Something Fishy (Part 5 - Carcharodon Primaris Reiver - Done!)

No WIP pics for this one. Managed to get him done in two extensive late-night sessions (And paying for that with extreme neck pain.).
Same recipe as the previous two. Tried to paint him up some Maori-style facial tattoo's and echo the design (Somewhat) on his chest and pauldron.
Fun fig to work on and after swearing up a storm whilst trying to paint (And re-paint) the tat', the rest of him went along smoothly.

As usual, these pics were taken pre-matt varnish, so he'll probably look lots better after it has dried. (He's currently languishing in the garage drying area)

Left to do on this project is one more Primaris and a solo Scout.

Something Fishy (Part 4 - Carcharodon Primaris #2 Done!)

The second of my Carcharodon Primaris Lieutenants got finished up this weekend. Not happy at all with his free hand effort, but it'll have to do. I tried to replicate his tattoo design on the side of his helmet - it's close enough i think. Also his pauldron art has a similar design on the side of his gun. Again, not very happy but patience is not an infinite resource in my hobby room.
His chest armour and helmet are a different shade of grey from his arms and legs. Felt as he is supposed to be a leader that he'd perhaps be allowed a little artistic license with his own suit of armour whilst at the same time sticking with the chapter's scheme.
Next i think I'll tackle a Primaris Reiver.

Something Fishy (Part 3 - Carcharodon Primaris #2 WIP, still)

More done on this bugger, but progress has since stalled.

The other arm will get tackled... at a later date. Or tonight. Or, I don't know.

Have a rare game of Bolt Action planned for tomorrow (Veteran's Day - it's good to be a government employee) against Densmol during the day. I'll endeavour to take some pics and write a report. Wish my Soviets luck!

Something Fishy (Part 2 - Carcharodon Primaris #2 WIP)

For whatever reason, my hobby urges have had me pick up the next of my Primaris Space Marines and start slapping some paint on him. The body is just base coats right now, so a bit boring for pics at this point, but I got his head finished and I quite like the result. Hope to have a finished mini to post up later this week.

Pre-tattoo application

After I stopped swearing at this inanimate disembodied head. Looks a bit God of War, but I like it enough that it gets to stay.

Something fishy (Part 1 - Carcharodon Primaris WIP, and a few other tidbits)

Hobby mojo has been sputtering at best since my last post. I've sat multiple times to try and work on those poor unloved Winter Germans and.... well nothing.

Then a good mate at work got into the new Warhammer40k edition and it got me nostalgic. Worse still,  it got me appreciating the new space marine Primaris sculpts as they were the "larger-than-life" superhuman combat monsters that the fluff always described, but that never really felt correctly represented by the model range produced up until these new releases. Whilst i didn't go nuts and start a new army or anything so silly, i did pick up a (very affordable) handful of these cool new space marines - just because.

Here's the first in the Carcharodons scheme. (Carcharodons now the new name for the old school "Space Sharks" chapter of space marines.) I read the recently released Black Library novel my James McNiven: Carcharodons Red Tithe and got sudden inspiration to paint my newly acquired armoured giants in the livery of these secretive and brutal (Dare I say it, more brutal than the famed Space Wolves?) wanderers in space.

This sculpt is one of the lieutenants from the current 40k starter set, easy to assemble with lots of cool detail and WAY better proportions than the older marine range:

Couldn't fix the lighting on this one, so forgive the oversaturation.

Pre-head attachment. This pic to highlight both the naff freehanded chapter symbol and my first attempt at power-weapon effects.

Carcharodons/Space Sharks now have a strong Polynesian theme and adorn their armour and pale skin with islander style tattoo designs. Did a bit of research and had a go freehanding some on his pauldron. It'll do.

That's not all the painting ive done, i managed to get in a pitiful pair of Zomtober Zombies done to add to my growing group. Officer Douglas and Doctor Shaddix both succumbed to the virus whilst trying to hold out against the undead onslaught at the veterinary pratice that the good doctor resided at. Sadly it was an infected three toed sloth that got them both. Tragic.

I also managed to sneak in a 3rd zombie, Ms Stroker, still walking about town in mid-stroke apparently after being bitten trying to save wee Willy Finkle who was floating in the local County dipping pool. Little did she know he was just playing dead and waiting for a snack to come splashing his way.

