March Madness

Very mad, seeing as it's currently April! It was a very busy month both personally and in terms of hobby and now at least I can say with certainty that I won't have anything more to do in March...

Right, where to begin? I guess at the beginning is a very good place to start;

March saw a desperate scramble to finalise an army for an Event at WS10; Warzone Wednesbury. It's the first event I've been to in about a year and I'd actually been preparing this list from about December of 2017. My list was as follows:

HQ
Typhus
Lord of Contagion

Troops
20x Poxwalkers
5x Plague Marines
5x Plague Marines

Elites
3x Deathshroud Terminators
Plague Surgeon
Tallyman

Fast Attack
3x Myphitic Blight Haulers

Heavy Support
Plagueburst Crawler

Lord of War
Mortarion

The pictures above show the full list together as well as a decent look at the effect on Mortarion's wings. Everything is WYSIWYG for the list so equipment correlates. Mortarion's wings went through several experiments before arriving at this look that is almost finished but for the veins. I tried to do a wash based brown scheme where I layered brown washes over one another to create a dark brown leather look. I liked the colours but unfortunately I hadn't done the blends correctly so instead of smooth transitions I had... TIDE MARKS!!! Next I tried the same sort of effect but with red. I liked it but because of my light palette for the army the wings just overpowered everything. What I eventually settled on was a bit of a risk but hopefully you'll agree that it worked out well. Green Stuff World have released a range of colour shift paints and what you're seeing there is about 6 layers of Martian Green which shifts from green to purple. Kind of reminds me of both oil on water and house flies which is absolutely perfect for this army! I tested it on the wings of Typhus' and the Deathshrouds' flies first so he ties in with them as well. I'm very very pleased with the look of the army and...

SO WAS EVERYONE ELSE!! If you can't read it that's my award for Best Painted Army! I was so happy to win this that I let out a very high pitched "yay" as it was announced! I think I deafened half the competitors... Worth it. In terms of the games themselves I really enjoyed them but I think my lack of experience with the army and the edition showed as I was only able to win one of five games... I'm not too fussed with being competitive though; I'm all about the painting and having fun. If it's not fun then what's the point of playing the game?!  That's a whole blog post in and of itself though so I won't rant any further.

So following on from that I was really riding the hobby wave and decided to get stuck into something new and completely different to anything else I've painted. I'd got myself a Dark Elf Sorceress for Christmas intending to use her as a Silver Tower participant and thought she'd be a great test model for a Daughters of Khaine colour scheme. Now I know there's the standard trope for Warhammer/AoS that the Dark Aelves have pale skin but I wanted to do something a little different so I made her look more like this...

I know, yet another red cloth! I tried to do an ocean blue colour in preparation for the Deepkin but is just wasn't working for me so I went back to what I know I can do and can do well. Now the lava was something I've wanted to do for a while; I helped out with the scenery for the WS10 AoS event earlier this year and I was asked to do... Lava. From there I realised I really enjoyed it so I tweaked how I did it then (and by tweaked I mean added several colour stages for smoother blends) and when the sea blue didn't work out I decided my Daughters of Khaine would be based in Aqshy; the Realm of Fire. I love how dynamic the model is even though she isn't in a particularly dynamic pose. It lends itself perfectly to the thermals coming off of the lava! I did have a little issue with the gold against the tanned skin but a good friend of mine (@wilsongrahams, if you want to check out his insanely awesome work on Twitter) suggested a very very thin glaze of Nihilakh Oxide over it (Retributor Armour, Agrax Earthshade, Retributor Armour, Auric Armour and highlight with Stormhost Silver). The effect, as you can see, is just to make the gold stand out without losing it's "goldness"; it just helps to distinguish it from the skin. Since completing her I've been planning a full Daughters of Khaine army with Morathi at the centre. That model is amazing! Well, both models seeing as she has her two forms. GW are really knocking it out of the park lately with new models and I'm loving the Melusai most of all. Can't wait to get to the Temple Nest and start painting up some of them!

