B&C Boxing Day 24-hour painting challenge 2015

So, I took part in the new Boxing Day "Paint anything for your subforum of choice challenge" on Bolter and Chainsword this past day. The brief: Build, Base, and Paint a miniature (or more) in 24 hours. Never one to back down from a challenge (hence my record of failed ones behind me...), I decided to participate.

Despite having an ongoing Mechanicum project and the Iron Hands army going I deciced upon my old Legion of choice: The Blood Angels. Not willing to just rest on my laurels I decided to try out painting this character mainly with Gilding Wax (Rub'n'buff) and washes. Well, wax, washes and some miscellaneous metallic and regular paints.

Mini of choice? The new Blood Angel Chaplain from Games Workshop.

Not being satisfied with him looking like my vision of the (at this point yet unnamed) Praetor of the IX Legion, I decided that he needed some additions to his wargear. A Mk. IV helmet, , a sword and a plasma pistol.. And his 40k-ish Crozius was replaced with an axe. 

Pose mock-up. Sword or plasma pistol to be interchangeable (or other magnetized 1h weapon)

After this a bit of greenstuff work was done (no pictures of this) to remove the Death Company X markings on the knee and right shoulderpad. A bit of work was also done to sort out the axe head that replaced the Crozius mace top.

After priming was done, pewter gilding wax was drybrushed to half of the miniature and the wings of the backpacks. I did really fall in love with this doing my Iron Hands, and there is a liberal use of it on my Mechanicum as well..

Pewter drybrush

The red half below is the work-in-progress redification of the metal armour. Drying Blood Wash from Secret Weapons Miniatures was used for this. The gold and copper colour of the other half of the miniature are Rhulic Gold (Formula P3) and Screaming Bell (Citadel). At this point it really did just look like a mess of metallics.. (I could have used my gold coloured wax for the gold but.. let's blame time constraints shall we?)

The wings got a wash of Secret Weapon Blue Black in the recesses, followed by Secret Weapon Sapphire on the "feathers" themselves, leaving the pewter buffed wax to shine through.

Must say this was a fun project. The time constraints worked in benefit of the project (only painting one miniature for a short holiday challenge did not leech off too much time from writing essays!). 

Behold! Alastor, Lord of the Reborn, Master of the Battlebarge Seraphoi!

Weapon swaps, side-by-side.

Plasma pistol / Power Sword

So, let's have a foursome of pictures of the completed miniature, shall we? Seeing as we had a front-shot or two above, let's go for a spin.

You spin me...

...right round baby...

...right round like a...

...record, baby...

Must say that I could almost see me doing more of this paintscheme...

//Nevindar

ps. Photos taken with my LG G4, not bad if I may say so myself ds.

Mechanicum 1: "Boot them up, Magos. We have located the beacon".

Welcome to the first proper post of my new Mechanicum army (even though the Castellax were, technically, supposed to be for my Iron Hands.....Funny how things can turn out). Feeling inspired again after the post-ETL hobby burnout I can only say.. There will be both minis and some background story!

But.. First thing first, the two Castellax (Castellaxes? Castellaxii?) that I have finished. Colour scheme concepts and basing concepts.

With Multi-Melta and Flamers. Some Magnets Included.

Above is the first one, which might also get used as the "solo"-paragon of metal version of a Castellax.

Better view of the base. Using a slightly less-than-optimal water effect made the base take a tad longer than it should have had to complete.

No magnets included. D'oh

"Go ahead. Touch the wheel. I dare you"

The second one. No magnets, no special fancy rules. Even longer time spent on the base. Ah well!

Both of them have quite a mix of transfers applied. For once I am quite happy with how they turned out. 

Next up: Thallaxii. And tanks. Loads of tanks. Despite starting with Cybernetic walkers... I am going down the path of the Reductor!

//Nevindar, who should spend time to learn how to work his new camera properly.

A bit of ETL, a bit of a new 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100.

New post! First up will be a photo of the entire second ETL pledge, all collected up. Sadly no individual photos of the last three parts of the pledge, including Ferrus Manus himself. Havn't had any time to get some proper photos on those minis. Sadly.

Second on will be photos 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110111 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101010 01100101 01100011 01110100 00101110 00100000 01000001 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110010 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01010010 01101111 01100010 01101111 00101101 01101101 01100101 01101110 00100001*.

Without further ado, bring on the Legion!

Glory to the Iron Tenth! 3000 points of Legion awesomeness!

WIP on a Tech-Thrall for my future Mechanicum force. A kitbash/conversion job. Will do the work,
I think.

WIP concept posing of Thrall

Mid-painting.

"Good enough"

For some reason the semi-OSL on the helmet eyeslit seem to be non-existant on the photo but it is after all only a concept mini. I still have his (at least) nine brothers left to go.

//Nevin of the Deatacita Advanced Research Corporation**


*of my new project. An army of Robo-men!
**No actual corporation affiliation.

