Blast templates and blades

This week I decided to make a start on my squad of Devastators. I easily had enough spare space marine sprues to make all eight weapon options, plus of course the sergeant who'd been painted up a few months ago. 

Behold, WIP of some heavy weapon fellas! 

For the eagle chestpiece on this marine I tried a simpler method of just painting it brown, then painting most of each feather tip gold while leaving a small part of the inside. I then ran earthshade wash over the bits I hadn't painted gold. I think it looks really effective.

But wait, there's more! I also made a start on the Khador Manhunter, because why not. He's got his green vest on to fit in with the rest of the army. Digging how nice the black ink makes the fur trimming and fuzzy boots.

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Finished Butcher and some inspiring awesome

Hi there! So I totally finished the Butcher. I'm fairly happy with the streaked, drying blood effect on his axe as well as the splatter on his armour. 

Here are some pics! 

Also today I saw an absolutely amazing airbrushed model of the same character by a guy on Reddit. You should check out this imgur album of his work. I SO need to get an airbrush.

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Suddenly, a wild Behemoth appears!

So I decided that the half finished Khador Behemoth that had been lurking sullenly around my In Tray finally deserved to be finished. It was hard work! Damn thing weighs a ton and I really wanted it to look good as the model makes a great centrepiece for a Khador army (at least one without a battle wagon or a colossal). 

I'm pretty pleased with the end result, I feel like the extra effort really paid off. Glowy effects around the vents don't look too bad for a first attempt and the battle damage on the warjack's paintjob looks decent I think. Anyhoo, here's some pics.

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Special Effects

Hello there, sports fans. Or people who hate sports, you're also welcome.

This week I've been trying out some new things! First up, inspired by the ridiculously awesome Khador models by Robin that I showed you all last post, I've been testing some glow effects on the Behemoth.

I think it's come out okay for my first try, I've found the main difficulty is getting a good, uniform brush mark in the feathering effect. Obviously you want an airbrush for a really amazing smooth blend and I'm pretty sure that's how Robin paints his minis, but I reckon with practice I can get mine looking better.

But wait! There's more! Here is my Ultramarines chaplain. I wanted to get the jump pack model for ages to lead my assault marines into battle, and then happened to see him on the shelf when I picked up a new boltgun metal leadbelcher from GW.*

See this clever thing that I did! Turns out that two of the muzzle flashes make for really awesome looking jump pack exhaust. I went with blue to give it an extra hot plasma/gas flame look, which I think works pretty well. 

The model isn't quiiiite finished, I want to see if I can make the OSL effect on the back of his boots and scroll parchment a bit better and more uniform.

Soooo yeah. Ongoing diversion from the Stenguard, but fear not I'll be getting back to them soon.

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*I really hate the new paint names and also other new things like that band the youth are into.

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Crossing the Beams

Just when you all thought I'd completely reverted to smurfs BAM suddenly it's raining green soviet steam powered robots.

Needing a break from painting up my Sternguard, I decided to ink up my Khador Behemoth, which then prompted some more work after the ink was dry.

I really love the look of a warjack covered in a dirty ink wash.

 Here it is after I'd started working the green base layer back up.

DURING THE MEANWHILE here is the second Sternguard Ultramarine, pretty much finished except for the base.

And that's today's work in progress!

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Achievement Unlocked: 25 Points Complete

Oh hai! In a bit of a rush, so here's a link to my finished Warmachine stuff page. Will do a proper update soon, involving many things. OH SUCH THINGS.

Megapope out.

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All My Base

Oh such things I have to show you, dear readers! Finished squads! Found things! Front arc markers!

 This week I finished my Widowmakers squad and they're now sitting pretty and based up. I also settled on a very minimalist way of marking out the front arcs of my minis that I'm pretty happy with. And there's more! Read on!

I WILL MESS YOU U.. wait, broke a nail. Be right back.

Look at this monster. It weighs a ton and I'm in constant fear of it exploding into a million tiny pieces if I look at it funny, but I love it. He's quite extensively pinned so hopefully I won't be trailing pieces of Behemoth around the battlefield. I put some putty under the foot that's usually in the air, because sod trying to put all the weight on one single join. 

Coincidentally these are also my wargaming battleplans 

 So I decided it was high time to get those front arcs sorted out, mainly because I'm going to a game this weekend. So the first thing I did was draw around three different sized bases and fold across them twice to get the exact centres and corresponding cardinal points because, well, otherwise they'd get put on wonky.  Hurrah, instant easy way to work out front arcs.

