New Year, New Projects

Well, thats it for 2012, and as the new year comes along, so do new painting projects. Having backed the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game Kickstarter, I now have a bunch of figures for that to be getting on with, which I suspect will be mixed in with the Orks that Ewan got for xmas.

So, Happy New Year, and I'll leave you with the first figure I've got completed, Psi-Judge Cassandra Anderson.

Blood Ravens Storm Talon COMPLETED

So, I had a day off, and thought I'd spend a couple of hours in the morning working on the Storm Talon, which at that point was in a mostly-still-disassembled state covered in it's dark red base coat. But I kind of got into it, and pretty much spent the entire day working on it. And it's finished.

So that was a day well spend. *grin*

And I'm pretty bloody happy with it. I did have a crazy plan of splashing a huge Blood Raven symbol across the wings, but there is so much stuff on the hull, and the big gaps where the wings meet the fuselage, it just wouldn't have worked visually. But i'll pocket the idea for another day. I'm really pleased with the pilot and cockpit detail, but you really can't see it once the canopy went on! Oh well.

Next project is the Judge Dredd Miniatures Game stuff that turned up over the weekend. Should be a fun change of pace. 

New Project! Blood Ravens Storm Talon

First off, and in the interests of transparancy, I should mention that in my most recent Marines vs Orks battle with by eldest, he wiped the floor with me. I mean, really, really, badly. So I should probably stick to painting, right?

Next project on the board is the Storm Talon I bought a while back. I wasn't too impressed with the initial pictures, but after seeing on in the flesh, as it were, I liked the look of them a lot more, and now I have one I'm happy that its a chunky little slugger of a model, if a little too nose-heavy. Learning the lesson from the Rhino build I've part assembled it, and base coated like this:

And then moved onto the cockpit, which has tons of dials and switches, and it's hard to tell until it's all assembled which ones will be visible and which ones won't. So I painted all of them. Anyhow, a weeks work and the cockpit painted and assembled, and looks like this:

Which i'm pretty pleased with. There will be more contract with the Techmarine pilot when the main hull is lighter red, of course. Next job is to stick into the rest of fuselage and paint that up in it's main red colour. 

Blood Ravens Rhino: COMPLETED

So, the Big Red Box is finished after a big push over the weekend. Pretty happy with it in the end, although doing the doors and interior made it a lot more interesting than I suspect a normal, glued shut Rhino would be. Anyhow, here are the final pictures:

Side shot - the top doors are glued open, and by some odd design quirk they won't lie flat due to the engine exhausts. So i'm not sure how the passengers are supposed to shoot out of the Top hatch, but there you go.

Front Quarter view. Markings are for 3rd (Tactical) Squad, 5th Company.

And here's the interior. Its pretty straightforward but looks effective. And i had fun imagining where Marines had stomped mud everywhere!

A top shot with all the doors open.  There isn't any way of hinging the side hatches (well, not easily) so they just clip on and off at the moment. When this guy gets on the Battlefield I think i'll just leave them off, but they'll look cool open and on display.

And with troops, for scale and colour matching. I need more Rhinos for my Blood Ravens, but i'm in no great rush to start production lining them! 

Blood Ravens Rhino: Getting Together

So, more works in progress shots of the Rhino. I can't help but feel I may be over-complicating what is essentially a large red box, but this is in many ways a dry run for picking up a Landraider at some point, and that really would be a project I don't want to screw up. Anyway, pictures!

Final Assembly done. The tracks were painting and washed separately before going on, and then the lid was stuck down. There isn't anything special about the tracks - just Boltgun Metal followed by a Black Wash (Nuln Oil in the new GW parlance) then the Dark Brown Wash (whose name I can never remember) to give it a rusty oil quality different from the metal on the exhausts and weapon mounts.

Here the red has had a thin coat of Vallejo Blood Red to brighten it up a bit, and then a thinned black wash it the recesses and along the joints just to define them a little better to the eye. You can also see I've added the black base to the side doors and eagle. 

And more base-coating on the to-be-cream areas, which finally break up the red and stop it looking like a Blood Angels Box. I've also painted the doors, and for reasons that escape me the rim of the top hatch which will be totally covered up by the Storm Bolter mounting.

And finally, a shot of the one of the side hatches. The doors fit snuggly enough that I can leave them unglued and display the Rhino with them open and the hatch revealed, and then if I end up playing with it then it can be un-doored or just with them pushed into the recesses. 

Blood Ravens Rhino: New Adventures in Interior Design

So, I picked up a Rhino to use as a test bed for using more spray cans in painting, before deciding finally if I want to invest in an airgun. But because Rhinos are pretty dull, plain boxes, I decided I wanted to paint the interior, and build it with the doors open, just for interest. This causes some problems, as you need to part-assemble and paint, then do some more assembly and more painting and so on, But, the story so far...

