Some Random Painting Projects

It's been a while since I have posted, so I figured it was time to put up something.  Over the last few weeks I have been working away on a number of completely different painting projects in a couple of completely different styles.  Just trying to learn and improve on some of my painting skills.   Hope you like.


Kingdom Death Dung Beetle Knight


This was a piece I have wanted to paint for a long while but wasn't quiet sure how to go about it.  I wanted it to have an iridescent look like some insects have, but wasn't sure how to do it.  I decided to give the Forge World transparent airbrush paints a shot and am pretty happy with the results.

I painted the whole model silver, then clear coated it and did a pin wash with black oil paint to get all the crevasses black, then wiped up the model with white spirits so that there was no black outside the recesses and clear coated it again.  I then airbrushed on some clear green over the silver and then yellow at the highest points.  I then hit the wings with some purples and greens to give a shimmer to them. 

The "fur" type areas and everything else were done with my normal painting methods as this piece was just to play with that clear metallic look, which I think came out pretty well, especially in person.


Arena Rex Beast Master

This model is another great Arena Rex figure that has so much character.  Not really much new tried here other than some blending to get the transition on the hyena right.  I had a lot of fun with this one though.  Same NMM as on the other Arena Rex gladiator I did previously.

His tartan was fun to do, but not super clean, the lines are not all completely even.  Freehand is something I will have to work on sometime soon as well.

Ultramarine Space Marine

This figure was done to play more with glazes.  He was painted with a black base colour and then zenithal highlighted with grey and white with an airbrush.  Then the blue on him is a single shade of blue glazed over in thin coats, then glazed over again with an off-white mixed in for the highlights.

While I have glazed before, I wanted to do a test piece with the simplest colour to do (blue) to play around with what results I could get.

Since I was spending some time on him, I also decided to do NMM for the shoulder pad and chest, but used normal metallic paint for his shoulder pad trim and the teeth on his sword.

I then weathered him up with chipping and scratches and then attached him to the base.

Looking at him now, I may need to go back and transition the caution stripes to fit the rest of the transitions, but you don't really notice that in person it's only the camera that catches it.

Death Guard Knight

Last up is a piece I have wanted to do for a long time and just never have gotten around to. It was another chance to work even more on my weathering and rust effects, this time adding the cool new AK Oilbrushers product to the mix.

I wasn't really sure how to go about painting or converting this model as ideally I wanted it usable in both my 30k and 40k Death Guard armies.  I decided in the end that since Knights would generally be by house and not legion that I could get away with a lot, so went with a look similar to my 30k force which is old and weathered, since I am going for a look of the guys that followed Garro and had to weather the bombardment of Istavan IV.

I started by painting the whole model black, but leaving all the armour plates off.  I then painted the armour plates in various shades or brown, red, and oranges with the airbrush.  I kept the paint thick and the air pressure super low so that it splattered on in random patches, and kept layering in colours.  Once that was done I put on AK chipping and scratch solutions in various areas, and then painted on the bone and green colours.  Once that was all done the magic begins.  I spray the paint with water and then start brushing it, and it just starts pealing off randomly, revealing the under colour.



Once all the chipping was done, it was time to break our the AK Oilbrushers (pre-thinned oil paints in mascara type bottles) and use them to apply dots of colour to the chips.  I then used white spirits to pull that down into smooth rust and dirt streaks.

The entire mechanical skeletal parts were done black, then shaded up with 3 silver colours, and then treated to the same Oilbrusher treatment.  I put browns, oranges, and even yellows in to get the blends looking like rust.  I may go back and add even more.



Last up was "blueing" the barrels which I did mainly with the Forge World transparent airbrush paints I got for the Dung Beetle Knight from earlier.  I started with doing 1/2 the barrel copper (Vallejo) and then did purple over most of that, then blue over part of the purple, and then black over the very end.  I think it came out ok and looks close to realistic.

Onto other projects now...

So there you have it, 4 recent painting projects with 4 fairly different styles.  I am now moving onto a few new projects including even more different looks.  Currently on the painting table are some heavily converted Death Guard vehicles (with even more spikes, tentacles, pus, and skulls, because I know how Greg loves all that stuff on GW models), some alternate Sisters of Battle figures, another Arena Rex figure or two, and some modern stuff from Spectre. 

