Reinforcements: Raven Guard Assault Intercessor

 

It's been a long time since I was painting models, playing games, and looking deep into the internet for the best techniques for painting and modeling my figures. But here we are. Nearly a decade later I'm right back into the thick of the miniature wargaming hobby.

To start things off I've jumped back in with battle damaged space marines of course.

Reinforcements: Farseer and Warlock Jetbikes

After a lot of work and probably one too many breaks, I've finally finished this set of conversions!  I've learned a lot along the way for conversion work.  This is also probably the most converting I've done in a while/ever.

Reinforcements: Eldar Farseer

Another commission model!  A good work up to the trio of jetbikes I have on my plate for the next round of paint and a nice break from all of the Space Marines I usually end up painting!

Reinforcements: Logan Grimnar

Continuing to get myself back into the hobby, I've been working on some commission jobs for a few friends.  To start things off I got cracking on a Logan Grimnar.  

Reinforcements: Falcon Guard Dante

Falcon Guard Count-As Dante

As a birthday gift to a good friend of mine, I started this model a while back.  Things of course didn't work to plan and I got side tracked for a good 9 months or so with school.  Well, classes are out now (only one more course to go!) and I am trying to get my legs back in the hobby.  It's been a while and most of this model was already finished it just needed some touch up and additional detailing.  Thankfully it wasn't a huge project to finish this guy up and it helped me gain a little of that fine brush control that I let go when I work on canvas paintings.  

It's just nice to be back :)

Reinforcements: Falcon Guard

In an effort to get my painting hands back before I dive into a slightly more involved commission project, I thought I might start out with some simple tactical marines.  The other reason for this squad is that I wasn't aware that my friend and I were going to be swapping gifts and when he told me my gift was being worked on, I had an instant flash of what I should do for a return gift!

Reinforcements: Angels Sanguine

It's been about two weeks since I finished the latest additions to my Angels Sanguine force.  I had been working so feverishly to complete the two squads of Assault Marines before a gaming weekend at a good friends house that I found myself burning out a little from the push.  In the end, I did get them completed before heading out for that weekend and they saw themselves on the table fully painted and ready to rip his army and others to shreds.

Reinforcements: Sons of Medusa Servitor

Over the weekend I was able to get out to a good friends place and get some game time in.  While I was there I was letting some new gamers play using my Sons of Medusa and Angels Sanguine.  This meant a little time sitting down to figure out some quick army lists for people to use.  The Sons of Medusa being the most basic of the armies I have I was making good use of them and digging around for extra points at times when I couldn't quite make the point max dead on.  Messing with the Master of the Forge options I started toying with the idea of taking some servitors to help flesh out the point totals from time to time, add a wound, and maybe a little more combat effectiveness to a unit that tends to sit back a lot. 

With the thought sparked I came home from my the weekend away and got to work on cleaning, modeling and priming two servitors.  The first of which you see above in his freshly finished paint, the second to come soon after. 

Paint was fairly simple and straight forward for all but the skin tone.  For the skin I painted the areas with VMC Cork Brown, washed with Gryphonne Sepia, touched up high points with Cork Brown, then highlighted with 50/50 Cork Brown/VMC Ivory, and a few touches of what looked to be a 25/75 of Cork Brown/Ivory.  I then washed this back down with Devlan Mud and touched the highlights up a little with the 25/75 here and there. 

Metals followed my typical metallic wash method with Chainmail as the base color, washed with Badab Black, touched up with Chainmail and a few areas given a wash of either Devlan Mud or Gryphonne Sepia. 

Red was done with a Mechrite Red base color, washed with Gryphonne Sepia, touched up with Mechrite Red, highlight of Blood Red, and a final highlight of Blazing Orange.  I washed this again with Devlan Mud and did a touch up highlight of Blazing Orange. 

Black areas are Chaos Black line highlighted with Codex Grey and given a final line highlight of Fortress Grey leaving some of the Codex Grey showing. 

