Time Flies When You're Busy

So I've been AWOL for uhhhh two weeks? or thereabouts. Apologies, mea culpa, etc etc. Life happened, as it often does, and I had a combination of small holidays (a long weekend in Ynys Mon, and another around Abertawe) as well as various Stuff that meant I didn't get any painting done really. On the plus side, I popped into the Games Workshop in Abertawe, and got some paints to help me with the ECW Parliamentarian cavalry commission, which I started to do again. Today I looked at the rather folorn Song of Ice and Fire Here's The Ruckus warband that I'd been doing what seems like years ago, and started working on Ser Geraint Blondel's retainers. These fellows are interesting in that the billmen aren't wearing livery coats, so the only model with the House livery on is the longbowman. I might put some little badges on the billmen though.

The billmen look rather uniform, don't they? I quite like it

I also took some time to use a nice new Contrast paint (Aggaros Dunes) on the second regiment of ECW horse:

24 of the 36 cavalry troopers have had their buff coats and gloves done now

The ECW commission has a deadline (October) so I'm really going to try to focus on them as much as I can over the next few weeks. I'd like to get them done and sent back to the commissioner as soon as I can now that it's cooled down enough to paint again.

In other news I also spent a little money and got some Really Useful Boxes, Warmag sticky-backed ferrous sheet, and several hundred 5x2mm magnets which will be arriving on Saturday - I sense a few pleasant hours gluing magnets to bases in order to safely store an army or two. If this works the way I hope it will, I'll be doing that to everything, painted or not, so that I can have a properly, safely, sensibly, stored collection.

Rally The Horse

I spent a bit of time today working on the English Civil War commission, blocking out the horses and starting on the saddlecloths. I need to finish those, then do the leather, trousers, sashes, and details on the standard bearer and musician before whacking them all with Agrax Earthshade and then picking out the metal. I'm hoping to do this by the end of the weekend and then make headway on the other two units.

In other news, I also dug out the last remaining Necrons - five more Immortals and five Pariahs - undercoated them and started painting their metal basecoat. I need to do a bit of work on the barrels of the heavy gauss blasters carried by the Immortals, but I reckon I can get the Immortals and Pariahs finished up tomorrow.

 Also, not this coming weekend but the one after, I'm going to Death Unto Darkness, the 40K LARP, as my Sister of Battle Superior. A friend of mine, M, gave me a 3D-printed bolt pistol a while ago and I've given it some paint to match my chainsword, and a name, because you have to name your wargear.

I'm looking forwards to pointing this at people and yelling "SANCTIC BOLT" at them like the huge nerd I am.

 

Respect Your Elders...

...Or else! I have started working on the Venerable Dreadnought, doing a couple of layers of drybrushed highlights to the armour plate, and getting the gold and bone elements to a point where they can be highlighted and detailed. I suspect much of the work on it will be on the right arm, which has got quite a lot of detail on it in the form of the wolf skin, shield, and so on. I also managed to get the latest ISS Vanguard lander finished as well, which is great! Oh, and I've started on the Parliamentarian cavalry. They're meant to be for Second Newbury (1644), and with three units I'm probably going to try to make them at least slightly resemble some of the regiments of horse that were at that battle - obviously Cromwell's lot, then maybe Waller's and Sir John Norwich's. Not sure how quite yet, a little research required here I think.

A lander - this is not a great photo sadly but the big blue canopy is pretty cool. That said I'm actually tempted to redo it to the gold canopy... I'll see what the commissioner wants

A better photo thankfully. It's a funky little ship!

Looking at this made me realise I'd missed a bit on the other side which I have now fixed. Success?

The reason I might change the colour of the canopy to gold is because the engine glow is blue as well...

The dreadnought! Stompy and angry

Warlord Games' Parliamentarian cavalry - the buff coats and plate are basically the same across both armies and all cavalry regiments! The sashes tended to change colour and I'm going to do these ones with orange sashes

So a lot of work in progress, and one completed mini. Not a bad outcome for the day.

Painting Points:
Today: 1
This Week: 4
2025: 349

Another Ship And A Wolf

With tomorrow going to be intensely busy - P and I will be at Bedworth Pride - I took the chance to settle in and finish at least one of the Long Fangs, and the next commission spaceship. Having got the Long Fangs all to a certain point I'm finding it much more satisfying to focus on them one at a time, which is something I used to do before I got really good at batch painting. It does at least mean I can put a little more effort into things like eyes, and hopefully I'll still be able to hit my target number of figures painted by P's birthday in July.