Part Assembly (mainly the side panels) and spray-basecoating. The red is Army Painter Dragon Red, which is a lovely colour and should "warm up" nicely with a thin coat of Blood Red later on.

So these are the interior parts.  I've just pulled them together and re-based the interior zones black, so that i don't get any "pink" bleeding through.

Actual Colour! Gone for a basic, military grey for the interior, which is a little functional but I don't see the marines being the type for pin-up calenders and dado rails. My speeders have had the "interior" sections done the same bone colour as the doors and shoulder pads, but on reflection I think thats wrong, so future speeders will be done more in line with this.

Quick wash and high-light pass.  I've also done the detailing on the control panel.

And assembly! I've sponged some boltgun metal, and then dark brown, around the door frames, and the rear hatch, to simulate wear and mud, and then used powders to granularise it further where I think troops would, well, troop around.

Next job; get the tracks painted up and on, so I can add the roof. 

What do you mean, no-one brought a TechMarine?

Normal Service Resumed after my exams! 

Getting out the Terraining Wheels

As someone who is mostly on the "Painting" side of the hobby, my main outlet for actually playing 40k at the moment is against Ewan, my eldest son, who is pretty fond it as a way of wasting a wet afternoon. The big problem we've had though, is terrain, which has left us fighting over battlefields made of shoe boxes, bits of racetrack, and action-figure statuary. And to be honest I'm not forking out for "proper" scenery for sporadic, knock-about games. 

So, one solution that was suggested was paper-craft terrain. Oho! I thought. So, following a recommendation I ended up at World Works Games, which makes loads of them, and bought the Mars Station set. 

Now I remember how dreadful I am at Papercrafting. Thankfully, as pdfs, I can reprint the damn things. So, a couple of hours of pritt-stik-ing my fingers together and I've got some base tiles and a difficult terrain tile, and a little crawler unit thing: 

The set also comes with modular wall pieces so I can make a couple buildings to go with them, so thats the next job, whilst I'm waiting for my Storm Talon order to turn up. 

Blood Raven Tactical Squad COMPLETED

So, finally finished, done, based, weathered and ready to fight and die for the Emperor!

More after the cut. 

Gosh I'm starting to get tired of painting red!

My Tactical Squad is nearly finished, thankfully, and I'm feeling a little bit over-familiar with Marine armour and red paint after a run thats included Devastators, a Command Squad and now the Tacs. Enough Already! And I think it's beginning to show, as I'm not feeling as engaged as perhaps I should be. Still, Should get them finished this week and then it's onto the next project.

The next big project is likely to be from the Judge Dredd: Block Wars kickstarter that I backed and just finished over the weekend. Probably won't get the stuff till November, so will need a stop-gap, although that is likely to be some shade of red! 

WIP: Tactical Squad

So with the reference model done and dusted, I've been working "batched" on the rest of my Tacs. I mean, lets face it, full squads can get a tiresome quite quickly. But, 5 down, 5 to go, and whilst I've no posh shots, here's the group. 

I do love the "Womble Nose" Helmets, which is why he got the Meltagun. 

Blood Ravens Tactical Marine COMPLETED

One of the things I've been trying to achieve with the new paints is staying relatively consistent with my existing Blood Raven forces. This has two problems - firstly the paints are different, so that's been tricky, and secondly most of my Blood Raven basic infantry were painted a while back and I've (hopefully) improved since then. So rather than production line my new Tacticals, I pulled out one and just did him, so I have a baseline model for comparison. I am rather pleased with him.

 .

Painting Table Update September 2012

Well i've finally started on the last of the kits from last big blowout, my second Tactical Squad. They're in a really mixed state of development at the moment, but the furthest along- the one i'm getting ready to use as a "standard" to get the others lined up against, looks like this:

He still needs highlighting, and a lot of touching up, but he's the right colour, which was a relief after the problems I had with the speeder being too bright. A didn't do the best job on cleaning up his mould lines though, dammit.

Anyway, after these guys are done I'm not entirely sure what to do next. Bearing in mind that I'm in this for the painting, and only really actually play 40k with my son, building a balanced army isn't high on my priority list. However, I'm close to a decent-looking 1500 point Blood Ravens force and one option would be to build up towards that. Which means a couple of Rhinos and another speeder, basically. Which would also be good tests for any airbrush starter set I care to buy.. 

I think I just don't get on with Da Orks...

Heres the thing: I love the Orks. I think the fluff is great, the figures look fantastic, I played them to death in pretty much every incarnation of Dawn of War. There is just something about their bloody-minded determination to enjoy themselves in the GrimDark milieu of 40k, whilst all the other races treat it all so seriously.

But I have a problem - and that its that I just can't paint the damn things.

