Battle Damaged Tau Fire Warrior

I am still not sure what color to paint my fire warriors, so I thought I would try another test mini. This guy got one of the city bases even though he is not painted terribly well. I am thinking of moving to orange all around, with none of the mottled dark red. I am not sure the the battle damage works on a mini this small. I plan to try the wash technique tomorrow, which might work well with these older plastic models.

How about red brick? HDR iPhone Photo

The new iPhone iOS came out today with HDR photos. I had a bunch of minis without bases. I happened to have a bunch of easy to cast molds. You can see where this is going. Basically I have been randomly basing all of the test minis I have. Since at some point I am going to paint up some space wolves, I thought I should find a base color that works with the cool tones of their armor. I am really pleased with the adobe red brick color, and think it might just stick. Add a little dead grass and I think it is a winner.

I am not sure about the quality of the HDR photos. I think my cannon XSI produces better images.

City Kroot

After making all of those stone roadway bases, I had to put them to use. Like most painters, a lonely unit of unbased models waited on my painting desk. In truth I have several units awaiting bases. I've got some Tyranids gaunts that have been partially completed for months now. Rather than waste my new cleaner bases on the kroot, I painted over the resin bases that I had used for color tests. Watered down chardon granite followed by astronomicon grey dry brushing worked out so well it is not one of my favorite painting recipes. Add a sepia wash over the top, followed by careful drybrushing of astro-grey once the wash is dry, and you'll have what I think is a pretty cool color scheme.

So now I have city kroot. I suppose this means I have decided on the basing for the tau army and I should start constructing it. I am pretty excited about this prospect, except for the fact that I have a giant collection of FW stuff to paint. I keep squirreling it away, saving it for the day that I can really paint. It seems like such a waste to not jump feet first into pre-heresy given that I have 50+ pre heresy marines now. Or maybe I should put that titan together, or the death korps of krieg? Let's not forget the grey knight army that is primed and waiting to go, or the voystroyans I have been hording in a basket under my desk.

Perhaps I need to challenge myself by speed painting an army in a month. Maybe I need to finally unearth my unpainted striking scopions and paint some up. After all Path the Warrior was such a good book that I actually like Eldar again. (seriously, go read it!)

Army Painter Primer

So with some ultra cool home made resin bases, I just had to paint up a test mini to put on one of them. Since I painted my sample bases grey, I thought yellow would provide very interesting contrast. My last attempt at yellow was so-so. This time I was armed with Army Painter yellow primer. The miniature turned out ok, but the primer did not cover the grey plastic very well. This encouraged me to keep spraying more of it on, rather than just dealing with a light coat. Once the mini was primed yellow, I started having some problems. For some reason my GW paint would not stick to the paint. The behavior was that of oil and water. I struggled through it, using far more paint than I would have liked. I like to thin my paints and use a lot of washes, which was very difficult to do with this base coat. I think I will stick with white primer and air brushes for base coats going forward.

More Home Made Resin Bases

With what little remains of my resin, I decided to create some city bases for fun. I spent much more time sculpting these than my trench bases, and am starting to get the feel for what works and what does not. I think these would be great for imperial fists. If my Death Korps ends up being warm brown colors, then these could work well as bases for them. What do you guys think? Is the broken pipe part worth having on a base?

I only made two of these molds, so there really isn't much variety right now.

Resin Scenery

Some days I just feel like dry brushing. I cast this neat little scenery bit a while back when I was learning how to make my own stuff. After a disastrous home made wash, I put the model aside and left it sitting forlorn at the edge of my painting area. A little dry brushing of deheneb stone, and it is looking passible. I am considering sculpting my own ruined city apt blocks so the game has a war torn ww2 look. The best part of casting is that I can easily make piles of interesting building rubble.

Is there a piece of scenery that anyone would like to see made? I could make some custom buildings, bridges, or anything else easily cast in a one piece mold. I'd gladly make the best idea.

Imperial Fist Counts As Shrike

I tried my hand at yellow again. I used sunburst yellow over white primer followed by sepia wash, highlighted with bad moon yellow and then given a bath in yellow ink. It did not work as I expected. (I'm also using a camera phone for my photos right now) I chest and knee pads look particularly bad. In person the top of the jump pack looks pretty good, as does the mini from the back. One of the questions you might ask, is why make a counts as shrike for an army you don't have? I have no answer. I just wanted an imperial fist, and I don't have a shrike. I've got to at least try each of the GW transfers once right!

The last photo is of a centaur assault vehicle. I am really excited to paint this up. I am thinking about having my krieg vehicles a minty green color, and let the troops be grey and brown. I think it would look striking on the table.

Painting With Washes

I have loads of stuff I want to post about gamesday 2010, but instead of posting, I have been experimenting with new ways to paint. I've had a demon prince sitting on my painting table for almost a year now, and I decided it would make a good test case for painting with washes. The black armor of the kroot turned out out really nice, so the only real change was figuring out how to blend the blood red wash into the black to the armor transitioned from metal to flesh. I don't know how I feel about the paint job. The sword I just tossed some paint on, and it shows, but the armor is really interesting in person. I love the way the white undercoat+ sepia made the black legion yellow trim look.

I feel like painting a Titan this way....oops.. yep. That's right, I bought a Titan at GD2010. Everyone I know is giving me crap about it. I can't describe it. I have wanted to paint one for ages, and having them so accessible weakened my resolve. Now I have to do it justice. Some combination of masking, and airbrushing is needed. I have an imperial warhound that is just crying out for the forgeworld masterclass treatment. Base colors, plus oil paints, paint chipping, greasy oil stains ect..... going to be loads of fun.

Oh, and just to add a little gamesday blurb.... I dropped one of Lunchbox's miniatures and broke it. Yep, you heard it right. I dropped one of the miniatures from my favorite painter. The weird part of the story is that it took me a good 10 minutes before I connected the real live person and models with the username+photos online. He was so cool, and assured me that it was not a big deal. I'll have to post some photos of his Emperors Storm army. It is simply amazing.

Post games day, I got my ass handed to me by Brother-Captain James at the battle bunker. I brought my Guard army and was solidly squished by his tyrannid army. It was loads of fun. Like all good generals, I blame my failure on my tactical advisor jawaballs. :)