Basing Tutorial

Greetings one and all! Hope the new year's treating you well so far.
Been rather busy working lately, so haven't made any progress on the rest of my Warrior-regiment, but I found some pictures I took while painting the base of my standard bearer - recalling that I had planned to write a brief tutorial on how I do my bases lately. So without further ado, her goes:

First of all, I tend to use a bit of barch and some milliput to build up my bases, creating rocks and elevation. Add a pinch of sand, make sure the miniature fits onto the mix ( I usually drill a hole for the mini's foot-pin(s)), undercoat and then we're ready to start painting.

1. I start off with a nice coat of Shadow Grey. The blue-tinged grey works quite well for shadows and areas of shade - in fact I use this colour quite extensively when shading my miniatures as well, and find that by using many of the same colours on both base and miniature, it all gets tied better together and looks more natural - as if it's the same sun illuminating both the warrior and its environment.

2. My second shading colour of choice is Scorched Brown. I mix it with water and give the base a good ol' wash. Then I use Skull White to bring out edges and details; sand gets drybrushed, while edges are roughly highlighted.

3. Like I did with Scorched Brown, I make a wash out of watered down Chaos Black. I'm sure some of you might argue that I could just as well have used GW's washes, but this way I can more easily control the colour and opacity of my layers, and I don't risk getting these shiny bits from too much wash...

4: Now, this is the funny bit. Basically I just pick a set of striking colours (Blood Red, Darkangels Green, Ice Blue, Golden Yellow), water 'em down a bit, and place spots randomly on the rocky-bits of the base. It looks rather unnatural at this stage, but when the final layers gets on, these strange spots shine through and to my eyes it mimics the diversity of natural rocks quite well.

5: Watered down mix of Shadow Grey, Chaos Black and Skull White dampens the colourful spots, bringing back the greyness to the base.

6: Finally fine edge highlighting with Skull White for the rocks - maybe a bit of drybrushing over the sand, if you want to bring it out more.

The miniature is then glued/pinned on, I place small droplets of super glue where I want static grass (I use GW's Dead Grass, then place a smaller droplet of glue on top of that after it is dry, and glue some Burnt Grass on top of the previously placed grass - I guess one could just mix the two types and do it in one go, but I havn't tried that); if I want longer blades of grass, I use hair. The leaves on my bases are made by grinding a dried leaf into smaller bits.
Hope you've enjoyed this brief tutorial, and if nothing else it can serve as some inspiration.

Standard Bearer - Finished

Arrived safely in Norway this evening, but managed to shoot a couple of pictures of my take on the Chaos Exalted Hero, before dropping him off at Games Workshop and catching my plane.

After talking to some friends, I decided to go for a traditional banner instead of a flag, and added onto the plastic banner from the Chaos Marauder Horsemen set. Got a couple of spare parts from the old mounted Champion of Slaanesh and the Dark Elf Cold One Knight boxes. I didn't have time to paint any freehand on the banner, but after I return to Denmark I'll see it through.

I've used a rather limited palette on this piece: only Skull White, Chaos Black, Shadow Grey, Mithril Silver and Scorched Brown (except on the base, which got a few colours more - but I'll make a short tutorial of it later), which I think has worked quite well to tie the whole model together. Granted, not the typical colours of Slaanesh, but I really like the concept of using light and clean colours to represent darkness or evil. And while I have nothing against pink personally, I do find it slightly over-used, so I wanted to try something else to make it stand out more.

With all the armour on this model, I've had ample opportunities to practice shading of metal - or painting true metallic metal, if you like - and I really like the process and results. To top it off, it goes faster and faster for every part, and I hope to keep this level up on the rest of the unit. I have mentioned in an earlier post, I believe, that this miniature will be part of a regiment of Chaos Warriors with the Mark of Slaanesh, and when I get back to Denmark I hope to be able to complete the first rank sometime february. There is some rather extensive converting and sculpting involved, and I have to figure out how to make a couple of things in sculpting putty as I go, but having one model finished surely helps on the motivation!

But now time for some pictures: Hope you like him! As always, comments and criticism is welcome!
The voting for december's Knights of the Brush will take place tuesday the 27th, so if you live in or near Copenhagen, feel free to drop by GW's store there, as I'm sure there will be several really great entries this month as well!