This is a Trukk for Ewan's Orky horde for use in the on-going stuggle to control his bedroom floor. Ewan enjoys playing 40k a lot but painting leaves him cold, so I occasionally end up painting bits of his army here and there when i feel like I need a break from Blood Ravens. This got rattled off in a few hours spaced over the weekend, and it shows in places. The thing is, I just can't get into painting it. I like the model - I think they look cool painted up - but I struggle to get a handle it myseld and consequently...its just a bit substandard. I mean, it's fine for charging around the battlefield being blown up by Marines, but I'm left feeling it should have been better.

On the other hand; I'm learning a lot about metal effects, which I don't use much on the Marine stuff, so its not a total waste. 

Blood Ravens Landspeeder and some paint thoughts

Well first up I got my first vehicle under the Vallejo Paints done, and it looks like this:

No, I still haven't bought a decent camera.

This really almost turned into a complete disaster but I think I've mostly brought it back. I've noticed that the colour depth on the new paints is much stronger - and better - than the old GW ones i'd been used to, and planned accordingly, but even so the initial red coat was ridiculously vivid. I think it's still to bright compared to the existing vehicles but a couple of washes and the weathering pass have brought it back under control somewhat.

The weathering - especially the mud - is heavier than my normal effect at least in part because of this, but also because I figure that high-speed skimmers that get tactically deployed as hit-and-run strike forces probably get filthy.

As to the painting the problem I'm not really sure how to resolve it - thinner coats sure but then I'm going to run into problems with application. I'd love to try Landraider or similar show-piece vehicle and that's really not something I want to screw up, which makes me think a starters airbrush could be the answer. Time for more research, I think.... 

Blood Ravens Command Squad COMPLETED

Well, I setup the lightbox again, and got to work messing with some more snazzy shots. Unfortunately, what this has revealed is the limitations of my camera for this sort of work, so I guess I need to find the cash for a new one in my hobby budget. Guess that puts off the airbrush purchase for another couple of months!

Anyway, here they are, and apologies for the photo quality. Comments, as ever, gratefully received.

Apocathery

Company Champion

Company Commander with Relic Blade and
Combi-Melta

Plasma Veteran

And another Plasma Veteran

Standard Bearer

Captain and Command Squad

I need to setup the lightbox again over the weekend and take some proper pictures, but for now...the completed and based Company Captain and Command Squad...

Pretty please with that little lot. Next up, my first Landspeeder. 

Command Squad WiP

So, my Command Squad is comming along, and a couple more of the figures are now painted apart from basing and weathering. Pictures below - although my camera appears to made them a bit "redder" than they appear in real life. When I've got the squad done I'll crack out the lightbox and make some better shots.

Company Champion. Fiddly, Fiddly, Man. 

I agonised over the Shield colour, but went with Red in the end.

His "proper" sword is on my Company Captain, so he's got a "standard"
Power Sword. The backpack eagle is chopped off a banner. 

The first of the squad's two Plasma Veterans. 

I've got loads of these "kneeling" legs and this
 is the first time I've used them. 

Sadly these pics really do make him look more orangey than he is :( 

Blood Ravens Captain, and some thoughts on new Paints

As I mentioned some time ago, I've ditched the old GW paints and invested in moving over the Vallejo Game Colour for the bulk of my paints. Having run down a most of my GW collection messing about with Ewan's Orks (and he can have whats left for when he fancies a splodge around), I cracked them open for the first time to work on a couple of figures - my Marine Company Captain, and my Command Squad Apocathery. Results below!

In Which Our Hero is Beaten by 10-year old...

Painting is still slow going but I have spent the time well. Having picked up Codex: SM and Codex: Orks cheap off ebay, I build a couple of balanced army lists for the two forces and me and Ewan (eldest offspring)  managed to get a good and proper fight in at 1250 points each. Whilst we've had a few matches before, they've never been with properly costed forces and mission rules, so this was a first for both of us.

My Blood Raven Force ready to roll out. The books at the top of the picture represent a swamp and the egg-paperweight-thing is my objective. 

Ewans Orks - mostly painted by Ewan. The two Imperial Guard vehichles are "Looted Wagons" and the Leman Russ had a rather lethal Boomgun on it before I Autocannoned it to death in the early game. The slippers aren't terrain, they're just proof Ewan never cleans his room!

Mid-Game and my Sternguard gaze across at the approaching horde next to a shot-up Razorback. What you can't tell is that I'm being heavily outflanked on the far side of the table.

...and thats all folks. With time out on the game it was technically a draw, but Ewan has killed more units than I have and has a force advancing on my objective whilst I'm bogged down on the near-side. As you see the Razorback's bad day continued to get worse!

Overall, pretty good fun and proof you don't need huge armies and "proper" competition to have fun with this game!