parts and will now move to standard. Any suggestions are apprecieted ;)

And as title suggest let's dig out some classic piece of rock by Ozzy ;)

Iron Horse

Another week has passed, another parts finished. Today I present you revised version of Rhino and first Land Raider. Rhino is first of my minis painted completely with airbrush and I'm quite found of effect, especially white parts. Land Raider is presented in Redeemer version, but other sponsons are just on the des ;) I've chosen that for pics sake only. I'm waiting for go ahead light and will finish second LR painted also with airbrush only. As you might see LR still needs last touch on tracks which have not yet been aproprietly scraped of mud ;)

Rhino







Land Raider






And for music corner, suitable, I guess piece by Motorhead ;)

Tools of Trade

I've recently bought some additions to my workbench - two new Army Painter brushes and one spray. So far I've only used black and white primers. Now, since I have several dozens of orcs that await painting i decided to try a brown one. I tried it on half-trolls. i started with a solid layer of black (sprayed them and added black into the recesses with a brush) and lightly sprayed them with brown primer. Not only will it make painting them faster, but also more efficient - by doing so I've already done some very basic highlighting.
As far as the brushes are concerned I still have to try them out. I'm enjoying a two week semester break right now and will be back home next week so it will have to wait until then.
And since this post is devoted to tools, I could think of no other band for the music corner.

Air(brush)borne

Lately I bought an airbrush and mini air compressor (suitable for modelling purposes small 4 BAR unit). I figured it would make it easier to paint some of 40k models plus I'll save on spray basecoats. Yesterday I finally had time to set it up and let the fun begin. First on the agenda is Land Raider and Rhino (the same I did earlier, client didn't like it so I had to strip it from paint). So so far I just secured with paper tape and Humbrol Maskol, areas that would be white (in case of LR) and performed preshading using white and black paint (visible on both LR and Rhino).

Now it's time to make the metallics kick in ;) We'll see if I managed to complete it within several days.





As for music... I chose Runnin' Wild by Airbourne because of somewhat coincidental name of the band ;)

Evenstar

Lately during my exam session I took some time to finish one of many minis from my backlog, as usual. My choice was Remastered figure of Arwen (foot version), that has been on my shelf for almost 1,5 year. I decided to do purple scheme, since I just love those GW purples. Another thing I decided to go with on this one was some extreme highlights up to pure white. That forced me to do whole sword twice since first approach on it looked a bit awkward (more natural looks with more gray on it didn't quite fit rest of mini style). Anyway, here's the complete set of pics and link on CMoN.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/270762

And as for the music corner, I have no other choice than use Howard Shore composition:

Jack in the Box part II

I've finally put together my plastic helljack and magnetized it. I will briefly describe the whole process in this post.
The first thing I knew I wanted to change was the pose. I've already worked on one cryxian jack in the past and wasn't happy with how static he looked like in the end.
Working with plastic posed some potential problems. I knew I wanted to somehow bend his legs. I was racking my brains until I came up with a simple yet effective solution - water. It turned out that putting plastic parts in boiling water makes them very flexible. Bending them into virtually any form becomes a piece of cake. One thing worth noting though - once you've bent it and are happy with the pose, immediately put it under cold water. Otherwise it may bend itself back. As you can see in the picture above, one leg has been stretched considerably.
It was also important to bend the feet so that they would fit the sloping rocks I used on the base. I also used pliers and slightly twisted the lower part of his body to add a little more dynamics to the pose. Once I've dealt with the legs, it was time to start working on the magnets. I won't go into details here as there have already been plenty of very good step by step tutorials on how to do it. My main problem was that due to lack of specialist tools (electric drill would have come in handy...). I needed to get the work done with the use of a regular hobby drill and hobby knife. It was a painstakingly slow work.
In the end I had to use modelling putty to fill in the crevices left after cutting out the holes for magnets.
I also added some scratches to the armor. If you're wondering about the sand glued randomly to the armor, it's going to become corrosion in the painting stage. It's actually not my idea - my brother (who is a layman in the field of hobby but is a smart guy who has lots of good ideas ;) suggested adding something or somehow roughening the surface covered by rust. He made this suggestion after looking at my painted bonejacks and I immediately saw potential for following his advice.

In the pics you can see the effects of my work. I'm particularly pleased with the Slayer. It's easy to see that the extreme sculpt version was my main source of inspiration here.



