Dark Borders

Slow week for painting so far, but I plan on hopefully finishing some more things off tomorrow. But! Excluding transfers the Juggernaut is now all based and finished up. I added another two thin line highlights along some parts of it which I think helps match it closer to the Manowar officer.

"ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAI...oh you are? Well, good then."

TALKING OF WHICH the Manowar squad has had some more paint applied oh holy crap this is off the hoooooook. Sorry. And I undercoated their shields and shoulder pads today too! Which isn't really blog worthy but since that's all I did you're getting pics of it anyway.

That's some gooooooood shapeless black masses. Ohhh yeeeeeeah.

Them? Nah they're 'armless guv.  I am SO sorry.

You might have noticed that these photo thumbnails are looking extra sexy, and you'd be right! I've started using a vignette when I prep them in Photoshop, and it's pretty easy to do. A vignette creates a darkened, gradient edged border around the centre of the pic, adding contrast and drawing the eye into the middle of the image. 

There's a million different ways to do most things in Photoshop. This tutorial is pretty close to how I make vignettes though. If you use PS to prep your photos for the web, I highly recommend trying it to sauce up your pics a bit. 

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Day Of Paintenenening

Bright was the day and cold the morning when your hero Megapope strode across the Plains of Sorrow and braved the heights of Mount Anguish... no wait it was actually closer to Johnsonville.

The lads and I decided to make the most of the extra day off work by applying some paint to various warmachine models. Naturally I took a camera along so I could document how the minis progressed and also take some pics of daft friends pulling silly faces.

The first thing this trip taught me was that I seriously need to invest in a decent carry case for all my crap. Vomkrieg has a nice fold out silver trunk thing, small enough to sit on a table, big enough to carry his substantial paint collection, brushes, tools, small House Elf servant, etc.

Also not seen: inflatable painting giraffe

I brought along this lot, plus a lamp and other useful things. Enough to be annoying and to take a while setting up, when I could have just operated out of a nice fold out casey thing. BUT NO I WAS A MUG.

So who were the intrepid painting team you ask? GEEK SQUAD ASSEMBLE.

The Millinator paints super slowly but that's okay. He's collecting Menoth!

A man of wealth and taste. 

Smitey. Took him approximately 6 years to paint.

Aaaaahahahaha it says 'SMEG PACKAGE' in the background.

The Five Foot Pole appropriately enough plays hard bitten Dwarven mercenaries. He and Vomkrieg spent much of the afternoon playing a game while Millinator and I lurked inside where it was safe, painting.

"TELL US WHERE YOU HAVE THE PLANS HIDDEN AND THIS WILL GO EASY FOR YOU"

Look at the size of that drill. Look at it! 

FFP's Dwarven Hoard™ in battle!

Vomkrieg has a blog, like a real grownup! Sadly, he has many enemies due to his years as a secret government agent and so opted for anonymity. He plays Cygnar! 

I think his photo is pretty seamlessly done and you can totally tell I'm a designer.

Pew pew! Dakkadakkadakka. Pew!

It may look like a discoball on legs but it packs a mean zap

As for myself, I managed to get my Manowars base coated and inked up. Here's some progress piccies, as well as a couple pics of how Sorscha is coming along. Nobody took a silly pic of me on the day, so here's an amusing photo of me at the Warmachine gaming club.

It ain't easy being greeeeeeeen

Now with sexy gold and red and boltgun metal

STAGE 3: THE INKENING

Highlighty goodness

The face needs some work...

And that was my long weekend of painting. Yaaaaay. One Juggernaut down, six Manowar and a warcaster on the way to completion and some other things waiting in the wings. Next up: playing some more games and getting my ass handed to me a lot. Whoooo!

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Olive Green! Red! So Hot Right Now!

I love this pose so much.

So far this long weekend (good on you Queenie) has been pretty good in terms of getting stuff painted and I haven't even had my Day of Geek with the boys yet. Which you can bet will be photo documented and blogged. 

Anyhoo, here's some stuff! Shot with the digital camera which is back to operational condition. 

Feeling lucky? Punk?

First up is our saucy sergeant of the fabulous Manowar squad! These photos don't really do justice to how bright and *cough* cartoony he looks with the green highlights. Bit of a fail as a graphic designer there, I totally didn't take into account how the same highlight scheme I used on the warjack would look waaaaaay brighter when compacted down onto a much smaller model. 

Having said that, I kinda like it, but I'm still deciding whether to tone it down or not. 

He's a sensitive soul, though he seems thick skinned. And it hurt, that his friends never stood downwiiiiiiind...

The Juggernaut is sealed up and I'm basically just doing the finishing up stuff now; basing and decals. The decals will have to wait until I've printed out the custom Khador transfer sheet and as you can see, I'm halfway through the basing process. 

Pretty happy with how Juggers has turned out. In the second pic you can see the paint damage I added in, just your standard black stipple with a sponge then paint in some silver jobby. I also added some ink to make it look a bit more battered. It's okay, but I think I can do better next time in terms of battle damage. 

"Whyyyyy? Why do you neglect meeeeeee?"

And finally my poor long suffering Destroyer, who's been the test dummy for the weathering sponge as well as the dirt dry brushing around the feet. Don't worry pal, I'll be showing you some proper love soon.

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Really Crappy Pic Time!

Oh hey there interwebtubes! I still haven't got the batteries for the digital camera, but I DO have a macbook that can take super crappy photos! LETS ROCK IT OUT.

The mug poses important questions. DOES Dad know all the answers?

Soooo yeah here is the Juggernaut. He has an axe. The axe is blue. Contrary to how it appears here, it's not actually eye bleedingly bright neon blue but looks more icey. I started out with GW's old Enchanted Blue but that was way too dark so I used Ice Blue as the base and added white from there. The blend looks pretty decent. 

Posing with my plush red dressing gown because that's how I roll baby.

Here you can hopefully see some of the highlighting on the main body. It's more subtle than what I usually do, but I actually like this. It's nice to step away from the cartoony levels of highlights on occasion. Plus I'm learning about highlighting large plate areas. For starters I'm learning that it's a pain in the balls.

That's all for now, will post more piccies over the course of the long weekend. Yay for three days off work.

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Cha Cha Cha Chaaaaanges! Also: Warjacks.

As you may have noticed from my deliberately crude banner change (don't worry, it'll bug me after a few days and I'll do a proper redesign) this blog is undergoing some changes! Like for starters I'm posting an update OH SNAP SEE WHAT I DID THERE.

The long, dark tea time of my painting hobby is over as I have found new enthusiasm dear readers, and all because Vomkrieg basically got onto his hands and knees and with tears coursing down through his magnificently trimmed beard, begged me to take up Warmachine with him.*

And so here we are! Have some pictures.

This is Sorscha. Sorscha carries a huge hammer, wears a cool hat and is a hard bitten fantasy-Russian mage who can control giant steam powered death robots with her mind. Awesome huh? She also wears heels which is a bit dumb, but that's male game designers for you, sadly. 

This is the leader of my Manowar squad. They're huge hard-asses who walk around in steam powered armour, which can sometimes overheat and cook them alive. Of course they're too tough to worry about such trivial things! Swig back some more potato juice and tromp off through the snow to glory!

This is the Destroyer, one of my two heavy warjacks. I LOVE the redesigns of these models, which have a surprising amount of poseability. For this dude I wanted to give the impression of shuffling along, pausing to aim his canon to unleash ranged hell upon the enemy. To contrast with....

 ...this badass, the close combat Juggernaut. Arms outstretched in the classic 'come get some pain, you soon to be flattened bags of cat droppings', which sounds way cooler in Khadoran.

Aaaaand that's some of my starting force. Stay tuned for more Warmachine updates! There'll be painting! Custom transfers! Bad Russian accents! Death in the snow! For the Motherland!

PS: check out Gravitas' blog here. He got bored of waiting for me to get writing again and made his own place. It's so beautiful when they fly the nest.

*This may be a lie. More truthfully he snuck into my house in the witching hour each night and whispered things about steam powered death robots while hiding under my bed, his subliminal message slowly making its way into my waking thoughts. As one does.

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