Roboute Guilliman

This is a model I have had for some time now and since it is the holidays I thought would treat my self to something special. Guilliman was easy to assemble and did not consist of too many parts. However, there were once again some effects that was a bit disturbing. I have seen others clean up the sword and remove the flames with good effect so I tried this. It turned out that it was a bit harder than I thought to get the blade smooth afterwards but it is what it is. The brazers were easier to fix as I just skipped them. I also shaved down the jawbones a bit on the head, making it look a bit less cartoonish. I am not sure that this comes across as the neck of the model is still way to broad. It also looks like it is just a mask over a metal skeleton the way the skin wraps over the neck pistons etc.

I did the paint in the same way as the rest of my smurfs, starting out with a deep blue, and adding metallic drybrushing, watered down blues and more metal drybrushing. It is a really fast way of painting and it gives a really nice finish. After this is was just to add some details etc and the main body was done. The back piece and shoulder that is a solid gold got painted separately together with the sword. For the sword I first tried a bold version but it did not look good so I went with a more traditional white metal instead.

The base was really nice to paint. A lot of detail but it worked really well with drybrushing. The fallen chaos marine got a version of pink armor that I really like. If I did not already have to many models I might be tempted to paint a squad of these.

All in all, a quick project, almost speed painting compared to my usuall pace. I hope you like my take on the imperial 40k posterboy.

Varangian feet, WIP

Hello, if there is still any one coming here. I have not been as diligent in updating this blogg lately so I understand if there are not that many of you. This autumn has been though and it has been hard to find time and motivation to paint.
I do however get a sprint in now and then painting the odd figure here and there. One of my big regrets is that I have difficulties making progress on the Varangian. This is a lovely model, and it is fun when I get the time to sit down, but progress is slow as the model is huge and there are tones of detail everywhere, so it is hard to finish anything. But I am sure that I will eventually finish it of. The near goal is to finish the legs and the base. I just need to the toe pistons and attach the legs to the base and the pelvis. Each legs is painted as six different parts, each having the traditional base paint, ink, three layer dry brush, ink, three layer drybrush, sponge weathering and painted brush painted rust. The same goes for the toe pistons and everything else. Then I add the meal work in the same fashion, so it is not so strange that it takes time. Since I am not done with this yet I show some WIP pics to give you some insight to the progress at least.  The toe pistons in the pics still need all the metalwork done. Then there are four more to do.

Well there is not much more to show at the moment.

Ultra Dark Sister

This week has been really productive. Managed to build a bunch of models and get some of them painted. First of was some more primaris Ultra Marines. No to much to say about these guys really. I replicated the paint scheme from before. The models as such are nice but does not leave to much for creativity. But still they are relaxing to paint in their simplicity. Next of was a Sister of Silence. I am really fond of these models as they have more realistic proportions. I which GW would make more models like these. But, I am not to happy with the scale increase. She is actually taller than a 30k space marine. Compared to the primaris she is ok but this new scale of the models really messes with all the old stuff. Next was two legionnaires for the 1st legion. I really like how these turned out. I think the mk3 armor fits them nicely. I used the same recipe as for the rest of my pre-heresy Dark Angels. I am making them a bit more dirty and worn to represent their inability to give up. They just stay in the field until the job is done. No time to polish things if there are enemies still standing. In this way they are a bit like the Death Guard, at least as I see them, just as there seams to be one loyal and one fallen legion of each inclination.

Mortrion, reaper primarch of the Death Guard

Finally finished Mortarion. This model was interesting to paint. There are so many details and a lot of them are hidden behind other parts so you have to paint it un-assembled to get to all of them, or at lest I had to do so. I think the color scheme also worked out. I tried to keep him a bit more muted than the GW paint job. This helps with the realism. I think that since the models (nurgle, death guard) are sculpted with all these tentacles, etc a bright paint job only enhances the cartoonishness of the models. I still maintain that the sculptors should leave the, smoke, flames etc as optional for the models. It is hard with a realistic style of painting when there are fake effects on the model. All the little demons were a pain to paint, very small, and lots of detail and skin tones to paint. And handling the model during assembly and afterwards is tricky to say the least. I have no idea how people are going to transport and play with this with out breaking thing off.
This is not a problem for me as this will go into the display cabinet and probably stay there.

Mortarion WIP 3

This week I managed to get quite a few hours of painting. This meant that I could finish Mortys head and weapons as well as get the small flying demons attached to the main model. I have also started on the wings. These are just at the first pass with drybrushing at this stage so I need to add some more washes/inks and then drybrush again. When doing these big flat areas it is important to take it slow to avoid icing. So far so good. I am looking forward to finishing this model. It has been fun to paint but it is taking a long time and there are perhaps a bit to many details. It is hard to keep the focus up. But I am on the final stages now.

Mortarion WIP2

This week has not be great hobby wise, I only managed to sneak in a few hours on Mortarion. But I managed to finish the main parts of the body so that I could assemble the model and attach it to the base. I think he is coming along nicely. My wife is not a fan of the brown upper coat but changing that now will be very hard. I might try to add some more contrast to it with more highlights and deeper shadows. We will see what happens. Next up is the head and the two flying demons.

Mortarion WIP

This has to be the worst/best model GW has made so far.

Of course I had to pick up the primarch of the death guard as soon as he was released. Not that I am planing a death guard army or so, but with the models in the Dark Imperium box and all I thought it would be nice to paint Mortarion to go with Magnus. But this model is ridiculous in all the detail and flying stuff. In principle you can't build the model before painting unless you have some extra dimensional skills to get into all the recesses and hidden parts.I am struggling with all the detail on this model so I can't imagine what it would be for some one who just want him for games but is not a great painter. The model is expensive enough to make you want to have a decent paint job on him.

