29 January 2011

A table fit for Legion

I rolled out my Legion today in 2, 35 point games. Having not played them in several months I actually found it easy to pickup again. I ran with the same list in both games. The first up against Chris and his entire proxied Menoth army (AKA my Cryx). Then I squared off against Will and his Khador machines.

I basically made the list up of things I hadn’t played in a long time, or things I’d had miserable experiences with. So the Spell Marytr, Forsaken and Deathstalker all made the list, having never really got a grip on any of them in the few games I had previously played.

Painted Addiction - Legion Army List

Having only just put the War Chief together, I had to play my favourite War Spears to take advantage of the War Chief. Although it ended up they did bugger all in both games.. other than die.

The biggest thing of the day was playing with the brand spanking new.. not released yet ruins from GaleForce Nine. Mark had gotten himself several thanks to his work. They are really ..really nice. Big, heavy and solid.. I’ll be getting me some for sure.

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Here’s a few shots I snapped off with the iphone.. thanks to me misplacing my camera, so they aren’t to sharp. But better than nothing. The table looked awesome with buildings everywhere.

Painted Addiction - Table layout Painted Addiction - Table layoutPainted Addiction - Table layout Painted Addiction - Table layout Painted Addiction - Table layout

On a side note, I won both games, but they were close, The Forsaken Blight Bomb worked rather well in both games, and I managed to use the Spell Martyr in both games as well. The Deathstrider didn’t fear to good, but I didn’t pit her against the right foes so no surprise there..aka Jacks were all she really got to shoot at.

The Stingers played there part and just tied up the enemy and did minimal damage. The Angelius was king in both games.

28 January 2011

Imperial Guard Valkyrie

With my success of the Chimera and the airbrushing, I decided to tackle a Valkyrie. I’ve wanted one since they first got released. And thanks to January’s sale at Maelstrom, my latest distraction arrived on Thursday. I’ve started with the interior and started planning the exterior paint job.

Valkrie_1 Valkrie_2

Having had a good look around online at some WWI and WWII aircraft, I found a few images that that caught my eye. I like the different nose details and the chequers are could be a addition.

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400_F_1848368_dZRkuC0WK79JbGZMfK7mREXq0ASGYMin-allen-topper

I also have some delusions of doing some freehand details, like they had on some of the lager bombers. Time will tell if my delusions come true.

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23 January 2011

Painting and Gaming Day

I got a couple of games yesterday afternoon, After a couple of hours painting. I rolled out Goreshade for the first time in the first game, just using a proxy model. Also got my Bane Thralls on the table which were extremely effective with Goreshades feat. I think the Bane Thralls will become a staple in my lists as they were rather good in my second game as well. I was up against Chris who was proxing a Menoth army. I now really hate continuous fire. I won both games, thanks to some super bad dice rolling by Chris in the second game.

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Here’s a couple of shots of the boys playing Flames of War on the other table. Looks like I’ll be joining them with some Russians in the coming months.

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Last night I finally got around to building a small shelf for my paints, It ended up being rather simple to make and works really well, nice and easy to see all the colours. So my painting space is now really well setup with the addition of my new lamp that I got for Christmas and the new shelf.

So now its time to get stuck into some painting.

21 January 2011

Photographic Inspiration

While I was looking for a few ideas online for my Cryx Bane Thralls that I’ve been putting together tonight I came across this collection of photos, I now have some inspiration for setting up some photos, I really like the terrain in the background and the angels they have used. With all my terrain I’ve got I’ll have to put aside one afternoon to do some serious shooting.

Here’s the link and a couple of picture http://www.flickriver.com/photos/jontlaw/tags/press/ imageimage

18 January 2011

Ruins of Osgiliath and Brush Cleaning

I’ve been busy playing around with the air brush and my Vallejo pigments on the Ruins of Osgiliath over the last few nights. Along with some Vallejo Air paints that I recently acquired. The Vallejo Air paints still needed thinning before being usable, my verdict is still out on them, but I’m only comparing them against Tamiya at this point, so time will tell on which I’ll prefer.