At the moment I'm working on a squad of Rubric Marines for my WS10 painting challenge. True to Tzeentch/form I've changed the colour scheme again and I'm now using another Colour Shift paint; Psychotic Illusions. This one transitions from turquoise to a lighter purple and really suits Thousand Sons armour. I'm debating how to approach the stripes and I'm not sure whether to introduce another Colour Shift paint or go for the traditional yellow/blue. Haven't decided yet. I'm just letting my hobby intuition lead me on this so stay tuned.

And that was March! A crazy month and a lot was painted and learned. Turns out I am capable of painting a lot but I enjoy it more when I get to paint at a leisurely pace. I've also confirmed that I'm not very good at 40k as a game. I enjoy it but in a competitive setting I'm not great at it. I much prefer painting. I hope you've enjoyed reading about my month and I'll be back in a few weeks with my April update.

Technological Advancement

Just because a civilisation is over 65,000,000 years old doesn't mean they can't make changes to their already amazing technology. Today the Crypteks from the Suhbekhar Dynasty have started to utilise a new type of energy and have decided to roll it out with the Deathmarks.

On the right you can see how I've been painting energy up until now and on the left you can see how I will be painting it in future. Well except the orbs... I need to repaint those ones as I messed up a bit but it's an easy fix.

The reason for the change is that I tried to paint the portal on my Monolith and with my current scheme and it looked flat and dull. It ruined the depth of the metal work and it really needs to be redone but the question I faced was how do I fix it?

I took to Google and YouTube (my first stops for any issues of this type) and found a few ways of painting orange but I didn't like what they were doing. Then I saw a tutorial where orange was involved but as a mid-highlight as opposed to the whole thing and it clicked with me. 

For anything that isn't a centrepiece model I've decided to simplify the process to just three colours; Evil Sunz Scarlet, Troll Slayer Orange and Yriel  Yellow but for HQ models and centrepieces I'll add in more shades and blending but for speed I'll take the less complicated route with infantry and such. 

So that's all for tonight! Over the next few weeks I'll repaint the orange I've already done and then going forward I'll be going down this route for energy.

Coding Errors

Hello! So it's been a little while but I've had an exam so apologies. I do have another two to do but nothing just yet so I have a little spare time which I'm using to catch you up on my hobby progress so far.

The Great Awakening (again!)

Following from my previous post I was chatting to a friend of mine (who is also a commission painter) about my chosen Necron colour scheme and he suggested one last highlight on the blue to just make it pop. Never one to turn down painting tips I gave it a go less than 10 minutes ago and he was definitely right. The extra highlight has taken it from this:

The Great Awakening

Today I offer up the start of my Necron army in the form of an Overlord. I have to say that I had a lot of fun painting him although I was a little worried about the colour scheme but I think it turned out ok.

Shadow Caster

Hello again! Oh yes I'm back again and this time it hasn't been several months between postings! Result! Today I'm here to share with you a model that I've had for quite a while but lacked the inspiration to paint... Presenting for your viewing pleasure... Be'lakor!!

Blood Rush

Hello people! I haven't really posted recently as I've not had the time to (new and awesome job that I've had to settle into) but here I am to show you my latest work and my god he's beautiful if I do say so myself. May I present to you my first ever Greater Daemon of Khorne; a Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury.

The First Lady

Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls, step right up and see the amazing resurrected woman! Yes you heard right, she's died more times than Buffy the Vampire Slayer (well actually the same amount of times) but she's back and it might be to stay... At least she's staying in my collection even if Games Workshop kill her off. Again. That would just be really bad form... But I digress. Meet the new and improved Isabella Von Carstein!!

February Challenge Pt 1

Evening folks! It's almost midnight here and I'm having a little trouble sleeping so I thought this would be a perfect time to update you all on my painting challenge. Any regular readers will know that I'm engaged in a friendly painting challenge with my gaming group WS10 and my last post was about my January challenge which was completing three Justaerin Terminators.

This month I've gone bigger and started a Helbrute. The Powerfist and Multi-Melta Helbrute was a lot of fun to paint and this one is living up to that experience in that every new colour I add brings a little more of him to life. What you'll see below is the progress I've made on him over the past week which isn't bad. 

