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. 

Editorial - Why Do I Try So Hard

Just spent about 20 hours painting this Vulkan mini and really stressing over the green armor. I need to try weathering powders so I banged out a set of legs to try them on. Rather than stress over painting the armor in a detailed fashion, I just did a quick dry brush and it turned out really well.

And that is the frustrating part. I spend a lot of time putting paint precisely where I want it and to have a very easy technique so closely approximate all my hard work. It is frustrating to know that there is an easy button out there.

Regardless, this mini is pretty much done except for some details and the weathering powders. 

On The Table - Ultramarines Test Minis.

 At this point I'm going almost a month between poets and that's not really acceptable. My main excuse is that the weather is nice in my lovely wife has motivation to do  work on the exterior  of our home. This is cutting into not only my painting time in but also all of my free time. This means that when I do sit down at my paining table are usually don't have the motivation to paint as furiously as I normally do.

 I still have the Char's Zaku  Commission that is about 1/3 finished, the dark Eldard commission that is about 80% finished and the blood bowl nuns that I only started the test model for.  On the back burner is a commission for some Alpha Legion terminators that the deposit hasn't even been paid. All of this on top of my own work and I'm trying to finish.  There's the deathwatch army to flush out for eighth edition,  there's the demon prince of khorne that is about halfway done,  A librarian on a bike that I paid him for a friend, and now these Ultramarines.

 I don't know if I've mentioned that on this blog but my next army and my fourth power armor army will be Ultramarines.  Before ruining any of the Primaris Marines,  i'm going to work out all the kinks of my painting style on some dark vengeance dark angels that have been rehabbed into loyalist Marines.  I did this by removing all of the raised iconography on the left shoulder pads with a Dremel    After that they were basically generic Marines. I found an awesome blue spray paint  to work as a primer and with a little bit of reading and a few mistakes I think I have a good paint scheme for my Ultra Marines.  I'm not gonna set it down in stone yet because I think there's are still some bugs to work out. 

On The Table - Combi-weapon Bearers

After I had a masterfully-executed Alpha Strike executed against me in my last game against Suitcase Dave, I remembered that I love that kind of crap. Then I started figuring out how many more Marines I would need to give Combi-weapons and I got discouraged. The down side to the Combi-weapons is that is one more Marine that I need to paint and that guy is only good for that things. What is more is that there is no built-in counter for when I use the one-shot weapon.

I used to use pieces of paper to do both but then I worked up these little guys. I used the metal and plastic Watchers in The Dark from the Dark Angels and converted them to hold the Combi-weapons. This way I can put them next to the Marine and remove them once the weapon is used.

The ones that are painted are for the Blood Angels so Deathwatch will need some. I think that I'll just paint them whatever color I want in terms of Bolter and robes just for fun. This way they can be used in the Space Wolves army too. 

Almost Finished - Deathwatch Assault Marines

Three More Marines join the ranks of my third Space Marine army (the first being Blood Angels and the second Space Wolves). These three Marines round out my Assault Squad. From left to right, they are Ultra Marines, Salamanders and Flesh Tearers. I am very happy with how they turned out. I used a lot of tricks to get them to turn out so well from my way of painting black to layering washes to trying to get each color right. There are so many colors on these minis. Usually, I just keep out the paints that I need to work on a single project. Even with that in mind, there are dozens of pots of paint on the painting station right now just for these minis. 

Up next are a Space Wolf and Ultramarine Tactical Marines likely followed by 2-3 other Tactical Marines. I have 5 other dedicated Tactical Marines from a previous project. With the Iron Hands Marine that is already finished, this will give me a solid 10 block of Tactical Marines to draw from. 

Freehand

I just banged this little beauty out free hand. It made me think of the days before custom transfers when, if someone wanted to play a Chapter that was not on the transfer sheet, they would have to free hand each of the Chapter badges. It was such a nightmare. These days you can get transfers printed any way you want. You can even print them at home. 

