Ogre Blood Bowl player

Two posts in the one day!

Here's what I've being doing for the last couple of hours since I last posted.

I replaced this orge bulls arms with a tyrants to give an impression of bulked up armour for the match. By removing the belly plate and replacing with some green stuff hopefully makes him look a little more "match ready".Finally I completely sculpted the helmet, which I'm the most pleased about.

Next step is a blackbase coat and then an airbrush with astronomican grey as a basecoat for the mainly white colourscheme. All armour will then be painted red. Maybe the addition of green here and there will give me the colourscheme for my own Bloodbowl team, "The Hochland Huntsmen". I was thinking of having crossed hochland rifles as their team symbol.

Finished Spartan

I finished the Spartan mini from Tale of War during the week and posted it up on Coolminiornot. Currently averaging a 6.2, which I'm a little disappointed about, but maybe the pictures are leaving it down a little bit.

Next project a human bloodbowl team.

Ork Truck

After a couple weeks off due to real life work pressures, in which I didn't get any hobby stuff done, I really jumped back into it yesterday with both feet straight into the deep end! The brighter amoung you might have already made the mental link between this blog title and what I am going to talk about. :)

While I may not have done any physical hobby stuff, I did pick up the Imperial Armour Model Masterclass Volume One, on recommendation from a couple of different blogs.

I have painted a couple of tanks, and have never been happy with them. I found the wide open spaces on tanks difficult to manage and found it difficult to transfer any knowledge from painting human size mini's to the larger tanks. This was the reason I picked up this book, and after reading through it I found it amazing, some really great painting tips, all well described in a fully colour top quality book. I would give it two very definate thumbs up.

So naturally, when I got back to painting I wanted to give a few of the tips I'd gleaned from this book a go. I do not have a nice forgeworld tank, but what I did have is what I think is the awesome ork truck. I gave it a  standard black undercoat.

Not content to try out some new techniques, I thought it was time to break out the airbrush and give it its madien voyage. From the IA-MM book, I first airbrushed the whole truck with GW Tin Blitz followed by a blast from a hairdryer to dry it quicker.

For my first airbrush ever I think it worked out fairly ok! The next step was an a boltgun metal application step. Not having any GW Boltgun metal, I used Vallejo Gunmetal metal, and I think I got my mixtures slightly wrong. The gunmetal was a little too thinned and ended up running slightly. This in itself was not too bad as it only let some tin blitz come through and made it look a little more ramshackled which for orks is not a bad thing. Once again a quick blast from the hairdryer.

The next step was the major technique I wanted to try from IA-MM. I wanted to give a weathered and chipped red paint look to certain area's of the truck. This was done over several easy steps.

1. Give the model a coat of purity seal. (I didn't have that, so just used matt varnish) This was to seal the baseline colours.

2. Once the varnish was dry (Once again I used hairdryer to speed up the process) spray the model with common hair spray. I used a Tesco Value brand which I bought for €0.95. Once again dried the model with the hairdryer)

3. When dried I airbrushed the area's I wanted with GW Mechrite Red and then hairdryed.

4. The final step involves rubbing and rolling a large brush with some warm water over the area's you want to look distressed. This will cause the hairspray layer to dissolve and make the red paint lift, creating natural looking wear and tear. The more pressure and rubbing you do, the greater the amount of paint removed.

 

 

 

For a first attempt at this method. I think this turned out great. I now realise I should have tried to mask some of the area's I didn't want to have red, to save me some repainting work.

The next step I have planned is to clean up mis-sprayed red, and then have a go with another new technique, weathering powders. This is a real learning model for me, so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

This is Sparta!

This mini, if from the Tale of War range, which I really like. I picked him up a couple of years ago after the movie came out to paint. Its been sitting half finished in my "to paint" box for the last couple of years.

Over at a website I'm a member of, they have set up a secret santa. The person I got gave me on guidelines about what to paint only that he has a "DIY space marine chapter". This did not really help me with the painting of a mini for him.

So putting one and one together and getting five, I decided now was the perfect chance to finish this guy off and send him off as my secret santa. How could anyone not be happy with a kick-ass model coming through the post? This is my current WiP

The skin is the closest to being finished. I've maybe one or two more highlights to add and a couple of washes. Instead of the normal flesh wash, I've gone with purple washes and I'm very happy with how its worked out so far. The red needs a couple of touch ups too for it to be finished. The metals are still quite a way off, as I've only done the basecoat. 