My good friend in beardiness Vomkreig has, as I've previously shown, done a cool job of marking his bases in runey goodness. While they look great, I decided that I wanted something that didn't draw the eye away from the models as much, which set me down the minimalist path. I ended up with two simple red strokes on each side, squared off neatly on the top and sides and coated in gloss varnish so that there was shiney black on each side.

For the Motherland. And mother's homemade potato juice.

Here's the battle group all sporting their new front arc markers. Only the Destroyer to go and I have 25 points, yaaaaay!

"Pew pew"

Closeup of two finished Widowmakers. Being Widowmakery. 

Some say at night you can hear the magenta cartridge prowling the battlements 

Last but not least, I brought these home from work. They're the packaging that some printer cartridges came in, and I reckon they're gonna make a great starting point for a set of castle ruin scenery. 

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Khador Progress Report

So this evening I got Sorscha finished up. Hurrah! Perfect way to deal with feeling poos and coughing a lot.. sit in a warm lounge and paint. One warcaster down, 4 to go!

Also a bunch of other things that I will now regale you with IN SEXY PICTURE FORM.

Spell casters, letting you dodge painting eyeballs since ages ago.

So I managed to take a bunch of not very good photos of my freshly painted warcaster, and the above one is the best you're gonna get. The main thing I wanted to show was her GLOWING BLUE EYES OF POWER™ that are basically just two dabs of Ice Blue because I glued her arm on before painting her face, and those eyeballs are hard to get to.

If I was more confident I'd try out an actual glow effect around her eyes, but I'm not in that league yet.

However!

Now 100% less squinty 

Just look at that grizzled beardy face. And two eyes! Neither messed up! Amazing what a good quality fine brush can do. Also I'm getting better at painting with a steady hand methinks. I am so pleased with these eyeballs that I'm tagging this blog entry under 'achievements'. Oh yeah that's right.

This leads us into a group shot...

"Your arc node just exploded? Nope, wasn't us..."

I'm leaving them as is for a while since I haven't quite decided exactly what level of highlight I want to bring them up to. As I said in ze last entry, I like the darkened look of them, but I do feel like they need a bit of touching up before I can send them off to blow the brains out of the ungodly.

But wait! There's more!

"This isn't my first choice of profession. I wanted to be a ballerina."

The Destroyer is base coated and all inked up. Next will be the green blending on all the flat surfaces plus a few line highlights here and there.

And finally, good folks of the intertubes, I leave you with... THE HOUND.

Unkown to Sorscha, he's having a love affair with the Juggernaut's left leg.

Finally got round to gluing it onto the base. Look at the bloody size of that thing! Sorscha could comfortably ride that mutt into battle without even bothering to hold her feet off the ground. I went for a less extreme pose than the default 'just landed and have both back legs in the air' which I wasn't a huge fan of. Looking forward to painting him up, in fact I might do him next.

MEGAPOPE OUT.

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I Ink, Therefore I Am

Work is kicking my ass but lo! I bring you Widowmakers progress! And thoughts! I have them on occasion!

This update brought to you by Lurking Bumblebee

In this blog post I'll be showing the difference a good inking makes to a model and talking about getting the most out of your ink when you put it on. The model that is.



So first up, my snipers are coming along pretty well. After the somewhat laborious Man O' War squad, they're real easy to paint too. I'm thinking these sneaky devils might benefit from some extra spruced up bases too, like some shrubbery or tree bits around them or something. Maybe feathers for extra disguise. Cygnar are dumb enough to fall for that, right?

New Khador Klean™ gets your colours brighter than bright! 

The above pic demonstrates what ink can do to really bring out depth in a model, as well as darken the overall hue and hide any minor mistakes by filling in the recesses between different colours. Normally I'd start bringing the tone back up again, but since the Widowmakers are all sneaky and stuff I'll likely be leaving them fairly dark and grungey looking. 

"Okay I will shoot that ants nest but I cannot bring myself to look."

I think the main thing to remember to get the most out of an ink wash is to not be afraid of the stuff. For me (and as always your mileage, it varies), the best results are achieved when I dollop it on pretty thick and then just push it around the model, letting the ink flow and collect. A friend of mine at a recent painting afternoon was using very fast strokes which resulted in a thin spread of ink that didn't do a whole lot. When he slowed it down I think (and hopefully he agrees) that the end result was a lot more effective. IT'S SCIENCE.

