Finished - Roboute Guilliman

 

Finally finished Bobby G. He was be sitting in his box for months now. I admit, I was intimidated by the size and the detail. I got over that After painting Abby and then this didn't seem so bad. 

I accepted that this was going to be a "good enough" situation because I was not going to blind painting the detail. 

The blue was a solid base of Altdorf Guard Blue (or Ultramarine Blue as it is named in my heart), then washed it with Guilliman Blue. I brought it back up wiht another drubrush of Altdorf then a light dry brush of Calgar Blue. I was not going to highlight each armor panel so this was going to have to work. Blue done. 

Thank the Emperor for Retributor Gold. I would have killed for a base/foundation gold paint back in the day when a decent gold took 5 layers. This gold had to cover the blue in one go because I was not going to paint all that filigree twice. There was no wash on it, just a little Runefang Steel highlight. 

Sword was white, yellow, two oranges, red, brown and black in overlapping layers. Not thrilled with how it came out but it looks good from arms length. Fire is just flipping hard. I saw a thing on painting flames with contrast paints. I bought the paints then chickened out at the last second and did it the old way. Maybe later. 

The mini cost me $60 and the paint is worth maybe $50 for a replacement value of $90. 

Finished- Abandon the Despoiler

This project has been sitting on my to do list for maybe a year. I loved Abaddon in the previous editions and even did my own conversion out of the Terminator Lord kit and the old metal Abby. Turned out pretty good if I don't say so myself back in the day. Put a picture of the old one after the jump.

The armor is black base with a solid coat of Dark Reaper. Washed it black and Agrax to try and darken it down but that second wash didn't do much. Then I touched up the Dark Reaper and then did a highlight of Thunderhawk Blue on the hard edges and in the weird places that we highlight on pauldrons. Then on the areas I wanted to pop, I did a highlight of Ahriman Blue. It doesn't take much, bit it is effective. I think I could have taken it further around the Chaos star but I kinda like the subtilty. 

This was my first big project painting blue as black and I loves it. It turned out just how I wanted. I think I may go back with some more blue and make it pop more. I may use this and highlight with grey for any further Deathwatch minis. 

Finished - Void Dragon

This mini cost $90 from GW or you can print it for a few dollars if you have the files and know how. Imma let you guess which one I did. 

No idea the rules for this bad boy. Never seen a Codex with rules for it and know almost nothing about him. I had to print this mini. It was challenging. I used presupported files and that was a mistake. I don't claim to be an expert at supports but I find if I put them on then the tend to be easier to take off. After printing it was pretty tricky to paint and assemble this beast. The mini is basically supported in a web of delicate lightning bolts. 

I painted the mini in the same theme as my Necrons. I kinda phoned in on the skin. With the other C'tan, I tried to give them colored metallic skin but this guy just got some Agrax over Iron Hands Steel and a dry brush of Runefang Steel. The body really isn't what draws the eye. I could have tried some OSL or at least some glowing effects in places but didn't. 

It has been so long sing I painted and posted about a mini that I've forgotten how to do a TMM CV post. The point of it was to document what I had invested in 40k and minis incase of fire or robbery to that they could be replaced. I am unsure how to value printed minis so let's just use retail which is $90 for this bad boy. The paint job was maybe 10 hours and I'd value it at about $70. 

Finished - Daemon Prince of Khorne

Finished this bad boy tonight. He started out as a Reaper Bones mini called "Minotaur Demon Lord" that sold for a pittance. For conversions, I added a Khorne symbol to his knees, right shoulder and forearms. I had those left over in my bits box and count not think of a better use of them. My only regret is that I could not use eight of them. I also swapped out whatever this dummy was using for a flaccid weapon for a GIANT AX OF KHORNE! I planned to assemble my Bloodthirster of Khorne in one form and proxy it for the other forms so I didn't need to mag the other hands like a jabroni. That left some bits over. While it is wildly out of scale with the mini, I feel that it is still on point.

Speaking of scale, The mini is a little large for a Daemon Prince. The bottom the head is about where the top of the GW Daemon Prince stands. I put it on a Dreadnought base which is the same as a Daemon Prince. I also feel that the "out of scale" is on point for Khorne. He is more a god of excess than the Lord of Excess. Dude loves some big weapons so I feel good about the ridiculous size of that ax. Also it has teeth and I loved painting it.