A grizzled old greybeard, who now I have photographed and blown up to about four times his actual size, I can see I need to sort his mouth out... grrr!

The pack marking for the Long Fang squad is on the face of it simpler than the others, but you try getting a consistent diagonal line running half-way up a curved shoulder pad

A simple power pack because I don't truck with flashy lights

Mind you if I'm complaining about the pack markings, I should definitely be complaining about the Great Company of the Sun Wolf's marking...

 

A nice, simple, quite Mass Effect sort of scheme for this little lander - I went for a clean finish and a coat of matt varnish to protect it from handling as it's a boardgame piece

Engines ahead full! Blue contrast over white with a gloss varnish really looks great and I'm going to apply it to as many of the landers as I can for a consistent link between them

I am assuming the down-up-down-up cheat code is actually some kind of name in an alien glyph language

The cockpit is a nice gold colour to hearken back to astronaut helmet visors

With the first of the four Long Fangs with heavy weapons completed, and another commission ship done, I feel a lot better about this week. It may not have been the most productive week but it's another step towards getting through the whole Pile of Opportunity, and it's always nice to complete things that people are paying you to do!

Painting Points:
Today: 2
This Week: 4
2025: 345

What's Painting Without Mistakes

While I was happily working on the details and highlights of the Long Fangs, and going back and forth into the commission ships, I realised something odd about the Iron Priest and the Long Fang Sergeant. The Sergeant's armour seemed a bit... lighter. I picked them up and compared them and realised, to my horror, that the Long Fang Sergeant had not just had one highlight of blue-grey, but two or maybe even three! So I'm going to have to go back into the Iron Priest and the Rune Priest as well as the Long Fangs and add some more highlights to their armour. Pants. Oh well. That rather took the wind out of my sails for painting today, but it wasn't a total loss:

With the Long Fangs now pretty close to about a third done, they may well get finished off in the next few days. The commission spaceship will definitely be done tomorrow, and then I can move on to another one. 

I might actually step away from the Space Wolves for a while. They haven't really captured my desire to paint them so once the Long Fangs are done and the various Priests have had their extra highlights, I'll probably put them on the back burner for a bit and move onto something else. Not entirely sure what, though.

Back At It

I essentially took yesterday off from painting, but today saw me pick up the paintbrush again. I highlighted the Long Fang's armour plate, then applied a base of Khorne Red to relevant areas and blocked in the gold too. Then, to make things a little different, I did some of the white on the next couple of commission pieces from the ISS Vanguard ships:

 Not a huge amount of work, but enough to shake the cobwebs off and move in the right direction, anyway. This weekend is likely to be hugely busy so I'm hoping to use some of tomorrow to get at least one more of the commission ships done, and the Long Fangs to about the half way mark or so.

Iron Priest! Not To Be Confused With Judas Priest

Well, I finally did it, I finally finished one (1) Space Wolf. The Iron Priest, to be specific. With that one done, and the first of the ISS Vanguard commission done, I can safely say that I am making progress on both fronts. Even if the progress is slow, progress is progress. I've got three more of the commission ships on my painting table now, and the rest of the Wolves are making various growly faces at me (at least the ones who don't have helmets on) so I'll try and make some more headway on those the rest of this week.

There was a lot of detail on this figure, but I solved a lot of the problem by applying my usual tabletop standard to it of "cabling's black, black doesn't really need highlights"

Even now it's finished I'm not totally sure it was the right idea to paint the arm of the servo-arm in grey, but it does make it look different to the other Techmarines and Adeptus Mechanicus servo-arms I've done, and perhaps helps cement the idea that the Space Wolves' Iron Priests are rather closer to Fenris than Mars

The Sun Company's emblem should, in fact, have a howling wolf's head over the sun, but that is a real pain to paint, so once the whole force is done I'll get some transfers and do the whole lot all at once

The only reason there's no wolves on Fenris is because the Space Wolves keep killing them to make fur loincloths

 

Unfortunately the photo doesn't really do the orange justice! It's much more vibrant in reality

The stark white of the name stands out really nicely against the orange and black of the hull

As it's a playing piece it got a nice coat of matt varnish

And gloss varnish on the drive ports (which, again, the photo doesn't really pick up)

I'm nearing the self-imposed deadline between P and I where I have to have painted 300 models from my backlog before P's birthday on the 17th, which, according to my Pile of Opportunity spreadsheet, is a mere 23 models away! Which means I have 44 days left to paint 23 figures. The rest of the Space Wolves come to 20 (19 Marines and a Dreadnought), so I'm tantalisingly close. Woo!

Painting Points: 
Today: 2
This Week: 2
2025: 343

Tortoising It

It's a bit like flooring it, but when your top speed is about 2mph or something like that. Which may be slandering tortoises, I don't actually know how fast they are. Anyway! Tonight I made some significant progress on the Space Wolf Iron Priest, and am about half way done with one of the commission pieces, the Faust:

I really like how the orange has turned out on the spaceship, and am looking forwards to doing things like adding the cockpit glass, engine glow, and the like. As for the Iron Priest, it just needs a few details sorting out like a highlight on the bolter, the Cult Mechanicus emblems finishing off, and so on. The most detailed bit is actually the loincloth and belt area, which needs some care and attention I think. Both should be done tomorrow.

Dabbling In Oddities

A while ago C sent me a load of sprues and some random unpainted figures, two of which - a Votan ranger type and a Primaris Scout - I thought I'd have a little play around with. I did some basecoats and gave them a coat of Agrax Earthshade to prep them for some highlighting and details, and then (at last!) restarted work on the commission spaceships. Nothing huge - I just put the main basecoat block of orange onto one of the ISS Vanguard landers, the Faust. 

 Tomorrow I think I'll finish off the two random miniatures, and try and finish off the Faust and make more progress on the other landers. I'd really like to get the commission stuff done in the next few days, but that might not happen.

A Little Here, A Little There

I've not been in a particularly painterish mood today, but I did make a start on the commission work I have, which involved looking up the artwork for the boardgame ISS Vanguard and trying to identify how to paint the funny little spacecraft models. I've got the base coats down on three of them, and started to do the basecoat orange on a fourth:

Once I put in a solid few hours' work I reckon I can get these looking nice and slick and ready for play. I think for durability I'll put a coat of gloss and then a coat of matt varnish on at the end, because they're going to be handled a fair bit I should expect. 

So not a lot to report back on today, but a start's a start and once I get properly going they'll be sorted in no time.

Undercoating, Base Coating...

... my goodness, a lot of coating has been going on today. I undercoated most of the commission pieces, except for one ship which I need to mask before doing so, and both (now assembled) drop pods. Then I went through all the Space Wolves and gave them their base coats of metal and blue-grey, before whacking a Nuln Oil wash over them all. While I was doing that I also slapped on some Ironbreaker to one of the drop pods, trying to identify which bits need to be metal and which need to be painted green and bone.

The next step with the Space Wolves will be to give them their highlight layer of The Fang, before starting to work on the details (and there's a lot of details). Once I get to the detail section I'll probably work on no more than four or five at a time, and I may well focus on them one at a time too - it depends how I'm feeling on any given day, and how much progress I make on the commission too.

Dreadnought for scale

 The drop pods are big, and I suspect will greedily eat up all my remaining Ironbreaker and at least a pot of Nuln Oil, but they should be relatively quick to paint (I hope). The internal sections that aren't metal will be a standard olive drab, the external sections will be green, bone, and heat-resistant black. Then I'm going to dirty the bejeezus out of them because these things are fired from orbiting space craft like a shell and then scream into the atmosphere of a planet to slam into the ground at the sort of speed that would kill a normal person and disgorge, in their case, Dreadnoughts. They're not going to look very pristine after all that, frankly.

Drop Pod Assault

Tonight I only had time for a little bit of hobbying, so I cleaned up one of the two 3D-printed Dreadnought Drop Pods I picked up last weekend and built it. It's a really simple little kit and it went together very nicely indeed. Then I slapped on some more blue-grey, finishing the main base coat for the Long Fangs and starting on the Grey Hunters:

The doors go down...

...and up!

In the foreground you can see a commission that I got today

 On top of the Space Wolves I'm going to be working on some miniatures from the board game ISS Vanguard that I have been commissioned to do. So things will progress slowly for the next little while, but slowly wins the race and all that.

Tomorrow I'm going to wash and assemble the next drop pod, and undercoat those and the commission pieces as well as do more basecoating on the Space Wolves.

Commission Complete

Yesterday I didn't do any painting because, as sometimes happens, I wasn't feeling very well. Today I felt well enough to carry on with the commission of the D&D characters and now they're all done!

Dungeon Master (left) and Eric the Cavalier (right) demonstrating that yellow can turn out alright if you paint over pink and use Contrast Iyanden Yellow as a wash

I like how the Dungeon Master's hair turned out honestly

Venger, the Big Bad Evil Guy, standing on stone tiles

The grey highlight here looks messier than it is in real life!

