Posted 10:34 AM by Tim
More news from the world of miniatures. I ended up with an extra Necron. Guy picked it up for me, and I said "I can have this painted in a half hour if I can get ahold of some paint." And I did.

Now, there's a bit of a story here. See, the local store has a fairly random - but good - selection of second hand models. They're pretty good about keeping their selection up to date and only getting good stuff, but they occasionally get some pretty mangled models. So, when I buy stuff from there, I've learned to check the models out pretty thoroughly to make sure they're put together well, etc.

Anyway, when I was originally looking at the Necrons, they had about 16 of them. 3 broken in one way or another (all on their guns), and 13 good ones. Now, I wanted to get all of them, but didn't have the cash to swing that. So I settled for getting 10, since 10 is the minimum size for a playable squad. So... I took a look at the 13 and picked the 10 best. Well, 9 best, and one really messed up guy who was apparently trying to look at the ground and shoot birds out of the air at the same time. I only took that guy because I figured I could snap his arms from their sockets and glue them back into a proper position (I did, and he looks fine now).

The other three I left in the store were all complete, but also had visual poses that were really odd. And they weren't things I'd probably be able to fix. I think 2 of them had odd spinal problems (backs arched backwards instead of standing straight or leaning forward), and the other one was fine except for his head. He was looking up. Not straight up, but up in a "wow, aren't the clouds pretty?" kind of way. A distracted Necron. Not the most threatening force if some of them can be enticed to stare into the distance by pretty colours.

Well, that just happens to be the guy I got last night. The lost Necron. I didn't bother trying to fix his head. I assume that maybe, he's watching for the Space Marine drop pods or something.

Oh yeah, the 'cron Lord I painted broke as soon as someone else touched him. I'd drilled out his flight base in an effort to keep from having to fix it all the time. Guess that plan wasn't really a good one. He's fixed again, but I think I'm going to have to take more drastic action. Still, having an army that is slowly (and with my cashflow, it will stay slow) growing, yet also being fully painted is nice. Very nice. Encourages me to get the rest of the armies done.

Now.... in a side note, I'm extending my no-buying policy for a while, even though I've got the 'crons done. I can't afford the cash to keep up with the hobby past maybe buying more paint or my own can of sealant. That stuff is getting a lot of use out of me lately.

Tonight's painting plans are simple and quick. Touchups to the 400 point force, and then sealing. I want to finish them tonight. Oh, last thing, looks like the boyz just might get their models done too. If I can get the IG guy to paint, and the Ultra guy to do at least a marine a day, they should both make it for games in early October.

Posted 10:28 AM by Tim
The Commissar is done. Or at least, done enough to make it so that anything I added to it would be excess. In an odd form of payment, the guy provided me with a Necron Lord model to enhance my fledgling Necron army (I bought that one unit of 'cron Warriors on impulse, and now! I've got a partial army...).

So, given that I already own Dark Eldar, Imperial Guard and Sisters of Battle forces that are largely (if not almost entirely) unpainted, and that I've owned forces (for brief periods) that didn't quite get finished being painted, I've made it a point to not let any Necron model sit unpainted for longer than a day. The Warriors I did the day I got them. The next day, I dug up the Immortal, and though he had been technically sitting for years, I had him done by nightfall.

Two Scarab bases and the Necron Lord came next. The Scarabs were easy to do and were done in a flash. The Lord waited a day before the work started. He's even gotten a mild conversion (double adjustment to his Warscythe). This is the first army I've ever managed to keep up painting and purchasing. It's a good feeling. Now I just need to save for a month or so to buy a second unit of Necron Warriors.

Posted 12:37 PM by Tim
The Commissar continues. I ended up with less time overall for working on him than I wanted, but that seems to have worked to my advantage in the long run. Making fabric isn't easy, and I'm not sure it's something I'm any good at. It looks like most of my big plans for the cape are giong to have to be scrapped, since I'm just not very good at it. I'm going to have to make a couple of adjustments here and there to make it look even reasonable in my opinion. Ah well, my mistake for not mixing the green stuff like I was thinking (more blue for harder dried stuff), so now I'm going to have to compensate with a hard layer tonight, and hopefully with a goodly bit of heavy cured softer stuff for the trim.