The base was painted Bestial Brown and dry brushed with Bleached Bone before painting the rim with Chaos Black.  Static Grass was added in typical fashion using Gale Force 9 Arid Grass. 

After a Matt Varnish spray, I found he was still very shiny from the wash layers and hit many of the non-metallic areas with a brush on VMC Matt Varnish to kill it off. 

The Sons of Medusa are bolstered once more with a new unit that is in keeping with their background and one that I hope will be useful in filling out an army lists from time to time!  I have more of these guys to do still but 1/4 in a single night is the kind of progress I can handle!

Reinforcements: Angels Sanguine Assault Marine

To give myself an idea of how the basic troop for my Assault units will look, I took a marine from the unit I've been working on the last few weeks and painted him to complete.  It didn't take much doing as the majority of the work was already complete.  The main things I had to do were gems and detail work.  Metallics were given a touch up and black areas given highlighting. 

The marine follows the majority of the color scheme laid out by the Angels Sanguine Terminators.  But with additions of the yellow which was done through GW Iyaden Darksun followed by a highlight of 50/50 Iyadend Darksun/Ivory and a final Ivory highlight. 

The shoulders were also done to help lay out colors and ideas for the army.  I've gone with Second Company markings for this force, so yellow teardrops on the right shoulder.  The left shoulders will have chapter badges, but because of how odd the placement is for this guy, it was hard to get right, plus, I wasn't really happy with just how it came out, so I will have to continue to work on the approach for the badges in the future. 

The base used rust colored pigments mixed with VMC Matt Varnish to create a crusted and rusted look.  I drybrushed this with GW Boltgun Metal along the edges of the plates.  Mixing in more pigment brings out the matt/powdery look of the pigment while adhering it nicely to the surfaces. 

I will be sure to do a full write up for the color scheme and how I approached everything when I post the reinforcements for the finished squads.  Here's hoping a few tips come out of this force!

Reinforcements: The Sanguinor

Early mornings these last two weeks have found me getting more accomplished.  Completing new Space Wolves in the form of Wolf Scouts last week and a Rune Priest this week was a good break from the black and red of my Angels Sanguine.  This time around, I've found time to finish my Sanguinor that I was lucky enough to win through a random giveaway by Santa Cruz Warhammer a while back.  It's good to finally get this model finished after having him shelved for so long and I hope the paint does the model, and their generosity, justice in the end.

Reinforcements: Rune Priest

Making short work of the detail work that was left on my Rune Priest, I was able to get him finished yesterday.  The majority of my time taken up by working the metallic areas so that they looked appropriately deep and didn't detract from the rest of the model by overwhelming him.  I'm actually quite happy with how this model came out in the end, especially when I was so apprehensive about it when I started this project.  It's been some years since I've worked on an old style terminator model and it's good to know you can still make them look cool after all this time.

The model followed the color scheme I've had laid out for some months now and didn't really diverge too greatly from that.  The biggest hurdle with this model was defining what areas would be gold and what would be silver.  With the Rune detailing taking up so much real estate around the model, I was afraid of them taking the model over and ruining the overall feel.  Originally I had these pegged for gold, but thankfully I started washing all of the other details first and was going to go back in on the runes carefully with Sepia.  But once I had the major gold sections washed, I began to see the runes in a different light.  They had a cool blue hint thanks to all of the Shadow Grey surrounding them and weren't standing out, instead they worked more like a part of the armor and helped to break up the monotony of gold that would have taken things over.  I decided to leave them in Mithril Silver and went back on each with a hit of Badab Black to tone them back a little more.

