Burn baby burn! (Disco inferno)

So I said I would have another update and here it is. Feora's bonded redeemer that you all saw a little of last time.

Now I'm sure the first thing you will notice is the fire I've done, it's really simple to do yourself, start with white, yellow ink over it, and then 50/50 yellow and red ink to make orange, and wash it over the yellow, the orange goes over and into the recesses and the yellow peeks out of areas.

For those not into warmachine and wondering why I added flames to this jack it's because Feora (who I painted last time) has a special ability to make one jack in her warband have all it's attacks gain continuous fire, So I wanted to bring across the idea that this is her bonded 'jack (which I am now tempted to call disco inferno) so my opponents don't forget. That and I thought the abundance of orange on this model would contrast sharply with the green of the rest of the army. 

Speaking of green you'll notice that since there is no cloth on this jack I decided to simply do the gems on his redeemer rocket pod, on the metal above his head and the three on his belt as dark emeralds. I started to do the rivets near the flames as gems but decided against it leaving green as a passive contrast that appears only a few times instead of all over the model.

Relooking at the back of the model I think I should have added some green somewhere on the back  as all that metal makes it look rather barren. Just something to keep in mind on my other light warjacks. 

The Lucky lady and Her new 'Jack.

Well that's it for now, Hopefully I'll have the choir boys done soon, and maybe talk about the idea behind this themed army for coastal assault.

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

Need for speed (part two, also first impressions on the new CSM codex)

Hey folks, lots going on this week so lets jump right into the skaven painting tutorial I got set up, I will reference a couple of things I did with the goblins so take a look at that if you haven't already.

So first things first I wanted to give our vermin lord here a green flame atop his banner, I always liked the imagery of the Warpfire that the skaven use on a bunch of stuff and try to mimic it every time I can get away with it, As with last time I started with a white basecoat, and to achive the almost neon greel glow of that fire I added 4 drops of P3's yellow ink to 3 drops of P3's green ink and Applied. it was that simple.

The next couple of steps came vary quickly and naturally, Some watered down liche purple for the robes, and I decided on a 1/1/1 of menoth base+ vallejo's light brown and a drop of water to create the skin, which is a creamy light brown, the fur would later be a reddish brown of dark flesh to give a bit of contrast.
I must confess I also added a drybrush of scorpion green to the flame as I though it would make it pop more but only proceeded to muck up the nice ink I had applied.

I started on the banner and rusted armor next, the banner would be simple as I wanted to make it look like bloody skin, I went for menoth white base instead of rotting flesh to avoid the greenish tint, I would later add a purpleish red wash named "drying blood" from the secret weapons line to make it look like strips of flesh. Now for the Rust walkthrough, which is what I wanted to show off most, You start with a watered base of black over the sections of armor or blades that you want to make rusty.

Then you take a light brown and water it down to wash consistency and apply it to the black sections. (You'll note I added the yellow brown wood color for later as well as added the wash for the banner as well)

After this Brown wash has dried you will notice it looks like a thin layer of dirt in the cevasse and areas where the wash has pooled. Now it is time for the rust. This can be tricky and ultimately depends on what look you like better, you can make the orange a wash and over the parts, or you can attempt to drybrush it over certain areas. I recommend different styles for the different paints you will be using, Vallejos orange is always runny so it doesn't take much to make it a wash, but GWs is so thick it doesn't take much to drybrush with that, experiment see what you like best.  I went with both though I think the wash worked better on this model.
 After all this rust I began painting metals in order to make the lord here look like he had a mismatched or looted armor.

 Shortly after this is done I begin to add washes to the wood and metal, adding a light flesh to the tail followed with a flesh wash, little leather straps being touched up with dark brown as well, and finally adding the reddish brown color to the fur.

Finally, I added some blood spatter on the cleaver, and on the arm holding it as well as painting the pillar he is standing on, with a light grey, and covering it with a black wash before adding white to the stone and then covering it with the green wash from earlier.

So with the Vermin lord completed, I figure it's time to discuss the new CSM codex a little bit.

Now let me start off by saying I am by no means an expert and have no doubt people will like other things that I don't and hate things that like,and that's fine but I'm a firm believer of "play what you want to play" and I'm going to talk about stuff that I liked and stuff I want to play.

-Things I am excited about-

-First off cultists being back is awesome. I plan on getting about 60-70 of my traitor guard painted up specifically so I can run nice looking cultists. 
-Noise marines are back and pretty freakin' cool this time around, they can't really assault but don't lie to yourself you weren't going to use them for that anyway. You now HAVE to take a champ now which I'm not a fan of but the sonic weapons are cheaper so I'll deal with it, Blastmasters and doom sirens are still good so be prepared to see them get used quite a bit.
-Dirge casters on vehicles are awesome, every CSM army is going to use them, they kill overwatch within 6" so get ready for Khorne armies especially to abuse the shit out of them.
-Forgefiends are good, and I'll pardon the dinosaur attached to the guns because the guns and pipes look so good. but I might find myself hiring some sculpting help for a slaaneshi top.
-Lords are cheap as hell.
-Eye of the gods is awesome
-All slaaneshi troops can get Feel no pain for cheap.

-Not so excited-

-Deamon weapons mysteriously missing, except for two upgrades and two HQ's they have mysteriously vanished, and granted it's not a bad thing but I miss having the option to have a slaaneshi lord w/ jumppack and a daemon weapon menace the opposing side.
-We all knew Lash was going to disappear, but to replace it with nothing else that messed with movement? Seems a bit harsh. Spells are still pretty good, but all in all not looking like something I'm gonna take often.
-Not excited about the maulerfiend, or the Heldrake. Seems like there are things that do these two new toys jobs better (except for maybe the heldrake which can chase flyers). Others may like them but I'm not a fan.
-Daemon princes are probably gonna be what you see mostly as the Hq's again. Though having to take a  humanoid to take the cult troops as troop choices instead of elites.

-Things that need errata already-

-Only thing that currently comes to mind, although I'm sure there are going to be more....is the nurgle zombie cultists. If you haven't heard when taking typhus you are allowed to take cultists as zombies, and they gain some good abilities such as feel no pain, but here is the rub, you are not allowed to take options, adding extra dudes to the unit is under the section called options, so reading the rules as written you are only allowed to take ten zombies with each unit of cultists which pretty much mean many people won't (although you could just take plague marines in the elite choice after filling all your troop choices with the zombies.) Point is it needs an errata already.

Hope you enjoyed the post, I won't have another up until monday at the earliest as I'm going to a concert tomorrow and work the rest of the weekend.

~SWL