Gallery: E Tenebrae Lux, part 2

Welcome to the second installment of the ETL-dedicated gallery posts. This one is a showcase of the second part of my painting pledge for the challenge over at the Bolter and Chainsword forum (Go Age of Darkness subforum woo!). There will be one or two more of these post, not long to go now when it comes to the challenge.

In this post:
1 Praetor Iron Father
1 Consul Delegatus
1 Consul Moritat
 2 Iron Clad Dreadnoughts
5 Command Squad marines
10 Veteran Tactical marines

So, let's start!

Iron Father and Command Squad

The Iron Father do, naturally, wield a giant powered wrench. He is Khalkeús after all. Also featured is the Command squad with a banner only listing the number of their Expedition Fleet. They have, after all, not won any glories yet. Whenever they do, a symbol representing it will be added!

On to the Dreadnoughts!

 Siege-wrecking dreadnought, Black Shield, formerly of the IV legion.

Siege-wrecking gravi-flame beatstick.

On to the first Consul ot the Post: the Moritat with twin volkite serpentas and jump pack. More astute readers might notice most of the bit-sources for this mini.

Gunslinging highy destructive energy weapons requires the use of a laidback pose

Then on to the Veteran Tacticals and the Delegatus. Interesting might not be the most apt word but well.. They look cool. Also, some of them lack a bit of insignia on their shoulderplates, but them being veterans I figured that they have won glories for themselves so the same reasoning behind the banner can be applied here.

Delegatus and Veteran Sergeant

Nuncio vox and two marines

Vexiliarus, Marine, Gravmarine

Marine, Marine... PLASMA MARINE

You still with me? Good. A month to go; some tanks, some infantry, some support and a PRIMARCH left to paint and we're hit by a heatwave. Challenge: Accepted!

Also, since I kind of had the guys over at Eye of Horus podcast announce my Zone Mortalis project, a scetch or two might just be in the works!

Oh, and for sticking with me so far, here's a picture of my Iron Hands army so far. There will be a bunch of additions before I'm satisfied though.

bis später

//Nevindar

Gallery: E Tenebrae Lux, part 1

Greetings and welcome to yet another Gallery post. This is the first in a series of posts for this summer featuring my rather neat vow to paint 3000 points of Heresy-era miniatures for the ETL-challenge on Bolter&Chainsword. In this post I will showcase the first part of the vow that I completed. As I complete more parts of the vow, more posts like this one will be added!

The miniatures:
1 Centurion
2 Rhino APCs
5 Volkite Heavy Support Marines

Centurion and Heavy Support Sergeant

Heavy Support Squad

For once I actually seem to be somewhat satisfied with how a face turned out. So happy that I, in fact, even sorted a picture of the face alone!

Glaring, am I not?

On to the transports. I call the Rhino Pattern "Pallas", named after a creature of myth with impervious skin (yet killed and later used as a shield in some translations...). It did take some work to get done but I think it works. It is one way of using Rhinos that you just have laying around if nothing else.

Ordinatus and Dominatus.

Side

Front

Top

And let's end with a group shot!

There we go. A few models and a lot to go for the rest of the vow so...No time to sit here and slack off!

'Til next time,
Nevindar

Musings: Let us talk about the weather(ing)

Welcome to the second iteration of "Musings". The topic for today is the weathering that I did on my Sicaran Battle Tank that was posted a few days ago. I chose to focus mainly on the dirt, dust and grime for this post since the weathering for the paint is mainly in the paint job itself (gotta love "Iron Hands recipe, by FW). The amount of work that can get done by someone just asking me to make something like this.

Note, this blog was meant to drop earlier but.. The gaming news have been quite clogged up due to something in the U.K.. a reopening of some sort.

And now, the weather:

As mentioned in the intro, this post will focus on the dirt, dust and grime on my Sicaran. The sponsons and part of the main gun barrels were weathered with a sponging technique.

Materials used:
   * Smoke wash (Vallejo)
   * Mixed Weathering powder made from dry pastels (Dark/light/mid tone-earth and black)
   * Light Earth Weathering powder(Forgeworld)
   * Dark Earth Weathering powder (Forgeworld)
   * Burnt Umber oil paint (W&N)
   * White/Mineral spirits, low odour
   * Matte Varnish (water based, store brand)
   - Supplies listed in the previous Musing blog not listed here

In the mixing "bowl": Mixed weathering powder and a dot of smoke wash. Right: Supplies!

Starting from a similar point as last time (but with and added "grille-bit" to serve as a track piece in lieu of a proper track piece), the entire model was given a black base coat. Following the base coat, pewter rub'n'buff wax was applied to the left side as a solid coat while it was just drybrushed on to the right side. The grille got a drybrushed covering of Formula p3 Pig Iron. After the base coats had dried properly (hours and hours...) a black wash was given to the coated left side while the drybrushed right side received the "Iron Hands" treatment.

The coated area received two coats of varnish (for reasons to be explained) and a wash of smoke, powders, a drop of varnish and water was mixed up and applied in the fashion seen above. I do this as a base colour for the rest of the weathering process.