Standard bearer WIP

Just a little WIP shot of the standard bearer.
For fun I thought I'd try something new with his helmet - the freehand need some cleaning, but I think I'll leave that for later - so much left to do! And I've got only tonight and tomorrow to finish him, if I want to participate in december's Knights of the Brush, as there's a plane waiting for me wednesday to take me back to my parents' place in Norway.

Don't know what you think? Part of me likes the freehand on the helmet, but on the other hand the lovely shape of the Chaos Warrior helmet gets a bit lost?

Hoist That Rag!

So, it turned out that my finecast model wasn't of as good quality as I first presumed, and I've spent the last couple of days filling bubble-holes and trying to correct a huge molding fault. It's as if the two parts of the mold hasn't been correctly fitted, so the rear part of the model is roughly 0.5 lower than the front. So his left arm and leg has recieved quite the bit of sculpting, to correct this. Luckily, the rest of the mold line is hidden by the fur of his cloak, or ran down a undetailed area on his right side, and was thus fairly easy to remove with my hobbyknife. Still frustrating.

Either way, I've decided to make him the standard bearer of my regiment, and have started converting a bit: I've replaced the original head with a regular Chaos Warrior helmet sans horns, replaced the axehead of his left-hand weapon with an axe from the Chaos Knight sprue, and filled most of the holes in his cloak. As the unit will bear the Mark of Slaanesh, I want to reduce the worn look typical to the Chaos Warrior regiments' cloaks and equipment, and make them look a bit more like they care how they look. Sure, they've been out raiding and seen many a battle, but they won't be seen dressed in rotting cloth and rusty armour!

So here's how he's standing at the moment - not pinned or glued to his base yet, I prefer to paint them separately.
As his right arm also suffered from the faulty moldline, and in addition had two bubbles ruining the chainmail, I thought I'd sculpt the whole arm from scratch, and I hope to finish it by the weekend, so I can start painting next week. Speaking of sculpting, I've giving brownstuff a go at this model, and I'm very happy with how this putty's working. It cures harder than regular greenstuff, making it easier to cut and file should one want to do that, but it also stays more in shape than greenstuff: making it easier to get those sharp and defined edges you want when sculpting armour. Greenstuff, by contrast, acts in a slightly more "liquid" way: if you don't return and work on a spot regularily until it cures, the putty tends to go soft and gives rounded edges - which can work out very well if you're trying to sculpt something organic or soft, like flesh or cloth. So both putties has their uses, and I'm still very much at a learning stage, but hopefully this project will get me a few more steps along the way.

The standard itself will also be scratchbuilt from a 2mm iron pole and some putty, and I made my first attempt yesterday:
I got some nice tips from Mati over at Massive Voodoo on how to sculpt cloaks and the like, and used the techniques he suggested when I made the flag (as you can see from my setup below, I opted for paintpots instead of wire, as the flag was so large).
The technique seems to be working fine, but I'll have to remake the whole thing and make some minor adjustments before it gets where I want it, I think. For one thing, I managed to make it way out of proportions, it's too large! Secondly, a combination of too thin layer of putty and the wrong ratio of putty-parts made the flag slightly softer than I'd like. But I'll give it a new go and hopefully improve the outcome.

I have been debating with myself whether a flag or regular banner will look best on the tabletop; any thoughts from you guys?

Here they come!

After tallying the votes saturday, it turns out I once more have the honour of picking the miniature for GW Copenhagen's monthly Knights of the Brush painting competition - and hence forth we are allowed to do a bit of converting, which suits me just fine. I'm sticking to the army of my heart, Warriors of Chaos, having chosen the Chaos Exalted Hero - and I do hope this doesn't bother too many; I was slightly dissapointed to see only three entries, including my own, last saturday. Anyways, fingers crossed that more will join in on the fun this month!

I picked up the last box in the store, and while the curse of finecast-bubbles still seem to linger, it doesn't bother me that much, as I'll play around with some greenstuff either way. Without revealing too much at this point (my initial plans for any model are always prone to change as the project progresses..), I have planned to make him fit into a Chaos Warrior regiment, which has been collecting dust in an unfinished state since the early months of 2010. The concept of this regiment was, well first of all, it will have the Mark of Slaanesh, but that's not so groundbreaking. But what I really wanted to do with this unit, was to break up the very rigid and boring poses the otherwise greatly sculpted Chaos Warriors suffer from, and to make it look as if the whole group was charging headlong towards the enemy. And it went fairly well with the first miniature, until I started to resculpt the cloak. I couldn't get the putty thin enough, or it didn't look natural, and attempts to use paperclips or plasticard didn't get me anywhere. So I lost motivation and shelved the project - until now!