My birthday came and went and with it my sanity, but that's a story for another time. For my birthday, my lovely mother gifted me a pair of books that I'd been coveting but had held off on picking up because they were from France and pretty steep in price after shipping. So there we are, more reference material for yet another Bolt Action project. The failed Dieppe Landing of 1942 by the allies was an awful disaster of an operation, but it helped the organisers of DDay to see mistakes never to repeat again. Unfortunately almost a 1/4 of the men sent never made it back - a horrid price to pay for lessons learnt. I also found the "Ranger at Dieppe" novel at my local library, which is an easy read and describes the newly founded US Rangers who were sent to the UK to learn Commando techniques so that the US could finally boast an elite special forces unit of their own. Armed with these I have gotten the urge to get working on my early/mid war Bolt Action army - watch this space.

Lastly, a small bit of non miniatures hobby painting. With halloween here as i type (and intermittently answer my front door to costumed children), i feel a small bit of pride as my son goes off in search of sweets  with his mates wearing a mask that i toiled over so he'll have the look he was hoping for. Here's me in the mask from last night, then afterward is the spawn in his whole nasty yucky chest beared ensemble.  About two hours went into this dollar store plain mask to get it to look as good as my patience and the medium to hand would allow. It'll do.

Delinquentry

Poor poor neglected blog. Has it been 2 months since I've seen to you? Well, I'm a firm believer that one should not attempt something if one's heart is not fully into it, so, I didn't. But I'm back again now and whilst there have been no hobby updates of late, there has been work done on the hobby front in general.

First off, I am painting furiously again for an upcoming Flames of War tournament on Sunday at ConQuestSac - 2000points of mainly armour (Max of 500 points able to be spent on other stuff.), so I've made a list from the Market Garden book, 11th Armoured that includes no fewer than ten 17pdr guns. German armour is going to die, hard. :) Along with a tank paint-fest for this, I've also finished up my 6 pdr platoon and Lloyd Carriers and a Hawker Typhoon. Pics to come very soon

Sad face all around as my Mum’s all too short visit from the UK is done with and she’s now in Las Vegas on the next leg of her journey. Good thing about Mum coming over though is that she usually brings some of my old minis that were stored in her loft! (Apparently there's still a bunch to send over - including a 1st Gen Leman Russ painted horribly, 1st Ed Dark Elf BB team and 2nd Ed Orc BB team and a bunch of other crap I haven't seen in yonks. But those are for another time.)


So here’s the haul:



1. My old Orlock gang and Necromunda Bounty Hunter. These will be useful for some Inquisimunda creations I have in mind.





2. Yes it’s true, your eyes do not deceive you….. for one reason or another, I bought Harlequins back when they were first released. *le sigh* I’ll probably shove these up on Ebay and see what I can get.





3. #2 of my Chainsaw Warriors… holy heck my painting was shite back then. Again, he’ll probably become part of some Inquisimunda project.





4. Something far more tasty – some old Chaos Thugs and Dwarves. These are some seriously cool and characterful minis. I might have to roll up a 2nd Chaos Warband and include them somehow!





5. Beastmen, Marauder on the left and early Citidel on the right, again, for potential future warband.





6. Drybrush city! I really liked this version of the Slaaneshi daemons. Not at all svelt and alluring as their current incarnation, maybe why I liked them so much? :)





7. Stupid Highelf mage. Another one for the Ebay slaughter…





8. Super cool orc model. Tres old and full of character. Excited to paint him up just for the hell of it.





9. The one fig I was most excited to find, I’ll strip this old Marauder Warrior and use him as my Chaos Champ in my current warband I think.





10. Some old school Citadel Norse fellows. I shall name them Cass, Thrasher, Erik and Snolb.





11. This fig was just a cool buy back when I found him in an old LGS. No idea who published the sculpt, but it is such a cool post apoc image, I’m dead excited to strip and repaint him.





12. Lastly, there were some ziplock bags of a tonne of bits, mostly RBT01 marines, but there’s a few hidden gems in there that I’ll look into at a later date. Most of this will be put together and sold on Ebay.

No more silver armour....

