Random minis

I have found that I have somewhat of a difficulty to maintain a strict focus on the blog now that I do not have a project running. It was much easier to remember to update the blog with the progress of the week. It was also a way for me to document the progress. Now however I only paint random miniatures without any greater context, not that I don't enjoy it the painting, but documenting painting a single marine and then posting about it becomes some what lame. During the last weeks I have painted some more Desert Eagles, Space Wolves and Scitarii as well as finishing up the Desert Eagles command rhino. But since I am not painting an army it is still random minis. So what I need is a new large project to keep me occupied for some mounts so that I can post about it. I have an idea about building two more knights to join my mechanicum force. I have also seen some Myrmidons based on the Defiler kit so I am tempted to build three of these. I have made a list of parts that are needed and it looks promising. I need 5 Defilers, 2 Sentinels, 1 Phirana, 2 Imperial strong points and 4 hammer head weapons sprues. The cost is about a war hound so It better last at lest 4 mounts. I only have to come up with the funds for this, and order the bits...

Command Rhino

We have finally found our camera again. It had been face down in a field for two weeks, suffering both snow and rain as well as some trampling. Well we brought it in, wiped it down, dried it out and now we can take some pictures again. Apart from this my hobby time the last weeks has gone to other family related activities so I dont really have that much new to show.



I did however get an impulse to make myself a command vehicle for my Desert Eagles. I hade done one a long time ago for my Dark Angels, based on the old rhino model so I started looking through my stach of boxes and lo and behold, I found an old rhino kit that hadnt been to badly raided. So I started to look for more bits and managed to get something together. The bolter racks at the back was not really meant to be there but it was the only peaces that I had that would fit. There is still some work to be done on it but it turned out ok, abit of old school.

Fallen Dark Angel

Once again it has been a few weeks since the last update. This time it is mostly due to us loosing our camera so I have not been able to take any new pictures. Finally I decided to try out my mobile and hope that the inbuilt camera can focus enough on close objects and the light will be enough. Well enough of excuses. So I finished my fallen dark angel demon prince. I am happy with the over all result. The green stuff casting I did for the right arm did not come out as good as I had hoped but the other sculpting is ok. I was inspired by the Horus Heresy novels about the Dark Angels and their sort of medieval night in black armor with white tabard look. So I put a purple surcote beneath a layer of chain mail and a white tabard on top. I also made it torn and worn to represent centuries of warfare. The pose was inspired by another demon prince that I found on line, but instead of a rock under its right leg I made a defeated loyal Dark Angel in purple robes as a foot rest. The arms where also re-positioned to get the swords in front of him so that he could flex his mussels a bit. This is one fallen angel that the interrogator chaplains will have some trouble making repent. As I was working on this guy I got the idea that if roumours are true about the new 40k rule set will containe both Dark Angels and Chaos Marines I have the making of an army of Fallen Dark Angels. But we will se what happens. Now I will paint up some more Space Wolves and then I will go back to the Desert Eagles. And I am also currently saving up to the next large project for my mechanicum army, this project will not be as expensive as the titans but still not sheep, more on the order of one warhound, so it will probably take me some time to get enough funds to by the required components. Well this is it for now, I will be back.

Space Wolves prt2 update

Just a quick update. I just finished a Blood Claw with a jump pack. Originally I used the old GW jumpacks for my blood claws, the ones that looked like they had two fans on the back. I like this look better than the current jump pack with the forward looking intakes. Well I did not have any of the old ones left (but I think FW is doing some no) so I found some jump packs from an independent company (maxmini) at the local hobby store. They are about twice the size of the original and look somewhat over dimnensioned. They are also mounted at an angel compared to the back plate putting them quite high and pointing backwards giving the model a strange balance. So I think I either will have to get some FW jumppacks if I am to do more of this or I will have to re-position the fans on the ones I got or even split them so that each marine only has one fan mounted centered on the back. Other wise I am a bit at a loss about how to get the red and yellow blodclaw pattern to look ok. They tend to be very bright and do not go well together with the dark color scheme of my Space Wolves. Well this is just some trials so I still can make changes to the look. This is it for now.

Space Wolves prt2

After last weeks attempt to paint a Space Wolf I just had to find out if the color scheme and painting technique was good enough to work on "standard miniatures". So I bought a Space Wolf pack and some Wolf Guard terminators. At this point I will just assemble them on an individual basis (disregarding the rules and any unit sizes) and paint them up as either, grey hunters, wolf guard, blood claws or any other space wolf I can think of. I am not building a new army, yet, I am just trying out the colors.

That being said, the models are very well suited for the painting style. There are lots of fine details making drybrushing a simple method of picking them out. And it also means that I don't have to use a blade on them to get some more contrast. The models shown are still work in progress but I thought that I would show them and hopefully get some feed back (not on their legality) but on the color scheme and painting.

Space Wolves

Once again I have been away for the week on work but I managed to get some solid painting time in this week end. This time I am focusing on the Space Wolves. They where my first wh40k army. And as I have said before my painting methods have evolved somewhat sine then. I have always had a lite bit of a problem with the blue withe gray color. In my first attempts I base painted them in shadow gray, then a coat of blue ink. Then some heavy drybrusing, which, sadly enough left a lot of dark blue showing. Well, it was my first attempt to paint an army. The problem is that the whole army is painted this way.

At some point in the past I decided to try another darker scheme. So I took two of the old models and and repained them (seen on the right in the pair pictures of the blood claw and the wolf guard). This time I used a washed out black ink insted of the blue. After some drybrushing and wet blending I got a better, darker color. However, I did keep the original palette of the space wolves as presented in the 90ths codex. Even if the models got a cleaner look they where not that different and still felt a little bit like happy vikings. Then a time back I saw Astorath the grim, I loved the model but could not bring my self to paint a Blood Angel, I am more of a Dark Angel guy (but in rality I am mostly afraid of starting a new army). Well, after reading Dan Abnetts "Prospero Burns" from the Horus Heresy series I got inspired. So I got a finecast version of Astrorath and started to slap on some green stuff to get him in to his wolf state. I then pained him in a dark grey using Shadow grey, badab black, codex grey, fortress grey and space wolves grey. I then pained the ribbed parts in a dark brown to resemble the plated leather mentioned in the novel. I also keep the color palette to the black, brown, yellow and earthy tones. This gave him a much darker look as befits the emperors executioner. I am quite happy with him and I am a bit curious about what a whole squad would look like, so I might have to paint up some more space wolves to see how it turns out, and they have just released some nice new models, so I will have think about this. The last picture is of an old space wolf and a possessed space wolf from my chaos army based on the old palette.

Thunder chick update

 So, a small update on the thunder chick. I have painted the las-cannon tower and some small details. There are still some things to do on it, as it is on the whole army, but that will have to wait until I have decided on the details of the army. I am not sure if the army should just be in a base color or if I should start adding details. Lately I have started to add the imperial eagle in blue...  as a testament to their former loyalty instead of removing it as I did in the beginning. I dont know if it as or subtracts from the idea of the army. Well after this I have the demon prince that I have started to finish up in green stuff and a then I have a surprise. Or if you have been vigilant you might have seen it in earlier photos in this blog...