On The Table Now - More Deathwatch

I really should have just waited to post pictures of the Iron Hands Deathwatch Marine as it finished it right after taking the last pictures. 

I had a bit of hard time getting the minis to fit together. The joints fit together really tight and only in one way. They are not meant to be posed in any way. In the future, I think I will trim off the pegs that fit into the joints.

On The Table Now - Deathwatch Iron Hands

I started work on The Deathwatch: Overkill minis because that is what is attracting my attention over the other projects that I should be finishing. I should just wait to post pics of this mini as it is pretty much finished. 

Army Feature - Trevy the Great's Space Marines

I saw Trevy's army up for grabs on Bartertown. While I was not in a place to drop what he was asking for a fully painted army, I was impressed with his cohesive color scheme, pervasive conversions, his composition, the detail painting and the extra work he did on his basing. It is clear that he put a lot of extra time and effort that he did not have to into this army. The end result looks good on the table.

Now if this were a BoLS Army Showcase, after that paragraph that took 7 min to write, there would be a giant copied and pasted section written by the person that painted the army followed my 5 or 6 pictures posted with no thought, insight or analysis. But that is not how we roll here at TMM. We use effort!

Finished - Gravity-bearer

I finished the second Combi-weapon Bearer so it is officially now a thing. For my second attempt, I chose a Combi-gravity from the Sternguard plastic set. I wish I knew the names for the side-by-side vs the over-under Combi-weapons but I do not. I would love to be consistent with my conversions, but there are a lot more over-under weapons than side-by-side. 

As for painting, I used Agrax Earthshade to shade the robes rather than Sreaphim Sepia which accounts for the differences in color tone. I chose to paint his cute little feet blue to match the Gravity effects. I know that I paint my Plasma weapons blue too, but I don't care. The Gravity weapons are visually distinct from Plasma weapons enough. 

For the value of this mini, I would put it on par with the other Combi-bearer ($30). The conversion work was a lot less than erasing that evil metal helmet with a Dremel. It mainly consisted of clipping off the sword and re-sculpting the mini a little. 

Finished - Plasma-bearer

I banged this little fracker out in a hour or two. My plan is to use him as a counter for Combi-weapons. It is easy enough to know that he stands for a combi-plasma weapon when using it for a lone IC but you may ask, "How will you know which model carries the Combi-weapon in a mixed unit?" I will tell you that I'll keep him in base to base with that model. That way he will not only denote which model has the combi-weapon, but which if he still has the one-shot use left in him.

The only difficult part will be remembering to roll for a bolter rather than a storm bolter after the combi-weapon has been used. That is really only applicable in a unit composed of Storm Bolters and units composed mostly Bolters will not have any change in their utility regardless of how many combi-weapons are involved.

In the end, I am avery happy with how this mini turned out. I like that I will not have to convert and model a combi-plasma for every mini I own and that I now have a counter for the minis that do have combi-weapons.

I think this is the first mini that is not only painted to a table-top quality but is designed to be viewed from arms length. Up close, this mini does not look so great. But put it at arms-length and it looks awesome. This is a new thing for me as I usually paint minis that look good up close but just ok on the table. I am not sure how I feel about this.

It is hard to value this mini. The Watcher In The Dark mini is kind of hard to get a hold of as the only way to get it was with Azriel who is discontinued in metal. Granted, he was around for ages so there is a fair number of these loose minis floating around in the secondary market. A quick search for completed auctions on eBay says these minis go for $2-$8 with the plastic ones going for $2-$4. The paint job is a 5 of 10 for me so it is hard to charge more than $10 for it. What took forever is the conversion and getting the bits. The conversion work took some lengthy and delicate Dremel work that I value at about $10 because it took 2 solid hours. The bit is hard to value because it is not readily available. with some luck, it might cost $2-$8 to replace it.

