Salamander complete!

I managed to finish the Salamander I've been working on in prime time for entering him into the Golden Demon competition at this years Games Day UK! (accidental?*)

I managed to get a finalist pin for him in what proved to be a really tricky category - it seemed like there were more entries in 40K single Figure as there are at many other painting competitions in total! I must admit, I was pleased with a finalist pin in this category as the quality was also very high.

I wanted to try and create a tiny 40mm vignette with this piece and hope that it tells a story to the viewer like a larger diorama might.

I have posted this guy up on CoolMiniOrNot and Putty & Paint if you are interested in voting :)
http://www.puttyandpaint.com/projects/2945 (oddly I think these might be better pictures, although I am not sure why... maybe blogger has compressed these ones?)
http://www.coolminiornot.com/342264

On to the pictures...

*Nope!

Salamander... the magical disappearing post...

Somehow, this post seems to have reverted to an old draft version with no text or anything on it...!! These were the most recent images of my space marine on his base. I had written some decent blurb and linked to a pic where I had first created the base for other purposes... bah...! 

Here the posts is, re-instated... 

Puppykicker's first 250 - Ravenwing

Here are some picturs of Phill's 250 points - some rather nice Ravenwing bikers

And some photos of our models together - 500pts of marines - not that many all things considered!

The next 250pt batch!

some initial pics of 250pt block #2

Grey Knight Terminators

and a Finecast (!) Jokaero

I've still got a lot of prep-work to do on these guys, this month is going to be a real challenge! Part of me wonders whether I should just buy Kaldor Draigo and paint only one mini this month :)

But I will give these guys a go and see what happens!

I managed to get some photos of my first 250 with Puppykickers 250 points of Ravenwing and will endeavour to get some photos up soon :)

Some better photos of the first 250

Right, I know its the second month of the challenge, but I just wanted to post a few more photos of the first 250 points. I've gone back to the blue-white gradient background and have been tinkering with my camera settings and am quite happy with the results.

So, what have we got?

A close-up of the Justicar

A pic of all the Grey Knights together

Inquisitor Avicenna in all his 30mm glory

The line-up showing all 6 of the models in this first 250 points

Coming up... photos of the next 250pts!

And we are done...

250pts of Grey Knights and their Inquisitor - painted in one month.

There are a few bits I could still tweak, but I am happy with how these have turned out!

I'll get some proper photos soon, but here they are for now.

3 hours left...

...and the tank is pretty much done!

Now back to the marines

Masking gone, and now some lunch!

Here it is with all the masking removed

Grey done...

I airbrushed the tank in a light coat of black paint and then worked on getting some grey shades and highlights in. I also added some extra black around the bottom of the areas of the tank.

That's the airbrush done now (I think) - time to now remove all the masking and the salt...!

Salt weathering... Done!

My tank is now a mottled silver with various areas masked off.

Salt added - next step, spraying it grey...

24 hours to go... Grey Knights final push!

So, it is the penultimate day of the month - crunch time for my tale of x gamers challenge.

What have I done?
-Painted 5 Grey Knights to 90% completion
-Painted and converted my Ordo Xenos Inquisitor 95% complete
-Built, prepped and done the initial silver coat on my Razorback

What more do I have left to do?
-Freehand loin cloth on Justicar
-Freehand details on shoulder heraldry
-Paint skullz(TM) on all 6 miniatures
-Hairspray and salt coat the Razorback
-Airbrush the grey on the Razorback and paint the rest of the details

And just 24 hours to do it... *gulp*

A quick Grey Knight update

These are the boys as they stand now. Ignore the blu-tac'd heads... I still have a bit of work to do on the inside of the neck area - needs some decent shading to make the helmets stand out. Stormbolters will be a dark red and I think the cowl of the Justicar needs some colour too.

This guy is the closest to completion. The first shot is the most accurate photo of the grey armour, but the blade is over exposed. The second photo is more over exposed on the armour, but the swords look pretty accurate. From a tabletop standard perspective, I am pretty chuffed with the way these have turned out

I think I need to knock back the yellow glow from the helmet looking at these photos. Its a bit more 'taxi light' orange in the flesh, but it might be a touch too much...

I still have a razorback and my Inquisitor to do before the end of the month... roll on Christmas break!


However, I do now have 5 bases almost ready for their occupants. I think I may need to add some skulls or maybe some spikes to add that GW/Chaotic flavour, but I am pretty happy with the way these have turned out. I also want to add some bolter shells etch strewn over the base.

Tale of Four Gamers... the beginning

Do you remember back in the day, White Dwarf ran a series of articles which basically amounted to painting a certain amount of models a month to slowly build up an army? It was called the "Tale of Four Gamers", and is a really great challenge for people like Toosh and I who are painters rather than gamers as we tend to spend a great deal of time painting individual figures, but jealously look at what wargamers can produce...

With that in mind, a group of us are going to do something similar. We have each picked our armies and started on the first batch of minis. There are few rules - must be at least 250pts a month (although MrDee as a seasoned army painting veteran is likely to do at least twice that... the bastard), and there are two wild cards that can be played for those tricky times over the next 6(ish) months -

1. the 250 points can be postponed for 1 month, meaning that you need to do at least 500pts in the following month and 
2. a free month - no models required.

250 pts isnt a lot, but the intent is to encourage T and I to paint more quickly and freely and we are being helped along the way by mrDee and Puppykicker who both play 40K and paint armies already. We may even get a couple of games in as we progress...!

