Achieving Super Bright Highlights

Being a hobby butterfly with a large and diverse collection it's only recently that I've begun to think seriously about the latter stages of painting my models. Although many of my paint jobs have reached what many would consider a 'tabletop standard' I'm really a painter above all else, so I'm constantly experimenting with style and techniques across numerous models. With my efforts to get a completed beastmen herd onto the gaming table I'm now experimenting with super bright highlights and the latter stages of paint jobs (from my own arty-farty perspective).

Something I've always liked is a strong contrast between dark and light. This is something that's employed by miniatures painters with very different styles - the blogger James Wappel is an example of one end of the scale, while John Blanche represents the other end. Using Daler Rowney inks I've been able to achieve a very satisfying range of dark shades. In order to match this with bright highlights I've turned to the Deco Art range of craft paints. The other day I was after a strong pink, so I picked up a pot of Emperor's Children from GW, only to find that it's better described as a light purple - a good colour actually, but not what I was after. A trip to Hobby Craft and the Americana range from Deco Art gave me all I needed. These paints make ideal substitutes for the GW and other ranges - they're inexpensive, well pigmented, AND you get over twice the paint for less of your cash. I know there are some great bright colours available from Game Color, but the prices of these ones is unbeatable. Check back to see how I get on with these paints in the coming weeks as I push forward with my beastmen project. For now though, here's a WIP of one of my warhounds.

Beastlord Tuskgor Chariot WIP, The Lord Of Bones

So I guess with all this painting going on I'd better share some of it! Here's my beastlord tuskgor chariot, which has been a HUGE time-sink so far because it's turned into such a complex and detailed model. The chariot itself is the chaos chariot from GW, while the boars are from the Orc boar boyz set - so much better than the crappy ancient ones. The gor with spear has to go up front. Why? Well that'll be because my beastlord who, as you can see, isn't a GW mini, but is massive. He's Kromac the Ravenous from Hordes in beast form. This guy is such a raw mass of aggression I couldn't resist picking him up a while back and now I think he's ideal for leading a brayherd into battle. In a little homage I'm going to call him The Lord Of Bones.

Star Wars Action Figures You Never Had

These really made me laugh.

Chaos Space Marines Codex PDF An Official Leak? (And A Couple Of Other Thoughts)

So there's a very high quality PDF of the new Chaos Space Marine codex out on the internet. It's clearly a scan of the book and it's been floating around for a few days. Obviously I'm not going to link to it here, but it's pretty easy to find if you can click a mouse... It's a big saving compared to the hefty £30 price tag! (Wink). Talking about this last night in my regular gaming group someone raised the possibility that GW had leaked the codex purposefully so that people spent some of the extra cash of models. An interesting thought.

Other thoughts about the codex? Well on a first glance it looks pretty good and pretty much as expected. I like the way the different powers are represented and the animosity there is between them. Overall it's a boon for players shaping their army around a particular god. Also, Cultists as a troops choice are very useful (for me anyway...) and it's very useful given the contents of Dark Vengeance that a squad can contain both autopistols and autoguns. That means my crossbow toting conversions can be autoguners gained from autopistol models. Handy.

Painting Nomad Seeks Organisation, Must Have GSOH

In an effort to overcome my disorderly nature during this premium month for getting some serious painting done, I've made sure to kick things off with a good sort and tidy of the old paint box. Over the last year or so this got extremely jumbled, just like my mind specifically and life more generally. So some kind of reorganisation was on the cards. I'm what you might call a painting nomad in that, unlike those fortunate enough to have a permanent base for their painting operations, I move mine around constantly as the tides of daily life with two small kids dictate.

I'm not sure how anyone else organises their paints and because the chance of me misplacing then buying the same colour again was almost a reality last week, I enlisted the help of my wife; also known as she-who-knows-about-things. On her advice I have reorganised thusly:

This sort of follows the colour spectrum - with the obvious anomalies of metals and flesh. I've more-or-less phased out metals from my work following the development of a very simple but satisfactory non-metalic-metals approach. More on that as the WIP photos pop up over the coming days and weeks. 

