bit of a better shot of the Tomb King

So, deadline time and true to form I'm just going to scrape it, the start of my army.
1 Tomb King & 32 Warriors which due to budgetary restrictions I didn't even have until the 21st but here they are in all their bony glory.

Part 3 and my banner!

Last bit of pictures for a while and to prove that I have painted my whole 2 month project! Clanrats!! These out of all of them took the longest, as they include more colours and rat ogres. So why the rat ogres in the unit?
1. I was inspired by how cool Lizardmen units look with skinks and kroxigor.
2. I initially didn't want them to be a unit in the army, but have since changed my mind but going to make them out of the new minotaurs cos they are cooler.
3. I've been trying to look at how the army and each unit looks as a whole as particularly in fantasy it's more about the many where, more in the case of skaven, whereas in 40k its more about the individual. That's the way I see it anyway. So I wanted to make my units resemble the artwork more, a mass hoard of unruly different sized rats.
What do you think?




























Ok so the banner followed the same principle of massed units and I thought it important to make him look a part of the unit and at the same time more important. Most fundamental though as far as the Battle Standard was concerned is that he isn't right at the front of the unit. Thanks very much for the inspiration Rich, I wouldn't have done it without your previous post.

I know the piuctures are out of order but technology beat me and can't work out how to move them!
When do we score?
Where is everybody as not many have commented in ages?
How do we judge the projects?

Tsk Tsk

Just buying my new models for February on GW online. Get to checkout. "Don't Forget: Top 5 Hobby Supplies You Need... Super Glue £4, Plastic Glue £4, Skull White Spray £5, Chaos Black Spray £5, Citadel Realm of Battle Game Board £150"

CITADEL REALM OF BATTLE GAME BOARD £150????? Hardly what you call an essential hobby supply...

Part 2 The Slaves

So on to the next lot of painting. The next regiment that I painted was the Slaves, simular pricibles all highlights are done with Fortress Grey and again Devlan mud paints all! Though there was something paticualarly gauling about the fact that each slave takes longer to paint than the plague monks but costs less than a third of the points!

It's about time...

OK, so I've commented allot on everyone else achievements, and told you that I've been busy painting my own, but was unable to show you anything, as my camera and my laptop don't get on. Jamie to the rescue he came in my shop and we photographed everything that I've done so far.
But there's quite allot so I thought Id cover it in a cupple of blogs.
With the acception of one base and a single plague monk (yes I only did 19 didn't realise I'd left one out till too late) I've painter my whole project for the first 2 months in the words of Allan Partrige, 'Kiss my face!'

So heare are my plague monks as I painted them first.

Jez Goodwin = LEGEND!!!

Just painting my first Cold One - oh my god! Jez Goodwin, as anyone who's even seen a plastic Space Marine model can attest, is an absolute legend!

Pictures to follow once it's done. You will be impressed, I promise!

February Approaches

Hi there guys.

Has anyone started thinking about next month's painting project yet? If you recall we will have a budget of £30 and the task will be a hero. I will be getting 10 Executioners and an Assassin - should be much easier to finish than my current efforts! I have 9 models painted so far, although nearly everything is built. I should get at least one lot of 4 done this weekend as Fleur is away for most of it, leaving me with 19 Warriors and 5 Cold One Riders. The Cold Ones are looking uber cool (no pictures yet) - really looking forward to painting them although I want to get half of the Warriors done first. Fortunately, with next month (and the month after) being so light on models I should be able to catch up...

How are you all doing? Have Gareth or Flello actually managed to get one single model painted yet? Sam keeps on saying he has but has mysteriously 'lost' the cable for his phone so can't actually back that up with pictures... After the 31st I'll get us all to post up proof of our successes, and we'll all vote on who's standard bearer looks the best. Kee-ee-ee-p dancing, er, I mean, painting!!!

The purple tide...