The army choices are as follows:

Me: Grey Knights
Toosh: Dark Eldar
mrDee: Blood Angels
Puppykicker: Ravenwing

My first 250pts
1 x Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (=][= Avicenna lives again!)
5 x Grey Knights in Power Armour
1 x Razorback

Time for some photos.... firstly my Inquisitor - based on an old metal Commissar Yarrick model with the arms from the Inquisitorial walking throne thing:

This is a pic of 28mm Avicenna next to my 54mm Inquisitor Avicenna which was the first mini I posted to Cool Mini or Not and the reason I ended up with that as a username! Now I am resurrecting the character for this 40K army... at 25 points (35 including his power sword) how could I resist (yes, the bionic eye has switched sides, but I don't care :oP)?

And my Grey Knights on sticks....

Onwards and upwards!

Tabletop Standard Marine...

Yup, you read correctly, 'tabletop standard'...

The bunch of guys Toosh and I paint with are all recovering wargamerholics and I have been spending a lot of time recently coveting their beautifully painted armies. The one thing I struggle to do these days is paint multiple miniatures to a decent standard, but I would definitely like to, but I get a bit bored of batch painting, and find a whole army a daunting prospect.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel - when we were up at the Golem studio there were a number of small personal project around the room which turned out to be a 'Tale of X Gamers' type thing. I remember this sort of thing from White Dwarf a few years ago - those involved would start a new army and set monthly targets of a number of points to complete. This number of points always seemed a reasonable amount to tackle and I think the Golem guys had settled on 250pts of a 40K army of their choice.

I think we are going to take on a similar challenge, and in advance of that, I wanted to try my hand at a very quick Space Marine. I intend to do a small Grey Knight force so have painted this marine in grey with steel and brass details. He is a normal space marine, but just a test so it doesn't matter too much...

I got my Airbrush out for the first time to lay down the initial colour - a grey gradient - but painted the rest by hand.

here are a couple of photos:

As a test piece, there are a few things I'd do differently for my actual army. I would leave the head and backpack off, and possibly the gun (although with Grey Knights there are only a handful of models holding guns across their bodies), and I will also be making some more interesting bases for them. They'll never win an award, but its a start and hopefully should help me learn to paint faster and understand where I can cut corners most efficiently.

Continuing on from the Golem NMM lesson

So, I promised I'd show what I had achieved at Tommie's NMM lesson at Golem Studios, well here it is. After the full day of learning and several re-starts on the thigh piece, this is what I ended up with on Saturday evening.

Since Saturday I have continued my exploration of the theories and put them into practice on different areas such as the foot, his chest and his abdomen. These photos are a little overly stark when compared to real life, but I think it is really coming together. I am certainly enjoying using the technique!! Let me know what you think...

I also want to point you back int he direction of the thread on Platoon Britannica where photos of all of the models have been put up by Tommie Soule and more discussion is taking place (with extra advice from Mr Soule). Take a look!

Gollum... *cough* I mean Golem this Saturday

Golem Painting Studio have another event on this coming weekend (17th November), and in contrast to  the last one, I will be there as a student rather than a tutor. Tommie Soule will be looking specifically at how to paint NMM in his distinctive and vibrant way. This is something I experienced for a couple of hours with Mr Soule back in April, but I am really looking forward to spending a whole day absorbing as much info as possible.

This event is taking place at Golem's own studio based in the centre of Manchester so is a fair way from deep, dark Devon, but from my experience, well worth the effort. We will be painting Blood Angel Sanguinary Guard, and should hopefully come home with something along the lines of this:

I'll report on more when we get back!

-A

a WIP by Hasslefree Miniatures

I seem to have this 'thing' about Kev White sculpts, I just absolutely love what he does and there have been a couple of pieces over on the Forum of Doom recently which have really impressed me. One is a Powered Armoured human:

I think its difficult to top the quality of that sculpt even though Kev feels he needs to "sharpen some details". I'll buy this as soon as its released (and would be really happy if they released him in resin!)

The other is an ED209 style Grymn walker (Grymn are Hasslefree's space dwarves). This one is outrageous:

There is also a version with a detailed interior and pilot on its way:

One thing I'd love to see on this model is some kind of arm option for one (or both) of the shoulder mounts... but maybe that can be something for me to work on personally - it would certainly make it different!

I've got to stop fawning about HF minis... too damn good!

The Ultramarine Veteran on Ebay!

Well, I have finally done it - the Ultramarine Veteran is now up on Ebay

Pop over and have a look, and maybe have a sneaky bid whilst you're at it!

Ultramarine Veteran on Ebay

The Ultramarine Veteran - Complete

Well, I think he's complete...!

He has been a lot of fun to paint, and I like what I have achieved in the relatively short time its taken me (snatched moments build up in the end!). He's the first Space Marine I've painted in a long while, but I don't think he is going to be my last*.

One thing that I am not so sure of is the open space at the back. Now it is painted it feels a lot larger an expanse than when I was building it... I am tempted to add a discarded bolter and some shell casings to that side, but can't decide if its needed...

EDIT: I have now uploaded these pics to CoolMiniOrNot! If you fancy popping over and voting for this guy, you can find him here: http://www.coolminiornot.com/283094

Ultramarine progress

Bit more progress on the Ultramarine tonight, got a good lot of paint slapped onto the base and the backpack is on. Lots of weathering to be done on the groundwork yet, and some finer details on the marine himself, but he's getting there.

It is meant to be an alien yet familiar terrain with red mars-esque sand and alien green crystals sticking out of the earth.