Steampunk Transformers

I found this image over at Will Draw For Fun, the blog of artist Brian Kesinger. Neat idea, don't you think?

More From The 'Say No To 30k' Campaign

Last week I outlined some of my less than positive thoughts about all this Horus Heresy business. A rather more 'hard line' editorial over at Blood Of Kittens makes similar points, but... you know... 'harder'. Here's a snippet:

The new models don't represent Rogue Trader era of my youth, but the Black Library error of the present. It seems like Forge World is relying on the Black Library vision of the Heresy and not the canon of the past... The Horus Heresy will only divide the community that is already pretty small. The Horus Heresy will become the premium game for a game that is already a luxury to begin with... It also divides the pocket-book: many players won't invest in their current armies and instead throw money away on this sub-game. It takes everything that was bad about Apocalypse and multiplies it by ten.

Of Beastmen And Gardening Leave

Today I received the wonderful 'real world' news that I've landed a new job. As I'm virtually at the end of my current fixed contract I can now indulge in some 'gardening leave' while I see out my notice. So it's time for a bit of a painting challenge.

My aim is to fully cultivate 2000 points of my beastmen menagerie during October. This won't cover everything that I've got - a handful of large monsters and characters will be held in reserve - but it will mean that I'll finally have a completed, fully painted, playable force.

Here's the list I'm going to work with:

Lords

Beastlord with additional weapon, heavy armour, on tuskgor chariot

Great Bray Shaman

Core

22 Gors inc. full command + additional weapons

5 Chaos warhounds

10 Centigors inc. Warhoof + full command

Special 

3 Minotaurs inc. Bloodkine + additional weapons

Razorgor

10 Harpies

Rare

Ghorgon 

Jabberslythe

Total
Just a shade under 2000 points

The Realistic/Negative Review Of The New White Dwarf

Most of us will have spent a week with the new White Dwarf so it's time to be realistic about what GW have actually given us... I say given, for the princely sum of £5.50 that is. I think it's fair to say that we all genuinely wanted the new White Dwarf to be a real hobby magazine. Last Saturday I would've said this was what we had now. And although it's certainly more of a hobby mag than in the last incarnation, we really shouldn't fool ourselves. I won't add too much myself, as this review over at Play Unplugged sums up what I'm thinking... to quote...

"It didn’t take long after my purchase for the shine to wear off. Pages 4-51 are not just advertisements in the sense that they are content about the game, they are advertisements in the “Ohhhh… look at this thing we’re selling and here’s where you can buy it way.” Think about that. 48 pages of straight ads. Pretty advertisements for sure, but advertisements non-the-less... That in my mind is where the “new” White Dwarf makes a big misstep. I’m already interested in your products GW. I hate to break it to you, but I wouldn’t be buying your magazine if I wasn’t. Your job is to give me cool reasons to buy more, and tons of front loaded advertisements (at least for me) is not the way."

Follow the link to the full review. In sum: it looks and feels really lovely... but it remains a catalogue. (Sad face). 

That Was The Week That Was #8

This week's roundup captures three aspects of hobby brilliance... in my book at least. That perfect synergy between converting, painting and gaming; a dedication to exploring the fine grain of gaming systems and playability; the raw sculpting excellence that makes sitting down with a new miniature such a joy.

1. Feast your eyes on the incredible Blood Bowl Hall Of Fame at Laughing Ferret's Lab... probably the most inspiring hobby blog page I've ever seen. The Underworld Warp Drivers are one of my favourites:

2. Sink your teeth into an astonishingly detailed discussion of The Lore Of Vampires in The Hoodling's Hole:

3. The brilliant BaneLords and BaneLegions now has a new moniker - DarkLands - and webstore - Mierce Miniatures. I'll be dropping by regularly to drool over their latest releases... simply... wow...

Goblin King Toy From The Hobbit

I just found this picture over at Geek Tyrant - I think it's the first Hobbit movie related mechanise that I've seen. It looks pretty cool to me... maybe a treat for my son at Christmas?! I wonder how GW will deal with this character. Could make for an excellent model...

