Hobby Diary 23/10/2016

AL:

So this week I aimed to continue what I had begun (i'm sick of having half painted models) before moving onto something else. In this case its three busts from Relic,the Fantasy Flight Board Game. I finished the Callidus first, there wasn't much to do the kit on the back needed a quick bit of painting on the displays and the Coal Black needed toning down a bit which was achieved with some Chaos Black and Lahmian Medium.

A gloss varnish was absolutely essential next. This was a gaming piece and would be handled a lot. I discovered Vallejo varnishes a while ago and haven't looked back since. After the gloss had dried i used matt, the synth skin was looking a bit shiny for my liking. The Matt still has a lustre to it, but its not as shiny as the gloss. I did go back over the eye lenses with gloss, that looks nice. Shiny.

So Callidus done, it was back to the Ratling. First things first, I know what I said last week but I wanted to bring the face out a little, so I added some Cadian Flesh to the mix, another bit of ruddy glaze on the features and another highlight and i'm calling it done.

Next was a bit of camo on the vest, I already had a dark olive colour so some Coat D'Arms Dark Leather brown and P3 Ordic Olive finished the scheme, Nowhere as near as nice as I would have liked but good enough, an ink wash would hide a multitude of sins. The sleeves were recoated and highlighted, the pouches and bags were painted brown with a highlight-cum-weathering of that same brown and Cadian Flesh.

At this stage it's not far off done but I wanted to move onto the Ultramarine. Due to the large size of this and buoyed by my success with the leather look on the Ratling's pouches i decided to push my luck and experiment somewhat with texture on the Ultramarine. I laid a few washes of Gulliman Blue over the Prussian Blue armour and some Mephiston Red Mixed with Vallejo Scaly Green on the helmet. I then started building the blue back up with Prussian blue but used a stippling effect to try to get some texture into the armour, Tinny Tin and Brassy Brass were used on the shoulder pad edges.
The next couple of days I really wasn't up to painting, got home very late and settled for assembly in front of the telly.

I had ordered some stuff from Triple Helix and although I was missing an upgrade sprue from the Armoured Claw box I started assembling some Cadian neophyte hybrids. I then lost a kneeling set of legs so jumped onto Bitz Box to grab a spare and a few bits that would enable me to build a few of the other heavy weapons in the box, I was very impressed as I ordered on a Thursday evening and had them by Saturday.

Taking off the Imperial eagles was easy enough with a knife and the Citadel Mould line Remover tool, although outrageously expensive does its job superbly. I'm glad I forked out for it. I'm working on a colour scheme in my head for them, something pretty drab to contrast with the brighter proper hybrids i think, maybe a grey urban camo

Speaking of proper hybrids  my hobby week in general took a big swing towards the assembly way of things as I got stuck into my mass of Genestealer Cult sprues. As I assembled them I was impressed all over again with the quality of the Overkill models which is easily the equal of the miniatures in the separate kits. In particular I was impressed by the Aberrants which have actually been designed to fit no matter which arms you use with which body. Given that there are only two designs of Aberrant and they are not easily convertible this allows me a tiny bit more variety in my unit.

Elsewhere I used the Acolyte box to build all the heavy weapons options. Oddly the body sections of the acolytes have to be matched up, perhaps to allow for the right number of arms on either side. The Demolition Charges in particular look great as does the Rocksaw. I was left with a large number of bits left over on the sprue and decided to use some Metamorph bits on the overkill models. A bit of cutting here and there and I had a unit in no time. And I still have bits left over to use, this is good as as great as the Overkill models are, multiple sets will have quite a few of the same models knocking about,.

Actually a quick word about the myriad of bits on the Cult sprues, we all know that GW prices have gone up and squads are much more expensive than they used to be but one look at the Neophyte sprue compared to the Cadian one kind of illustrated why. Take a look at the Cadian sprue, produced quite some time ago now,

and compare it with the cultist one.

