I’ve not got any photo’s off what I did yet (it was 11.30pm when I stopped), but it’s made a huge difference to how the tank looks.  I started off with the two loose gun turrets and the main weapon, but quickly looking this morning and there are a couple of patchy bits that need touching up.

The mix I’ve ended up going with is 2 parts Denheb Stone and 1 part Bleached Bone (I’ll call this the Hull colour to keep things easy).  If I were mixing it again then I would probably put in a tiny part of Codex Grey as it’s quite pale.  However it does change colour depending upon the light it’s viewed under, overall it’s going to be fine, especially after it gets weathered using oil paints, which will add in browns, blacks and greens.  The hull colour does need quite a few coats to get decent coverage, but I am going to a very pale colour from a black undercoat so that’s not unexpected.  The really nice thing is that the paint is really smooth so isn’t gumming the airbrush up too often (unlike Fenris Grey).  It does occasionally spider but it’s easily blended.

Tonight I’ve got an opportunity to spend a few hours working on it, so intend to try and get as much with the hull colour on as possible.  Knowing how long the bits took last night, I know that the main body is going to take a very long time to do (we’re talking 10+ hours I reckon).  The metallic elements need to be done in different orders, for example, the treadplate in the back of the tank will need to be done before the inner wall element, where as the imperial aquilias needs to be done after the body.  By having to split the body up into chunks of airbrushing, these out-of-order bits can be done without the hassle of flicking between colours every five minutes.

Quite looking forward to getting into it – it’s been a while coming!

I speak as I find and the model was an absolute joy to put together with a couple of odd exceptions.  The tracks are a proverbial nightmare to tidy up as the ‘join’ line seems to slope on one half of the track.  The fuel barrels on the back of the tank have awful join lines which I filled in using thin plasticard that I cut with a circular cutter.  What I am exceptionally unimpressed with, is how the two autocannons mount onto the rear of the tank – one of the poorest connections that I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across.  The area that you glue is no larger than 1mm x 2mm and even with a decent amount of poly cement it feels quite fragile some hours later.  Fingers crossed it doesn’t ever get knocked else either gun will likely just snap off :s

I have managed to borrow a couple bottles of metallic Vallejo Air (grey colours) to supplement the bronzy colours I’ve already got.  This means that I can easily do the regular grey metallics such as the tracks and gun barrels in addition to the copious amount of brass that Vostroyan’s tend to have as part of their background style.  I also purchased some sticks of earth coloured chalk which I’ll grind up small portions to use as weathering pigments.  Although this might sound strange, they actually work in exactly the same way and I purchased the twelve colours for around the same price that a single pot of weathering pigment would cost.

Painting is going to be quite a big job, but thankfully a large portion of it is airbrushed or weathering using oils and powders.  I’m going to be using the Forgeworld Masterclass book on painting tanks for some of the techniques so to a certain extent there isn’t a massive amount of “skill” involved.  I don’t mean that horribly, but with the correct paints, brushes and equipment most people should be able to achieve a good result – OK I’m probably going to rue the day I said that

To this extent, one of the items I pulled out of the cupboard is the sprues for a friends Stormlord Super Heavy Tank.  I say sprues because a while back I had a tin of cellulose thinners leak in the cupboard and it messed up the box it was in.  I’ve had this tank for at least 2 years now so have over the past couple of weeks gone all guns blazing on getting it put together.  Last night whilst the weather had calmed down (at 11pm) I managed to undercoat most of the tank and turrets chaos black, so I’m one step closer to being able to get some colour on.  I only have two autocannons to finish tidying up (that go on the back) and the main gun had the last bit of glue drying overnight.  I’m going to aim to get it fully painted by the middle of February so that it can be given back and then I can plod on with something else, most likely my Ogre Ironblaster.

Finally I’ve just started a Flickr account so that I can post up all of my progress shots of models in there.  Although I’m more than happy to host them on my own webserver, doing things in Flickr will mean that it’s searchable within Google and placed like Games Workshop are now showing pictures from Flickr on their website.