As for the pigments..I went nuts and tried a few different ways of applying it which all seemed to end up looking the same after it was dry.

Ruins of Osgiliath Ruins of Osgiliath Ruins of Osgiliath

Also tried out some brush cleaning soap that I got from Gordon Harris, our local art store. I got the idea from another awesome blog http://warpainter-kerry.blogspot.com/2011/01/getting-started-painting-tools.html . And I’m a convert after cleaning my first brush. I thought I’d start with the acid test and pulled out one of my old brush's that I relegated to mixing PVA glue for basing… OMFG … The first clean I was surprised at how much it cleaned off, then I did a second clean.. just nutty, it’s usable again,

Also found these little  video on brush care which was interesting http://vimeo.com/4967134 and another on YouTube. It’s well worth the $14 I spent on the Masters Brush Cleaning kit, I got the little pot and a bar of soap in it. Cleans paint of the hands really well.

Kudos goes to Kerry for pointing out this little money saving gem
     – Check is blog out at http://warpainter-kerry.blogspot.com

15 January 2011

Lilith of The Neverborn

Lilith of The Neverborn Lilith of The Neverborn

I got Lilith done today, and finished off the Terror Tot Nephillims as well. Only the Mature Nephillim to go and I’ll have the starter box done. Then I’ll need to learn the rules and give the game a bash. 

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I’d been listening to audio books while I paint, a bit of a change from music. I’ve just finished listening to “Dealing with Dragons”. A funning light hearted story, a kids story really, but easy to listen to and didn’t take much concentration away from the painting. Well worth a listen to if your into that sort of thing. The people reading it have good voices and are interesting to listen to, no boring monotones.

13 January 2011

Imperial Guard Chimera: Part 3

Today I spent a a lot of time slowly painting bits on the Chimera. The slowly part came mainly from the fact I was with the lads yakking and watching videos while painting.

I started with a black wash over all the hull lines followed by some gunmetal metallic on the chips and scratch's. Followed by painting up the commander in the top hatch and a few details. It took a couple of goes to get the laser blast hole in the hull to look good, but I think it came out looking good in the end. I then got stuck in and spent a bit of time playing around with Vallejo Pigments that arrived in the mail the other day. Glorious mud. After experimenting with them a bit, it didn’t take long to get the hang of using them. I found this link that helped a lot. http://www.acrylicosvallejo.com/blog/category/pigments/ . Finally I did an overcoat of Mona Matt finish to bring the shin back down and to help cement in the pigments.

Chimera_10 Chimera_11

A little more detail work on the commander and then finish off the main turret weapons and she will be all done. I’m really happy with the mud look, think a few more pigment colours may be in order to really get it looking awesome. Overall the pigments rock.

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12 January 2011

Imperial Guard Chimera: Part 2

Imperial Guard Chimera

After spending a few hours painting the deck today (Yay for holidays) I thought I’d abuse the solvents a bit more. I Blue Tac’ed over the previous green then proceeded to add in the brown with the same airbrush technique. Once that was dry, I added in the decals and painted Matt finish over them. Then this evening I sprayed on a layer of gloss to hold everything in place and get ready for the washes. I also sculpted the mounts for the main turret weapons with green stuff after adding on the magnets.

Imperial Guard Chimera: Part 1

After getting my airbrush for Christmas, and having played around with the Blood Angels Predator tank and then the Flames of War tank, I have gotten the bug.. that is the Tank bug. So it’s no real surprise that I’ve gone the Imperial Guard way.. the Baneblade is in my sites. But before I get onto something that large, I thought I’d start a little smaller and hone my skills a lot more on the airbrush and different techniques

I found a YouTube video on what other people have done as far as magnetizing a Chimera, I kept the construction pretty simple and decide to only magnetise the dozer blade and the main turret weapons. I kept it straight forward, drilled three small holes thought the dozer bracket while holding it in place on the chassis, drilled straight into the bottom of the hull and used these as pilot holes to drill large ones to accommodate the magnets. Then placed a bit of plastic card on the inside of the hull, this then allowed two magnets stacked to be popped into the hole with a little super glue. I then cut away enough space around the pilot holes in the dozer bracket to hold a magnet and super glued them in place.