Water-slide transfers can always be a pain, especially on a rounded surface.  To help things along, I used a military modelling trick of old and painted the shoulder pad with VMC Gloss.  This allows the decal to slide into place easier and helps to blur the edges.  I also gave the transfer a few small slits with a hobby knife before placing it on the pad, which will let the transfer buckle in and out a little in areas that would normally pinch.  I couldn't use the typical Y pattern that a lot of folks talk about, but instead cut where I could that I could easily fill back in should it spread too much.  I was also able to cut it directly on the shoulder at pinching spots, a sharp knife and just enough pressure to cut did the trick.  The gloss coat helped to protect the paint in this maneuver as well, so yet another bonus to going with that step!  Once the transfer was in place I used Micro-Sol, a dissolving solution, on the decal to soften it up and allow it to form better to the shoulder.  When it was dry I used my finger to help stamp down any trouble areas and hit it again with Micro-Sol.  Rinse and repeat as needed and it was finally flat to the shoulder.  A few spots spread from the cuts I made so I went back in with Chaos Black to fill them back in.  A final coat over the entire shoulder pad with VMC Matt Varnish and it was done!

While I was at it with the shoulder Gloss coat, I went ahead and touched the gems with it to give them a little more luster.  It's a small thing but seems to work out nicely.  I tend to varnish my entire model after it's finished with Krylon Matte Finish Spray, but even through that stage the gloss seems to add a touch more to those areas I've done in it.

One the Matt Varnish was dry, I finally finished the models base using my typical snow method.

I have a lot of old models like this just sitting around in cases and in bits boxes.  They never really find the light of day but with this 'test' I might be considering more of them in the future.  With this model I get my Space Wolves army up to around 850 points of terrible battlefield ability.  Some day I'll add some armor and long range to them but for now they're just pretty to look at and easy to kill! 

I hope everyone enjoys this bouncing around from project to project as much as I do.  It's really reinvigorated me about painting things and allows me to have more fun than just trudging along through a single army build hating the grind.  I highly suggest everyone out there have at least one or two side projects to work on at any given time!

Reinforcements: Wolf Scouts

Never content with a single project, I found myself drawn from my Angels Sanguine to my Space Wolves once again.  This time around, the scouts found the painting table.  Some of you might remember I actually started these guys some time ago, only getting so far as their armor and cloth, but as always, I quickly became bored and moved on, leaving these guys to sit in the case waiting their turn.  But thanks to some burn out on my latest army project, I caught a glimpse of these guys and decided to give them a go to help break up the monotony. 

Reinforcements: Assault Terminator

To help me get things mocked out for my squad of assault terminators, I decided to go ahead with a single model from the group and paint him up fully.  The big reason was to test the idea I had for my lightning claws.  I wanted them to fit the rest of the close combat weapons in the army but keep them interesting enough to catch your eye. 

In the end, I went with my typical washing method for metallics using Badab Black over a chainmail base color and touched them back up to add depth with another hit of chainmail.  Then I went back in with Devlin Mud along the knuckles and attachment points for the claws.  I went back into the blades and added thinned glazes of Chaos Black to add a shade along the blade, fading it out to the points.  I took chainmail and added scratches to the blades and other spots on the claws. 

Thanks to the shoulder ring, I had to do the chapter badge 100% freehand.  Not exactly fun times, but it's always a good exercise!  And speaking of the trophy ring, I'm extremely satisfied with how it came out!

Now it's on to the next four models from the squad that I have plans to get done all at once via batch painting.  Stay tuned, as I hope to them done sometime in the next week! 

Reinforcements: Rothir the Psychopath

His big, he's bad, and he's completely out of his mind insane.  The Khorne Lord on Juggernaut is easily my favorite model in the entire Games-Workshop range.  It's brooding, it's menacing, it's beastly.  The model is everything I've imagined a warrior of Khorne (also my favorite of the four Chaos gods) should be.  When this model came out, I had to have it, and that need turned into an entire Warriors of Chaos force!  Of course, I'm still working on the army, but this landmark model makes me want to get more finished up so I can finally field him!