I'll use the Exhalted Hero as part of the regiment; granted, he does not run, but the pose is rather nice and unique, so it will break up the rather monotonous look of most Chaos Warrior regiments. Furthermore, after I am done converting him, he'll serve as a nice model to test the paint scheme and has given me much needed motivation to dust off the box of unfinished Warriors and other bits and pieces I thought I could use for the project. I got to spend a couple of hours among plastic, glue and greenstuff, and this is a snapshot of my workspace and the state of my regiment.
I've still not figured out how I'm to make the cloaks (any tips or links to good tutorials would be greatly appreciated!), but I did experiment a bit with a grey putty, called ProCreate the other day. I was unable to make a cloak out of it, but it felt really nice to work with, so I'll probably give it a shot. Also have a batch of brownstuff lying about somewhere, which I have yet to test, but I have heard it's best suited for armour plates and other bits with sharp and defined edges.

Either way, will be nice to work on a regiment again; single characters are all very nice, and I do love the Knights of the Brush concept, as it not only lets me paint wonderfully sculpted miniatures, which I probably wouldn't buy normally (e.g. the Wood Elf Highborn), but also the deadline ensures that I finish them! But to complete a new regiment, that's something I honestly haven't done in a long time, but it also looks so much grander, doesn't it?
Strength in numbers!

Chaos Sorcerer Lord

So slooooow!
I think I have to enter some regular "painting time" into my weekly schedule, 'cos a single model painted in a month, that's hardly progress at all. Won't get my army finished this century, that's for sure!

Either way, the Sorcerer Lord for tomorrow's Knights of the Brush painting competition is finished, and I do hope you like him! Very happy with how he turned out myself, although I caught a glimpse of another contestant's mini at the store today, and he's also gone for the magma-armour, which I had hoped would score me some easy "uniqueness points"...
C&C welcome.

Chaos Sorcerer Lord - WIP

Progress has been slow this past week, or rather nonexistent.. But this morning/afternoon I managed to get some painting done - it's not much, but at least it's a start.
It's my first try on magma-armour, heavily inspired by Vincent Hudon's Magmatrax and redmanphill's Warriors of Slaanesh, and I think it fits a magican attuned to the Lore of Fire quite well.

I did the plates on his back first, and might redo them, as I personally find the smaller grid on the frontal plates more to my preferances. The remaining armour will be painted as dark steel, although I haven't decided on whether I'll try some lighting-effects from the magma (or if that will be too much?), or simply giving it a ever so slightly bronze-tint. Any suggestions?

To the Top!

Just thought I'd drop by with a quick update, as I just was notified that my Amethyst Wizard won october month's Knights of the Brush competition!

This means that I get to choose the miniature we'll be painting this month, and I've choosen this chap:
The (relativly) new plastic Chaos Sorcerer Lord.
As you can see, I've started on a dark-red colour scheme, which in the end will mark him off as a sorcerer devoted to the Lore of Fire.

Wizard of the Amethyst Order

The first wizard is completed!

Or, while taking these pictures, I saw I had forgotten to paint his ears and the edge of the base needs some cleaning, but I've just packed away my photobox, so you'll have to live with these pictures for now at least.

I need to get some whiter lightsource(s), I think: my pictures get all yellow-tintet and who knows if it affects my painting... But that's for the future!
Hope you like him!

Empire Battle Wizards - WIP

Just thought I'd give you all a small update on how my entries for the monthly Knights of the Brush painting competition are progressing. Starting to feel a bit of a time pressure rising; the deadline is the 29th of October, at 10 am, and I can't claim to be a swift painter. But at least both of the models are assembled and primed, and I've been fiddling around with some colours and settled on themes for each of them.