Seeing as I failed miserably at posting pics of my previous commission (Grey Knight Draigo feller), I am trying to make up for it with my 3rd one today. As you can see, I experimented with background colours and some feedback would be appreciated if you would?
This fig was not fun to paint, much like Draigo - something about the whole Steel'n'gold scheme and uber detail on the sculpt I think. Glad it's off my desk.
The customer wanted just a good tabletop level based off of the studio scheme, so no freehand.

Interlude 2

I hope some of the viewers I get on here hopefully gave that vid a look-see in my last post? The model's been sculpted from the ground up by a mate of mine from Denmark called Jon Micheelsen. He's an amazing sculptor and this is one mini I for one will be purchasing (Just as soon as I can figure a way to get said purchase past my wife.).  and I hope some of you  lot also like the look of it enough to get one (Or more) yourselves.

No pics today, which as a person with 115 blogs to follow, I know can blow, but painting that Dreadnought took it out of my hobby energy reserves and I've been taking it easy in the man cave.

Saying that, I've not been idle. There has been some progress, it's just slow progress is all.

1. Beastmen Penitents: After getting inspired by Mordian7th's wonderful Beastmen that he's put together for his cool looking Imperial Guard regiment (Clicky!), I decided to put some work into my own Beastmen squad that had been sat on a shelf primed and neglected for far too long. Currently just base-coats though I'm getting close to be done with that stage. Like the rest of my guard though, I think I'll just stick with a tabletop quality paint job as I don't want to get bogged down with these too much.

2. Malcador Defender: A very cool fellow on the SonsofCorax forum put forth a nice article on the From the Warp blog about the best ways for painting vehicles WITHOUT an airbrush that shows a technique or two that I'm going to try I think. Airbrushes are all the rage it would seem in the "littleplasticmen" hobby scene, but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay that much for something I don't know the 1st thing about how to use properly. Aside from that, the Malcador NEEDS to be painted, I mean, that driver/commander has sat there painted and ready to be glued in the top hatch now for a month or something! Some of it's metallics have been painted. I'm torn between a tan/brown scheme or just plain dirtied steel-type colour. Had thought about trying to make an effect as though the Chaos drivers had shoddily re-painted over a loyalist scheme (With parts of the old scheme showing through here and there.), but not sure my skills are up to that task.

3. Brother Captain Stern: Yet ANOTHER Grey Knight commission. And another overly detailed space marine terminator blokey. The fig's been sat on my wee shelves that sit over my painting table for a while now and I know the customer would really like to get him back sometime..... I just... have problems feeling excited about painting Grey Knights. Am I wrong for feeling this way? He's now primed black and ready for his metallics.

4. After valiantly and excitedly slapping paint on the now completed Raven Guard Land Speeder (Clicky!), I have been trying to convince myself to get back and finish off the rest of the Sternguard Vets that have sat on my desk for 6 months or something. Bolt guns and hoses are now silver and base colour for bone-helmets and emblems has been applied.

5. I also went out and bought a crapload of polystyrene from Lowes and a 2'x4' board to start making my long-planned graveyard =][=munda battle board. Have both the Garden of Morr and the Warhammer Chapel, the Forge World Roadside Shrine and am hunting down the best deal on the nicest gravestones I can find. Then it's on! This'll be my first terrain project so I'm kind of nervous I don't feck it up.

So there you have it. once the beastmen are a little closer to a finished state, I'll stick up pics. I also haven't forgotten my =][=munda project and all the remaining team characters yet to see paint, just been hard to feel inspired as my gaming group has seemed to lose interest in the game. Though I could be wrong.

The end.

Happy Feet - Part 3 (Completed!)

It's done! A late night painting session through until 1am last night (Due to my OCD of not wanting to put a piece down until it is finished.), sees my Dread completed. I'm mostly happy with how she turned out, though agree with a comment regarding the three semi-globes on the chest perhaps needing a little extra highlighting and I'll also go back over a few areas with some gloss varnish to make them look slimy (She's had a matt coat already.). Have to say I'm pretty chuffed with how she came out though.

"The fearsome Nurgle Dreadnought, Grizelda is a nasty piece of work. A former Silent Sister caught and entombed in the sarcophagus on a whim by the Daemon Prince Witherlimb, her rages are terrible to behold. Stomping about the battlefield, she takes out her eternal frustrations on any enemy she is pointed at. "