OH, and a pile of terrain that I need to paint up as demo pieces now that I am producing that again as well!

Byron's 8th through 13th Analogue painting challenge entries

Well, yet another year has almost past in Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting challenge, and yet again, I keep forgetting to update our own blog about my progress.  Greg is great about cross posting, but I always get sidetracked and think well it's up someplace already...  So, with the end nearing, I figured I should at least post a few images here again and some cross links for any of the Fawcett Crew that haven't been following the other blog.

Byron's 8th Entry - All Quiet on the Martian Front - Misc. Vehicles

Several strange contraptions in 18mm for AQotMF, including some mono-wheel tanks (with training wheels), a tank with a gattling turret, and a Tesla Cannon tank.

Byron's 9th Entry - UCM ships for Dropfleet Commander

A collection of plastic space ships that in my mind combine the best of both of Babylon 5's and Battlestar Galactica's aesthetic.  For a very cool new game where the actual combat and kills don't win you the game, it's all about landing troops on the planet!

Byron's 10th Entry - Late Swiss DBA army

This has been on my to do list for a long time, and I finally got around to it, my very first DBA army!  Which I fondly refer to as my skittles army since they are random colours.  I wanted to do better on them, but once I started I got a little lost on what is what on them (breast plates, shirts, greaves, elbow guards, etc) and as a result I ended up short cutting some things, so they are definitely table worthy, but not my best work.  That's what I get for knowing nothing about a period that I am trying to paint, I just wanted to paint some pikemen, so that's how I picked the army.

Byron's 11 Entry - 30k Drop pods and assault troops

Some very cool 3d printed drop pods for my 30k Epic force along with some jump troops to help out in the assault.

Byron's 12th Entry - Kingdom Death Butcher and Malifaux Rail Golem

These were two pieces I tried OSL lighting on, in two different ways wet dotting and air brushing.  Not sure I like either result, but they do work, they just don't fit what I pictured in my head.

Byron's 13th Entry - French Napoleonic command stand for Curt (from MikeA, SteveB, and Myself)

The entrance fee this year as a shared project submission.  I dug around and found some extra Napoleonics that I know Curt likes and conscripted Mike and Steve as my partners to submit this piece.

More to come...

I have a few other small projects in the works, but I have managed to pass my 1000 point goal by 50% so have kind of slowed down at this point.  I have already started planning the madness for next year though!

Byron's first few Painting Challenge Entries

Unlike Greg, I have not been very good about cross posting entries from the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, but have been participating in it as well.  So, rather than cross post 4 different entries each separately now, I am just going to post some highlights from each and a link to the original if anyone wants to see some more detail. I will try to remember to cross post more regularly as we move forward.

On the plus side, I have painted over 400 points in the first month of the challenge, so have already hit 40% of my goal this year!  Not that I am staying on my planned items at all, but that's a whole different story.

First Entry - Kingdom Death Survivors

Day 1 and I started out with five 35mm scale Kingdom Death survivors.  These are bare bones starting survivors so all they have are lanterns and founding stones (sharpened stones as makeshift knives).

The survivors all have a very basic attempt at OSL (Object Source Lighting) for the lanterns on them, but only very basic.  They are after all basic survivors and game pieces, which both of my sons (and all their friends) will handle while playing Kingdom Death as they just can't get enough of the game.

Second Entry -  Kingdom Death Monsters

Ok, another day another entry!  Sticking with the Kingdom Death theme I worked on the first and second monster that most players with fight, the White Lion and the Screaming Antelope.  However, in typical KD style there is nothing normal about these seemingly normally named creatures.  The Lion has strangely human hands and the Antelope has a mouth where its gut should be.

The 28mm WW1 figure is just included to show the scale of these figures,
there is nothing small about Kingdom Death!
(including the game itself which weighs in at 17lbs for the core set alone!)

All of my Kingdom Death figures are going to be played with and I want them to be very visual, so a lot of the highlights and shadows are a lot more pronounced than most of my painting.  This is being done on purpose to show up and emphasis the details from tabletop.  While not as clean looking in these close up pictures as some of my figures, they do really pop at tabletop distance better than a lot of things that I shade in using more subtle colour variations. 