So have finished the storm vermin for this months goal basically have turned into a painting machine the past few days (helped abit by the snow) but they are looking good and am pleased with how they have turned out. Next months project will be the screaming bell, which these guys will be pushing.... and on that note just wondered about rank configurations... and how you would put/where you would put the bell that these guys would be pushing? (as i'm about to make their movement tray and wanted it to be integrated) Anyway without further ado.....!!

Spears - Zoolander stylie!

No, not Zulu style, as in "Don't throw those bloody spears at me!" but Zoolander, as in Derek Zoolander, creator of the Blue Steel look. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoolander

I thought I'd do a quick tutorial on painting blue steel. When I first thought about this blog I thought it'd be cool to put up tutorials of how we painted or modelled certain things, so we can all learn from each other. Or something...

So, here goes.

Step 1. Base Coat Boltgun Metal

Step 2 Black Ink

Step 3 Mix 2 parts Boltgun Metal to 1 part Regal Blue and apply to most parts of the spear

Step 4 mix 2 parts Chainmail to 1 part Enchanted Blue, applied to slightly less

Step 5 mix 2 parts Mithril Silver to 1 part Ice Blue, becoming more of a highlight

Step 6 mix some white into that colour, and highlight the edges

And finally, step seven, pure white, applied only to the very tips

Flash... Ah-ah!

Has anyone got any good advice on removing flash, specifically from textured areas? It's not too hard to file or cut away the lines down the side of a Space Marine's leg (or, you would have thought, a Dark Elf spear, but I failed on that point a few times) but I'm having real issues getting the flash off properly from my Cold Ones. Because the flash goes down into the textured areas when you drag a modelling knife over it it just misses those bits, and it's quite apparent when you paint the model - check out the hands on my dark elves for an example!

I know I'm being a bit anal (who - me?) but I'm trying to pull out all the stops (or most of them, anyway) on this army and that really starts with the preparation...

Any advice greatly received!

Stand(ard) and deliver!!!

Holla guys.

After seeing Rich's Stormvermin's standard i thought I'd finish my own standard bearer off. After all i might as well get January's entry in early, he is made from various spares from the empire kits and will be my captain with battle standard (using it as the Griffon standard) for in game use. I decided to have a crack at the Ostland Elector Count's (Valmir Von Raukov) personal banner, it's my first attempt at freehand banner painting so any comments & feedback would be ace guys, sorry about the varied quality of pics, i'm using a camera im not used too.....

Any comments welcome!

A x

Now for something completely different!

After over a month of the tale my Woodies haven't really got off the ground.

Every time I sit down to paint them I end up painting Dark Elves instead, so much so that Ive almost finished 1 of my 4 Dark Elves armies!

Thus Im going to regress to a snot nosed kid who swaps and changes his army more times than his underwear and do Dark Elves for the tale.

I mentioned I have 4 different armies; pink elves, warriors (the ones I've almost finished), corsairs and Khainites.

Its the Khainites that I shall be doing for the tale.

Going to be limiting myself quite a lot to keep with the theme but also want a competive army so will be working on a list.

I have done a tester tho. What do you think. Im not sure if the gold works. Any ideas?

Snow = day to paint!

Seeing as I have a massive trek to work each day, and that snow down here has crippled everything I took a day of holiday and thought i'd try and make the most of it. So i've done my standard bearer as Jan's project. He is part of the stormvermin squad that will eventually be pushing my screaming bell... hence the grey seerer emblem being predominant and its also a magic banner too... what do you think ?

looking at it I may cut off the red pouch as it doesn't really serve a purpose, and distracts the eye from the model abit

Snow Elves (plural this time)

Thought I'd show you them ranked up a bit...

Matters of the state....

...so where to start with The Empire then? It was Christmas eve when i decided to take the plunge and do empire, purely because i was chatting to Welsh Tom @ work about Christmas presents, we were both about to have a Christmas in the company of many small children with their mountains of presents, alas i knew i was going to be opening three gifts on Christmas morn, so i wanted to take some models down with me to stem the present frustration. It was then that i gazed upon in, bathed in glorious light, calling out to me to buy it....

