Work in Progress: Vampire Counts Mortis Engine (Part 2)

A bit more progress on my Mortis engine! Still need to do a lot of detail work.

Punch in on the throne bit.

Work in Progress: Vampire Counts Mortis Engine

Still have a ton of work to do, but I'm happy where this is going!

1. Assembly. I was pretty surprised at how well this kit went together. Feels like this kit really takes advantage of kits in CAD... There's a lot going on here. Honestly I'm not even sure if I'll field the Mortis Engine, it's just a neat kit. I've started using wall spackling paste for big bases, adds some texture and goes on very easily.

2. After some experimentation with the Black Coach, I found out that you get this neat visibly gritty texture if you prime black, then while still wet prime white from your chosen highlight direction. This helps add a bit of randomization to the texture for the next step.

3. Wash! Two coats of Games Worshop's Coelia Greenshade.

4. A mixture of airbrushing and drybrushing on Games Workshop's Hawk Turquoise. Also I did a quick and dirty pass of cheap acrylic brown on the base, no sense of using good paint here as it will be covered by flock.

5. Dead Grass flock on the base.

6. Primed the Chariot bit black.

7. Airbrushed Vallejo's Model Air Gold. Very happy with their metallic paint line, gold over black never looked so good! You've really got to shake these bottles up before use though. Make sure to drop an object in the bottle to use as an agitator.

8. Airbrushed Vallejo's Game Color Livery Green at 20PSI onto the reliquary. I didn't really plan to do this, but it seems to be working out against the gold. I'm pretty sure I rushed this step for layering and details, there's some detail work that could be done on the reliquary if I wanted to... probably just get lost once the gate bit is added though.

9. Just a closer image of the reliquary. Definitely going to need to attempt some OSL to blend the Spririt Horde with the chariot bit. I've kept the chariot bit detached to do detail work.

Vampire Counts: Black Coach

Long time no post. I've been a terrible blogger, but this time I have the best of excuses. Earlier this year my partners and I began a new business. Business is good; however I haven't had much time to paint. This weekend I took some time to work on an idea I have had brewing for about three years now.

I've always wanted to show a Black Coach transitioning from its corporeal to its incorporeal form. I finished this guy in about 5-6 hrs over two days, most on the first with polish on the second day. He's mostly done, I might do some touch ups a bit later.

WAAAGHshington Greenskins - Victorious!

Terrible about any upkeep on the blog, but THIS YEAR, this year will be the year of miniature wargaming I've always wanted it to be, and some such new years resolution nonsense. I have several projects that need blog posts and pics up.

At any rate, here's an excuse to post up that I won our Fantasy Handegg (read: Football if your are from the US of A) league! Fantasy Football on NFL.com mind you. I still have yet to play a non-digitized version of Bloodbowl.

This was the year for the WAAAGHshinton Greekskins! A damned unlikely event since my record was 7-7 going into playoffs.

The Painting Peg Boards

Twenty dollars and an hour of work result in a pretty nice painting tool. Boards equipped with removable pegs for painting individual models.

Supplies:
3 - 1" diameter 4' long dowel rod
1 - 2" x 6" x 10' board (inexpensive $6)

Directions:
1. Cut the dowel rod down to 6" lengths.

2. Drill 1" holes for desired spacing between rods. I recommend staggering them to take advantage of width of the boards.

3. The two in the pictures are going to be used for priming but I will be making a larger one with smaller spacing tomorrow.

Terrain: Wheat fields on the Cheap!

One of these: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20052187/

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Any standard hobby knife or box cutter.

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A Ruler

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Cheap brown acrylic paint.

=

Cheap Wheat Field(s)

August Painting Challenge - Giant!!

So the August challenge is well under way. Challenge issued was a medium-large model with a minimum of a 40mm base. I had a primed giant ready to go...

...and I had wanted to try to airbrush flesh tones on, here is how it is turning out so far:

Airbrushing flesh tones... cheating. Remember my O&G Army has snow bases - I'm going for a pale snow giant look:

July Painting Challenge - Imperial Guard Commissar

Long time no post! My buddy Korwen, who has yet to post on this blog though he is a collaborator, has started our gaming group on a monthly challenge. We started with a single small model. I chose a Commissar to get warmed up.

The challenge is a great way to drive getting some painting done. I had a great time participating with the other 5 folks! Enough chatter, here is my submission for July:

Khador Juggernaut - In Progress

Some pics of my Khadorian Juggernaut I was working on last night! I'm really going for a dirty look here - sooty, grimy metal. Needs more though, and I have broken out the weathering pigments.

Supreme Kommandant Irusk

Started work on my Khador army! I used my new airbrush to get a really bold yellow and red on this model. The result was some great preservation of detail.

Empire!

Alrighty, thoroughly distracted by the new Empire rule book. I have yet to play a game, but I did start work again on some Pistoliers and a kneeling Handgunner conversion!

