Dire Avengers

Experimenting with the Dire Avenger's blue armour. Pretty happy with the result. Did a mordian blue base coat, highlight with 50/50 ice blue and mordian blue, then a washed out ice blue highlight. Finished with asurmen blue wash over the whole armour to tone down the highlights. Plan to add a thin highlight with ice blue to make it pop, but I need steadier hands...

Biel-tan weapon platform

Paint job almost finished, some details left. Need to decide on basing for all units.

Biel-tan Guardian wip

White base coating, Asurmen Blue wash to define recesses. Needs white highlighting and green helmet + details.

Captain Flair

Done! My Assault on Black Reach captain is finally not just a black boring blob on the battlefield, but rather a feast of red, white, blue and gold. Power weapons also benefit hugely from being properly painted, since they are so important in heated assault battles.

I realized during the final detailing that I need to get myself a decent black pen to do banner texts with. Freehanding with a detail brush just won't cut it - I don't have the skills. I have done some lettering with a brush, but not this small. That is why the model is missing the "ULTRA" text on the banner.

Back out of chaos black

Fellow dads (and non-dads)!

Sorry for my lack of pen-and-camera wielding lately. I blame the flu actually, persistent headaches takes the fun and relaxation out of painting, but this is my first night without painkillers, so here is a mini update for your WIP pleasures. If by any chance my painting does not give you any pleasure at all, you may surf elsewhere. Try Hammerit.

My current batch on the painting station:

I try to keep at least one Ork in rotation since it pleases the missus... I have assured her that satisfying amounts of pink will be added at later stages. The captain has been on my todo list way too long now, but I wanted to wait until I had done a couple of models with good results. In my opinion, ones army leaders should be painted with twice the dedication of the grunts! I will leave the banner for last, since I haven't decided on the color scheme yet. The rest of the model is however basecoated now and is ready for washes.

The assault marine is on low prio, since I want to do the whole group at once.

Paint safely,
PD

Apprentice craftsman

The final result of my first stab at terrain crafting is pictured above. Partly a revisit to a previous blog entry, but also some new adventures. I have taught myself a valuable lesson here; to be efficient in terrain crafting from XPS styrofoam I need to procure one of these. The task is a bit too arduous and messy otherwise.

Nevertheless, I am somewhat pleased with the result. Some people have questioned my choice of Stonehenge-like gateway. Does it really fit into the 40k universe? Well, perhaps not. But the shape is quite easy to craft, it has a bit of flair to it and it has interesting LOS characteristics.

Note to self: go for lighter shades of grey when basecoating stone terrain. I did too many dark layers on these ones. One basecoat and two drybrushings should be enough.

Peace out,
Painter Dude

Tabula rasa, part 2

As promised yesterday, here is the second part of my effort to make a lightweight, modular full-sized game table. Hopefully I will either help someone make their own or inspire people who think my version is crap to make an even better one!

After drying overnight, the glue will now have a firm grip on the Citadel Battlemat. Time to trim off the excess fabric. I used scissors, but to get really straight and clean edges I recommend using a scalpel or a sharp carpet knife.

Next up I lined the underside edges with masking tape. The idea here is to keep the styrofoam from chipping off, which it has an annoying tendency to do.

And presto! A finished game table with just a couple of hours of work. It can be laid out over almost any table in either 4'x4' or 4'x6' configurations. I must admit it will be rather sensitive to pressure. But not much of it is sticking out on each side of the table, and rule #1 of my table will be "no elbows". Worst case scenario: I will have to strengthen the boards with thin MDF on the underside.

As you can see on this last picture the game table stacks to a pretty reasonable size, which I plan to tuck away in my man closet when not used. Total cash spent is:
Citadel Battlemat: 25 €
Styrofoam boards: 8 €
750 ml glue bottle: 4 € (only used half of it)
The sum of all ingredients thus comes in under 40 €, which is nice.

Please tell me if you did something better or more clever, I am always interested in seeing cool projects!

Be safe,
PD