New Raptors Converted To Regular Chaos Space Marines?

Looking over the new Chaos Space Marine releases I must say that I'm looking forward to them but I'm also disappointed. Why? Well it's because of the lack of any new basic chaos marines. I understand that with the plastic models GW are extremely unlikely to upgrade them frequently due to cost. That leaves us with some absolutely cracking new models - the Dark Vengeance Chosen are wonderful - and some very average normal troops that look tired and dull in comparison. So... what to do? Here's my simple plan, but be warned, it's a pricey one. (...Checks to make sure the wife isn't reading this...). Convert the new Raptors to make basic chaos marines. I've not seen the sprues firsthand but I'm guessing this is possible. Anyone else thinking along these lines?

Converting Dark Vengeance Chaos Cultists, Simple Swaps

Yesterday I de-sprued the Chaos Marine half of two Dark Vengeance boxes, push fitting them together for a sense of tidiness and so I could begin to work out how to convert them. With two sets to work from there are plenty of duplicates. To begin I'm working with the cultists because they're the most straightforward - they can be mixed and matched a bit with what's already there and can take relatively straightforward swaps with a wide range of bits. In my double-box there are eight cultist models with four duplicates each, as well as two each of the cultist leaders and heavy weapon guys. Here are my first three conversions:

1. This cultist usually has an autogun. Here I've swapped in a pistol from one of the other cultists and added a hand/corpse from the crypt ghouls. This chap now fits into the close combat squad, adding variety.

2. This cultist has a new hand weapon from the Empire flagellants. He also has a crossbow. I really like the crossbows that come with the Empire models and I've been itching to use them in 40k to give some figures that mix of archaic weaponry and apparel. Now I have the chance. As crossbows don't appear in the rulebook I can just use them as stand-ins for pistols or autoguns, although this lot with be subs for pistols. I'll think of some fluff reason why the cultists have them and how they work further down the line.   

3. Another crossbow and another swap from the autogun squad into the close combat squad. This guy also needs some greenstuff before he's truly ready. Once I've done a few more of these I'm going to start swapping heads around and moving legs.

The Boring Horus Heresy, OR, Just Say No To 30K

Am I totally out of touch, or is all this hype about the Horus Heresy getting incredibly tiresome already? I just recently read the 'original trilogy' of novels - Horus Rising, False Gods, and Galaxy in Flames - and they were ok as far as pulpy science fantasy goes. Good, well paced reads, and more-or-less instantly forgettable. Cheese, albeit good cheese.

Angron - seriously? Anger-on!? A slice of cheese too far

I just can't work out what all the fuss is about. Obviously Forge World are happily cashing-in on people's interest with a whopping load of 30k models arriving and in the pipeline. Maybe others are just more turned on by clanky looking power armour than I am? Fancy a bit of marine-on-marine action, sir? Step right this way!

Then there's he-of-the-very-silly-name: Angron ("grrrr"). On a baseline level, paying £50 for a Primarch model seems ridiculous when there are so many other great models for the collection and gaming table from the excellent Forge World. Or is it just me?

For those who are really wetting themselves over all this Horus business, I simply say: enjoy! If this is really your thing then have a great time with it all. I'm just being a bit of a naysayer - some of the models look pretty cool. For GW I wonder whether it's really a good idea business wise to introduce what is essentially a different game at a time when they've just brought out a widely celebrated version of 40K. Surely gamers and collectors alike will have limited disposable incomes and this could risk splitting the market? Time will tell I suppose. At least they've made a massive improvement with White Dwarf, so they obviously have some kind of idea what they're doing...

That Was The Week That Was #7

It's the return of my semi-regular weekly-ish round-up (of sorts!). And this week it all seems to be about certain colour tones... very much up my street of painterly interests. 

1. Brent has a fair go at painting ethnic diversity over at BoLS:

2. Dr. Willett is busy painting Space Hulk genestealers:

3. There's a good tutorial on painting pink at From The Warp: