Judge, Jury, Executioner.

So while this won't be a large update I do have more stuff coming this week, as I've been working on my new throgg model, a full unit of Chaos warriors, a sorceress for them and been trying to learn fantasy for the last two weeks, so I do have stuff coming, but I thought since I took some shots of it today it would be neat to show off my Judicator which has been selfishly hogging my paint table. 

 I decided to stick a cleanser officer next to him to show off how big this dude is even off his massive base.

 I finally found a replacement for the cheap gold I've been using that is difficult to thin, PP's rhulic gold when gone over with a nuln oil wash gives the same gold show here.

Hopefully the ruined garden I give this guy will be worthy of the model

And we're back.

Sorry about no posts over the past couple of weeks folks, stuff has been crazy around here and I haven't gotten much done. But I have been painting this week so lets dive right into it.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been seeing several people asking how I get my whites so smooth, which I consider really simple but I understand how people might not come to the same idea, so I decided to do a tutorial on my Feora, protector of the flame.

As always I base in white, but instead of inking or going straight to the base colors I went over the white base with a badab black wash (now nulh oil shade from GW), You'll note there is a redeemer in the first couple of photos I hope to be showing him off later this week.

Now obviously you want to leave any areas you plan on inking something else white, so control your brushstrokes, which really is the trick to painting white, Control.

Now this greyish black base color is excellent to work up from because the cracks have been dealt with but it's still bright enough to get en effectively colorful pallet out of.My next step with Feora though was the white parts of armor,  the I did two coats of Marrow white from the P3 line. Watering down the mix very little ( I would guess 1 part water to 6 parts paint).

You'll also note I already added the basecoat of the cloth to her at this point.I was simply trying to get the bases set up so the rest would be done quickly. as you can see on the redeemer I was already setting up the gems on his chassis, better to get something done in one fell swoop than have to go back and do the same step later.

(I apologize ahead of time for the shadows on these next few photos. I was testing the camera from a new position and didn't catch them until after the model was done.)

the next step was to start with the detailing on Feora, Gold suits well with this sort of look and feel, so that is what I decided for the trim as well as the vent sections of her armor and the busted jack beneath her feet, but it's gold would look different by the end of this venture.

 Silvers were the next step before inks and washes to completing Feora, covering her halberd head and staff in it as well as touching up the chainmail cloak on the underside of the cloth. The final step was to add P3's green wash to her cloak (like I showed back in the goblin walk-through before we gave it another coat on the face.) give the vents on the back a wash of sepia, and the rest of the metal a wash of badab black with a 10/0 hair brush so as not to mess up the white that was put down.   The busted jack beneath her got a wash of Sepia on the back, and a light brown wash on the rest of it , before adding orange to pieces of it to give the appearance of rust.

Finally the basing, All I added was some static grass, and some homemade bunches of flowers (which I also plan on showing a small tutorial on in the future) and a small brass piece of ivy to give the jack a rustic overgrown look.

 I have more menoth stuff that will be showing up in the coming weeks, in preparation for COASTAL ASSAULT.  (I'm also kinda sick of looking at yellow every time I sit down to paint, need a break from it)

Speaking of which....

So I got a box of super dungeon explore models (Caverns of Roxor), and after learning their plans to put out a Castlevanina like expansion. decided to get the main game when possible. However I found a Candy & Cola miniature for the game, the model looks good so I did my best to recreate it according to the art work it came with, of course taking a few artistic licenses.  I think it turned out rather well.

Well that is all for now, check back later this week and I should have more updates.

As always Comments, suggestions, ideas, and emails are welcome, If you liked any of this stuff and think your friends might by all means share it and spread it around.

~SWL

Power swords and Lightning claws (or why I5 is awesome for characters)

So I apologize for not having an update the last week or so I had some personal shit go down an it's still ongoing so expect odd updates, but short of that lets get this ball rolling.

So about 3-4 weeks ago when I picked up the forgefiend (which is still in progress) I also picked up a box of the new raptors some parts of which I mixed and matched with a box of regular CSM but we'll get to that another time. Four of the raptors became Lords/Captains, and I gave two of them power swords and the other two lightning claws so they could be switched out. Though most of the time I honestly think I'll be running a lord with lightning claws. 

Now it's no lie I love raptors, and almost all jump troops, something about the phrase "Strike from the skies brothers!" sounds almost magical to me. Thus I love having a massive amount of jump troops to harass the enemy early in the game I5 with the option of FNP is simply a nice icing on the cake. 

 I was slightly torn on how to paint these guys weapons though, as I thought too much metal would make them as characters look kinda bland. I decided to go for the classic glassy blue color, as I thought it would be nice to bring a cool color into the model. Though It was pointed out to me that I chose in doing so the three primary colors blue, yellow, and red.

 That being said though I really love the design of the claws, most of them are designed very very well and produce a fear effect that I find quite nice. my main bitch about them though is the lightning bolts. I cannot properly describe the annoyance of these thin lines but I'll do my best, Imagine that you are painting on a space as large as your paintbrushes brush but you can't get a smaller one because the paint is too thin and runny. It looks neat but I would have much preferred an alternate claw without the lightning bolts.  

The only other thing I realy don't like is the lack of laying with the models movement, most of them look nice, but some of the arms and heads together don't quite look well, and most of the heads have the problem of the neck joint being too short and kind of sunken into the chest cavity. 

 Now I felt these two looked much better than the first, in terms of movement and decided to make them white helmets (vets.) but it is worth noting that these heads were altered and not in the raptors box, The one with claws is a standard topknot CSM head which was cut off and shaved into the arrow, I having never been fond of the top knots with few exceptions (Abbadon and the fantasy Slaanesh lord being they) The other was a khorne berzerker helmet that I cut those stupid looking bunny ears off of, actually if you do this with most of the berzerker heads they look much much better IMO.

 Not much I can say about this guy, he came out how I wanted, though I kinda feel I should have put a mark on his shoulder.

 now I did some other converting on this guy most notably adding the sword from a Chaos knight from the fantasy line, but I think it will look pretty good should I ever decide to take a lord with the murder sword. I took a bolter from the sanguinary guard and gave it to him, though I kinda wish I had some fire effects to add to it.

So moving on from the raptors are a couple of champions I made/painted for my noise marine squads. Though I not sure how often I will be using both.

 Now let me start off by saying I love this shoulder pad, it looks fantastic for noise marine dudes in general. In fact most of the paldrons with those vents that look like speakers do.

 So you may be wondering why they have tongues. long story short I had these fucked up helmets, I kinda wanted to do something with them but I wanted them to look a bit more like chaos, so I drilled them out and put an elongated tongue in their place feeling it would fit the slaanesh theme.

 Now I kinda like this guy, even though I'm not a fan of the X-23 thing he has going on with his version of the lightning claws, though I suppose it beats the retarded look of the wolverine claws they made for the 5th set. Not too much I can say other than that, I decided to do a royal purple here, thinking blue would look weird but I'm kinda regretting my decision now....maybe I'll change it in the future but chances are I'll leave him as is as a reminder.

 Finally we come to the last painted model of this week. I struggled for a while trying to decide how I wanted to paint him, a suggestion coming my way of a family member to do him with an homage to david bowie with glam makeup.... So I did...and I think it looks pretty good.

Not much I can say that the picture does for me.

Finally the last little pit this week, a W.I.P. that might not see finishing for a little while but looks cool none the less. 

That's it for this week, Hope you enjoyed it, Comments, questions and such are always welcome below, Have a great week. 

~SWL

Not much of an update today.

Got my kitbashed sorcerer done for you all however, I have been working on the rank and file dudes, as well as the special characters/ captains of units but this week and the better part of last week made it an absolute pain in the ass to work on stuff. Regardless, gonna try and crack down on painting and modeling some stuff this week as I don't want to be tempted into buying more stuff.

So this sorcerer I plan to use the assault 4 primary power for  his psychic power as it seems really good if a bit random, So I used one of the backpacks form the noise marine lord (which I talked about back when I painted the blood angel and NML) to represent that.

 Now I'm not gonna be naive and not think the first thing you noticed was the scythe, I made it using the empire wizard staff head along with the icon stick from the CSM box, I had briefly considered putting red or blue for the roses but ultimately decided on a pink with purple wash as it made them pop and break up the yellow.

The scythe blade itself is the ivory bone that I like to use on clean (non-aged) bone, it's rather simple to do starting with a regular slightly tan white color (in this case menoth white), use a sepia wash or watered down brown ink over it, and then add a bit of white to the first color, recovering the main area in broad strokes.

Due to lack of interest in the giveaway I will not be doing one this week, but those who entered last week will be contacted rest assured.

See you soon.

~SWL

How 'bout an actual update?

So long story short I don't have the full army of space marines painted, after a rollercoaster of a week including new classes, running out of sepia wash and replacing it with watered down brown ink (NEVER DO THIS), an old friend showing up in town, ect. ect. ect. this week has flown by. However I did manage to get a daemon prince painted for you folks so lets check him out real quick.

 I'm sure the first thing you notice on him is the crab claw which came courtesy of the daemon princess I ordered a little while back for my daemon army before I actually got Babylon. I wanted to give it a chitinous look though so I decided to do it daemonette hide and then hit it with a secret weapon purple wash which I feel complimented it rather nicely.

I feel maybe I could have added some more metals than silver to this but I'm not sure it would work out so well, the black fits with what I'm going for (again Slaaneshi Imperial fists) but I feel I could have thrown some gold in there somewhere.

The horns were from the Tzeentch banner of the CSM box, I think they add nicely to the model itself, and I hardly see any daemons with more than those two derpy looking ones. Honestly though I would have loved it if I had an extra fiend of slaanesh head to swap out, I think it would have looked pretty good on a daemon prince.

Now for what most of you no doubt came for.

As I'm not done with My CSM army I have decided to do this, a giveaway every week until I am finished. Standard rules, email in the comments, I pick a winner and send them an email for their contact info. Good luck, See you folks next week.

~SWL