Finished Space Hulk Nids

So they are finally done!

It took me about a month to get these guys done. Working in dribs and drabs, but in the end I'm fairly happy with how they turned out.

I'm quite happy with the pink of the skin. The grey is unusual but I like it none the less. The army painter soft tone really helped me finish these guys off. I might hold off on space marines for a while.

First ever attempt at Army Painter Dipping!

As I posted previously I picked up the army painter strong tone quickshade. I am in the middle of building up the ratmen, put I really wanted to give this quickshade a go, ahh............really quickly!.

So my nid's from Space Hulk are still to be finished and it came to me, that the quickshade would be perfect! This of course would mean that the the purple shade would have to be cancelled, but if I could quickly get these nids done it would be all good. So back to my good old test nid and quickly finished off the base.

I have to have a pre-dip picture don't I?

Then I dipped. In my stupidity I decided to try and video this! So video'ing in my left hand, dipping with my right hand. So excuse the shaking and weird camera angles.

So despite me losing my grip on the mini, half way through I think it has worked out fairly ok. I've given him a couple of more sturdy shakes when I had both hands free to get rid of the excess shade. I have now placed him still to one side until this time tomorrow, and we'll see how he turns out. 

Army Painter and Skaven Gutter Runners

So I caved in today and bought my first ever box of Skaven. I picked up a box of Gutter Runners from my FLGS. (Gamersworld in Dublin). I am fairly sure these guys are not being changed or replaced in anyway in the new army book. (fingers crossed!)

 

I had a quick look at the sprue, and they seem like nice models. A box of twenty for €25 is fairly good in my book. Good knows for a skaven army I get the impression that I need a lot more than twenty!

And speaking of lots of models, I have been looking at some way to paint all these rats up in a quick and simple way. I know of the army painter range of products just by seeing them in my FLGS but have not talked to or read of anyone who has used them. So I took it on myself to have an experiment.

So today I also picked up two Army Painter Colour Primers and the Army Painter Matt Varnish.

I picked up the primer matt black as a general basecoat spray, which can also be used as an actual black colour. As I was going with the ratmen, I did pick up a brown colour too, ideally I would have liked a darker brown, but this colour might not be too bad with the shade. The matt varnish is vital for the Army Painter process, to remove the glossiness of the shade. I hope to also use it to finish off all my other painted projects.

The most important step in all of this of course the Army Painter Shade.

I bought the standard middle of the road shade, (Strong Tone). This smells and looks exactly like furniture varnish, but at first look it seems slightly more "runny".

I think it will be interesting to see how quickly I can get these twenty ratmen painted up using the Army Painting method.

New Legion of the Damned!

Fresh into my inbox from GW, new metal legion of the Damned marines. I know there was green's of these guys previously shown at a games day somewhere, but seemingly they were offically unveiled at Games Day Italy.

This guy is looking good. They do look like a slightly updated old school Legion of the Damned. I'm looking foward to seeing the rest of the squad. 

I won't be buying this squad though. Why? Because I already have an old-school squad which I painted up during the year.

Skaven Awesome Sauce

Thats it, i'm done. Games workshop have left me a broken man. I cannot resist these models anymore. There was some grainy scan's before of the Screaming Bell and Plague Furnace, but GW have new clear ones on their blog today. These two mini's are the icing on the top of the skaven cake. The level of detail on these two mini's is amazing, but its the just general weirdness of them that appeal to me.

Skaven Seer riding a screaming bell hung from a door arch (and foundations!) , being rung by a Rat Orge sitting on top a giant platform? Check!

A giant censor, also hanging from a door arch, being swung by a tide of plague riddled and hooded man size rats? Check!

I see for us euro users, its priced at €45.50, which I think is a good price point. I for one can't wait.

Painting with Mates

Hi all,

I spent a very enjoyable evening yesterday doing some painting at a friends house. After doing nothing much hobby wise for the last week, it was great to get at least a little bit done. In saying that I managed to completely destroy the broodlord by not obeying the first rule off painting mini's! I used a thick layer of ink, and as such caused weird pooling effects, as well as darkening the mini too much. Nothing for it but to repaint the basecoat and start again.

The major point I wanted to make was how nice it was to have someone to paint with. I had not painted with anyone for about six or seven years, since my brothers lost interest in the hobby. So for me painting has been a solitary hobby for a long time.

So as you can see in a quick snap I took, we had paint, mini's, beer and music. We sat around had a good chat and painted some mini's. The evening flew, and four hours passed really quickly. My mate, was painting GW's witch hunter Inquistor. I got stuck into the Hockland Elector count for the first time in about a month and a half, painted up an eldar guardian in a colour scheme I am thinking about. (I should post this in the future and see what people think!) and of course got through basecoating about seven Space Hulk nids. It really is a great way to paint, and I could not reccommend it highly enough.

In my last post I talked about Skaven, and how the DoomWheel was the first mini, I ever saw. The more of the mini's from the new range I have seen, the more I am thinking of starting a small skaven army! Their weirdness and the quality of the models really appeal to me. Incase you have not seen the made DoomWheel and the charater models, here they are. Taken from other blogs that I follow mind!

 

 

 

Look at them! Amazing stuff GW. After only average stuff for Space Wolves (IMO) they really have hit some major highs. I haven't been this impressed with a new range of models since the Vampire Counts were released.

So expect some new Skaven from me in the future, I fear.

On introduction miniatures and Plastic Doomwheels!

I don't know about you guys, but I can remember clearly the first mini I ever saw. It might not sound that important, but if you think about it, this mini is probably the most important model you'll ever see.

Now I would imagine for the vast majority of people the first miniature they would be introduced to is a Space marine. No problem there at all, and indeed a kick-ass space marine miniature, is probably  the 'perfect storm mini' to entice prepubescent/teenage males into the hobby. (No offence to prepubescent/teenage males intended I was one too!) Space marines are consisently the largest selling model range GW have, and this is down to a very strong imaginary, which is easy to explain and understand. Superhuman warrior monks in space sums their background up and its an image which appeals to pretty much everyone. God knows I've enough of them around to know that they appeal to me! 

But my first mini was completely different. It was not a superhuman soldier, it was not even a normalhuman soldier. In fact it was not human at all! You may have guessed by the title of the blog it was a humonid rat ontop of a giant wheel with spikes. This is a classic mini in my book, and one of the weirdest mini's in an army that always throws up weird mini's!

My friend brought this mini into to school unpainted. With heavy old metal mini in my hands, the weighty feel of it was perfect. The little details like all the rats running in the wheel to provide the power, the unusual seat on top, and the questionable ability of the seer to actually control the thing. It all sucked me in and I was hooked. Hooked on everything about mini's, and I fear now after 13 years I'm going to be hooked for ever. What it says about me that the doomwheel burst my mini cherry, I do not know.

Unfortuanately newer people to the hobby may have never even heard of this old classic. as it was not in the previous army book. Browsing the GW site this morning I see that they are releasing a plastic version of the doomwheel for the new army book!

 

Despite all my eulogising of the old school mini, I never actually owned a version. So here we go again, the old mini collectors guilt. Even though I have no intention of collecting skaven, (even though I do have soft spot for them) I intend to pick up a Doomwheel. Games Workshop reach into my pocket and take my money because of nostiliga. The worst thing? I love them for it.

So? Can you guys remember the first mini that you ever saw? What effect did it have on you?

Quick Space Hulk update

I know in my last post I said that I had painted nothing over the weekend as I was away from the paint and brush. I did have the inital coat of pink on the nids from the space hulk game done before I left, which I had not shown before. So here they are.

There we go! Only a very quick update today. Looking at these guys I will have to do another one or two layers just to get the pink perfectly smooth. As you can also see, I did get the inital basecoat of red on any marine armour they have ripped up.

Weekend Trip to Killarney

I did no painting for the last couple of days, as I went to the south west of Ireland to Killarney town. Its a really beautiful spot, carved by glaciers in the last ice age. Amazing lakes, right against beautiful mountains all combine for a unique area in Ireland.

Myself, my mother and my girlfriend spent three hours yesterday walking the Gap of Dunloe.

 

The good lady and myself just below the Gap. While we did get up on the rock for a picture, this one was not posed I swear, my mother took it without my knowledge. The staring into the distance was not planned. I infact was looking at sheep just down the road.

And my mam, at the actual Gap. I love the sunlight on the mountains at the back but we were in the shade.

So all in all, a lovely weekend, with plently of Guinness drank too.