The Corruptor and Reaper were also fun to work with. Initially I was worried that the magnets may be too weak to hold their long arms in place but fortunately everything worked out well in the end (as you can see in the clip below).
Malice was the trickiest one here as I wanted to somehow incorporate the soul tokens and magnetize them as well. After toying with the idea for a longer while I came up with a solution. Unlike the original version, in which the tokens are glued the the area surrounding the cortex, I placed magnets in two different places, one on the armor above the head and the second one in the middle of the (I've no idea how to call this part, guess I'll just refer to it as 'exhaust pipe' until I've found the proper name). The third soul token can be placed in the rocks on the base. After painting I will glue some static grass around it so that the whole won't be visible.
I glued the additional element to the harpoon as I saw no way it could be magnetized. Still, I don't think it would make using the model as Reaper impossible.



And to wrap things up, here's a short video showing how it all works out in practice.

Pick of the Week

I've just finished watching Sons of Anarchy season 3 finale and to be honest I'm blown away. Great scenario, all the threads are closed but at the same time there's plenty of space left open for twists and turns in season 4. I cannot recommend this TV series enough. Great plot, superb performances by Ron Perlman (the guy who read those famous lines about war in the Fallout series ;), Katey Sagal (yes, Bundy's wife, she's amazing in this one) and Charlie Hunnam. Not to mention the appearances of guys like Henry rolling and... Stephen King. So guys, if you haven't already watched it, get hold of a dvd and check it out. And one more thing - the creator's blog.

Revenant Crew Rifleman attachment

Looks like the Revenant Crew is going to get more firearm support. PP showed a few Upcoming Releases today and the Rifleman is one that I like the most, check him out:

The undead Cryx minis are absolutely amazing, they're one of the main reasons I chose this army. I'll be definitely buy this one, along with the whole crew but I need to deal with my backlog first. Speaking of which, the plastic helljack has already been magnetized and is almost ready for painting. I will post an update soon.

Jack in the Box part I

Well, maybe not that kind of jack. Anyway, I finally have some time to lay my hands on the Cryx helljack plastic set that's been waiting deep in the drawer for a few months. I've already painted the metal Slayer from the battlegroup box. It was fun but I think I would have done it differently now. The model is great but the way I put it together doesn't make it look dynamic at all. This time I want to do some conversions, bend it into a more dynamic pose and of course magnetize it.



That's how it looks like at the moment, all the parts waiting to be used (I forgot to put up Malice's parts for the pic. Some serious drilling will take place now, though I won't get medieval on this one ;) I have a pretty good Idea how to do it, so stay tuned :)

Out of commission

Well, at least for the time being. I finished this one on Thursday and the commissioner has already received it.



Abrakhan guard were definitely my favorites here. Great idea and excellent sculpts.
Now I will try to make some progress on my own minis and the plastic helljack set is number one on the agenda.

Wrath Engine

PP has finally revealed how the Wrath Engine looks like. I totally dig it, the sculpt combines technology with the unique, somehow alien, Cryxian look.



If you want to read more about it, check out the latest insider on PP website.

Saruman, come forth

Painting white isn't probably the easiest aspect of this hobby. Achieving a solid color requires many layers of diluted paint. Depending on what effect I want to achieve I use different strategies. If I want just a "table-top" quality I start with Astronomican Grey and add white to this paint in a few successive layers until I reach satisfying effect. However, when I focus on a single mini I tend to start from slightly darker colors (browns, grays) and slowly build up the highlights. Thats's how I worked on the first version of Saruman. Excellent mini, I really like the way his robes are sculpted. I left this one with a bleached white cloak so that his white hair would add an additional element of contrast.

The mounted version isn't my favorite. The clothes don't look so nice on this one. It seems to me that the sculptor didn't really do his best on this one. The proportions of the wizard's body don't seem right with his right arm a little too large in comparison to the left one (which is obscured by the robes). The longish right sleeve makes him look a little clumsy. Or at least that's the way I see it.
The robes on this version were painted using Andrea white set. I followed the instructions from the leaflet attached to the box. It meant giving a solid layer of the base color (a slightly darker, creamy shade of white), building it up in three successive highlights and finishing by adding the shades in the recesses. I guess it's supposed to be a more 'professional' approach (adding shades in the final stage) and even though I'm not happy with the final effect on this one, I can see the potential of this method.
As for the choice of music to this post, there was only one option I could think of.

Harad command vol.2

I had another chance to paint the new version of Harad command group (the previous one can be found here). The sculpts are very nice and the amount of details is also pretty large. Nothing too fancy here but overall I'm pleased with the result.
I also finished painting Suladan - the old version. The new one (kiteman) is pretty terrible in my opinion. I particularly like the dynamic pose of horse and the mask. The pictures are not top notch quality as winter's still in full swing here and days are grey so good lighting is a pipe dream.
The Serpent rider is a final touch in this batch of minis. I've nearly completed my commission, only one mini remaining - mounted Saruman. I've pretty much finished it so I'll be posting an update soon.
I'm currently on a sick leave so I should get a chance to do some work on my own projects (I mean Cryx :) so stay tuned for more.
Cheers,
Viruk