Final total using averages, this mini comes in at about $30 which is about what I would let it go for in trade. That would get me a small box of infantry which I feel is fair considering how many times I ripped my thumb open with the Dremel. 

Finished - librarian, Cassius and Inquisitor

 

Step by Step - Blood Angles

"My other arm is over THERE!"

My other two step-by-step articles seem to be pretty popular, so I decided to try another one. This time around, I am going to tackle something that I am a bit of an expert on, painting red Marines. Blood Angles were my second army that I started in about 2007. I ruined about 50 Marines before I began to figure out how to paint red in a way that I thought looked good. Since then, I have finished a Battle Company plus more  of angry, red, armored killing machines. 

I've made a lot of mistakes and had to learn some hard lessons. What follows is worth about 4 years of worth of painting experience. My way may not be for everyone, but it works for me and produced results that get me compliments every time I take my minis out. 

The basics of how I paint are 1. Basecoat, 2. Wash, 3. Touch up, 4. Hard edge highlighting. There are a few departures from this, but that is essentially it. It sounds really easy but the skill comes in what washes to use and applying them with finesse. If you can't tell from my rants, I am not a fan of dipping or overusing liquid talent like Dev Mud. I prefer skill and precision in my painting. I feel that gives a better result. I am only going to paint these minis once, and to not do my best on each one does a disservice to the minis and my skills. 

Brace yourself, because this is going to be a long long ride. I have a lot to say on the subject of painting so there are going to be a lot of words to read. Don't be daunted! There are some great pearls of wisdom tucked in those walls of text. 

Chaplains on Parade

I have lots of posts on the que to write just now. Here is a preview:

Unfocused Mini-Rant Against GW

This could be a small part of a larger point but I'll start with a point about Whirlwinds and go on rant my ranty rant.

I just figured out why GW decided to make a new kit rather than give a new rule or change a rule to an existing model. It, like everything else lately seems to be, is about money. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but when you put money ahead of the integrity of the game, that is when I have problems with it.

Case in point is the Whirlwind vs the Stalker/Hunter. 

Since rumors of the new Space Marine Codex have circulated, and maybe much before that, there have been further rumors of giving sky fire to Whirlwinds. Seems a very efficient way of updating the SM to 6th and giving them an option for anti-aircraft while preserving the fluff in an Occam's Razor kind of way. This seems reasonable. GW would not have to do anything other than add a line to the Whirlwind's entry. 0.5 seconds of work and then you would increase the sales of whirlwind kits, right?

Finished - Dark Angel Captain

I finished this mini that has been sitting on my painting table for probably a year.  I do not play Dark Angles now and with no plans to start a force. If I ever do it will be a long long time away.

Green is an amazingly easy color to paint. Maybe I am saying that because red so miserable to paint. It shades nicely with black and to make the highlight all you need to do is add a little white to your base color. It covers well even over a black undercoat.

Dark Angels present a specific problem of needing to paint dark, almost black, armor while still making it green and highlighting it. Dark Angel Green goes on ok over a black undercoat but it looks much better over a lighter one. Knarloc Green goes on great over a black coat and DAG looks great over that. After that you can give a sloppy highlight of Snott Green. A black wash darkens everything down and still retains depth and highlighting.

After this, less is more. the more you monkey with things, the worse it looks. Just a little Snott Green on the hard edges and the barest whisper of Goblin Green makes form awesome green armor.

Finished - Shrike and two Sargents

Epic Post - This is not the EMBARGO you are looking for.

I am now the proud owner of GW's new starter box Dark Vengeance. Oddly, this is the first starter set not names for a place or a battle. Equally odd is that this is the first time a named Space Marine Chapter has been featured in a starter box. The last two starter boxes have ostensibly been Ultramarines but there was little detail on the minis to distinguish them from vanilla Marines.

It retails for about $100 which is friggen crazy for a starter set. No parent is going to walk in there and drop that on a child's whim and no gamer has that much to throw around on a new hobby. Bad move  IMHO from the start, GW. $50-$70 would have been a much smarter place to stay.

