Using Masks

February 7, 2011 in Airbrush

I’ve recently been painting a GW Shrine of the Aquila 40K building.  Well when I say painting I actually mean airbrushing.  I’ve now managed to do a nice mottled blue on the outside of the building and a mottled creamy colour inside.  Doing something on this scale really teaches you airbrush control and repeatability, as if two panels look different it will look awful.  One thing I have discovered is that light makes a huge difference, so it’s worth having both natural and artificial light available to check.  The actual building requires both right and left-handed use of the airbrush and a certain amount of manipulation of the building in order to get into those hard to reach places.

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Portal Magazine

January 17, 2011 in General

Quite a nice, free online magazine that’s available from the WAMP website.  Worth a read for certain!

Click here for Portal Magazine number 6

And A Happy New Year!

January 14, 2011 in General

Yes, ignore the fact that it’s actually the 14th January!  The past couple of months have flown by as they have a tendancy to do around the Christmas period.  I have actually done quite a bit of painting during that time too.  Not as much as I would have liked, but enough to say that I’ve done bits.  I completed a test Ogre head and actually started on main Ogre, managed to do some fairly impressive rust effect on the metal parts too.

For Christmas I actually got given two of the new GW Paint Stations and a box of Ungor Beastmen that will go a little way to starting my Beasts of Chaos army up again.  One of the Paint Stations I managed to get swapped for a Shrine of the Aquila – a huge terrain piece that as my girlfriend pointed out can be used to display miniatures on, in addition to gaming with (yes she’s a fantastic lady who encourages me in my hobby ;) .  I’ve assembled this obscenly large piece of scenary, got it all undercoated and have started to airbrush it with pretty good results.  I’ve only started the blue outer colour and not got onto the interior cream yet, but it’s progressing solidly.  I’m away this weekend, but want to make a concerted effort over the next couple of weeks & the weekend between and get at least to the point where I can weather it like they do in the ForgeWorld painting book – basically with oil paint and stream it so that it looks dirty and grimey.  I’ll do this on a test piece first though – not going to risk it on the actual main piece!  I’ll get a picture or two of it up once I work out the best way of taking it – it’s substantially larger than I’m used to taking.

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

November 25, 2010 in General

Despite my last post being in August and saying that I’ve almost got my office/modelling area finished, I’m only now coming close (yes it’s December next week).  I’ve got sliding shelves in one of the cupboards now and have almost brought over most of the stuff from Mum’s.  It’s just down to random bits and bobs now and gettings everything put into it’s correctly place.

On the painting front however I have in the last few weeks finally managed to sort out things generally and am trying to get at least an hour’s worth of painting in of an evening whilst watching a bit of telly.  I’ve been messing around with an Ogre from a half box I discovered when I moved and thoroughly enjoying it.  Not got loads done really, but doing painting as I am (little and often) I’m actually starting to get my eye back in.  With a bit of discipline I may actually improve my painting speed as well, which would be good.  I’m trying to really push my shadows and highlights as it’s something that I’m not that confident with doing.  Updates of the Ogre will (I hope) be forthcoming soon.

I’d love to get back into doing some more airbrushing, but going to do it one step at a time.  Doing ‘normal’ painting requires less electricity and although I’m not hard up (yet) it pays to be a bit thrifty this time of year.

Unlikely…

August 20, 2010 in General, Golden Demon 2010

And yet another month has flown past without me touching any modelling or painting.  My office has almost come together and I just need to fit some sliding shelves into one of the cuboards and put the doors on and all will be pretty much done.

I’ve largely resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to get a Golden Demon entry done this year.  Between now and the 26th I have one weekend free, which may well be spent visiting my girlfriend as the weekend of Games Day is when I’d usually be visiting.  It’s a little gutting but having said that, it bodes well for next year as I’ll have got everything sorted and setup so that I can spend at least half an hour most evenings working on a project.

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A Thought

July 26, 2010 in General, Golden Demon 2010

This weekend I finally got round to moving most of the ‘desk based’ items from my Mum’s house over to mine, so I potentially could actually start painting and modelling.  I also shifted across the Dreadnought that I did as last years GD entry and had a weird thought – how about having another go at doing what I did as my entry last year?  Randomly it’s almost exactly a year since I started my last entry so I know that the time frame isn’t too scary – plus my working environment is now much better and there is very little stopping me burning the midnight oil.  I learned a lot from last years entry so I feel that the actual construction process should be easier and dare I say it – faster…

Since last year, Games Workshop have released the Venerable Dreadnought kit, which means that I don’t need to purchase a Forgeworld dread in order to get the head I want.  I’m actually sorely tempted to base it on Bjorn the Fellhanded – although as GW no longer sell the old model it could well be destined for a new release between now and September.

I think that in comparison to what I did last time (lots of armour cladding), I’ll go for a more simplistic design with runes and norse style knotwork.  I’m also thinking of going for a non-symetrical design, to add a bit of flavour to the whole thing.  I also need to think about what enemy I wish to have as last time the Chaos Space Marine looked truly crap.  Thinking about it, I may actually start with the base rather than the model

On that note, I’m going to have to have a rummage around and start purchasing the components I want.