I painted the Deamon flesh the same way that I painted the Bloodletters of Khorne. Like all the times that I have painted this before, I regretted not having more purple show through. The overall tone of the skin is red and I wanted more purple in the recesses. I knew this while I was painting this mini but somehow it still came out red.

To replace the mini would cost about $10 including shipping. The ax and wings become problematic. They run for about $10 and $16 respectively. The paint job took some time and I value it at about $60 making the total replacement value about $100. Doubt I would sell or trade it for less. 

Finished - Ultramarine Test Marines

I wish I had titled these "finished" posts with the tag "stick a fork in" instead. Regardless these little blue devils are finished.

I started by spray painting the minis with Krylon "satin oxford blue" which is the closest that I could find to Kantor Blue and still not be gloss. I like matte or satin primer as the next layer tends to stick better. Because the primer and base were so close, I didn't waste much time in getting a good foundation.

To get a good base, I did an overbush of Ultramarines Blue or Altdorf Guard Blue as it is known now. I didn't make efforts to cover the recesses or cover up too much detail. Once the base color is down then it is time for the secondary colors. I paint black all the areas that I want black or silver straight black. The silver areas get a dose of Ironbreaker and the black areas are painted my new favorite color Eshin Grey before getting a heavy drybrush of Dawnstone. Both areas get washed black.

I used to use a 1:1 mix of Abbadon Black and Dawnstone as my base color for black with good success. I discovered that Eshin Grey is almost an exact match. I would rather have per-mixed paints for consistency. Also, if I was making a new batch, it took two pots of paint to make one batch of mix and it rarely lasted until gone as mixed and diluted paints tend to gum up on me.

Finished - DnD Mini

Behold! Adr Al'akhir in all of his glory. Major inspiration for this comes from the description of Kossuthan priest and their garb in Faiths and Avatars from 2nd Edition D&D. I knew he was going to be red and gold as those are thematic and I am pretty awesome at painting them. The silver areas are inspired by the box art.

I knew I wanted to do the hems in a burnt theme based on the description in F&A and I knew how to do it thanks to my flamers and plasma weapons in 40k. That was done with a dry brush of Mournfang Brown and then a drybrush/stippling of Abaddon Black. It was not homogenized enough for me, so I did a little wash of Agrax Earthshade to mute the colors.

The dark skin was an experiment. I had never done anything like this before. I based it with Bugman's Glow then washed it with Reikland Fleshtone. This did not make it dark enough for me so I washed it with Druchi Violet painted into the recesses. A touch up of Bugman's Glow and that was about it. I wish I could have highlighted it some more but the end result is ok.

Very happy with this mini. It cost me 50% of $25 as it is a set of 2 minis in a box. The paint job took considerable time for a single mini that bordered on 10 hours. I value it at $40. Total replacement cost is $63.

Looking forward to causing some serious damage with this class in the near future. 

Finished - Deathwatch Watch Master

I mostly fished this guy back in Nov 2016 during the first wave of Deathwatch madness. I didn't know how I wanted to finish him though. I ended up using a Deathwing head that I bought during a bit buying spree long ago. I used the shoulder guard (or pauldron if you want to be a smarty pants about it) from the Deathwatch: Overkill set that I am currently cannibalizing.

I love how this mini turned out. I think that I was right in that giving him a Chapter and a different head not only really sets him apart but also gives him a lot more personality. I don't know if I could pick out 3 things that I particularly like or dislike about how this mini got painted up. I think I made some good choices on picking more simple colors. I stayed away from the gold and I feel like it is over-done on some of the Deathwatch minis.

This min retails for $25 and that sexy alien base he is on was $2 if memory serves. The paint job took a long time to finish with all the detail and cloth. I value the paint at about $40. Total replacement cost is about $65.

Up next I am finishing a commission and three more Deathwatch Marines.

Finished - Deathwatch Scouts

Ok so they are not completely finished. In the picture, I forgot to do the grey hard-edge highlighting on the hands but other than that they are finished. 