The Challenge Pt 2

Good morning readers! As I write this I'm winging my way to work on a train that's faster than... Well it's faster than walking. To pass the time I thought I'd share with you all the results of my first monthly challenge that I mentioned in my last post.

The Challenge

As something of a communal New Years resolution the guys of WS10 have all banded together to create and participate in a painting challenge. This is in part for our upcoming tournament as there is a painted army restriction (three colour minimum, no grey plastic) but also as a way of getting through the mounds of new models we all got for Christmas. My challenge is to build up my Black Legion forces which I can do now that my exams are finally over!! As I keep spending money without actually painting anything I've also decided to resurrect the painting points system to go alongside it.

Happy New Year!!

Yes it's that time again where hobbyists everywhere take stock of all the models they've acquired over the last twelve months and resolve to paint them all before buying anything new and I don't plan to buck the trend. In fact I'm going to make the same promise and the only time I will buy anything new is if I need it for a game (as I've done recently) or if Games Workshop suddenly throw out a whole new bunch of models for my CSM or Daemons (I've got enough Tyranids and Undead to be getting on with for now!!)

The Plague Host

Edit: I started writing this about three weeks ago but forgot to publish... Oops.

Over the weekend (and the preceding week as I was off work for two days) I've been a rather busy little bee and not only started but also finished Typhus! I have to say that I'm so happy with him and how he turned out; in fact I surprised myself with just how well I managed to paint him (not to toot my own horn or anything).

Voila! One host of the Destroyer Hive.

I was going to paint him a while ago so I had done my usual paint scheme research already (moving house just screws everything up). What this meant was that I could start painting straight away. I chose the pre-heresy Death Guard scheme for two reasons. The first reason is a fluffy one in that that after being infested by the Destroyer Hive and becoming a mortal (ish) herald of Nurgle I very much doubt he'd have cared all too much about how his armour looks so it never made much sense to me that he would have re painted it. The second reason is that I saw a few pictures of both this model and the Forge World Typhon and thought that the Death Guard colour scheme was so much cooler than the green one.

To get the green trim I painted the whole model with Death World Forest. Then dry brushed with Elysian and Nurgling Green with copious amounts of Agrax Earthshade between layers.

Since this model there has been a lot of work done in terms of my hobby (and the rest of my life but this is about the hobby) including the beginnings of a new army... Which is something that anyone coming here from my Twitter links will already be aware of but for those of you who have stumbled onto my page it will be a mystery... Unless you stumbled onto a later post and then made your way back to this one. In which case you ruined the surprise. But anyway, hope you like Typhus!

The Birds and the Bees

The past few days have been pretty big for my hobby drive and to show for it I've got a few things to show you...

Oh yes ladies and gents, I finished the Heldrake and 10 Horrors! I'm also very near to completion with my Tzeentch sorcerer in Terminator Armour, started playing around with a few ideas for the Tzeentch Herald I don't like (I like the individual components I used to make him but I'm not keen on them all together), worked on an Abaddon conversion, fixed my Exalted Seeker Chariot (the clam pack Herald looks much better on that) and a few other bits too.

Starting with the Heldrake I think my favourite part of him is the wiring under his neck. Something clicked in my head this week and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with him and how he was going to look and this is the result.

I've been using green as a spot colour for my army and helping to tie my more colourful units into the army (i.e. My cultists. The issue I had was that the green on the Heldrake needed to look more functional than decorative and the yellow highlights I was using for the infantry, while effective, didn't create the right effect for me and so for this I decided to not use any yellow whatsoever but used Gauss Blaster Green instead and I'm very pleased with the result as it looks like some form of energy source.

I have a few plans for the base that may or may not require a hot glue gun but that's for another time I'm afraid.

These guys were looking like they might be a problem for me because of my mental block with them last time and this time I couldn't get motivated to paint them at all. The problem being that I don't enjoy painting that much pink. A little bit on a Slaanesh Chosen is fine but that much... I'm not a fan. I decided to shake it up a little and embrace change so I painted them blue and green which was obviously a good idea as I finished in around a week!!