Warmachine (big cannon); War Alters (transport);  War Barque (heavy transport for destroyers)

Now all of the above look really characteristic of Necron’s and in principal would be straight forward to create due to their angular construction.  The Warmachine would be the most complex as it has “horseshoe” shaped pieces around the giant gun and would likely require a small run of resin casts to create.  Depending upon the version, one of the War Alters could also be quire difficult as it has some quite curved bits – the difficult bit being the fact you need a identical mirror’d pair, but a pair of plasti-card pieces which you fill with a green/milliput type putty would actually work quite well for this.

One thing that would be worth doing is to design and create a full set of brass etchings to use (link on places).  This would allow for the various Necron symbols to be displayed all over the actual model and extra details too.  Due to the way brass etching works, you could get a huge number of pieces out of an A5 or A4 sheet which would add a really nice level of professionalism to the overall effect of the piece, plus it’s pretty easy to knock out in Adobe Illustrator.  I would need to make some very detailed plans of what I were to do, before I actually do it, which would allow me to ensure that all the pieces fit together happily – however it may be sensible to knock this out in a CAD package, which in itself might take more time than I want…

Games Day 2011 was pretty good although as with all things there are things that could be improved on.  This year all of the “sales” element was collected together at one end of the NEC and access to this was restricted to perhaps a 50 or 60 people at a time.  This was really good as you were able to get round and buy stuff very effectively, however I personally felt quite rushed as I knew there was other people there waiting to come in.  My biggest complaint is that the queue for being allowed up to the area had no definition and you really didn’t know where you were meant to queue and where not.  I’m sure that next year they’ll address this.  Unlike some years there seemed to be enough things to view so that at no point did my brother or I feel like we were wandering round aimlessly.

The quality of the Golden Demon entries was, as we have come to expect, brilliant.  I do feel that there were less total entries and the overall quality of the LotR category was lower than the other categories.

I have been prodded by most members of my family and by my other half that I need to finish my current project and then get another one running.  Like last year I’m currently thinking of a 40k vehicle (although a Diorama is tempting).  Something that isn’t a dreadnought (as there were lots this year, although two did win Demons) and something that’s a bit more interesting than a Rhino.  Apparently (or so the rumours go), Necrons is out in November, so there may be something nice in that release.  I’d like to do a flyer or something similar, but currently the non-ForgeWorld choices out there are limited.  Eldar (of both Craftworld and Dark varieties) all require twirly freehand, which I’m not very proficient in.  Although it seems like a defeatist attitude, it is far better to play to my strengths than try and do something technically more difficult and do it poorly.

Links

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/06/15/warhammer-40k-online-the-first-images/ – Some nice imagery if I wanted to do a diorama!

Focus

Depending upon the size of the piece you will require one or more focal points, in the event of a single miniature or large monster (without rider) this will likely be the piece’s face, however it’s down to you to decide that.  A dragon’s focus may be a gout of fire being breathed from it’s mouth, a Shaggoth’s focus may be it’s axe, a magic user could be an outstretched hand.  There is certainly no hard and fast rule and you may pick a different focal point to somebody else.  The idea of a focal point is that anybody who looks at it, should have their eye drawn to the focal point in the first instance.  Once their eye has taken that in (providing it’s inspired the viewer), their eye will naturally start absorbing things around it.  For particularly large pieces, or a piece that has a lot going on (such as a bar brawl) you should pick a primary focus and then some secondary.  In large enough pieces, you can have more than one primary focus, so a 1ft x 1ft bar brawl may have the barman shooting a blunderbuss at a trouble maker and also two patrons beating each other senseless.

It is important that whatever your focal point, that this has enough detail for the viewer not to be able to take it all in with a single glance.  Hold their interest for marginally longer than it takes to see everything, because the viewer has had to engage their brain they will be more inclined to look at the rest of the piece.

Natural Focal Points

There are certain points that naturally lend themselves to becoming the primary focal point, miniatures may have “pokey out bits”, such as guns, platforms for miniatures to stand on or an area that has higher detail (such as the face).