I had some difficulty fitting the heads on the bodies. I really wanted the vox mask for the Salamander Scout but it would not fit in the very small space facing the way the gun was pointed. I had a similar problem with the sexy goggles on the Blood Angel. In the end, I ended up liking it as it adds variety to which direction the model is facing. 

I did a little conversion to the Ultramarine "leader" by giving him two scopes. The big scope is an Ork scope with the Orky bits filed off and the smaller scope is a SM scope. I accidentally mounted it backwards with the angled part mounted forward but I don't think it maters. 

Finished - Deathwatch: Overkill Marines And More

At long last, the Marines of Deathwatch: Overkill are finished. Not only are they done, but I also finished three Vanguard Marines to round out the Assault Squad. Not only that, but three of the Marines are magnetized to have Jump Packs. 

I am super pleased with how they all came out. Each Marine gave me an opportunity to try different techniques in the small scale. I did not have to replicate anythign but the black armor and metal left arm on every mini. This freedom to experiment let me really run wild. 

I feel like I have talked these minis to death on each of their posts.I like how the minis each turned out with their own personalty and yet they look like a unit when they are together. I don't think there there is much that I don't like about the minis as a whole. There are some small mistakes that I feel like I made but in general I am pleased. 

The Deathwatch: Overkill box retails for $160 not including shipping. The Deathwatch half goes on eBay for $60-$100 and each Marine goes for $5-$12 also not including shipping. The bases cost me between $1 and $4 each for a total cost of $20. The three metal Vanguard Marines go for $5 and $15 each based on completed eBay listing for a value $30. There are also smaller costs for the magnets and jump packs that are about $20 to replace them. I value the painting at over $100 given the time and detail involved for a total replacement cost of $250. I would not sell or trade them for less and probably not at all. I love these minis, the Overkill game and my new Deathwatch Codex.

It took me almost 5 weeks to paint 14 Marines. No telling how long it is going to take me to paint the Genestealer Cult half. MY heart is not in it to paint them and there are so many of them. I am going to wait to start on more Deathwatch minis until after the Codex drops so I can have a better understanding of the rules. I don't want to repeat the mistakes with my Space Wolf Terminators where I made beautiful minis that are technically not field-able with the rules even before they changed. 

Finished - Gawain, The Green Knight (AKA Green Man)

The Green Knight is complete. I snagged the name from an old story about a foolish knight, Gawain, that challenged a magical knight and lost his head. After reading that article, I realized that I could have named him Green Man. I like that name better anyway. I would love for him to charge up and land a Destroyer Strength hit right in the nards of a Stompa.

Forgive me. I've been drinking and binge-watching Always Sunny.

I made one big conversion by taking off the weird square sword and replacing it with a Dreadknight sword. The place where it joined is a little janky but overall it is a decent conversion. I had bought a Chainsword arm for a more convincing Knight Titan proxy. Thanks to how easy it is to swap out arms, that is not a concern right now.

Finished - Deathwatch Wolf Scout

We have our first game of the new Deathwatch RPG group next week. Of the 5 other people that expressed interests in playing all but 2 canceled. One was a seasoned GM but knew nothing of the 40k setting. I was really sad to see him drop out and hope he comes back. We are going to start with two solid players and hopefully add two more. 

I had rolled up a character even though I see myself being the GM until a challenger appears. I strategically chose the Wolf Scout advance for the Tactical Marine so that when I don't want to role-play him, I can have him sneak off to "scout" leaving the PCs to do the heavy lifting. 

The advance costs 200 XP and allows the player to use Perception for Concealment, Shadowing and Silent Move so that they can benefit from the Wolf Senses Solo Mode Ability. It also take some of the emphasis off of the social aspects of the Space Wolf. I am not particularly adept at playing a "face" character and would feel uncomfortable in that role. 

Finished - Tau Barracuda

Finishing the Barracuda was a giant task. I had to relearn how to paint in the my Tau style all over. It had been way too long since I had painting an icy blue Tau of this size. I finished the Tetras and Remoras but they are not the same as painting something this big. Really the only practice that I had was the Sunshark and the Riptide and those were super long ago. I had to invent new ways of painting this scheme.