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Tanks and Snipers

So this weekend I got my Man O' War squad all finished up. Geeeeeeez getting those suckers varnished and based takes bloody ages. I also made a start on the Widowmaker snipers! The leader is looking pretty good. My usual tactic is to mostly finish one member of a given squad first, and make sure I'm happy with the overall look.

"I just feel like you're putting me up on a pedestal..."

This? Got it in 'Nam. 

This one? Accident with a can opener. It was hell.

Battle damage! Decided to carry on with the sponge technique that I started on the Juggernaut with. I think it's getting better, one of the squad members especially has this series of smaller marks that almost look like bullet damage. 

For me the main thing that made it look more realistic was being real careful with the brush work and running a wee bit of ink over the boltgun metal to give it a slightly more worn feel. Working out what looks good and what doesn't in terms of placement is also part of the wossname.

Sun? So we're not in Wellington any more then?

All based, coated, patted on the back, given a hug and ready to go. Except for decals! Reeeeeeeally need to get some decals. 

I also need to work out how I'm gonna do the front arc of the bases! Vomkrieg's army looks pretty spiffy with his blue front and white runes. I've seen a few variations and haven't quite decided how I'm going to do mine yet.

The eyepatch? Pet goldfish. Vicious if only wounded.

Last but not least, the Widowmaker officer! Pretty happy with how she's looking so far. Went with a different green for the overcoat and a variety of foresty colours, then slathered the usual ink wash over the top to tone it all down. Currently working on the highlights. Also, turns out I can do okay eyes. 

To do this week, get Simple Green, some pinning wire, superglue, modelling putty and possibly a stronger drill. And print all of the transfers! 

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It's Raining Khador! Hallelujah!

ZOMG PEOPLE MY PACKAGE ARRIVED. Heh, I said 'package'.

So thanks to a friend in the sleepy hamlet of Palmerston North, I scored a fairly large amount of pre loved Khador minis for the low, low price of a low, low price.

Here then are some sexy photos of my haul and some whitterings on what I have planned for the new minis, if by sexy photos you mean hurriedly shot and slightly blurry in places.


It probably goes without saying, but I will be stripping and repainting all of these models to fit in with my 5th Border Army theme. A few of the minis also need to be repinned and glued back together; there's a couple of bad breaks here and there where the glue will need to be filed away and cleaned up but all in all it shouldn't be that much work. Maybe some reposing on a couple of figures too.

Onwards to the haul!

Whyyyyyy? Why do you not looooove uuuuussssss?

Let's get these poor doomed bastards out of the way first, because frankly they're not going to survive the editing stage. I'm not a fan of the first edition Khador heavy jack sculpt. Plus I already have a Destroyer and Juggernaut anyway and plan to get the generic heavy set soon with all the options and magnetise it up. So I'd like to introduce you all to my three brand new wreck markers. 

Ooh, ooh! Pick me! 

However! What I am keeping is two devastators, a kodiak, a behemoth, and a beserker plus the scrapjack. Definitely a very solid line up right there. 

TEAM FANTASY COMMUNISTS, ASSEMBLE 

Next up we have the warcasters. I got the Butcher, Karchev, the Witch, Vlad and a different sculpt of Sorscha. Definitely a bunch of new tricks and play styles to try out there, lots of reading to do. I love the Butcher model. He's gonna look sexy as hell in the green and red scheme. Karchev seems to be missing his back flappy thing, but I'm fairly sure I can get another from the online parts ordering service.

But wait! There's more!

We reave! Doomishly! 

Not much of a Winterguard Deathstar... more of a Winterguard escape pod 

A squad of Widowmakers! Four Doomreavers! Four Winterguard! Three Kossite woodsmen! A Greylord Ternion! A Manhunter! 

Bit of a pickn'mix, which was fun because some of the models came extra. Obviously I'll need to get more Doomreavers, Winterguard and Kossites before they're any use, but having two squads of Widowmakers sounds pretty delicious plus the Greylords and Manhunter will be seeing action. 

Last but not least we have two honourable mentions...

"The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of Khadoooooor!"

It took me ages to work out what this dude is. He's a character model from the Iron Kingdom range, conveniently a Khador rifleman. I say conveniently because he'll make a fantastic substitute model for the Widowmaker marksman. Turns out he gets used for that quite a bit, after reading the forums. 

Huge gloves. If you know what I mean.

This guy is my personal favourite. He's supposed to be holding a crossbow, but for some reason he ended up with comedically huge hands and carrying a scythe. I sure as hell won't be fixing him, I think he looks great. 

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