Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Finished - 3x Grey Knight Terminators

It feels like I have been working on these guys forever but you can stick a fork in them.

I was trying to fill in the gaps from repainting and refurbishing my old metal GKTs. I had no Grey Knight terminators wearing red with the dual weapons. Rather than arm them with the two short swords I used the style of full-sized sword and smaller off-hand weapon that I liked for my power armored Grey Knights. 

I had no warding staffs because those options were never available in metal. I am not super-happy with his pose but it is ok. He looks like he is going to bring the pimp hand against someone after he swats your lascannon blast out the air.

I had psycannons in metal, but I used all my bits to put together one Brother and one leader. In order to fill out a full Paladin squad, I need two of each special weapon. The other GKT that has a psycannon has a hammer so I went with a sword for the bump in the Invul save. 

I also uploaded these pics to CMoN and expect some good results.


Monday, May 28, 2012

More heads

I am good in white but I am awesome in red.

Finished - Grey Knight Apothecary


Just put the last bits of paint on this guy and I'm a proud papa. He is still missing his little belt packs but otherwise he is done. This is the best white work I have ever done. He really stands out among his brothers. It was really easy to do too. First was Astronimicon grey followed by Space Wolves Grey as a base coat. To shade I used a very light Asurmen blue wash. That darkens down things well but tens to run away from the deeper recesses. I come back and paint on straight Asurmen blue in the the cracks then touch up with SWG. The real skill comes in applying the Skull white to the edges.

Less is more in this regard but you still need to apply enough to to make it look white. I really did this well on the helmet. You can see how little white there is when you get close but from far away it gives the illusion of the whole helmet being nothing but white. Also, The blue shade id different enough from the black and red on the rest of the model that it gives the illusion that it is not really as blue as it is.

I also put it up on CMoN!

Still on the table are 3 other GKTs with a variety of weapons and a Sergeant. I forget what the GK call their squad leaders and am too damn tired to look it up. 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

New Paints - Imperial Primer

A while ago I bought some of the new paints and I have to talk about one of them.

I am flippin in love with the Technical Imperial Primer. It is exactly what GW says it is. They will tell you that it is an undercoat comparable to spray paint that can be used when conditions are not optimal for spray paint (too hot/cold or humidity over 70%) and I think that they may be underselling it. It is so much better than that.

It is a great primer. It goes on evenly and dried matte. That matte finish makes it easy to paint over because a shiny surface is slick and smooth and a matte finish is rough and porous. It covers great  and does not pool in joints or crevices. It is really magical.


What it does no do is that they say it does is cover over another color. GW says that it has a special high concentration of pigment that makes it easy to cover, but I found that regular black paint covers better. That limits its use to just being a primer and not really an undercoat over another color.

Regular black paint
Imperial primer
I prime many of my minis red because I find that painting red armor over a red undercoat is easier than using a Foundation paint over black. It preserves detail and time. The Imperial Primer went over red crappy. The picture actually makes it look like it did a better job than it did. I could have used super-watered down black paint and it would have covered better.

Regardless of its shortcomings, The Imperial Primer will always have a home on my painting bench. I currently live in a place where it rains 9 months out of the year and that means that my ability to spray paint is very limited. This stuff will give me the ability to prime bits and minis when the humidity is too high. Also, it means that I do not have to go through the hassle of priming a single bit which is notoriously a pain. Now, I can just pin it and zap it with the brush on primer and go.

I can't wait to try out some of the other new paints and see if they are as awesome as the Primer. I'll be sure to post about them too!

TMM and painting are not without their dangers

I slipped while trying to cut a bit in two and sliced under my fingernail. Bad. It bled and bled and bled. It is still bleeding. The discolored area is blood that has pooled under my nail in a bruise. It hurts so bad. 

It is funny that at the time I was thinking about what I would tell people at work tomorrow if I gashed my hand open. I should know better than to cut towards myself. 

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Collecting the past


The word going around is that 5th Edition is coming to an end this year. I lost my 5th Edition hardcover book a while ago and want to replace it. I was on Bartertown and found a quite a few people that could sell me a 5th Ed rule book for cheap. One guy had a collector's edition that I bought for $50. I think they sold for over a hundred back in the day but can't be sure. The only differences is that it has the fancy trifold cover, the purity seal (which is really just paper and a plastic seal) and silver-edged pages. 

I wanted the book as a collector's item anyway. I am slowly filling my backlog of missing 3rd and 2nd Edition books. I also bought the old Angels of Death book for $25 in great condition. I also picked up the early 3rd Chaos Marine Codex for $10. The pieces are filling in like a freaky reverse game of Jenga but with books instead of wooden blocks. 

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Beer, painting and movies.


The trifecta of awesome.

Tonight is my Saturday night and I am living it up. Unfortunately I've had too much of the first thing to do any more of the second thing. Thus I am only doing the third thing and not the second thing.

Any guesses on the movie?

In unrelated news I got into it with it with Brent on BoLS due to his being dumb and not being able to write a post worth a damn. I said that he is worthless and writes watered down articles. All I know is that he responded but neglected to read it. If I had to guess what it was, it is either an ad hominem attack or the old trope of " if you do not like it then you should do better," both of which are logical fallacies. Neither of those reasons addresses the accusation that his articles are garbage and seek only to distract from that point. Regardless of what he said, I am less interested in his response than in the original post. .

Thursday, May 3, 2012

On the table now - Drop Pod and GK Termies

A week between updates is unacceptable, Vurumai. Unacceptable! But life and other stuff intercedes and takes precedent. 

I got some good painting time in today. The Drop Pod in the front is coming along nicely. I am keeping the completed DP on the bench to make sure that I am being consistent with my painting and weathering. Just have to shade, highlight and finishing weathering with the reentry burn. I probably should have highlighted before I did the chipping and weathering but I'll just work around it. Usually, I use the chipping to hide mistakes but it i hard to do that when you do things ass about face. 

I also started the GKTs that I promised to get done. I've literally just clipped them off the sprue and  glued them to the base. There is a long road to get them done. A buddy (Justin) just texted and told me that he is painting up some banners for me. I hate painting those things and he is fast and talented. 

Other than that, I got an awesome game in with my Necrons against Tony that I'll have to write up later. It changed how I think about Necrons.