My camera is annoying too. It eats batteries. I've tried to take a few pictures, but it won't save them. It'll take the pic, but the memory kills the batteries too quick and the pic doesn't get saved in the end. Quite annoying. Hopefully, I'll have some better pics tonight so I can show the guy who's getting the model. He won't be by today though, likely, but I might be over there tomorrow to drop the mini off. I want to finish that cape tonight (just got smoothing, some extra shaping, definition, trim and so forth to do).

Last little bit. Tiny details are freaking tough to do! They need tiny tools which I just don't have! Grr... I'll get it though. I'll change my plans a little, but it'll be done and it'll look good!

Posted 9:54 AM by Tim
This morning I just had to get a few more bits of the Commissar done. There's a practical reason for it, not just because I like sculpting so much. I added the left epaulet, and the power cell hose to the power fist. With both of those things modeled, it's pretty apparent which way the cape is going to have to hang now. I'll have to lean over to the right pretty far (the bolt pistol hand side), since the arm join on the right is pretty bad, and the power cell hose is on the left. I do want to show that detail off... so, I'm forced to deal with a strong wind from the left.

In other news, I finished off the flocking on the DE models. I now have 400 points of painted and flocked minis. Yay! I'll be doing some last touchup painting tonight to make sure they're 100% ready for sealant.

Posted 9:49 PM by Tim
More updates! This is becomming a really good project blog place for me. :)

Ok. More work on the commissar sculpt. I had a couple of incidents of me being too smart for myself and having to do work over... I'll cover them as we go.

One thing I noticed from yesterday's work was that the left knee pad was slightly larger than the right. I took a very very tiny bit of green stuff and bulked that out just a smidge. I then went to work on the boots.

Now, normally, I wouldn't bother with the boots at all (I didn't for mine, and well, that's "normally"). But, I know the guy is modeling his colour scheme after the Canadian military, and Canadian military have very distinctive boot styles. I wanted to duplicate that. They're not too hard, just an extra layer on the toes and the heels (lightly sculpted) and the look is carried forward.

I added a tiny bit of something between the front and side plates. This, to me, gives the armour something to latch on to, to keep it whole and actually on the body. It's my concession to that idea, anyway. Then, I added the butt plate. It took me two tries to get it the right size, and sculpting it wasn't too bad. That's when the first mistake came up. While doing the butt plate, I had pressed the model against my fingers, and wrecked the very tiny and very careful work I'd done on the kneepad. I had to re-do it. Very irritating.

I noticed a couple of rather insignificant imperfections in the eveness of the lower chest plate, so I patched it, and then added a small bit of armour detailing to it (to match my own Commissar's armour - they'll look like they had standard kit, more or less). I then added the upper chest piece.

Now, the orignal chest plate (which I'd be covering) is a band of metal, with two pectoral plates on top. I wanted to replicate that look, so I knew I'd be doing some interesting indenting and sculpting. My new dental tools made this soooo much easier. The only thing I'm lamenting is a dental pick for doing tiny detail carving.

Ok. After I got the chest plate on, I went to the back of the model again. I was pretty much stuck handling the model by the base and arms now. I added a lower back plate, to match the lower chest plate, and then, a power cell plate above that to cover the upper back entirely. The last of the horribly unsightly miniature was covered. Only good looking miniature was left.

This is where mistake #2 came in. Remember the detail I'd added to the lower chest plate? Well, I'd squashed it. So I had to push the stuff around again and re-form it. It meant making sure I didn't touch anything I'd worked on now.

I then tackled the arms. The left arm has the power fist on it, and a heavy marine-style armour. I'm not sure if I want to cover that or not, so for tonight, I've left it. I think I might convert the elbow pad into something a little more square though.