Useful Links:

New ForgeWorld Space Wolves Dreadnought – looks ace and I like the simple banding around the various details.

Its been a long time…

July 20, 2010 in General

Yup, over eight months since my last post and boy have things changed in my life.  I have recently just bought (and moved into) my first house which has consumed bags of time and money – but worth it without a doubt.  I have a three bedroom semi-detached place with garden and garage.  I’ve just got a pair of corner desks in the small bedroom, which is going to become my computer/modelling room and hope to move most of my model making and painting supplies across fairly soon – although I’m lacking cupboards so most will have to live in the spare bedroom for a short time.  The other major change is that I’ve started dating the most amazing lady in the world, so have been spending quite a bit of  time with her – although she lives an hour and a halves drive away (or two and a half hours public transport journey) so most visits are planned in advance.

It is still my intention to paint something for entry into Golden Demon this year, however due to time restrictions I’m not sure what I’m going to be able to do.  I had started to tidy up some Empire Outriders/Pistoleers so that’s still a possibility.

Anyway that’s just a small update of things – hopefully I’ll be getting back into painting fairly soon.

Injuries

December 7, 2009 in General

Great, just when I was getting into the swing of things again I go and injure myself.  I’ve somehow managed to end up with an inflamed lung lining, this was absolute agony yesterday.  So I am now on a short course of anti-inflamatories, hopefully it sorts itself out by the weekend as I’m meant to be out at a 30th Birthday party.  However I have stolen a batton from my Beastmen Ungors and stuck my Sky Claws onto it, these got sprayed yesterday and I have begun to paint the white elements of the faces – although didn’t get very far as I felt awful.  My Wolf Guard terminator is progressing as well with quite a few useful comments and tips from the CMoN community.  This picture is actually out of date but shows the general progress.

From the above photo I have deepened the shadows further, which has defined the areas further.  I need to push the highlights closer to pure Space Wolf Grey as well which will make the contrast difference between the highlight and shadow significant.  I also think that for future models I will darken the red by adding more Dark Flesh to the mixture.  This should provide a greater contrast for the highlights and also bring the model more ‘earthly’ than it currently is.

Oh, as I’m aware that this is a test piece I’ve actually purchased a spare set of legs, a torso and a head so that I could remake this model :)

Looking Good

November 30, 2009 in General

The weekend allowed me to make good progress on the Wolf Guard Terminator that I’m painting.  The armour has come out OK, not as smooth as I’d like, but it has been a learning curve without a doubt.  The key thing I’ve learned is that I need to ensure that my highlights are thin enough else they have a nasty habbit of applying poorly.  The other item is that I need to ensure is that the mixes with Fenris Grey are mixed well enough because as previously mentioned that particular paint separates very quickly.

I’ve now started painting the red on the Terminator.  I’m using a recipe that was shown in White Dwarf a few issues back when Space Hulk was re-released.  The biggest drawback with this is that it is taking quite a while to actually paint.  Now in fairness the terminator has a lot of red on it – both wolf claws, a knee pad and a whole shoulder pad.  The overall effect is really smooth though, so it’s worth the time investment.

Although this miniature has consumed upwards of 8 hours time so far, I currently believe that painting power armoured marines will take less time providing I paint them in batches of between 4 and 6.  Many of the issues I’ve come across so far have been technique issues as well – how thin to make the paint, what area to cover to achieve a smooth blend, neatness etc – all of which will improve with practice.  I’ll also mix up a bottle of the base red colour I use which will also save some more time.

Tomb King Links

November 29, 2009 in Golden Demon 2010

I borrowed the Tomb King Warhammer Army book off my brother yesterday, although it’s quite sparse on artwork there are some key elements that I could use for a possible entry for GD2010.  There is a really quite cool map/article that describes lots of traps encountered in a small pyramid.

One thing that is interesting is that it’s currently rumoured that the Tomb Kings will be getting a new army book during 2010 – in fact it’s currently rumoured that it will be the army released after Beasts of Chaos – which would make it a April/May release I reckon.  On a positive note this means that should I decide to do this as an entry that I could add in lots of nice new miniatures – in other words I have till May to get the scenary done and then June till September to do the miniatures :)

Useful Links:

http://images.mmosite.com/photo/2009/04/22/warhammerw490CIV48h51S.jpg – Witch Hunter Fighting Tomb Prince
http://www.wouldyoukindly.com/wp-content/uploads/warhammer1.jpg – Knight fighting Tomb Gaurd + interior
http://mythicmktg.fileburst.com/war/us/home/images/newsletter/2009_02/TK_Pendulum.jpg – Pendulum Trap
http://www.ogeworld.com/document_general_info.html?products_id=3366 – Article on planning tomb king expansion
http://war.mmolecule.com/articles/id/2031 – Another article with lots of exterior shots