First Space Hulk Game

I played my first game of Space Hulk during the weekend. Had a great time with the game and played the first and second mission's in the mission book. Both these missions seemed really tough on the marines, as they lost all four games. I hear the mission's go a little easier on them when they get the extra squad.

A little in action shot, with the only painted nid I have facing down the storm bolters of the Blood Angels.

So yesterday, I decided to continue with the painting of the nids, and went to put out a little bit of pink paint, which turned into a complete disaster.

Fecking pink paint everywhere! I made an attempt to try and scoop the excess into the pot. I got the majority of it back in I think and got the rest of the nids basecoated in pink. I'd have wanted to with that amount of paint!

New forgeworld ork stuff

I just had to post and comment on the new ork mini's that have just been previewed on the forgeworld website.

Awesome sauce, absolutely awesome sauce. Orks being one of my favourite armies, I am delighted to to see forgeworld add some new mini's to their range and what absolutely beasts these guys are!

I have also just spotted these guys! I know they have been designed to sit on the back of the battlewagon, but I think they would be great as the heavy support free standing guns also.

Now if i only had the money!

Space Hulk Nid Continued 2

Hi all,

From my last post you can see that I was not that happy with the chitin and how it was turning out. So i just decided to go out and give a couple of different colours a go and see what i liked.

This first chitin colour was the previously shown GW Hormagaunt Purple.

This second colour was GW Fenris Grey

This third colour was GW Mordian Blue

And the final colour was GW Astronomican Grey, with a Purple Wash

I actully really liked this final colour, especially when I had give it a wash with GW Leviathan Purple Wash. I think this will be my final colour scheme, as it has everything I was looking for, simple to do, with just three colours, followed by a Leviathan purple wash and striking. Hopefully the next post with nids in it will have all the Space Hulk Nids painted up like this.

Space Hulk Nid Continued

Ahh the wonders of a test mini! Having painted the carapace of this guy in Hormagaunt purple and given it a wash with both Leviathan purple and Badab black, I was not happy. The "greyness" of the Hormagaunt purple was not deep enough for me, so I decided to change tack and decided to give GW Liche Purple a go on carparace. It turned out a lot better I think, but I'm always one to give a bad idea a second chance, I decided to try out the Hormagaunt purple on the claws, which once again I'm not happy with, so I think I might give the Liche Purple a go on there two.

I am also very happy with how the Vallejo Warlord purple turned out on the tongue. So as a paint scheme checklist goes I am very happy with the pink fleshy bits and tongue, reasonably happy with the purple carapace and not happy at all with the claws. I still have one or two idea's to play with colour scheme wise, so don't be surprised to see this poor test model back again.

I am just trying to keep my goal of a simple paint scheme foremost in my mind! A black basecoat, two or three solid zones of colour and then then addition of a wash to finish is the aim. Of course it has to look some way half decent too!

Space Hulk Nid WiP

It seems that like most people in the world who have any interest in the world of GW and 40k especially, I got very excited about the limited edition release of Space Hulk. Now the 2nd edition of the game was the very first game I bought from GW and myself and my brothers put down a great summer playing around with it. Of course I caved in and bought the game even though I had initially tried to hold out. I think everyone agrees that while its basically the same game as the 1st edition, the really improvement is in the quality of the miniatures they supplied in the box. I still use and have the original terminators from the 2nd edition of the game, but the new ones are a real generation leap forward in terms of detail and craftsmanship. Both the terminators and genestealers are just crying out for a nice paint job to set off the quality of the sculpts. Having painted alot of space marines in the last year or two, I was first drawn to the genestealers and decided to try and come up with a paint scheme slightly different from the box version but not too different. I always liked nid schemes that suggested the soft squishiness of the nid under all that hard chitin armour. This is what I've come up with.

Firstly a undercoat with Black

I then went with a basecoat of Vallejo "Squid Pink" for the fleshy bits and GW "Hormagaunt Purple" for the harder chitin on the arms, legs and body

For the first wash I gave the whole model a light wash with GW "Leviathan Purple" and left to dry

Thats where I've gotten to so far. The Leviathan Purple wash has not shown up great on the chitin area's so I'm thinking of hitting that with a Badab Black wash. I think I am going to leave the flesh as is for now though. I want to transfer this scheme to the rest of my nid models. I have a battleforce here somewhere and I don't want a time consuming highlighting method if I have 50 gaunts to paint. Next update will hopefully have this test mini finished off.