On the right arm, he's just got cloth. He needed a heavier elbow pad, so I made him one. It's important to make the elbow pad similar to the knee pad. They're supposed to be part of the same armour, so it'd look odd for them to be too different. It also needed to face more or less downwards, since that's the direction the elbow would point if he bent his arm.

Then, the fist concession to him being an actual commissar. The right epaulet. The epaulet is pretty easy to make really. First, you put a block of green stuff down, then you give that block a hat. The hat you leave pretty much alone, as long as it flows with the curve of the shoulder pad. The block under the hat, you notch a lot to look like tassles. This gives the full effect of a nice, fancy epaulet. I'm not worried about matching it up to the rest of the body on this mini, because I'll be putting at least part of the cape over it.

I'm still working out the details of how the cape will rest on the model, and just what exactly it will look like in the end... but I've lots and lots of ideas.

Now, you may be wondering... why go to all the trouble of sculpting the back armour and power cell if you're going to cover it all up with a cape? Well, I'm not 100% sure what's going to be covered, and what's not. Wouldn't it be more difficult to try to shove those details under the cape later on? I think so. Besides, this way gives the cape a real, true flow. It's going to look like it's sitting on top of the other armour and power cell because it really will have to sit on top of them. :P

I'll have to find a way to put pictures up at some point. There's got to be some place I can store 'em. Maybe I'll look into photobucket...

Posted 11:27 PM by Tim
I started the Commissar tonight. Here's the overall plan:

I'm starting with an assembled, plastic Cadian officer. Got the officer hat, a bolt pistol and a power fist. The fist is probably from one of the plastic Space Marine boxes, and the bolt pistol has been modified slightly to add a scope, and it looks like it probably came from the other Space Marine arm. The Commissar is glued down to his base too, so I have to work around that also.

What I'm going to be adding with green stuff is enough detail to make him look like a Commissar, and all the outfitted wargear. This, to me, means adding epaulets over the existing shoulderpads, and making them look the way they're supposed to. There's also going to be a couple of added skulls and such here and there to make him look particularily bad ass.

There aren't many wargear options on him that aren't already present. The only thing he's missing is Carapace Armour. That's easy enough to do, I just need to add something that looks more or less like Karsakin armour to him. That means knee and elbow pads, heavier chest and back plates, and a set of plates covering the upper legs.

I'll be looking to make the already quite visible power fist into something a little more impressive, and adding additional detailing on the carapace armour.

The owner of the model has requested that I add on a cloak instead of a great coat. I think I can do that. I've got plans for it, but I'll have to try a couple things out before I get a good idea of just what it'll look like in the end. Likely, it'll end up covering over most of the back armour I'll be sculpting, which is probably for the best anyway... the current model's back is severely mangled, and even filling it over is probably going to leave it messy. The cloak covering it will totally obsure it, and leave me to just making it one smooth area instead of really needing to sculpt the details onto it.

Lastly, there's just a couple of detail things which will be added on by me for purely aesthetic reasons. I won't even bother to list them here, but I hope they'll show up on the model well. Likely, they'll be the super tiny details that only I'd notice..... but we'll see if the boys will find them.

Anyway, progress for tonight... I got the knee pads on. One is just a smidge larger than the other, but I might let that slide, since they both look pretty good. I knew I wanted to start with these, since they'd be hard to do right after I started working on the cloak.

I mixed way too much green stuff, so I also prepped those bases that needed it for the Dark Eldar, and flocked three of my five guys that didn't need the green stuff. With the rest of the stuff, I put on one of my tiny details, and added the side and front leg panels. I also put the first chest plate on.

I'm leaving the model to cure all until tomorrow night, when I'll be working on the rest of the chest plates, the butt plate, back, and probably a few more of the details.

With some luck, I'll get this done this week.

Posted 1:59 PM by Tim
I've finally gotten ahold of the spray primer. Yay!