1                                                                  2                                                                         3

Time to focus on the coated side. Thinned burnt umber oil paint was applied (1) and while this was still wet, Dark Earth weathering powder was "pushed" into the oil paint to give it texture. A small amount of Light Earth was mixed into the Dark Earth and the process was repeated (3).

          1                                                            2                                                             3

To finish the coated side, a small amount of Light Earth powder was blended into the existing coat using a drop of mineral spirits. Note: keep the liquid amount to a minimum. Or splash it on and get miserable and have to redo it all (sadly speaking from experience here...).

On the Iron Hands side, Dark Earth powder and white spirit were mixed in a similar manner to the oil-and-powder previously mentioned (2). This was later given a dusting of Light Earth and blended together with a mix of Light and Dark powder (3). Then a small amount of white spirits was applied to affix the powder to the wall.

1                                                                                                                 2

On to the grille. The same "oil-wash" as previous was applied in the recesses of the grille followed with a sprinkling of the mixed powder (1). More powder (Light and Dark) was added on and pushed into the oil paint to create a mottled, muddy effect (2).

Excessive powder got dusted off (and added to my "mixed bowl). the grille got clean up a bit on the raised parts and a subsequent dusting of graphite powder was rubbed on to create the effect of metal shining through after wear. Graphite dust like this is obtained by more or less...scraping a pencil and can be used to create worn metal effects on tanks, gun barrels and girlfriends... I mean, whatever miniature surface you can think of. It can be messy to apply though.

I hope this post have been helpful. This is by no means an be-all-end-all post, and the colouring can of course be changed depending on the colouring and dust type you are after.

//Nevindar

Heresy and the ETL (Gallery post)

Currently participating in the E Tenebrae Lux challenge over at the Bolter and Chainsword forums and... This is my completed first vow! Fancy that eh. More reinforcements to my X Legion Astartes "Iron Hands" in the shape of Castrmen Orth, his cyber-familiar puppy and his pimped out  Sicaran Battle Tank.

Yes; that is, in fact, the old Necromunda Enforcer Cyber-Mastiff.

Time to sort the second vow! The Iron Hands grind ever onwards. Bow before the Tenth, traitor!

//Nevindar

Musings: A moment to wax lyrical about.... wax?

Welcome to a new segment for this blog. There might be more of these, but this one was born from a question I got regarding the usage of gilding wax for my miniatures (this is a product I started to use with my 30k Iron Hands). There could just have been a short and quick answer to this but.. If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing! Well, on to the main act of the evening, time to wax lyrical about.... wax (also there's a "treat" at the end).

Gilding wax is a product used for adding a metallic sheen to a surface and it can be polished when dry. I use it for miniatures like infantry and vehicles, but it can equally be used to enhance wood or other materials with a metallic look (also wallpaper, but my girlfriend hasn't noticed yet so...shhhh).

Above are pictured the "main items" I used in making this hobbyist approach using these waxes.
1: Cire a Dorer gilding wax, Tin and Renaissance Gold colours
2: Burnt Umber oil paint and low odour thinner/mineral spirits
3: Forge World earth and rust coloured pigments (although other pigments might just work fine)

A spare piece of wall was sacrificed for this blogpost [insert mournful wail as applicable] due to having different textures and large, flat areas.

Doomed wall, we hardly knew ye.

From the left: Solid Coat, Drybrush, "Iron Hands recipe"-brushing

From the left: Solid Coat, Drybrushes

After the black primer had cured, the two different waxes got applied. The time it takes for these waxes to dry is the downside with this method (hours upon hours..), but the downtime can always be used for other things, like other miniatures, reading or trying to get the wax off the wallpaper. A thing to note is that  the wax is soluble using the mineral spirits I mentioned earlier, so keep that in mind when using this.

Drybrushing with a wax can be done with the usual "apply paint-wipe on cloth/paper"-technique, but bear in mind that it is a good idea to practise on a test miniature before "going live", the covering capacity of these waxes are high.

From the left: "IH"-mid wash, "IH"-after final wash, Oil paint and weathering powder "mud"

The first image above pictures the tin wax on the side panel after half of the "Iron Hands Recipe"-washes are done (yellowysmoke-wash followed by purple wash splotches)- The second image is taken after a green wash got applied in splotches (most probably the cause of all the green tinted Iron Hands out there) and then a covering wash of a smoke coloured wash. Sadly it is hard to showcase the reflective effect of the metal wax when photographing these miniatures, and certainly so with my current photo setup.

The last picture shows the covered surface after the wax had dried and a coat of varnish got applied. After this, thinned burnt umber oil paint and weathering powders were applied to make a muddy effect.

I currently use the gold wax as an accent on my minis, but it too can be used to great effect. On the right is the base coat of gold. The middle picture shows gold with a black wash and the last picture shows the gold after both the black and a sepia wash.

As I promised, a "treat" at the end. A wip photo of what is currently on my desk. All of the above techniques feature on this Sicaran Battle Tank from Forge World. 

Really need to finish this tank...

I hope you, the reader, enjoyed this. It might have been a bit brief but these waxes are quite easy to use after practise.

//Nevindar