I sprayed the mini white then, rather than basecoating Fenrisian Grey, I used Celestra Gery insted. I then painted on the areas that I wants Fenrisian Grey. Next up was washing with Drakenhof Nightshade the touching up with Fenrisian Grey. That gave me the a good base to work from. After that it was just dialing in the amount of Celestra Grey that I wanted showing before a final highlight of pure white on the hard edges.

I used a broken line on the white highlights but tried to make it look like shiny glare rather than jagged metal, I also had to highlight rounded edges to create the illusion of reflection.

Finished - The Last Lictor

This is the final Lictor needed for my very small Tyranid army. The army started when I had 22 Space Hulk Genestealers to paint. Then I ran across the Apocalypse of "Vanguard Infestation." It was always my dream to field a Tyranid army that represents an early infestation. 

Genestealers range way ahead of the Hive Fleet and infect worlds through a crazy and counter-intuitive process. They emit a psychic signal that attracts a Hive Fleet. One of the first critters that land are the Lictor scouts. They act like landing beacons for the Spores. 

Now, that is my idea of an awesomly themed and fluffy army. It is in no way competitive but it 10 out of 10 fluffy. Until very recently, it was also not legal to field anything like this. With the advent of Unbound armies and this Apocalypse sheet, it becomes viable. 

I had finished two other Lictors including a Deathleaper. This triad forms part of the leadership of this army. My headcannon is the Deathleaper has a retinue of two Lictors and is the catalist that turns the Genestealer infestation in to an army. The Broodlord is the leader of the Genestealer brood as a proxy for the Patriarch. 

With the addition of my Deathwatch: Overkill game, this means I will be able to field a Genestealer Cult army as well. Given how long it has taken me to paint up the Tyranids and Space Marines from the Space Hulk game, it will be a long time before this dream is a reality. 

The dream would be to field a Deathwatch and PDF army against a Genestealer Cult army with a cool opponent. 

I don't know that I have done a TMM CV post about the Lictors. A quick search on my own blog reveals that I have. This Lictor has the same value of $54 as my other Lictor. 

Finished - Thousand Sons Sorcerer

I put the final touched on this mini. I was scared for a bit because it was not turning out very well when we started. The Sepia wash really helped and the new way of doing blue really pops. 

I am using Gulliman Blue over white or Runefang Steel with a little touch up to do my glowing bits. I had to make this change after they axed the old blue wash and I like the new way. It took forever to figure this out. 

I had asked on Bartertown about replacing Asurmen Blue and got the predictable smart ass reply of "there is a conversion chart." It bugs me when people assume that people don't Google something before they ask a question but then again so many people ask before they Google. I had not gotten much help from that (or really from any post that I make on BT) and none of my painting friends had any input either. It was through experimentation and fortuitous mistakes that I was able to come up with this new technique. 

Finished - Jango Fett Firespray

I finished my first X-wing repaint fairly quickly once I decided on a pattern and techniques. 

I tried the three stage weathering but could not make it work. What I ended up doing was adapting the half ass wet blending from that Tau minis. For the blue I used Teclis Blue, Ultramarine Blue and Kantor Blue and tried to blend them together while they were still wet (I probably should have used Royal Blue for the final highlight as the Teclis Blue is a bit overpowering). The grey area was a mix of Fortress Grey, Codex Grey, Adeptus Battlegrey and Stormvermin Fur. I was very careful not to trace all the angles with highlights to give a very smooth hull an irregular appearance. I did this by highlighting all the top pars of the horizontal lines and paid less attention to the vertical lines.

The end result is an uneven appearance even within a single color type.

Some people work up rules for minis or pilots that might not have rules. I liked this particular version of Jango Fett that I found on a Facebook group. I am looking forward to playing him.

The mini along with the tokens, dials, and pilot cards (basically everything but the upgrade cards) goes for about $20 at most. Some people think that minis in that stripped down state are worth gold but they are not.

The paint is worth money however. I spent a lot of time on it and had to make up some new techniques. I would value the paintjob at $40 for a total replacement cost of $60. I would not let it go for anything less than that. I put it up on Facebook and might put it up on eBay with a high reserve. I don't rely want to part with it and would be happy to keep it on my shelf. 