I decided not to do my usual fire with these guys as I wanted to try something a little different. It was my main thought while I was painting the Horrors and I still hadn't come up with a solution when I'd finished everything else so I dug around in my head a little. I had originally planned to paint these Horrors in purple (can't quite remember how they ended up blue) so I decided to create a little homage to the original idea and have purple flames. 

Their feathers were actually inspired by a suggestion by @wilsongrahams on Twitter while I was painting a Tyranid Termagant (more on that another time) who suggested that I look through the Lizardmen army book for some colour scheme inspiration. While I didn't find anything in there I liked for my Tyranids I did quite like how the feathers were done so I went back through my pile o' White Dwarf magazines to the issue from the Lizardmen release and lo and behold there was a quick and easy way of doing the feathers in a way I liked. Basically they were base coated in Ceramite White, given a Lamenters Yellow glaze and then Waywatchers Green was applied in thin coats to create a blend effect. 

So there we have it. After posting this I plan to get some household stuff done (boring) and then crack on with my Tzeentch Terminator sorcerer. I just need to finish his gun and his staff and he's done (I may have gotten impatient and already based him...). So if all goes to plan then I may be powering through another chunk of my armies today.

Base Instincts

I may have forgotten to come back with the results... Oops. Anyway here they are; my 4 god bases.

Now you may notice that only half of the base on the far left is coloured and that's because I was checking to see how opaque Blood for the Blood God dries and it's not red enough to show against black (a shame but not entirely unexpected).

From left to right we have Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh. Obviously they need tidying up for the real thing but for the most part I'm pretty happy with them as the texture of the ground will unify the bases but the different colours underneath will provide diversity. All I have to figure out now is how Undivided Chaos worshippers will affect the ground and the theme will be ready to go.

Ace of Base

Just a quick one tonight although I know it has been a while since I posted anything of substance. Though if anyone wants to know I am sat on one or two projects because they're not quite finished yet but they will be. I've been considering how best to use the new Agrellan Earth paint (if you haven't seen it google it and do it NOW!!!) because the stuff is actually amazing. I want to use it because it creates great bases with very little effort and will create a really strong theme across both of my armies. The problem is that I want to keep something to separate the different factions within the theme. I've been experimenting with base coating the bases and here is the first part of my experiment (one for each God)

What's that? You can't see anything ? Well that's the point, you'll have to stop by tomorrow to see what I did, how I did it and whether my experiments worked...

All is Dust

It has once again been a while but that's because I've been planning this project for even longer than I was painting it and I was painting it for about four days. Today I present to you an Aspiring Sorcerer of the Thousand Sons!! Now you may have noticed that the main colours are not blue and gold (though they certainly feature) but black and white. Stick around and I'll take you through what I did, how I did it and why.

All for one

Today I offer up four Champions to the Chaos altar of t'internet for sacrifice. By which I mean I finally got my act together and painted some more Chaos Space Marines. These were sort of an experiment of combining various styles and techniques while creating a cohesive central theme at the same time and I like to think that it was a success and I hope you agree. In light of the forthcoming hardback version of the Black Legion supplement I'm painting my Chosen Marines (and most of the rest of my CSM) as Black Legion. At least until another supplement comes out and I start painting some stuff for that one. I think I'm going to end up with a set of models worthy of the Index Astartes by the time I'm done. I think we'll need a bigger display cabinet...

Bitter Enmity

There are two things I want to show you in this post and one of them is my brand new models! Now I've only been able to clean the mould lines so far so they look a little plain but trust me they'll be amazing.

We Are Returned!

I honestly thought that the Black Legion supplement would create a frenzy of Black Legion armies but I think there's barely been a ripple... Maybe when the printed version is ready? Anyway the release has had an effect on me and inspired me to paint my Black Legion Chosen. My Chosen were always going to be Black Legion but now I've been inspired to re-imagine how I go about it.