...and that brings me onto what Mr Seals asked for, month 1&2 project shall be this glorious box of empire winnage right here. I also have a few bits & bobs from my collection of other Empire models that I'd like to add to it too (as later month projects). Here's some other snaps of what I've been up to in the last couple of weeks...

...the Hellblaster, Great Cannon & Steam Tank were done in the last week just because i wanted to paint some models that weren't 40k, although not strictly my month one project i haddn't considered what was going to be month 1&2 by the time i'd started them, it was post Christmas wind down and i wanted somthing fun to do, my apologies on a breaking of this rule but alas lot and lots of state troops will be painted in the next two weeks (got a week & a bit off before i start squad leader on the 25th!). The pic quality isn't amazing they were hastily took on my phone, gonna get some nice camera pics of the steam tank & cannons later today. Any comments/questions welcome guys!

A x

So it begins...

....evening boyos!

Sorry it took a while but hey i'm here now, I'm really looking forward to contibuting to this exciting hobby project. After some careful deliberation, advice and a calling of emergency braintrust my original army choice of Beasts of Chaos has been dropped, this is chiefly because...

A.) I had no idea what models were going to change in Feb (appart from stupid Warseer speculated hearsay) when the new release drops, so i didn't want to model & paint a fuckload of models to then have to re-do them when they change.
B.) I couldn't get enthused about the prospect of a project with no shiny new models for two months!
C.) And finally..... I can be horrifically indecisive at times when it comes to WFB armies.

....so i decided to choose those stalwart defenders of humanity in the Warhammer World, THE EMPIRE! Huzzah, so over the next few months we'll be following the exploits of Gunther von Fleischer (The Butcher of Ostland) his rise from lowly captain to mighty general of the Empire and the muster of his army.

There were a few thing i wanted out of my Empire army and so these are the main factors of why i chose them over everything else & what i wanted to get out of the whole project.

- I wanted a fun army to play with, as i'm not one for taking an army of a certain competetive build or 'that' army list everyone knows & beards out on.
- After reading Dave Andrews articles in White Dwarf as of late about his Empire army featuring all the crazy conversions and lovely painted models i became instantly inspired.
- A fun painting project, in my opinion all WFB armies look awesome on the table when fully painted but theres somthing (for me) about an Empire army that makes it one of the most impressive armies to behold on the table in it's fully painted glory.
- To own a fully painted WFB army, i have several 40k armies and i just wanted an impressive looking WFB army that i can showcase all the cool painting & conversion ideas i have in this tiny mental brain of mine.
- A steam tank, they're f**king cool, so i want one!!!
- I have alot of empire stuff i can use that is currently un-painted & still on spures & in boxes.

So with this mindset i'm setting out on this journey to collect and paint an awesome Fantasy army i can be very proud of and have a laugh with the other guys in doing so too.

I'll be popping some photos of my exploits from the last month of collecting onto the blog tomorrow morning, but alas i need sleep.

Ciao!

A x

Had a re-think on the shield...

Snow Elves (or Elf, actually)

Ok, finally actually finished a whole model! Not been the most productive of months!!! Not on the hobby front anyway. I have managed to convert an Orc Bloodbowl team which now needs painting for the league I'm starting at The Immortals, but that's no excuse really...

So, here's the first one. What do you think?

I'm not sure how well it comes out but I mixed in blue to the metal colours to represent "Cold" Steel.

I think they're looking a bit too much like High Elves at the minute but the finished article should (hopefully) look suitable evil enough.

Re the shield the very top image is from GW's website and shows the banner design I'll be working with for the army. I couldn't decide whether to have the beams of light on the shield or not - I don't think there's enough room...

Ok, only 31 more to do, plus the Cold Ones...