I approached this model knowing I wanted a good amount of contrast between the juggernaut and the lord.  To help push the brooding hardly restrained killer look, I wanted to make him much darker than how Games-Workshop presents their version of the model.  The clean look falls in line with the rest of the force and reinforces the pose which is almost regal. 

The base colors were done using an airbrush, then highlighted with with the airbrush as well.  To see the models airbrush breakdown, be sure to check out the WIP shot of him.  The lords armor caught a wash of Badab Black and just a touch in some spots for the juggernaut.  The armor was then glazed selectively on ground-ward facing plates and a few areas for shadows with Black.  The lord caught the majority of this to add a lot of depth.  The armor was highlighted back up a little in spots by brush.  Sorry about not having colors for you here.  I did this some months back!  Be sure to check out the WIP above for a better look at the initial colors, you might be able to reverse engineer it!

The metals were done with a simple metallic washed with Babab Black for the silvers and Gryphonne Sepia for gold/bronze.  The weapon was glazed with Black adding a sense of sky/earth. 

The cloak was painted with Bestial Brown, drybrushed with Snakebite Leather and final drybrush highlight of Bleached Bone.  This was all toned back down with a heavy Devlin Mud wash. 

Leathers followed the standard scheme for my Warriors of Chaos, Black, edge highlighted with Bestial Brown and a final, thinner edge of Snakebite Leather. 

I'm really quite happy with this model.  I had a lot of fun with the paint job, even if it was spread out a lot over a long period of time.  It's going to make a great centerpiece to my force once it's all finished up! 

If you want to see more of this force, be sure you check out the Warriors of Chaos tag.  I really love this army, if only as a diversion to my usual 40k armies from time to time.

Reinforcements: Proetus 'The Three Headed'

With classes concluding just over a week ago, I've finally found time again to sit back down to the hobby table and get back to work on some things.  First up on that list is my Lysander Count-As, Captain Proetus.  The model was so far along that it was killing me to let him sit unfinished on my shelf as I had to work on various school projects for hours on end!  To get back to him and finally get the detail work completed was a great way to get right back into the thick of things.

The shield was of particular concern as I was worried the idea in my head wouldn't transfer to the miniature.  Thankfully, after some concept work in both Photoshop, and with pencil and paper, I was able to simplify the idea to make it work.  The cog detail went down first and the three headed snake or hydra was painted in.  I used Fortress Grey to lay out the snake lines first and then went in with Skull White to finish them off, which included adding the belly details without the guide of grey.  I cleaned the edges up a little here and there with black to make it look a touch crisper.

The razorwire on the base is courtesy of Secret Weapon Miniatures Brass Etched Razorwire.  It was super easy to work with and added a great touch of story to the model.  The razorewire was painted Vermin Brown then painted with a stipple of Blazing Orange.  

The model followed most of the same approach laid out by my Sons of Medusa terminators, and will be what I use for future additions to the force.

For those that might have missed the WIP:  WIP 1, WIP 2, WIP 3

As Captain Proetus takes his place at the fore of the Sons of Medusa, I am already looking into what my next project will be!  I'm always open to suggestions!  It's good to be back with something to show!

Reinforcements: Sons of Medusa Terminators

I started this squad with a mind toward speeding up my painting methods for my Sons of Medusa.  The majority of the painting went very quickly.  I was bowling through most of the major sections, the armor, the metals, paint chips and the like.  Then things started slowing down rather quickly as I got into the white detailing and freehand work.  I tried to create sharp freehand details that I feel added a lot of character to already striking minis.  In the end, the added time was well worth it.

The armor was my main concern when I went into the project.  I didn't want to spend hours upon hours upon hours just getting the squad painted Scorpion Green.  So to speed it up, I used my airbrush to lay down the base of Scorpion Green.  I use a white undercoat so that the green shows nice and vibrant.  Thraka Green wash was used selectively, applied using a thin brush to the crevices.  It took two coats to get it looking right and because it was done carefully, it made cleaning up the armor much much faster.  I went back over the armor joins etc with Scorpion Green to keep the armor lines sharp.  When I highlight the armor, I use a glazing method that alters the color slightly each pass to give it a gradual change instead of a harsh hard line highlight.  It doesn't take a ton of time, but does require you to play with watering down the paint to get comfortable with it.