Tonight I plan to do some touching up of the Necrons, and some green stuff and flocking work. If there's enough daylight (or temperatures remain good), then they'll be hit with the sealant.

I've made a rather odd trade of models. I get an IG rocket, plus loader, and a female IG (for use in my sisters force or the Penal Legion) in exchange for a green-stuff makeover of a guardsman into a carapace armoured Commissar. I think I need to pick up a few new tools....I know a place that sells dental equipment, and I've been meaning to pick a few up so I can work on my conversions with a little more accuracy.

The commissar work is moving up the hierarchy of things to do, but the work will be interspersed with my painting. After all, I can only do so much green-stuff modeling at a time before there's too much likelihood of making a mess of the rest of it.

He's given me carte blance, but also a couple guidelines to keep me on track. He wants it to look like a Commissar, and he'd like a cape or something similar. When I did mine, I gave him a great coat - but I think cape will really stand out. I've got big plans.... Remind me to get some batteries for the digicam too... a few in progress pictures will be nice I think.

Posted 12:51 PM by Tim
All I need is a little flock.... and then the necrons will be done. The single Necron Immortal I have is all that's holding me back. I did manage to get the paint on it in an acceptable tabletop fashion. It fits into the army ok, but not as nicely as I would have liked. I doubt I'll ever have more than a tiny, tiny force if I expand them at all. After all, what's the point, right? No sense in collecting a huge "for fun" force.

Maybe 500 points or something, and call that done.

I may be playing tonight. If so, I'll put the results up. If not, I am at least stealing the sealant tonight so I can finally get those models done!

Posted 10:57 AM by Tim
If you don't know me (or haven't read very far into my blog yet), then you need to be told how much of a big gamer I am. I love games. I like playing them, I like reading about them, I like thinking about them. I am a gamer.

The current top interest game is Warhammer 40K. It's waxed and waned over time, but as long as I've got minis, I'll probably have some interest in painting, converting and playing. My trouble is, I see all the cool armies out there, and I just want to find out about, and probably play all of 'em. I'm exactly the person Games Workshop dreams about during their "me time."

Anyhow, I've always had a soft spot for certain armies. Dark Eldar and Dark Elves were my starting forces, and they're still my first love. They have such great themes and story potential. That's the bit I like most, the story behind the armies.

I also own some Imperial Guard, Witchhunters, and a small contingent of Space Marines (to be be turned into something eventually). I also own single models (or not more than three) of Tyranids, Necrons and Slaaneshi Chaos.

In the past I have owned (and later sold) Eldar, Tau and more Space Marines.

As it stands, I've probably owned at least one model of every 40K army that's interested me. So... it should have been no surprise when I went out looking for second hand minis for some Harlequin conversions, and came back instead with 6 old-style Eldar (who can work as Harlequins), and 10 Necron Warriors.

Now, just owning the models isn't an issue in itself. It's the fact that none of the models were painted. No paint means I'll eventually have to paint them. I'm not known for having hours and hours of free painting time. Adding on 16 models (yep, 10 warriors and 6 Harls), could easily translate into weeks of time. Assuming I start on them at all.

Well, as a sort of punishment to myself, I decided that I would not paint or buy anything else for any army until I had those 10 Necrons painted. Painted and done. So, last night, I focused on getting the paints out and just working assembly-line style on those little buggers. It took me from about 7 till 2 to get them all done, but they are totally finished. I have 10 tabletop quality Necron Warriors staring back at me from my Dark Eldar shelf. They look cool.

Now, I've got a hankering to find the other Necron I own (update: I've found it. It was in amongst my bitz, and he's whole and complete - yay!) and paint him up in the same scheme. Ok. That's the modified plan. I've included him in the other Necron purchase, so I can't paint or buy anything else until he's done too.