Well, to make to most of it I decided to paint him in sub-assemblies and then carefully glue him together. Once I figured out how much I could actually build before painting I needed to decided on a pint scheme. The original colors portrayed on the box looks a bit to cartoonish for me so I wanted to go with something darker. So I decided to go for a bone white armor, similar to what I made for the death guard I painted recently, and then keep the rest of the colors in green and browns. Once I had colored the white of the armor and added rust, slime etc it was no longer bone color but closer to greenish. Well, it looks ok so I will go with it. Next up were the robes. Here I when with a green under coat and leather overcoat with rusted mail in-between. The flames at the bottom of the robes turned green ( I know I have said it before but I will say it again; I wish GW sculptors would stop adding smoke/flames to the models). I was a bit unsure about what to do with all the chains hanging from pieces of cloth from the robes. Either I would attach them from the beginning and cover the joints with green stuff. This would however make it very hard to paint the robes beneath. On the other hand if I left them off I always risk having a color miss match when attaching them and the joints will be visible. Once again I would wish that the sculptors would thing a bit more on the finished model rather how cool it can look in the CAD before cutting it up for casting.Well be that as it may, I will try my best with the models I am given. Once the cloth was painted I started out doing the rusted metals.For the death guard I have decided to do another version of the rusted metals than what I normally do. In this case I wanted it to be a more solid, dry rust layer with just hint of bare metal showing rather than the other way around. I thin k it turned out quite well. All in all I think I managed to keep the palette quite homogeneous. I will add some more point colors in all the small daemons flying around and on the wings.

The base is also an interesting piece. I do not know if is meant to be stones, or some semi organic thing that is filled with bones etc and bursting apart. I choose to portray it as stone...  with some touches of "chaosification". I tried to add some marble veins to the stone but I did not get it to work properly. I thing I would have needed to paint some contrast between the two sides of the veins to make them look more realistic. As it is they are barely visible so I will leave it bee.

Next step is to finish up the details and assemble the body on the base. Then I will get a better picutre of what Mortarion will look like and if I need to change anything (if it is not already to late at that stage).

Varangian WIP; leg

I finally managed to sit down for quite some time today and get some chipping, rust etc done on one of Varangian's legs. It is not done, I need to finish the metals, but then I can mount it to the base. I am however not sure about the chipping, it looks a bit messy in places, but there is so much to paint that it easy to speed up just to get it done and then it is not as crisp as it could be. All in all it is a learning process for me, and most of this will not be too visible in the end.
I like the contrast between the light and dark green, but the chipping and rust on the dark green is not as visible as on the light green. But this is certainly something I will carry over on to the rest of the model.

Once I finish this leg and the other leg I can glue the them together with the pelvis and cut all the pistons to length. Who knows, I might finish the legs to Christmas this year instead of last as I though then. I am seriously in over my head with this model.

Primaris Ultra

Since the last pictures of the Primaris Ultra Marines were a bit smeared and that I got a request for some better pictures I took some new ones.

Varangian pelvis

I have just finished (almost) painting the first piece of the Varangian exterior. For this piece I had to try out the weathering and shipping that I will use for the whole titan. As I was not sure how it would look, since I normally do this on smaller models, I started with the pelvis, as this will mostly be hidden any way. I have painted the shipping in several sessions trying some different techniques. The upper rim was the first and here I tried using brown and orange paints to actually paint some larger rusted areas. In the end I think it looks more like leopard spots than rust. The second part was the dark green areas were I tried to down play this a bit and add some streaking. It did not turnout as well as I hoped. So in the end, for the leg rings and the back I just did some light sponging and orange/rust lining. I think it looks better, not as cartoonish as the painted rust spots. I am still pretty happy with how it looks. There is so much detail on the model that I think less is more in this case.

Now I will give the legs the same treatment so that I can glue them together and pin them.

Death guard etc...

I am still around. Since last I have been doing some random work on some of my projects but have not felt any hobby mojo. I have tried to paint some primaries marines, worked on Varangian and finally done a Death guard.

The primaries marines were painted as Ultra marines to go with Gulliman. For these I tried a variation of the technique that I used for Magnus. As it has become more popular to do shiny metallic paint jobs, especially for the Thousand sons, I though I would try to make them less like smurfs and more gritty. To do this I did a metallic drybrush in four stages of the minis bringing them up to white metal. Then washed them with watered down regular paints, and a light dry brush. This was then topped of with yet another layer of metallic drybrushing. This gives the blues a more blue gray look and bright highlights when subjected to strong lights. In normal lighting they still look like blue marines.













For Varangian I finished the base paint of the legs and pelvis. Now I will start with chipping, weathering etc. This model is so huge that I have to break it sown into sub areas as I can not do every thing in one go. I have also worked a bit on the GS motifs on the shoulders. Here I am really taking it slow so that I do not rush it. It will have to grow as I am getting accustomed to the design and gradually adding detail until it feels right. I do not want to have to remove it and restart!

Finally I painted a Death gurad. With the release of Mortarion coming up I decided that I once again would try get the colors right for the Death gurad. A few years back I test painted a few "normal" chaos marines as death guards but did not really like the colors as they were to much towards the green. I am more into the white of the pre-heresy scheme. So this time I did a bone white base with some green (northern ghost green) detailing. Metals and hoses were done as "pure" rust with a bit of metal showing. The tentacles and fleshy parts were done as pale flesh. Over all I thing it looks much better than my earlier attempts so I think Mortarion will get the same treatment, but perhaps with a bit more color shades.

And I do apologize for the quality of the pictures. I think my battery was low and hence the flares and streaking.