Imperial Guard Chimera - WIPImperial Guard Chimera - WIP

I then took to the chassis with a knife and cut in some wear and tear along the body and placed several bullet holes around, added in a few scratch marks.. A.K.A Genestealer signatures. Then found a cool picture in the GW book “How to Paint Citadel Tanks” that I liked and got stuck in the the drill.  With a few spear parts in the kit, I cut down one piece and used it as a repair, leaving a small amount of the underlying hole still showing,

Imperial Guard Chimera - WIP Imperial Guard Chimera - WIP Imperial Guard Chimera - WIP

Hear the pic from the GW book “How to Paint Citadel Tanks” page 65. I then primed it in black and got some cheap Chinese rip off of Blue Tac and went crazy.

image Imperial Guard Chimera - WIP

So with blue tac in place I blaster away with the airbrush on my first coat. Being a blue tac virgin I am please to say the experience was for the most part all good.  (Cheap Chinese knock-off of blue tac, add in a hot summer day, the stuff sticks to every damn thing – but for $3 it does the job well)

Imperial Guard Chimera - WIP Imperial Guard Chimera - WIP

Predator : Part 2

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This whole project was about trying out new things, the Air brush to start with then anything else I could find to play around with. I spent the day painting, and trying out new things. First thing I tried out was the gloss finish over everything, then putting in the shadow lines with a thin mixture of paint, this worked really well with the paint running into the corners easily. Then the plan was to bring it back to a nice matt finish later on.

I haven’t used Decals since I was a kid, So I tried a couple of different ways of putting them on. It ended up that the first way I tried was the best, That was putting on the decal, then once dry, painting on Matt finish, then touching up the edges with red, then another layer of matt. Then after the coat of Mona Matt finish over the whole tank, the Skull decal came back nicely and lost it’s shine. The “5” on the other hand was a completely different story. I applied the Matt finish after the Mona coat, and with all that clear area showing it looks pretty bad, so a little bit of destruction and repair is on the cards. All part of the learning curve and fun.

Predator5 Predator7

I’m please with what I have learnt so far and it’s good enough to make the table for a game or two. Still lots to go on the model, the gun barrels and turrets etc as well as the insides.

Predator : Airbrush ambitions

Well I started to play with my new airbrush today after putting together my new Predator tank. I’ve magnetized the Predator as well, so it will be nice and easy to swap out the weapons and remove them during games when they get destroyed. I found several good You tube videos on how to magnetize the Predator. Which also gave me the idea of being able to pull off the parts and use it as a Rhino instead, which makes for a far more usable model. Since I don’t have a Space Marine army, I thought I'd do it in the Blood Angles colours so my brother can use it in his army.

I’m slowly getting the hang of the airbrush, it made a big difference once I turned down the pressure on the compressor. I’m using Tamiya paints with thinners. So far there haven’t been to many unexpected gremlins. The main one was the difference in colour change from wet to touch dry to dry. The red got a lot more intense once it was dry. Since I haven’t used Tamiya paints before or an airbrush, I’m guessing it’s just a learning curve.

Here’s the Predator so far, after a white base coat followed by Flat Red (XF-7) and then some Red (X-7). Along with a brown mix of several light colours.

Blood Angles Predator Blood Angles Predator Blood Angles Predator

I got some idea’s from some old White dwarf mag’s and the web, like this Predator below, thought I’d print off some cool pictures on the colour ink jet (nice and small). Then glue them onto the panels and spray blend them in. That’s the plan anyway, if it successful or not will be another story. Nothing like aiming high.

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I’ve already tested using photo paper and then spraying a clear coat over the paper to test for the colour hold on the paper and also to make sure the image does bleed etc. So far using Matt photo paper has been the best.