FYI, the colour scheme is pretty straightforward. Bodies start with a Chaos Black basecoat. Boltgun Metal is brushed on over that on all joints, ribcage, fingers and the back of the skull. Armour plates (shoulders, arms, legs, hand plates and feet) are done in Ultramarines Blue. The skull plates are touched up with Chaos Black to ensure they're dark, then Blood Red is painted into the eyes, and also put onto the smooth gauss rifle cable. Skull White is applied in a heavy drybrush over the skull plate to make it look very white, but also retain it's skull-like shading. This looks very cool with the red eyes. Goblin Green is applied to the end of the rifle barrels, and also to the pre-fire chamber of the weapon. It's a very close match for the green plastic rods of the rifles. Ice Blue is used on the other rifle cable, and Shining Gold is done on the center chest plate (that's the sternum, BTW). The last bit is a Codex Grey drybrush on the bases (flocked in model railroad ballast), to make the ground look dead and lifeless like them. The overall effect is very nice.

So. I've got this one mini to paint (hopefully today), and then, I'm all set.

Posted 1:47 PM by Tim
I bought a Dark Eldar codex today. Seems a little odd for me to be buying a codex for an army I've owned for years, but I needed one. No, my old one did not wear out - I lost it. Some time back actually.

Anyway, now I have one, and I won't need to rely on Army Builder's item notes (as useful as they are), to tell me what my stuff does. Happy!

Posted 3:47 PM by Tim
I had a plan. It involved me getting all kinds of painting done on those 8 Warriors last night. It didn't happen. I got involved in conversations, then had to field a couple of questions, then had friends drop by for a minute.... not to mention getting home late because I had to pick up some stuff. All in all, everything else hopped onto last night and wanted doing.

I'm gonna be aiming at getting at least the first colour done tonight. If I can't, then I'm not sure when I'll get around to it. Tomorrow night looks out, and well, the weekend seems busy too. I'll get to it.

I wanted to take some pictures of the group at the start, and as they got done in stages... but the camera eats batteries. :( If I can find some cheap ones, I'll look into that.

Posted 2:10 PM by Tim
Waiting about at work, reading 40K articles, looking at converstions and also doing a little bit of actual work, and I'm thinking about getting home and doing those minis up quick. While I'm thinking, I keep getting quick ideas about doing some more green stuff conversion work. I've got a couple nubs of it about, and more than enough reason to try it out.... Just wondering what to do with it.

I think I should put the Commissar model up on the paint block too. No chance of getting him done, but some chance of nabbing a few pics of stuff to tease the guys with. :P

That Commissar is going to get done this month though. I may need to buy some colours...

Also, the Slaanesh guy (who was going to be a Lord but will likely be downgraded to an Aspring Champion) is also slated for doing at some point this month.

I'm starting to build a list, so I'll restrict myself from thinking too far ahead. Here's the deal though:

7 Warriors, 1 Splinter Cannon Warriors - start tonight.
2 Incubi - soon
Commissar Derin - after the Warriors or with them. Whichever.
Slaanesh Aspiring Champion - after the Incubi

That's the list. I figure I can get the lot done by the time the month is out. As long as I start painting soon.

Posted 9:50 AM by Tim
The painting is done. I managed to sit down and get some actual work done last night while chatting with a couple of the guys. So, every model (both new and old lists) is now done. I'm quite pleased. All that's left to do is a little bit of green stuff on the bases to cover holes and such, then flocking and seal. Simple.

So now, the only thing to think about it what to paint next. I could drop the painting habit right away, since there's no longer a need for it, but I've got so many models that are not painted. It just doesn't seem right to leave them that way.

Part of me figures it would be pretty useful (and easy) to paint enough warriors to finish off the Raider Squads. There's only 10 models each, so there'd only need to be 20 painted in total. I'd done 10 before, and added three already, so that really only leaves me with about 7 to paint to have full units ready. Add on an extra Splinter Cannon guy for extra retinue goodness, and I'd be all set. All my Dark Eldar models are based already, so it's just putting colours on. Seems like a solid idea to me.

