WIP Ravenwing

I have finally started my RW models for the other half of my dark angels force. I am a little worried about how they are coming along, but I think I am at the phase where I just have to push on, clean up my brush strokes, and get ready for the washes. My plan is to do a few washes of mud and black over the entire model. At the end I am going to take a mud color and air brush it all along the bottoms of the bikes, giving them that covered in grime look. I guess I will just have to wait and see how it goes.

Finished Tyrgon With Ruined Ultra Marines Rhino

I just finished the Tyrgon! I cleaned up the bone, and made some ruined Ultra Marines rhino parts to add to the base. I think the blue does a lot to bring out the orange, purple and green of the Tyrgon itself. I had loads of fun painting this guy, and hope the store lets be keep the thing once their competition is over. I think the GW Manager has lit a fire beneath me now to paint up some Tyrannids! I especially love painting ruined ultra marines stuff. This army would give me the opportunity to paint all kinds of damaged ultra stuff, but without having to start an Ultra Marines Army.

I think I must dust the base with some forge world powders before I take it to the store. A miniature is never done!

A few hints for this model.

1) do not glue it to the base before the base is painted and done. I got this one glued down, and there were a lot of really difficult places to reach.

2) Paint the base coat and all of the scales before glueing it together! I could have produced a much cleaner model if I did not have to content with the finished piece rather than the individual segments.

3) Buy one! This things is just loads of fun to paint.

trygon Part 3

At this point I have dry brushed the shell with a deheneb stone/purple to pull out the edges and cover the areas of purple wash that sat above the joints. I also re-washed the gryphonne sepia into the areas that were missing it from the first go around, and painted in the little orange tail things. I plan to clean up the bone areas to remove areas where washes pooled. I am not sure if I should dry brush the body with a yellow/green mixture to bring out the details, or just leave is a little spotted from the wash. I would like to get this done by this afternoon so I can return it to the store, but that means I have to skimp on the basing. I've got some rhino hatches that could be weathered and placed in the center of the tail. That would bring some sharp metallic into the mix which would provide a nice contrast...so which chapter should be painted on the the ruined vehicle door? I suppose it should be ultra marines, but I could put a wolves symbol on the base in order to not visually pull away from the green.

Painting Trygon Part 2

I could not resist laying down a a coat of paint tonight. I will clean up the spots the wash missed i the morning, and then lighten the green area with a yellowish green. Then I base the sucker and get him back to the store!

Trygon Primed!

In a fit of awesomeness, the local GW Tzar offered to let me paint the store model. This thing is absolutely wicked cool. I plan on using the light green method used on my gene stealer for the soft fleshy parts, and some contrasting color for the bone plates. I was thinking of dark brown, with yellow streaks or a muddy purple with yellow streaks. Orange is kind of appealing to me as well. I may try to Iron Man this tonight and tomorrow so I can take it back to the store. It really comes down to how fast washes dry, and how involved the base should be. I received the model built, but, I think I need to sculpt some undulations onto the base, add reeds, maybe an impaled guards man, or perhaps ruined weathered tank bits. I am really looking forward to this!

Speed Painted Catachans

I decided to try and get one more unit painted before the year ends, but it looks like I will only get half of the squad done. I suppose I could count them as Inquisitional Guard, but that is not really in the spirit of things.

Oh, this would be post number 100!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Dark Angels Green

So after a whirlwind trip to Boston followed by San Diego, I am back home and enjoying the last hours of 2009. Since I do not have a black recipe for RW yet, I decided to give the regular green dark angels a try. DA green is surprisingly difficult. I am really glad I tried a single gunner rather than painting up the whole tac squad needed for my list. The gunners paint job is acceptable but not great. I really need a better recipe before I paint a whole squad.

I noticed that I have 99 posts for the year if I include this one. Maybe I should paint up something else before midnight so I get a nice even 100 posts in!

Speed Basing!

I had not planned to post again this year, since I am traveling and will not be home till the new year, but I could not resist one more. I figure a lot of people out there are speed building armies right now. Since I just sped through a bunch of basing, I thought I should share. This time around I went for a darker look. As usual I started with a bunch of sand, broken tank bits, and little squares of plastic cut with regular old scissors. Once the glue had set I primed the bases black with a lot of primer. Don't skimp here because the paint helps the base stay together. I then took a tank sized drybrush and mixed up some deheneb stone and chaos black to form a dirty grey color. I used this liberally over all of the bases, following up with a very heavy wash of devlan mud. The final part is my favorite technique right now. I use Tamiya Acrylic Thinner X-20A to make a very transparent blazing orange wash. Then just cover each ruined machinery bit and a few random spots with it. It is possible to knock out a whole army's worth of bases in an afternoon if you assembly line the process. I did steal my wife's hairdryer to speed the process along!

Happy basing, and happy holidays!