Quite a difference, I cant wait for GW to revisit some of these older kits.

So yes, mostly getting the cult together this week. Still, I have at least enough for a Killteam game and a few more evenings assembly should see a decent sized force, especially when I get the tanks built.

Prospero is also on the horizon and though you can rest assured that the Conclave will be reviewing that in due course, I am more excited about getting my mitts on some MkIII armour, I popped in to Wayland Southend to grab some nice deep Vallejo blues and will be cracking on with the XIII legion very soon. With my new airbrush booth now all I need to do is decide how im going to do them! I think in order to honour (Courage and Honour always) our commitment to do something for our Heresy armies each month i'm going to grab a character from the Calth box set and try to use that to get my scheme

sorted. I have spares should it all go horribly wrong.

Now, where is that Airbrush?

Lee:

Given the buzz around the Horus Heresy with the Burning of Prospero set coming out this week all my hobby time these past seven days has been devoted to my first five Ashen Circle marines and I am 85% done. I have some detail work to do on the various pieces of parchment attached to their plate and some tidying to do but after that I just need to highlight the armour and I am done.

I've not been able to spend as much time on each model as I did with Zardu Layak but that's fine, if I want to get things painted they cannot all be to that level. I'm happy with how they have turned out though I need to dig out one of my regular Word Bearers that is completed as I think the silver trim was a lot darker than it has turned out on these. There isn't much to go over if that is the case so shouldn't prevent me from completing these before next week.

Even though I shall be drowning in more plastic Heresy miniatures by the end of the week I have already decided that my next Heresy model to finish will be my Sicaran. I want to paint something red and this will be good practise with my airbrush. It was a close run thing choosing though, I have also been looking at the colours of Legio Mortis and their knightly allies.

I have been tempted by including a unit of Thousand Sons to accompany Ahriman as he isn't good for much else than representing himself. Despite them also being red I would paint them in the style that Forge World adopted by painting them metal then airbrushing them clear red with metal to highlight. Other than that the rest of the models will be folded into my Word Bearers which bumps up my force considerably. Those Sisters of Silence and Custodes will be enjoyable to paint as I do like painting gold.

As well as this I want to crack on with some Scourge ships as both Allen and I will be receiving our Dropfleet Commander pledges on Tuesday. Quite a few people in the office have already started building their fleets from our retail stock so it will be good to start catching up. Having a battleship for every faction I already outgun everyone else.

I notice that Allen has been putting a lot of Genetealer cultists together which leads me to want to put together an obscure army of my own so will be digging out some Squats. I will most likely proxy them but will need to give some thought to what codex to use.

So below is how November is looking painting wise.

Definite

Word Bearers Sicaran

Emperor's Children Marine

Queen Khalida

Planned

Scourge ships

Squats

I stuck Khalida in there as I had been planning to paint her since before we moved as I really want to make progress on an 8th edition army. Maybe next month I will assemble a unit to be painted a rank at a time? Overall it is a lot to be getting on with but all three of my definite choices are single models so here's hoping. 

Lee.

Hobby diary 16/10/16

Lee:

I’ve been hobbying quite a bit lately. Now I am fully settled in my new house the airbrush is permanently set up in the Lee room. All I can use it for right now is base coating but I have a few things I want to try in the future. Clear coating metals, gradients, shading. I have projects lined up aplenty.

Since unpacking everything I have successfully completed a couple of single miniatures. The first was the Deathwatch Watchmaster. As far as 40K goes I have never been much of a loyalist, preferring to side with Chaos or the Xeno but there is an allure to having a small elite force of Space Marines that do not require many units to ally with my Dark Angels or Space Wolves (didn’t I just say I don’t much go for the Imperium?).