Let's make that the next project.

Project 2: Round out the Raiders.

7 Warriors - based.
1 Splinter Cannon - based.

Now, at about 30 minutes per model (my average timed speed for Warriors and the scheme I'm using), I should finish the whole lot of them in about 4 hours time. Given my painting time available... that's maybe 4 days. Less if I start them off tonight. Since I'm doing green stuff work tonight, it'll need an evening to cure properly, so I wouldn't be basing until tomorrow night anyway. With a bit of effort tonight and tomorrow I could base the lot of them and not miss out on anything. Sweet.

Posted 11:48 AM by Tim
So yeah, there's not much going on in the world of painting. Nothing done last night. Had planned to get the skin on the biker at least inked. Just couldn't be bothered. Too much staying up late I suppose.

The hope tonight is to get a bit of game on. If that fails, I'm going to do the basing, and possibly get the sealing done in the wee hours.

Posted 9:57 AM by Tim
I tried out the army against the Imperial Guard again. The first encounter I tried to use my firepower to whittle him down to size. It didn't work. First, he's bigger than me, and second, he's got a lot more heavy guns than I have survivable units.

So, second battle (the most recent), I swapped tactics. Use my speed to drop my troops on his head before he has a chance to cripple my units with his firepower. Then, I assault him full force in an attempt to hit and break his flank, then moving across each unit in turn, scattering them as I go. Fair idea, difficult implementation.

A quick recap, just for those interested.

He did the same sort of deployment as before. Long line of troopers taking the entire deployment area. I concentrated all my units in a glob on the right, except for the bikes, who took cover on the left. Opening turn, I hopped everything the full distance forward, but pulled the bikes back slightly (not enough though, since they should have moved cover to cover - silly me being reckless with my men again). The IG focused on the jetbikes, knowing how annoyingly difficult they'd be to break if they hit the lines. I think they didn't consider the Raiders to be a real threat. They can weather the firestorm from them, and I don't think they'd considered the idea of me disembarking and assaulting.

The focused fire of the IG killed all of the jetbikes, but the plamagunners of his stormtroopers fell to their superheated weapon's exhaust gasses. Good for me, bad for him.

On my turn, the Dracon found herself likely to be just shy of being able to get into combat. This was bad for my assault plans, because it would leave my hitting their forces in pieces, rather than as a consolidated push. Both raider squads disembarked, fired wildly but killed nothing, and then assaulted. The assault went well. They killed several, lost none, and broke the IG, sweeping as they went, smashing on into the next nearest unit. As far as my assault plans went, it was textbook. The IG retaliated by throwing every unit into combat against my well-outnumbered forces.

The assault thinking on my side had been for local superiority. At least even numbers of guys, but having mine be a little stronger in combat to give me an edge. It didn't work that way. My 10 were facing some 25 others. The DE tried to fight, but it looks like the assault from last turn had taken the fight out of them. They only killed two. The IG made a solid showing, and tore my guys to bits, killing an entire squad, and squishing half the other. The broken unit held though they got completely mobbed.

The Dracon hopped into the fight, and pretty soon, she found herself completely useless. Her weapons did nothing, and she was cut apart by the IG. The other unit broke and ran. The IG consolidated into it, catching them flat and killing the lot.

Both raiders played hopscotch for a few turns, getting pelted with rockets until the game ran out. In the end, I had one mobile (but weaponless) Raider, versus almost the entire IG starting line.

The loss was less punishing than game 1, though, so I think I'm doing something right.

After this battle (and a draw against Khorne), I decided to make a change to my list. Normally, the idea of painting different units than originally planned would make for bad times for me, not so in this case. Most of my stuff is done, and any swapping would be small.

Anyhow, what I've done is swap out one Raider squad and the Dracon's skyboard for a retinue in a Raider. The actual change in models is that I use my Dracon on foot (I've got one that's been painted a long time), drop the Blaster Warrior and the Sybarite, and pick up an Incubi and a Splinter Cannon Warrior.