Chipping was laid down using the usual method with Catachan Green as the chipped color and Bleached Bone the highlight.  It's pretty easy to let this step get away from you, so I was sure to take some time to look at the model between sections of armor to make sure it wasn't too much.  It's all personal taste of course, but it's important to keep balance in mind.

Metallics were done using washes to vary the colors.  Chainmail was the base, with Mithril Silver added to areas that were to be 'gold'.  Golds were washed with Gryphonne Sepia, steels with Badab Black, and some hammer details were washed with Devlin Mud.

The shields saw a lot of personal attention.  For larger areas of white I built them up from black using my regular white recipe (also used for helmets), while smaller sections were painted with multiple layers of just white to opaque.

In the end, I'm extremely happy with this unit and excited to finally be able to field a squad with this much punch!  I'll hopefully build off of what I've done with these guys and keep the momentum going with the next project for the army! 

Dark Eldar Mandrakes: Updated!

After some feedback, I made a few changes to the Mandrakes.  I lightened the hair at the crown, and added a little gory rust to the blades.

Now on to some Badab Marines!

Reinforcements: Sons of Medusa Marine

Getting a new model for my Sons of Medusa army finished is always a great feeling.  This is the army that I fell in love with from the start.  It's a hard color scheme, Scorpion Green and White aren't exactly colors that beginners should handle very much let alone build an army on!  Now with the release of Imperial Armor 10, they have a developed background and a brand new allure.

This guy was just one of a few wargear options I had laying around that didn't make it into the final army list.  Now that I'm back at the boys in green, I'm digging through my collection of bits and models looking to build an entire squad around him.  I've been lucky enough to find enough to put just that many models together, and am considering picking up the collectors range Iron Hands Tactical Squad from GW for a ton of great bionic bits and bobs that would do wonders for the look of the army.  Oh, and that special character from IA10 might be in the making if I can come up with the right bits!

All in all I'm extremely happy with how this guy came out, and while I was at it I went ahead and painted the chapter badge on the tactical multi-melta marine I was using as a rough guide.  I still have to go through and do that for most of the rest of the army, but with how easy it went on with these two I don't suspect it would take more than a day to get done, now if I could just find the time!

I love the Badab War, if you're working on an army from the conflict or have one built, I want to see them!  Share a link in the comments!

Reinforcements: Ragnar Blackmane

Back in the days of 3rd Edition, I desperately wanted a Space Wolves army.  The fates had a different idea as the friend who first introduced me to the game didn't have the colors I would need in order to paint the Wolves in their proper colors.  Instead I went with paints that would end up being my Grey Death Space Marines and hence my namesake for all these years! 

After well over a decade I've found myself in the position, and of the proper motivation, to build and paint an army that's eluded me for so long.  With that comes the chance to paint some models that I've always seen and wanted to paint but didn't have the proper army to do so!  Ragnar Blackmane was always one of those models.  I tried to paint him some years ago while trying to build a Wolves army but didn't get past a single model. 

I painted the model in nearly all the same colors and methods used for the squads of the army.  I also used this model to create last Fridays tip on painting Space Wolves armor.  The only change up from the regular recipes of the army was his wolf pelts.  For those I painted them Codex Grey, but instead of just Devlin Mud, I also gave the pelts a heavy wash of Badab Black over the back and shoulder areas of the fur.  The pelts were then drybrushed Codex Grey, then Fortress Grey, and finally Skull White, with each successive highlight lower and less intense than the last. 