The whole commission, with fancy basing (thanks All Game Terrain)

Next up is to go back to the Kasrkin and paint them up; I'd like to get them done this week and then be able to move onto the rest of the army. I may or may not restructure it to fit 10th Edition; we'll see. That would certainly require more basic infantry to replace heavy weapons teams within the infantry squads.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 3
2025: 57

Dungeons And The Dragons

Today I didn't do anything on my own personal stuff, but I made sure to crack on with the commission I have. 

This is not a great photo annoyingly, as it washes out the little unicorn. I'm happy with how the other two turned out though! L-R: Bobby the barbarian; Uni the baby unicorn; Diana the acrobat

The studded leather that Bobby's wearing is very classic barbarian fashion, and Diana's getup is very Conan-esque - you can see the inspirations for D&D very clearly!

A very short update for today, I think. I'm hoping to get some more done on my Paradisan Stormtroopers and maybe finish the commission tomorrow.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 32
2025: 54

Paradiso's Glory

Back in the dim and distant days of 9th Edition Warhammer 40,000, when the Cadians were redone and the army set released with the Codex, I got given it for Christmas by my partner P. I had plans then - and still do - to build an infantry company with relevant armour support (Sentinels, tanks, etc) for modern 40K, but with heads from Anvil Industries. Specifically, women wearing pickelhaubs. That sort of solidified the paint scheme for me - late 19th Century Prussians. So I started the project, then got distracted, and, er, now it's 10th Edition, a new Codex has been released that invalidates the army basically entirely (as the infantry squad with integral heavy weapon has been taken out back and shot) and means I need to do a bit of a rethink once I get my hands on the new thing. Anyway. That's all a very long-winded way of saying I made a start, today, on the Stormtrooper - sorry, Kasrkin - squad that's going in the army:

Blue tunics, grey trousers... and eventually 1918 style camouflaged armour plate, because this is 40K and anachronism is the name of the game anyway

On top of all that, a chap who commissioned me to paint up some 3D printed versions of the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon cast dropped the minis off today, and so I knuckled down and cranked out the first three of nine:

L-R: Sheila the Thief, Presto the Magician, Hank the Ranger

I stuck to the colours of the cartoon as requested

These are a delight to paint up, because the colour scheme is so simple - thank you, 1980s animation team - and the prints themselves are super smooth and clean. No idea what they were printed on or what the resin was, but really easy to paint. Lovely minis. Quite a bit bigger than 28mm though, these are 42mm scale. 

Tomorrow I should be able to show you the rest of the heroes and some more work on the elite heavy infantry element of the Paradisan LXIX Infantry.

Painting Points:
Today: 3
This Week: 29
2025: 51

Confrontation: Hybrid

Well, after far too long in my possession, last night I finally finished the bad guys from the Hybrid set that JY gave me to paint, and with them, the whole commission.

So here they are:

A lot accomplished with washes and glazing - simple but robust and effective paintjobs that will, I hope, stand up the rigours of boardgame usage. Storage for the playing pieces needs to be sorted out by JY though: I don't rate their survival intact very highly if they don't get a foam tray to themselves!

In other news, I am waiting for the first stage of the bases on a squad (brood) of 10 Tyranid Termagants to dry so I can finish them off and take pictures for here and - eventually - my eBay shop. And there are two squads of 10 Black Legionnaires sat on my painting table looking menacingly at me and awaiting the first layer of metallics...

It's a hard life, painting for money!

Painting Points:
This week: 8 (1 each for the green-skirted chaps and tiny gribblies, 2 for the big monster)
2013: 74 (34x 28mm, 2x 54mm, 2x tanks)

Take Two

So, apparently, despite my attempt to update my blog on Wednesday with pictures of the Confrontation: Hybrid figures that I'd finished... the machine-spirits said "NO" and so the post vanished into the ether. It isn't even showing up as a draft! Oh well.

Anyway, after being slightly mocked by J for not delivering on my promise of Confrontation figures, here they are - the Gryphon Knights of Hod!

Now I need to work on the Abominations. There's three armed and armoured robo-zombie types, four small cybernetic creatures, and a massive great big clockwork/steampunk ogre thing. So far they're built up but not undercoated. I really need to get a shift on with this lot!

Painting Points:
This Week: 9 (4x 28mm, 1x 54mm)
January 2013: 27 (17x 28mm, 2x 54mm)