Playing Around with my new Airbrush!

I'll admit there is nothing fancy going on in this image, but there was a lot of learning that went into getting to the point where I could apply green to these Greenskins with my Badger 155 Anthem Airbrush. What did I learn?

- No dark primer. It just doesn't show the atomized micron thick layer of paint that you can place on a model with an airbrush.

- Your brush will get clogged! It's the price of using water based paints. Plan to deal with this issue! Tiny nylon brushes and airbrush cleaning solution are a must!

- I've experimented with Citadel and Vallejo paints now. 70/30 seems to be a great mix for Vallejo Game Color. I plan on ordering the Model Air base kit when someone has it back in stock.

- No brainier here, but I really flubbed this one. Don't run air through your airbrush with paint still in it. That causes the paint to dry. Then you have to strip that airbrush down to nothing and nylon brush all of its insides with a real vigor. This gets worse if you use rapidly drying medium like isopropyl or Tamiya's X20.

- Water in you lines. Good lord this one is frustrating. The hotter your compressor gets the more air gets in your lines, the longer you work the more you have to deal with this. I have a tankless compressor, which probably means mine gets hotter than those with tanks. So this is becoming a nasty issue for me. A long line helps, but I am thinking I might add an inline moisture trap.

- Bubbles in you Paint Cup. This means your brush has a blockage.
No really it does. Keep looking, you'll find it. Sight test the straight lined pieces by holding your disassembled airbrush components up to a light source.

Nothing special in the photo, but it's progress! Oh... And Empire gets announced officially on the 31st? Like I need any more distractions.

1-Off Imperial Guard Sentinel vs Possessed Chaos Marine

Still some work needed to be done on this guy. I brought the model to work to inspire future 40k painting as I have tabled my 40k stuff in favor of WHFB for now. I had a lot of fun assembling this guy, and giving sculpting fire a go.

Orcs and Goblins Boar Chariot!

I've been working on this guy for a bit, shaping up, pretty great! I've learned a couple of key things over the past few weeks:

1. Quick Dry Tacky glue yields some very cool "Snow hanging off the edges of bases" effects.

2. NEVER use Army Painter Dull Coat lacquer while the temperature is lowere than room temperature. It creates this awful milky white glaze on your model.

3. Poor Man's Wet Palette is my new best friend, I might have to post a quick tutorial on this here blog thingy about how to put one together.

Black Orc Big Boss

Black Orc Big Boss, on his new snow base.

Black Orcs: Iron Gobs: Snow Bases

Decided to set my Orc army in the frozen north! These guys are looking great! Now to see you dipping these in MinWax goes...

Black Orcs: The Iron Gobs

The Iron Gobs love ta choppa hummies good. A good bit of work to do, but these guys are well on their way to being wrapped up! I started using MinWax Sealer on a couple as a 'ard Coat. Hoping to start snow bases tomorrow!

The Blog Lives! Again!

Having found a bit of time to paint again lately, I am revisiting my old blog! Lots of projects in the pipe at the moment, and a new phone that takes excellent (and quick to upload) photos! Let's see if this reinvigorates posting!

Current project? 500 points of Orcs and Goblins!

Number Nine - LotR Ent

The stone-throwing orc-stomping Ent is complete! Lots of dry brushing. We've played a couple games with him. He's a beast - very tough to kill. There's a rule in LotR SBG where in order for an outside warrior, like an Ent to ally with Rohan, he must have a leader from his faction (Treebeard), but since we have no Treebeard and one Ent is enough, we ignore that rule :)

NumberNine - Theoden's Royal Guard

So while I stick with the evil guys for LotR, my wife represents the free peoples with her Rohan army. We recently finished painting up some Rohan Royal Guard, which round out her nice little band of Theoden and his most trusted defenders. Above, Theoden is shown on horse, and on foot we have the three Rohan Royal Guard with their captain, Hama. The Royal Guard are a bit tougher than normal Rohan Warriors, and they have a cool "Bodyguard" rule where they always pass courage tests if their leader (your choice) is still alive.

A funny thing about the Rohan army, is that all your heroes inevitably need both mounted and unmounted copies. Cool, but time consuming.

We really like these mini's though, with Theoden decked out in his Pelennor Fields armor. The armored horse (Snowmane) looks pretty slick as well.

The rules for these two heroes reflect the films well. Theoden has a lot of Defense, but fitting to the story he also is very susceptible to magic, as he has zero points of Will.

Hama has the "Bodyguard" rule, but unlike the Royal Guard, you don't choose his leader - it's always Theoden, since Hama is the king's doorward and main defendant. Also, because of how he ends up in the second LotR book, he has zero points of Fate. So, poor Hama will do anything to defend his King, but cannot avoid a wound if he's hit.

Theoden and Hama lead a group of Rohirrim as they charge into battle!