Other Considerations

It is also important when thinking of focal points to think about the environment the piece is going to be in – a Golden Demon cabinet will require different approach to a shelf in your dining room or indeed as part of an army.  These all can be grouped together however by thinking about the direction in which the piece will be viewed.  In a Golden Demon (or indeed any painting competition), the piece will be closely inspected from all angles.  It will naturally be viewed from the front and back – the back being as important if not moreso than the front as this is where the judges will initially see the piece.  When being viewed on a shelf you are only bothered about it being seen from the front, and likewise an army will be viewed mostly from the top.  A piece may naturally have a focal point visible from all angles, but at times you may have to create a secondary focal point from a different angle.

How to Draw the Focus

So you’ve picked your focal point – how do you make people look at it?  Well the answer is quite simple and relies on the quality of your paint job.  The focal point should be painted to your highest standard without question – it will be scrutinised close up.  You need to make your focal point more prominent than the rest of the piece.  You can do this by:
painting everything else to a lesser detail level;
by using slightly drabber colours on the rest of the piece;
by painting the area around the focal point slightly darker than it should be;
by making the focal point brighter than the rest of the piece;
by adding something unique of interest;
These are not by any means the only or best ways of doing this, but should give you an idea of how to approach creating a focal point.

Non Focal Points

When painting the rest of the piece you need to do your best that you don’t paint in such a way that you’ll draw the focus away from any focal points.  This can be done by not pushing the highlights quite as far or using slightly drabber colours or just being sensible and not trying to cover every inch of the piece with high detail.

Summary

There isn’t a hard and fast way of “perfect” for everyone.  By picking a focal point or two you can actually have a really good bash at producing something that is pleasing to the eye and will encourage somebody to spend time looking over all parts of it.  Don’t over detail your piece as that is actually worse than not having enough detail.

The model was purchased a couple of weeks ago and I have almost finished tidying the flash and mold lines and filling any gaps.  By the weekend everything should have received a black undercoat and any missed bits will be corrected and then I have exactly two months to get it painted.  It’s going to be quite tight as between now and the end of August I have exactly one weekend home to myself!  I’ve almost got into the habit of modelling until around 11.30pm now so am getting in around 2 hours of modelling most days.  Providing I can keep this up without killing myself through lack of sleep, it should give me enough time to get it all done, including a nice scenic base.

Watch this space…

My brother is currently looking into the collection side of a new 40k army as he’s purchased all of the miniatures he wants for his 1,000 point Daemon army.  I’ve a feeling he may increase it to 1,500 at some point, but is currently planning out a Dark Eldar army – not sure what points size currently, I would imagine 1,000 to begin with.  As with our usual method of collecting, I will also build up a counter army, but am torn between a few different directions.  The biggest restriction for me is money.  If I’m sensible, I should be able to spare enough money (£20 to £25) to purchase a single boxed set of miniatures every month.  I expect we’re looking at 12 to 18 months to collect our army in total, so if we say I’ll have between £240 and £300 to spend (plus miniatures purchased for presents) I’m really looking at one of the more “elite” armies that have few miniatures – i.e. Imperial Guard, Orks and ‘Nids are out!

Out of all the current armies, the new Grey Knights are without a doubt the cheapest – from GW you can buy a 1,500 point GK army for £220 (and that’s top rate prices).  Some kind of Space Marine army would be amongst the next cheapest and something like Death Guard would be a good modelling project.  However the whole of the Necron range has been withdrawn from purchase, so in the next few months they’re going to be having a new Codex.  My gut feeling says that I should go for something that isn’t necessarily marine based as my Space Wolves are, so I should go for something quite different.  Death Guard would actually fit the bill better than most marine armies and would force me to do some interesting conversions every month – however they are still marines…  With luck the Necrons will be out soon so I’ll have a better idea on how much that army would cost.

In WD291 there is an ‘Eavy Metal on painting Typhus…

Anyway, the following CMoN Post, is a really clever way of doing effective banners which I may well adopt for my GD2011 entry.