The Watchmaster is a lovely model. The sculpting is superb and the pose stoic. I used a base from Secret Weapon to mount him on, a 32mm Ruined Temple base. This design looks good without being covered in too much detail. I wanted the model to be the focus for the eye. I painted it with a base of charadon granite dry brushed with shadow grey then over that a drybrush of Incubi Darkness and a final highlight drybrush of Sybarite Green. The recessed patterns were painted gold. This looks like an alien temple with colours that complement the predominantly black miniature.

My Watchmaster is a Space Wolf Grey Hunter. He has had his time as an impetuous Blood Claw and is on his way to becoming a Long Fang. He still has the passion of the hunt but is considered in his approach, best utilising the varied skills of his brothers to eliminate the Xenos.

The second model I completed was Watch Captain Artemis from Death Masque. He was painted similarly to my Watchmaster and I have been keeping a log of my paints (a new thing for me) so I can paint the rest of the Deathwatch models I have the same when I come back to them. The next model I will be painting is the Corvus Blackstar, a beautifully sleek craft which being mostly black should not take too long to paint once I begin.

The third miniature I have painted was a Tomb Kings Liche Priest. When I got wind that the Tomb Kings were being discontinued I immediately bought up what I could find. This was the Tomb Priest, a couple of Sphinxes and a couple of boxes of Sepulchral Stalkers. The Liche Priest is painted similarly to the units I have already painted for my Tomb Kings force except for the skin as none of my models currently have any. Rather than do it pale as the official miniature is painted I went for a darker tone similar to how real mummies look. I’m quite pleased with the result. I need to put together a 1,000-point force to guide what I paint next after Queen Khalida but the only units I do not have are a Bone Giant and most of the special characters.

These are just the tip of the lead pile though. I still have 30 Deathwing Terminators part painted on my table. I am half way through a random Emperor’s Children model and though I am still awaiting my Dropfleet Commander pledge to arrive Hawk gave me some miniatures to keep me busy. On top of that Allen wants us to paint a unit of our Horus Heresy armies a month.

We are halfway through the month at the time of writing but rather than pick an easy choice like a single character I have gone for five of the Ashen Circle. These guys are one of the Word Bearers’ unique units. They are jump pack infantry whose purpose is to eradicate enemy culture, learning and faith. On the battlefield, they would hunt down those that inspired hope and courage in the enemy force and burn them to ashes then after the battle do the same to the libraries and heretical churches of the foe. Now turned to Chaos they do the same with the heroes and truth of the Imperium.
The official models are painted in the slate grey of the old Word Bearer’s livery but my force has turned from the Emperor’s light already so they will have their post Istvaan livery. Rather than paint them red I will be painting them the same deep grey I painted Zardu Layak with the cthonian runes etched onto their armour glowing with internal heat. Each model is armed with a hand flamer and an axe rake. The hand flamers may only be strength 3 but that is a lot of templates. I have 20 of these models to paint in all so my full squads will be doing a lot of damage.

The Axe rake used by the Ashen Circle is a weapon not used by any other unit. It is a tool as much as a weapon being used to latch onto and haul down graven idols. In game, it is a +1 AP6 hand weapon that causes enemy units falling back to do so at -1”. Upgrade wise there isn’t much to change on the regular squad load out. I switched out one of the hand flamers for an inferno pistol for that extra punch and the axe rake on the champion for a power axe which I have represented with a mutation from the Chaos Space Marine Possessed sprue to show the Iconoclast is favoured.
As of the time of writing these models have received their base coat and I will be making a proper start on the detail at the next sitting. Having a think about next month I am tempted to name one of the units in Fall of Prospero as my choice but as I was looking for my Ashen circle earlier I came across my Sicaran and Deredeo Dreadnought so who knows.