There is an OMG Limited Edition Pre-Order WTF that is about $10 more and you get is a pretty awesome plastic Interrogator Chaplain. Pretty good deal right? Wrong! You can only get the LE Edition from GW Direct or from your FLGS/CLGS. Unless you have a really cool FLGS that give you a loyalty discount you are really paying $25 for that one mini. Average discount on GW products is 20% because GW sells to independent retailer at 30%-50% off (I can't remember the exact figure) the retail price on the GW website. As a loyalty bonus to people that buy from the store they play in rather GW or the Internets, most stores will give you a little break.

Wishlisting The Right Way

I made a wish list on the GW site for what I think it will take to update some of my armies into 6th. Now we have this Embargo on and I can't buy any of this stuff for 6 months or a year (or Emperor forbid longer). I might sneak one or two under the radar but for the most part, these are tiny metal dreams.

The big change is 6th is flyers. If you do not have one, then you are going to get reamed and hard. I signed up for a flyer for every army that I am preparing to build. Gotta have the Ork Bomma. It is just such a cool model with great rules. I am planning to start Orks at some point. I've collected 3 Blackreach Ork boxes, some bikes, some special characters but still have giant holes to fill. I will have an Ork army and it will have a wicked Bomma in it.

While we are shaking the wishing tree, I wanted not one but two of the gleaming metal peaches of the Storm Tallon gunships. In 5th they were ok but in 6th they are indispensable. Great as a flyer killer and great to harass troops and tanks alike. Also, it is a great model and I don't care what its detractors say. It is cute and deadly and it will RULE THE SKIES!

After Richard stomped the crap out of me with his Veteran Trooper-packed Vendettas, I have lusted after them. I was holding my own with him while they were in reserve but as soon as they came on, in one turn her claimed two objectives and blew up one of my tanks. Valkyries and their Forge World sisters the Vendettas are brutal and, for right now at least, they are a steak at their points cost. I am sure that will change but I have always wanted a small detachment of air cav. Now, with allies, I do not have to start an IG army to have that.

My Necron force is still hanging out in the dark days of 3rd Edition. I have only painted two new models (The Catacomb Command Barge and the Ghost Ark). They are seriously hurting without flyer cover and so I need (not want but frelling NEED) one of their flyers. Night Scythe or Doom Scythe, I do not care. Mostly because I can easily magnetize them or at least i hope I can.

I also put a few vehicles on the wish list for armies that I have not precisely started yet. I have a very small sisters force and have not really decided on my paint scheme. You can only get Immolators and Exorcists from GW Direct these days. Eventual I'll need a ride for my girls to cruse around in and pick up shoot dudes. And the Exorcist is a great model. I need to get the metal versions before they come out with Finecast upgrades that are twice the price and half as good.

Most of the things on the wist least are new shiny things and not very fluffy or just filling gaps in my model collection and army. Just to show you that I am not a giant flaming hypocrit, There is some useless and fluffy stuff on the list too.

I want one of each of the Daemons Troops to go with my ten man Cult Troop CSM squads. Surely there is or will be an Apoclypse formation about having that, but regardless I want my Khorne Beserkers to have some Bloodletter friends. Also, this will challenge me to branch out with my painting.

To bolster my Iron Warriors, I just need some Basilisks. Those giant artillery piece have been a part of the Sons of Perturbo since the dark days. I can't wait to paint them up in metal and caution stripes with some Traitor Guard crawling over them.

Taht's all I have time to blog about for now. No time to finish the links or add pictures so this is going to be a vanilla post with no flash. I'll go to bed with visions of tiny metal angles dancing in my head for now and plot my spending spree.

If you don't hear from me for awhile...

Just got my hands on a bunch of awesome video games. That are likely to soak up lots of the former painting and blogging time so posting may be down for a while. I still owe you an epic post for the big project that I just finished, oh my blog.