 Third Entry - Epic 30k Death Guard Army (Part 1)
 
tried doing everything to match my current 28mm Death Guard 30k army.  I figured out early on though that I can not do the same weathering as on my 28mm models as in 6mm the models just become sepia / rust coloured blobs. So I went with a much harder light / dark look.

The infantry and rhinos are the old school original plastics, but I think they still hold up just fine (and I have a ton of them still on sprue) so I am just using them for most infantry, instead of the real 30k metal ones.

Now onto some of the figures that I have really wanted to paint for a long while!  A squad of three Sicarans and Sicaran Venators!  These are amazing models in 28mm and the 6mm versions are just as clean, every single panel line and cable from the full size version is there on the 6mm version. 

These two versions of the Sicaran are my favourite tanks in 30k as I feel they are one of the best looking sci-fi tank hulls out there in any game or fiction.  They have huge guns, an aggressive sloped stance that just scream speed and aggression, what more could you want.

Lastly, 3 super heavy tanks, because why just kill something when you can kill it, then vaporize it, then annihilate any dust left from it.  When you want something dead, overkill is the only way to go.  Besides, all 3 of these vehicles are just stunning.

The whole force was painted very quickly (as you can tell from the images) but I think came out very well for anything 6mm and have a suitable dirty used look for me, but not too dirty that you can't tell what they are. 

Fourth Entry - I HATE Horses! 28mm French Napoleonic Dragoons

This entry has been 2+ years is the making as I keep trying to get to them and keep leaving them, because I hate painting horses.  In miniature, painting horses intimidates me as they are much like painting human flesh, just a lot more of it.  It is really hard to get right, insanely easy to screw up, and everyone will notice and point out when it isn't right.  Therefore I really try to avoid painting horses if at all possible.

I have however needed to get a unit of cavalry done for my (very slowly) growing 28mm French Napoleonic force for a while now, and this unit got primed for last years challenge and then set aside as I just didn't want to deal with them.  This year I decided I better get to them sooner rather than later or they would once again roll over to the next years challenge.

Minor issues aside, while I disliked painting the project, I am actually OK with the results close up, and I am very happy with how they look on the tabletop.  Which is what Napoleonics are all about, tabletop effect, and that they have. 



Theses are all the plastic 28mm Perry Miniatures Dragoons with a Flag Dude banner.  Knowing that I disliked the horses, I started with them.  Having read that the Dragoons were the bottom of the Cavalry types (having started as infantry being trained as cavalry) and therefore very often had to deal with any mounts they obtain rather than being able to count on standard or uniform mounts for a regiment, I decided to make the unit up of as many different types of horses as I could.  Not knowing anything about horses though I had to go looking to find out what kinds and colours they did have.

 After finding out about Bays, Palominos, Chestnuts, Greys, and more, I got to work.  Then I found out about facial markings and socks.  Did I mention, I hate horses?  Anyway, after far too long on the painting table, I came out with the following which I am actually OK with.  Which is fairly uncommon for me, as I tend to think of 80% of the stuff I paint as crap, but despite my dislike for the animals and painting them, I am actually OK with how these look.

Minor issues aside, while I disliked painting the project, I am actually OK with the results close up, and I am very happy with how they look on the tabletop.  Which is what Napoleonics are all about, tabletop effect, and that they have. 

Fifth Entry - 28mm Modern Militia and Terrorists

A small submission to keep my progress going this week. The entry is an amalgamation of some left over African Militia from Spectre miniatures and some Islamic Terrorists from Spectre as well (Sorry Curt, those words probably just got this blog flagged by the CIA, FBI, and more).  The figures themselves are awesome as usual from Spectre, lots of detail on them and accurate (if thin) weapons.

Total there are 18 figures here, all done to a very basic table top level.  Essentially a base colour, wash, highlight, some very small details.  Since all of these miniatures will be on, and then off the table so quickly, I just couldn't justify a whole lot of time on them (as is evident in the pictures).

To play the games I want with them, I need about 40-50 Terrorists or Militia facing 4-8 special forces troopers, so I tend to spend time on the spec ops guys as they will be the focus of any game as they stick around for the whole time (normally). 


Up to date 

So, there we are, my five regular entries so far in the challenge. I will try to keep up better cross posting so that the posts don't get so long in the future.