Painting Mojo

I spent a large portion of yesterday building a tau army. This means very little painting was done, but loads of drill work instead. After my 100th magnet I decided to try out some grey primer. Rather than waste a 40k mini, I picked up a bunch of random fantasy dudes from my bits box. Since orcs are basically fantasy I tossed one of them in as well. What did I learn?

1. Just like priming with white, grey requires me to relearn my paint recipes.
2. Washes do not instantly shade the way they do over a white base coat. Unlike white basing, grey requires build up of lights rather than building down to shadow. For me this means I use more paint. More Paint=Bad.
3. I would much prefer a very light grey or white base coat to the Armory Gray Primer I used.
4. Some days painting mojo just fails!

Since I am determined to get some work in today I also tried to produce snow bases again. This is my third attempt at this. Like before I think I am close, but the bases do not feel right to me. I think the base looks better without the snow effects. I am looking for some dark bases to tie into my Tau army, which is leaning towards a turquoise, bone, dark grey color scheme. Sept markings will be bright orange. On the other scale of things, I feel like a white base coat, airbrush of blood red, some orange highlights and lots of battle damage might be better.

Tyranids

So it is my birthday tomorrow, and on a whim I purchased a macro lens for my cannon XSI. This is my first time using it, so I took some shots of my WIP nids. I have 16 of these little guys painted up and ready for basing. The carnifex still needs his bone treatment but I could not resist a photo. My mycetic spore got some blood painted on just to see if I could do it. I am going to have to do a better job painting now that all of the flaws are so readily apparent. This camera might do wonders to my technique!

What do you do with randomly painted bits?

I have lots of projects that I would like to finish, but sometimes I paint things for no reason at all. The purple and gold shoulder pads, or the turquoise beaky marine bits are good examples of this. The auspex I might put in some future marine's hand, but these painting experiments are starting to accumulate in little piles around my painting area. What do other people do with all of this futuristic detritus?

The latest experiments started out as a way to try out some reaper paints I recently purchased. Quick paint samples turned into involved weathering. Unexpectedly, the turquoise bits are really evoking chapter building tendencies in me. I imagine them as abandoned armor recovered by some non astartes and hidden away in some collection. I am tempted to derail my hobby plans and paint up a full set of these guys. I really like how these weathered bits look. I can see a quartered chapter symbol with polaris in the top left and the the ultra-marines symbol in the bottom right. I imagine these would look good with dirt colored powders on their lower legs, simulating dust and toning down the weathering. Does it seem silly to anyone else to spawn a whole chapter based on one backpack, and a beaky head with a stripe? Am I just experiencing tyranid burn out?

Mycetic Spore WIP PT2

So I thought I would try a quick paint job on this guy to see if I am going the right direction. using Ron's advice to use different primer for different jobs I decided to use all the primers I had in one go!

the green stuff work is bad, but I am kind of digging the purple eggplant like coloring. In a worst case scenario, I can at least bring this to the game and not be fielding unpainted models. since the game is an unlimited tyranids pt game, I was thinking of tooling up a hive tyrant with everything possible and dropping him into the imperial lines.

Mycetic Spore WIP

So I picked up some craft supplies and decided to make some mycetic spores so I can surprise the local GW on the big tyranid battle this saturday. The thing is......basically I should have just bought a couple of gourds and called it a day. It is totally clear to me how un-talented with green stuff I am. I think the gourd-like spore thing is kind of fun, but kneading that green stuff was just painful. I wonder if I should have just used clay like my wife suggested.

I think this thing will be kind of fun when it is painted.

Tyranids Batch Painting WIP

So I decided to batch paint 16 hormogaunts, two biovores, a lictor, and some kind of brain bug this weekend. Deal lord the are so many more to paint! I am not sure if I should bother to strip any more of the old models now. I really do not like the zoanthrope, the biovores are passable, and the lictor is ok, but really do I need these old models? Does anyone like the old models? I painted up a Carnifex yesterday, and think it is vastly superior to the old metal model I have.

I tried to magnetize the carnifex using a dremel.....the result was molten goo that easily accepted the magnets. It could have easily gone the other way though, so I will not do it again!

oh the batch painting blues....ugggh!

Warpstone Challenge Winner!

It was a complete surprise that I as even entered in the competition, seeing as though I painted the store model! The store manager presented me with the trophy and the model, which was incredibly nice. I am really honored to have won. Naturally I am now planning on batch painting a bunch of bugs to match this guy, which will give me more opportunity to go wild with dead ultra-marines! I'd like to add some tau corpses as well, so I can test some color schemes.

Ravenwing Land speeder progress

I am really enjoying these models. I have done a first pass painting the weapons, and have added a few decals prior to some more washing. My plan is to put some more orange/rust colored washes on them so the troops stand out from the vehicles. Overall I think the sponge technique is my favorite new painting technique of the past year.

I still haven't decided how to paint the drivers, or even built up the top torsos yet. Would it look weird for the Master of the Ravenwing to be brandishing a DA sword while ostensibly driving a flying vehicle?

I wonder if I should go back and sponge some chainmail chips onto all of my bikes now. If I followed it with some orange/brown washing it might make the bikes fit in a little better. Has anyone else changed painting styles mid unit as quickly as this?