First out is this fella. His main colours will be black and white, to better fit in with my Slaaneshi warband. I've sketched down some freehand motiphs, which hopefully will be enough to mark him as part of my army, once it's all done. The staff-head was created by pinning the burning sword onto a staff - I do hope it won't disqualify this model from the competition; conversions are not really allowed, but as I have only used parts from the Battle Wizard-box, I hope it'll be okey. After all, the winner of last month's competition had removed the tree-spirit from the Wood Elf Highborn... But we'll see!
...come to think of it, I did cut, reposition and pin the hand with the book, and also removed the pharaoh-ish beard-compartment from the mask - which actually saddened me a bit as I found the thing itself rather cool, but I was forced to do it, as the head wouldn't fit onto the body, unless I cut off the beard-compartment. Awh well! At least I think he looks rather decent this way, so should he be disqualified, I'll still have a nice addition to my army!

Then there's the second mage.
I've not made any conversions to this guy, so no danger of him being disqualified! The idea is that he'll be using the Lore of Death, and I felt that it should be quite obvious to any observer that he is - apart from the scythe and hourglass... As the previous wizard, he's still at a very early stage, but the freehands are at a slowly, but nevertheless steady pace turning out the way I want them to.
Hope you like them so far, I'll do my best to slap some more paint on them in the following days, and update promptly!

Wood Elf Highborn

Afraid I havn't got much to show, when it comes to progress on my Empire Battle Wizards, which are the chosen model(s) for this month's Knights of the Brush - I have assembled them, even tried to sneak in some minor conversions, but in case that will get me disqualified, I've assembled a second mage. I just hope I have the time to get them both painted the way I visualize them.

Either way, the guys over at GW Copenhagen have finally uploaded pictures from last month's competition, so I thought I'd share a rather badly lighted and poorly focused image of my contribution.
As you can see, I went for some rather unorthodox colours for my Highborn; my model was the only which wasn't predominantly dark green with bronze armour.
I still need some practise when it comes to blending, but hopefully these monthly challanges will give me the motivation to push for and eventually master more fluid transitions between colours. All in all I'm quite happy with him; I really how the tree's barch turned out and the blade - although the quality of this picture doesn't render either very well.

Hope you all like him, I'll get some better pictures when the miniature is returned to me.

Vlad von Carstein - Finished

Fuelled by the warpstone of Mordheim, Vlad's magic seeped over Sylvania, coiling through the unguarded Gardens of Morr, pooling in the open peasant graves. Across Vlad's lands the dead awoke. Skeletons clawed their way through the dusty soil; Zombies stirred in their muddy holes; Ghouls loped from their crypt lairs to worship their new master. With this act, von Carstein threw down the gauntlet to the Empire. The Wars of the Vampire Counts had begun.

Here he is, finished at last!

I can't claim to be the author of the little piece of fluff typed down in itallics above, that honour goes to Gav Thorpe, the man behind the Vampire Counts' army book for 7th Edition. After buying Vlad, I read all I could find in the book about Vlad, in search of inspiration, and I thought that particullar passage really fit with the pose of the vile count - hence all the green, warpstone and all...
The book also describes Sylvania as a rather barren and wartorn county, and I hope I've managed to capture that essence in the base, with the gnarled, leafless tree, dead grass and leaves. Speaking of the grass, as I don't have any static grass in my flat here in Denmark, I used my own hair istead - a cheap alternative worth trying for other poor modellers! I must admit it was quite difficult to handle, but I hope the end result turned out to be convincing. The leaves I made from a natural dead leaf, grinded to small bits before glueing onto the base an effect I'm very happy with!

I'm not as happy with the OSL on this figure though, compared to what I've achieved on my last two Blood Angel Terminators.. Might be that my technique simply works better with Midnight Blue, rather than Dark Angels Green, or that the placement of the glowing blade makes it hard for the glow to reach the rest of the model, and thus the illusion of green light suffers, with fewer surfaces to be reflected off. Or maybe it's a combination... I think it looks decent enough, though, and I'm still very happy with how the blade itself turned out.

Now that the cloak is in colour, it might be easier to notice the ever so slight conversion I've made to the model. Originally, an extra ghostly head is soaring out from the cloak, but for one thing, I think it makes the left side of the model a bit too busy; secondly the model's front-heavy enough as it is (prone to tipping, even with the extra weight added to the base with putty and sand..); finally - and most important - I screwed up when cutting the loose head out, which ruined the part which should fit like a jigsaw-piece with a hole in the cloak. I gave up on using greenstuff to fix it, and the head's whispy "neck" was too thin to drill a pin-hole through, so I gave up on it all, and simply greenstuffed the hole in the cloak, and have later come to appreciate the choice, based on the two first reasons.
For a while, I thought of using it on the base - might be quite cool to have it come out of the skull's eyesocket, or something - but in the end, I decided against it. The pinning problem would have made it difficult, but also I think it might've made the base too busy, and drawn attention away from the model itself. I've still kept the head though, so it might find its way into another project, sometime in the future.

Hope you all like him; I know I do, and he's been a true joy to paint and work with, so it's not impossible I'll buy me another one, just to test out some other paint schemes. Then again, the other Vampire models do look rather splendid, so maybe a new one instead... I'll save that discussion for later, as at the moment my vallet is thin, and the Space Hulk miniatures are waiting eagerly to be painted!

Vlad von Carstein - WIP2

Progress has been slow last couple of days, as I've been at a music festival instead of home and painting. It's truly been a blast, with great musicans, wonderful concerts and perfect weather!

But, this blog's about miniatures, not music, and in fact I have made some progress on Vlad this afternoon, which I thought I'd share. I've finished his armour, and painted his hair black, as well as working a bit more on the fur of his cloak and finished all the metallic parts.



In the end, I went for a red armour, which most of the previous comments have been in favour of. By Rogue Pom's suggestion, I've tried to make it dark, using a glaze of Scab Red + Chaos Black to give it a hint of purple. When painting the red, the new undercoat of black followed by white, really shows its value, as I could just give it one or two thin coats of Blood Red directly, and then work "backwards", making shadows and darker areas using Red Gore, Scab Red and Chaos Black. Quite the opposite from adding more and more red into a black base coat, which is how I've previously painted all my reds. Brother Zael, the next Space Hulk miniature to get some paint, has already recieved the new undercoat, and I'm really looking forward to working on him - the red parts should take a lot less time now!

But back to Vlad: I've seen many pictures of him, with white or light grey hair - 'Eavy Metal's take on the model amongst them - and while it gives a certain air of authority certainly fitting for the first of the von Carstein vampires, the Vampire Counts armybook describes him as:

"...darkly handsome, of noble bearing and aspect..."

Now, I'm not saying that grey hair can't be handsome, but to me, Vlad would've been a black haired nobleman, in his mid-twenties or early thirties when he recieved the blood kiss, and I think of him as quite vain and that he'd try to keep his dark hair in undeath. Also, from a painter's perspective, I hope this will make his face become a focal point - after all, with the fangs and glowing eyes, his face is what gives him away as a vampire!

Now, all that's lacking is a couple of gems, the cloak with its screaming heads, the hilt of the sword and of course the base. Oh, and the sword will get its glow-effect, but I'm going to wait with that until last, as I find it easier to decide how large a glow will be fitting for a miniature - what is too much, and what is too little - when everything else is painted.

Hopefully he'll be all finished sometime tomorrow, but feel free to come with any critisism or other comments!

Vlad von Carstein - WIP

So, here's a pair of pictures, showing yesterday's progress.
The pictures ain't of the best quality, with the model being just a work in progress, I didn't bother with setting up my photobox, and Vlad's face in particular suffers for that.



I've still not decided how to do his armour, I've seen some great pictures of this model, with the armour done a very dark metallic colour. Others seem to do it golden, but I kind of feel the model looses some of it's aura of evil and darkness, if painted brightly golden. A friend of mine suggested red, like the wings I did on his shoulderpad, while another friend wanted me to do it a eerie and ghostly light blue - I think the latter would clash with the greatsword's green, though... Any thoughts?

Speaking of the sword, I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. At first I wanted to paint it in True Metallic Metal style, but my blending ain't good enough to give the smooth end result I crave, so I ended up repainting it green. The plan is to make it glow with some OSL-effects (as will the ring and eyes), I just need to finish the armour-bits first, so I can do it in one go.

I promised to write a couple of words on the undercoating-technique I've used for this model, and I think it's working quite as I read it should. The red was very easy to paint, just a few layers and there it was, just like I wanted. Same goes for face and other light parts (although I think the blitz from my camera has ruined the details and shading on the pictures above..), all's been very easy to paint up.
Another great thing, is that with the raised areas getting some white dust, the details on the sculpts gets so much easier to see. It's easier to plan which parts will get which colours, where I need contrast and such.

Comments and critisism is as always welcomed, but I hope you like him so far!

Summer!

Summer has truly come to Copenhagen, the weather's been warm and lovely for quite some time. In other words, it's been hard to pick up the brush, with nature showing off its best colours, but with the upcoming 8th edition of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, my fingers have started to itch for something to paint again - the urge getting stronger with every day passing, making the 10th of july get closer and closer...

Yesterday, I happened to be passing by the local GW, and went in for a chat and a quick look in the new rulebook (which I think looks fabolous, by the way). Anyways, it turns out that the store's having a small release party on the day, with all sorts of competitions for the customers: cake baking, army building, costume making and miniature painting.

I love competitions!

I promise you I'll give you pictures of the cake I plan to bake, but naturally I have to wait 'til we get closer to the date with baking it. In the meantime, you'll have to contend with the progress of my chosen (and newly bought) miniature for the painting competition:


Ever since I saw this editions sculpt of Vlad von Carstein, I've wanted to paint him up - it's so richly detailed and I think the sculptor (whom I sadly can't find the name of) truly has captured the character perfectly! Now I just hope I can do the piece justice.

I've tried a new undercoating technique for the first time, following a tutorial at Massive Voodoo, which basically is to first undercoat black, then gently "dust" it with white spray, which should make the raised areas naturally light, while cracks and areas you'd normally want darker, will be more black than white. Supposedly it'll make for an easier and better paintjob, as you get the best of both black and white undercoating: no need of darklining, as the black coat's there, while raised areas will pop more, and light colours like red, yellow and skin, will be easier to apply, due to the white.

I fear I might have been a bit too careful with the white, at least on his legs, ut I guess it's a learning process to get the technique right... I'll try to write down some thoughts on the matter in my next post, when I've tried my brushes on this new coating. And hopefully I'll find the time to do some regular posting of my progress on Vlad. I must admit I havn't decided on how to paint all parts of him, mainly the armour is undecided, so feel free to give me some suggestions, or if you have painted up one mini like him yourself, I'd love to see some pictures!

Sergeant Lorenzo

At long last, Sergeant Lorenzo is finished!
One of my favourite sculpts among the Space Hulk miniatures, with his characterful pose and facial expression, and the lovely detailed and unique armour. In the end, I'm very happy with how he's turned out, and I hope you like him too:

(Click to enlarge picture)

Painting this guy has been quite the battle, and several times I caught myself wondering wether this miniature wanted to be painted or not. Certain areas I've had to repaint over and over, 'cos I simply couldn't get it right, and certain parts I've had to remove the paint with sandpaper, before starting all over again with the brush. For example, the swordblade alone took me at least 6 tries, and more than 3 hours to get how it is now. For some reason I couldn't get the red right at his armour when I first started painting him, and I've completely lost the count of how many layers of diluted paint I've glazed most of it...

But finally, he's finished, and I can focus my entire attention on my upcoming exams in the last weeks of June. Until they're over and done with, I won't have time for painting nor modelling, and my blog will be more or less in hibernation. Come July I should be back though, laying my brush onto more Blood Angels or maybe some Genestealers... Only time will tell which shall be my target!

Brother Deino (bigger pictures)

Turns out the first images I posted of brother Deino were too small, so here is some larger ones.

(click image for even better view)

At the moment, the general opinion seems to be that I should only add battledamage to those models it's sculpted onto. Guess I'll follow that recipe, and then when they're all done, some with battledamage, some without, I'll make up my mind as to whether it looks good or incoherent with such differences in between the models.

The next model is advancing slowly but steadily, I havn't been able to do much painting yesterday nor today, but maybe later tonight.. I'll do my best not to keep you waiting!

Brother Deino

Well, as yesterday's sneakpeek might have given out, I'm currently working on some Space Marines, namely the Blood Angels off last years reissue of the Space Hulk game. And first of the gang to be completed this side of New Year, is Brother Deino - hope you like him!

(click on image for better view)

I don't think I've had these on the painting table since october or something, and now that I've picked them up again, I've made some changes in the way I paint them - hopefully for the better. Mainly, the mix of red I use now, is not as dark as earlier, and I've tried to define the edges more with some extra highlighting - much lighter than before. Also I've worked on my technique when it comes to my NMMs and the OSL from the Powerfist. On top of that I've made minor changes to the painting scheme: parts of the Stormbolters will be red, many teardrops/blooddrops will be done gold (those that look like gems will still be green emeralds, but many of the blooddrops don't have a gemcasing sculpted, and as such looks wierd painted green, in my eyes) and finally the thin wires will be done green. And for the cloth, I've settled for white - strictly speaking, this is not a change, as Brother Deino was the first of the Marines I've painted with any cloth on him, but I think I initially had planned to do it some other colour...

I'm still undecided as to how much battledamage I'll paint onto each model - the sculpts themselves varies a lot on that subject: some, like Brother Claudio and Sergeant Lorenzo, got large gaps and holes in their armour, while others, Brother Deino amongst them, look like they're coming directly from maintenance... Any thoughts on the matter? Should I dirty them up a bit, some scratches here and there; make it look like they've fought their way through a horde of Genestealers? Or should only the models with battledamage sculpted onto them, recieve such a treatment?

Either way, Brother Deino is not varnished yet, so if you have any suggestions or any critisism, don't be afraid to empty your mind!
And in case someone wonders, the thought I had when painting his Powerfist the way I did, was that he's just "turning it on", so to speak, and the powerfield giving the glow hasn't charged up yet, so the backside of the fist ain't enveloped in energy, just yet.
An alternative theory was given to me by a friend upon seeing the painted model, saying that "bitch-slapping" is the way to go, when fighting Genestealers...

Still around...

It's been a while, well over a month, but now I'm back! And even though this term's exams are approaching, I'll do my best to get the odd update rolling on this blog every now and then. I might even expand the theme for this blog somewhat, to include another hobby of mine, yet that's something I'm still contemplating... Time will tell!

Either way, I've spent the time since my last blog-entry doing quite the bit of experimenting, painting-technique-wise, and as such I don't have much to show yet, as a lot of time has gone to trial, error and starting over. I have finished one mini, and will post pictures of it tomorrow or the day thereafter, while a second is well under way. here's a sneak peak:

The red (although not very well represented in this picture, and turned way too orange due to light-settings) and the NMM gold, has been the main targets for my mentioned experimentation, and while this picture may not be much to go by, I hope you like it. Stay tuned for better pictures, come sunlight!

Inspired...

As the work on my Sorcerer neared the end, I began thinking of what to do next. I came to a point with my Sorcerer, where I had to wait some hours for certain parts of putty to cure a bit, before I could move on. I suddenly had a timepocket to fill, and while I could have started painting my Dragon Ogres, I thought that the space of time would be better suited continueing sculpting - after all, both putty and tools were already in my hands, so no need to dig out paint and brushes.

But what to do? I do have quite a few regiments waiting in their sprues, and while looking through the boxes, I came over my Chaos Warriors, and it hit me how static they look, all lined up, weapons and shields at same angle and looking quite boring (at least the third time one assembles a regiment of them...), despite the rather great sculpts. Lots of good detail, no doubt about that, just lack "motion".
Then my mind wandered to an image from the armybook, of a charging warrior, and I thought to myself, that's what I want to make! So I cut off a leg, half the cloak and one shoulder, then found an arm and some greenstuff, and started putting it together. A few hours later, and this is what I got:
It's by no means finished, I'm currently working on making the cloak sort of flutter behind him, and I need to find him a helmet. And even if the shield's finished, the arm might need some extra sculpting as I've cut away a large portion of the cloak which'd normally hide the upper arm... His left foot is there somewhere, but it's bet so high you can't see it from this angle.
Owh and here's the picture from the armybook, just for reference:Mine will get a classic Chaos Warrior shield, though, as I think they simply look gorgeous - and besides: carrying half-torn bodies stuck to the shield ain't only unpractical, but slightly un-Slaaneshi, don't you think?
I don't know how you think, but personally I felt so happy with the result, that I decided to make the rest of the regiment in a similar matter, i.e. less static, and all with unique poses, but so far I've only gotten the second one to about the same stage as the one on the picture above, although with quite a different pose. Unfortunately I didn't take no pictures of him yet, and I'll try not to make you wait long.

Anyways, hope you like the idea and how the first one's turned out so far.
Last in this post, I thought I'd include a picture I took this morning, which managed to capture some of the details better.