Finished - Tau Remora

Also from the China recasters, are these Tau Remoras. They retail for $25 each not including shipping which is insane. The Recasts are not awful. The detail is good, the lines are nice and deep and the wings are all almost straight. For $25 shipped, I got two Remoras which is fine by me. Depending on how they actually perform for me on the battlefield, I may be getting more. 

At 110 points each, they are expensive to fit into small games. They also eat up a very valuable Fast Attack slot int eh Tau army. That means less these days, but I tend to think in the old Force Org chart even in these Unbound days. For only 20 more points, you can get a Barracuda, which is superior in my opinion. 

Finished - Sonic Dreadnought

Glorious! I finished the Sonic Dreadnought and I am pretty pleased with the end results. 

I decided on gold trim rather than black and that necessitated alternating pink and black armor plates. I have already talked about some of the things that I dislike about the model in my previous post and the large armor plates was one of them. I could have broken up the armor plates more with some freehand, but I stink at freehand. It would have also not fit in with the established pattern of my Noise Marines. 

I think that the mini turned out as well as it could have and still fit in with the themes of the army. 

I am very proud of the base. I decided on Ultramarines as the Dead Dread on a whim. The Emperor's Children and the Ultramarines never had any beef or direct conflicts that I know of. I kind of just wanted to paint dead Smurf. 

Finished - Badrukk

Holy cow this is deceptive mini. You look at it in the books or even when it is painted and think, "Yeah, no big deal." Painting it is a whole different story. 

I made a few choices when painting it to adapt it to my painting style. The 'eavy Metal kids painted glyphs on all the metal plates and that was way outside of my skill. I dislike freehanding because it is too hard touch up later. What I opted for was painting the plated a solid color and then drawing on glyphs with a 0.05 pen later. 

The Badrukk in the Codex has a treasure map painted on his loin cloth. While that is thematic, fluffy and bad ass, it is outside of my skillset. I just painted it simple and brown. While this is a lot less fancy, it also does not draw attention away from the other detailed areas that I did paint well. 

I chose a simple color scheme for the mini and stuck to red and yellow as accent colors. I did this because I didn't want to turn him in to an Orky rainbow. Also, these are two colors that I am more comfortable with and they contrast well with the green skin. 

Finished - Custom Keeper of Secrets

In return for painting a big ole pile of Khorne Cultists, My buddy Greg over at CrankyOldGamer converted me up a a custom Greater Daemon of Slaanesh, the Keeper of Secrets. I supplied the bits and he did the converting. He also did a bang up job taking my idea and running with it. I was going to use the weapons from the Daemon Prince kit but Greg swapped them for the swords from some weird Dark Elf WFB kit. I sent the trygon tail but Greg wisely changed it to the Hive Tyrant tail. He put together a better conversion than I could have. 

As far as painting, I tried to paint it in the same scheme as the other Daemons of Slaanesh that are already finished and to a lesser extent the Noise Marines. For the Daemon Princess, I swapped the pink skin and black armor for each other because I am better at painting black than the weird pink that the Slaanesh minis have on them. I decided to keep that theme going as this would have been a LOT of pink skin to paint. 

Finished - Mega Armored Nob

I had a metal Meganob spare and decided to bang him out as a side project in the same colors as my Geoff Flash Gitz. My idea for the Nobz and Meganobz is to have them drawn from the biggest and baddest of all the Ork Klans. To that end, their color schemes are going to be all over the place. I am going to try to paint up a Nob for each unit if appropriate or a Meganob. Unfortunately, I only had the one Meganob to experiment on. I need to trade for some on Bartertown, but few people are trafficking in them. Those that are often offer incomplete minis which is no good for me. 

The plastic box is amazing but utterly insanely priced at $63 for 3 minis. Even at the standard 20-25% off retail plus shipping, that particular box is priced outside of my reach. 

Since it is going to be a while before another Meganob is Finished, I will have to value it. To replace the mini is a challenging prospect. eBay prices run $15 to and insane $25. I think that if I was patient that I could replace them for $15 each. The paint job is simple but worth $20 for me. I had to supply an extra bit from the Nob sprue because he was missing the Iron Gob. That is worth $5 to me for a total trade/replacement value of $40 for this mini.