He's not a full out copy of the GW painted version, but I did steal the idea of his left shoulder wolfs head being gold with yellow detailing 'under' the head.  It was a small thing that I really enjoyed about the studio model and wanted to bring into my own piece.  Forgoing the other yellow details keeps him more grounded to the army and makes the model feel a touch less busy, which, let's face it, can be quite hard to do on the old 2nd and 3rd Edition models. 

This model will likely end up being the man himself when played on the battlefield.  One of the first times I'll have taken a Special Character in any of my armies, and a helpful boost in the points department!  I look forward to seeing how he fares once he has a ride to deliver him unto his enemies.

Look for more Wolves to hit the table later this week!  I'm also seriously considering starting a terrain table that would be a lot of fun to build as well. 

Reinforcements: Space Wolves

In just over two weeks ago, inspiration struck me after I had finished painting up Lukas The Trickster for a friend.  I dug around through a bunch of old models that a friend had given me many years ago and went straight to work on them. 

With Dakkacon: Philadelphia on the horizon, I was able to use the drive of wanting a new force for it to really help me press on with the project and bring it all together in time to take the field of battle!  I finished up the army the night before I was set to head up and take part in a 500 point mini-campaign.  The army as is isn't worth writing home about, but a couple of tweaks to the list should be a big boost to the combat effectiveness!  At least they looked pretty getting rolled! 

The entire army was painted all at once in an assembly line fashion.  I painted each model with a single color until completely finished with that color.  This method worked wonderfully for the armor and weaponry but really gets a little hairy when you get into details.  I found myself backtracking on a lot of small things that were missed when painting a previous color.  But once I was able to get to the bases the assembly line worked wonders again. 

For the pack markings I painted the models in batches.  This was a point of concern for me as I spent a lot of time trying to figure out just what I wanted to do with them, even after getting them done I wasn't quite sure what I had painted I was going to keep.  I had even laid in bed that night considering repainting my Grey Hunter pack markings!  In the end though I felt they were strong enough to keep and easy enough to reproduce on future models. 

The armor is a Shadow Grey base color that was given a wash to the recesses using Devlin Mud.  The armor was then painted with a 50/50 mix of Shadow Grey/Space Wolves Grey leaving the recessed shading showing through.  This was mixed previously in a spare paint pot.  The armor was then given a heavy highlight of 75/25 Shadow Grey/Space Wolves Grey that was also premixed in a spare pot.  A final highlight of pure Space Wolves Grey was painted as a line highlight. 

The fur was painted using a Codex Grey base color that was washed with Devlin Mud.  Once dry, I used the side of the brush to paint the raised surface of the fur with Codex Grey again.  Fortress Grey was then applied in much the same manner leaving some Codex Grey showing.  As a final highlight Skull White was applied even lighter. 

Reds are done by painting a base color of Mechrite Red, highlighting with Blood Red and given a line highlight of Blazing Orange. 

Leathers were painted with Bestial Brown, washed with Devlin Mud and highlighted with Snakebite Leather.

The yellows were base colored with Vallejo Yellow Ochre, the surface was then painted with Vallejo Dark Flesh.  This was highlighted using Vallejo Flat Yellow.

Metallic bits were painted Chainmail and washed with Badab Black or Gryphonne Sepia respectively until the color or shade was right. 

Weapon casings were painted Chaos Black and highlighted with a Codex Grey line highlight.

Grenades were painted using Vallejo German Uniform, highlighted with a 50/50 mix of German Uniform/Bleached Bone and given a final highlight of Bleached Bone. 

The skin was painted Cork Brown, washed with Devlin Mud, highlighted with Cork Brown, given another highlight of Cork Brown/Bleached Bone.  A final highlight of Bleached Bone was applied to the highest spots of the face. 

The orange/blond hair was painted Bestial Brown, highlighted with Vermin Brown and given a final highlight of Vallejo Dark Flesh. 

I hope to keep this momentum going into more models for the army and hopefully into other projects.  This army was a eye opener for me into how much I can accomplish given a little free time and an event to paint for!