This weekend (last night actually), I took a few hours of paint time to chat and hang out with the guys, and painted up the Incubus and Splinter Cannon warrior. All told, I'm at the same spot I was for painting before I did the switch. Cool, eh?

Just that one pesky jetbike pilot left to do, and a little bit of highlighting trim on the bike itself and I'm done the painting. Then, it's flocking, drying time and a blast of the sealant. Then all done. I'll be well ahead of schedule if I can get that done tonight (I'll have to pick up some sealant though).

Posted 10:23 AM by Tim
The army is coming along great. I took some time to work on the jetbikes yesterday and noticed that the one I was working on had a rider with skin. I didn't want two riders like that to work on (skin takes me a while to do), so I swapped a rather nice looking jetbike out for a much sillier looking jetbike with an easier to paint rider. That let me do some quick painting, and get him done. So, there's only the other jetbike rider to do, and I've already started his skin process.

I had some more time yesterday to paint (my evening of maybe playing with the army fell flat), so I figured I'd finish off the sybarite model. They're not that hard to do really. They don't have any more armour than a regular Warrior, it's just differently shaped. They do have a couple of hooks and bangles, but they're small and simple to do. The main difference is their hair and their close combat weapon. I always think of them as poison blades. I left the blade for last, as I knew they'd be the most difficult.

I wanted to do them similar to how I've done blades in the rest of the force. I've got the other sybarite (blades in several shades of highlighted green), and an Archon model on foot (blade-fist done in shades of blue, highlighted to white). I'd been debating either doing the blades in blue, or in red. I don't have enough shades of green to do wet-blending, which is what I was planning to attempt.

So, I collected my blues and my reds and took a look at them.

Reds went:
Chaos black (not red, but a good foundation)
Dwarf flesh (brown-red)
Scab Red (more red-brown-red)
Red Gore
Blood Red
Fiery Orange
Warlock Purple (a purple-red, but blends in with Fiery Orange to tone it)
Tentacle Pink
Elf Flesh (very light pink-white)
Skull White

Blues went:
Chaos Black (again, good foundation)
Midnight Blue (discontinued colour, almost black)
Regal Blue (the replacement for Midnight Blue)
Ultramarine Blue
Lightning Blue
Ice Blue
Skull White
Hawk Turquoise (too green to be blue really, but could have blended in before Ultramarine Blue)

As you can see, the range for red went much deeper than for blue. Also, I already had a model with blue blades.

Let me tell you, wet blending isn't easy. Keeping each of the colours available, and painting them on with enough water, and in succession is not easy. I had a couple of gaffs I had to fix after the fact too, but I think it worked out in the end. The blades are definately red, and do tone their way up to white at the tips. That's one bit that's been consistent with them all. The blades shade their way up to lighter colours from black, and always end up pure white in the end. I think they look fairly decent, but far from great. Certainly play-worthy. I really need to flock and seal that mini soon, so I don't accidentally rub the paint from the tips with my fingers or during moving. It'd suck to have to repaint them.

Also, though I said I had the jetbikes finished, I took a serious look at them and compared them to the army. That's when I noticed it. On the raiders, the front armour plates are Liche Purple, edged in Warlock Purple. It looks good. But, on the jetbikes, I'd left them just Liche Purple, even though they have similar shapes. It didn't take me long to realize I'd need to edge the jetbikes too just to bring the colours together more. So I did.

Edging is something that really adds to the model's look, but it can be take too far. Not every surface should be edged, but once you start, you sort of feel like needing to do everything. I've kept it limited to just the front armour on the bikes though. I just don't have the time to do the edging on every single Warrior and vehicle surface. Way more time than I want to invest in their painting.

I've still got to do the edging on the last jetbiker, and also do up the skin colours. Once that's done, I'll be able to finish off the model's armour and hair, and it'll be fully done. Then I just need to get ahold of flocking and sealant and I'm all done. The force is so close to being finished, and I'm way ahead of deadline. I'm so happy!