AL:

Like Lee i have also moved home, albeit much more recently. The last thing I painted before I moved was this Necron Tomb Spider:

As you can see i'm going for a swampcron force and have a lot of ideas for the army. I have been using the Forgeworld Masterclass books and their wealth of information including using oil paints and floor polish to gain an aged and decrepit look. The model itself was sprayed with Halfords silver paint. Halfords do a very wide  range of shades and i'm not entirely sure i picked the right one but ill improvise. The whole model was then given a wash of a mix of black and burnt umber oil paints, liberally diluted with white spirit. Make sure that the area is suitably ventilated! the fumes are intense! The advantage of using oil paint is that you can manipulate the wash for a lot longer and a lot more easily while it dries. The disadvantage is that it takes ages to dry and reeks while it does so.

A quick drybrush of Boltgun Metal (yes i mostly still use old Citadel colours) and then another more carefully applied thicker burnt umber wash and it was done. Well the metal bits were. I had decided in advance i wanted a glossy dark green marble effect for the carapace to counteract the murky metal. This was achieved by using Vallejo Scaly Green mixed with a bit of black and then effectively producing a marble pattern adding VERY old Jade Green on top. After i was happy with the marble effect (more or less) i then used consecutive glazes of scaly green mixed with floor polish. This gives a lovely smooth glossy effect.

The swamp stuff itself was actually something of a challenge. i ended up using a mix of normal and static flock mixed with a lot of PVA glue and then gloss varnish once dried. I'm still not totally happy but it will do for now. Bigger models will use Spaghum moss that i use for my animals enclosures. Still, it's hard to say when ill get back to the swampcrons....

As GW have gone release crazy! Since i painted this Tomb Spider they have released Death Masque. (always fancied Harlequins so nabbed two boxes of that) and the Genestealer Cult which i had to have as well! I'm now drowning in armies, still mostly on sprue and with The Burning Of Prospero on the horizon this isn't going to change anytime soon as the XIII legion will soon be receiving all sorts of reinforcements!

So I have arranged with Lee that we will have to crack on with our Heresy armies and paint at least one thing a month. Problem is i haven't got anywhere near deciding on a colour scheme and i'm using the airbush, no way i'm manually painting all that. My painting desk is in the same room as my vast collection of exotic pets so i picked up a ventilated airbrush booth from Ebay and you can look forwards to seeing much more soon with any luck. Once i finally work out how i'm going to paint them. I have some catching up to do as Lee has already completed a few of his treacherous whoreson Word Bearers.

So as I have just moved and the vast majority of my stuff is still inaccessible or still on sprue i grabbed what was to hand to ease myself back into painting. In this case it was the busts from the Fantasy Flight game Relic. I only managed a couple of painting sessions this week, hope to improve on that in coming weeks.

First up was the Callidus, This was simplicity itself. Spray black (Halfords again) then highlight the black with P3 Coal Black, a black wash to tie it in a bit and repeat. The hair was Mephiston Red mixed with Scaly Green (I no longer darken bright colours with black) and then successive coats adding more Mephiston Red. The eyes were very thin layers of Scaly Green building up towards the bottom of the lens

I then turned my attention to the Ultramarine. I'd tried zenithal highlighting but it turns out that is difficult with spray cans. Ill revisit the technique with my airbrush. A simple coat of Vallejo Prussian Blue did the armour colour but then I noticed something interesting. The game has him as a Captain but he has the tactical symbol on his shoulder pad. Sod it, im doing him as a sergeant and red helm it shall be. I put him to one side for now though.

Picked up the ratling sniper instead. This is a nice model. Sadly i didn't make a note of what colours I used for all the model and I used too many to remember them all. I have recently downloaded an app that will help me with this, i'll be reviewing that separately at some point. You can likely work it out from the pics. I did use a tan brown rather than a flesh colour for the face though, I wanted it to look a bit more abhuman like, I used a wash of red around the nose and eyes to keep a little warmth in there though. He's almost finished and has actually turned out alright. I look forward to getting them all done. However, i have to accept the reality that i have actual ARMIES to assemble and paint so I think i'll have to treat myself to painting one of these busts inbetween units or something. The main thing was to get painting again and that mission has been accomplished. I'm looking forwards to getting a lot more done.

See you next week!