Posted 11:05 AM by Tim
I must be in the mood for painting because the work keeps on going. I got to work on the blaster Warrior, and finished him off (except for basing). That leaves me with rather little left to do on the force as a whole. Horray for me!

Once I get these done, I'm not sure what's next. Either I'll churn a few more Warriors just to get them done and out of the way, or I'll maybe take another look at that Slaaneshi marine champion I've got.

Posted 11:35 PM by Tim
More progress today. Managed to get one of the jetbikes done. Started the more complicated rider of the other biker, and got a second colour onto the Blaster Warrior.

I chatted with one of the other guys about what to do for armies after 40K. I'm just not sure where I'm going, but there's a lot of options. I'd said that if I was going to do a Marine army, it'd be a Lost Legion kind of army. Basically, the legion is made up a rag-tag groups of warp-stranded marines, banded together against their common foe. I'd start small, and try to do each of the marines as seperate, individual conversions. Each one suited for their task and specialized for what they do. Might be interesting, but it's not gonna happen for a long, long time.

Posted 9:05 AM by Tim
A progress update on the status of the painting.

Let's start at the beginning. Here's my 40K in 40 minutes force:

Dracon - with Agonizer, Splinter Pistol, Hellion Skyboard and Plasma Grenades - 73 points

Raider Squad 1 - 121 points
4 Warriors - Splinter Cannon, Blaster
Sybarite - Poison Blades, Splinter Pistol

Raider Squad 4 - 121 points
4 Warriors - Splinter Cannon, Blaster
Sybarite - Poison Blades, Splinter Pistol

3 Jetbikes - blaster - 85 points

Total - 400 points.

Small list, eh? Well, it was mostly painted to start. There had been a bring and battle event some time back at a Games Workshop store. You needed a painted unit to play, so I did up a full Raider Squad. Sybarite, Blaster, Splinter Cannon and Raider with Horrorfex. It did very, very well. The point is, I've got those guys fully painted and based already. So I can use them to kick things off.

I've also had more or less painted raiders and jetbikes for a while now, and I did a Dracon on Jetbike a while back for a painting competition - it was never entered because I had to move.

Anyway, I've got a few finished models.

Here's where things were to start:

Dracon - done, needing minor repairs.

Raider 1 - 90% done.
Sybarite 1 - done.
Blaster Warrior 1 - done.
Splinter Cannon Warrior 1 - done.
2 Warriors - done.

Raider 2 - 90% done.
Sybarite 2 - based ~10% done.
Blaster Warrior 2 - based ~10% done.
Splinter Cannon Warrior 2 - based ~10% done.
2 Warriors - done.

Jetbike with Blaster - needs repair, bike done, rider based.
2 Jetbikes - based ~10% done.

That was the extent of things to start. And I've got until September 30 to finish and base everything.

I had a productive evening last night. I finished both raiders, Splinter Cannon Warrior 2, fixed the Jetbike rider, and put the first colour onto all the based models (except for the jetbike riders - they're fiddly). The Jetbikes need more or this colour, but it takes a few minutes to sort out which parts need what. Last week, I also fixed the Dracon, so she's now 100% again.

Here's where we stand today:

Dracon - done.

Raider 1 - done.
Sybarite 1 - done.
Blaster Warrior 1 - done.
Splinter Cannon Warrior 1 - done.
2 Warriors - done.

Raider 2 - done.
Sybarite 2 - 20% done.
Blaster Warrior 2 - 2% done.
Splinter Cannon Warrior 2 - done.
2 Warriors - done.

Jetbike with Blaster - bike done, rider based.
2 Jetbikes - 20% done.

I'm very happy with the progress so far. Dracon done, Raider Squad 1 done, and Squad 2 has only 2 members needing time to finish them up.

The jetbikes will be (and are always) the longest and most fiddly bits to do. They're annoying to fix and difficult to work on.