Paint and play: second 500

So the knights are primed and ready to go, and the first step is getting the bases done. I like to do these seperately so I don't mess up the figures or the base while painting the other.

These bases are done with a base of filler/white glue/grit/gravel/and cork or bark stones - then airbrushed a number of colours, from graveyard earth, komando khaki, and then with gw washes of devlan mud and green - that i mix up together when wet, so there are natural blends.

Finally a drybrush, and a few little details like bones, arrows, or rusting weapons, painted individually.

For the snow I sprinkle on baking powder, and then blow most of it off and seal it in with varnish to keep the remaining snow in place. I also use vallejo snow in patches, which gives a more visually appeaing look.






Starting the bases for the five archers and two canon crews. A week and a half to get all these guys painted.

Marienburg Freesword Part 2 - Knights

For the second month of the paint and play, I've added two units of 5 knights, and a couple of canons.

I DONT like the empire knights, or their horses - and decided to use chaos marauder and pistolier horses - as well as go deep into the bitz box to find some interesting ways of converting the knights.

There's been plenty of greenstuff use, which i've taught myself a little as I go along, and gone for a mix of lances and great weapons.

Elysian 99th for 2009 Hong Kong Gt

This is the beginning of a deamonhunter's army- and actually competed as a IG army in the 2009 Hong Kong Gt.

I used Elysian drop troops, because UI thought that the spookiest place to meet a deamon was inside an abandoned space hulk, and the Elysians had a diving down corridors/hustling kind of look, that seemed to go best with this idea.

I wanted to get my hands on some valkyries - just because they looked awesome - and to add some umpfh! to the whole list I thought I'd use some of my Aquarian Guard leman russes.

I've leanrt quite alot about air brushes and weathering techniques in the last year, and thought I'd redo my tanks, and as tanks can be a little dull looking, i thought I'd paint up some fun crew to sit in them.

I should specially mention my hydra, which I've loved ever since I saw it on the forge world website, and now that there's an excuse to drop that much money, then I couldn't resist.

results below:














The thunderbolt pilot is the officer of the fleet, and the astropath is from Hector Rex's retinue, and is largely unfinished so I can come back to him without time pressures and work on his cloak.

The elysian officer was semi-ruined by GW varnishes, which came out with the snowy effect. Note to self: NEVER USE GW VARNISHES AGAIN!!!!!

Marienburg Freeswords Part 1

Started a paint and play scheme - and after some last minute wavering towards the bretonnians - in the end I plumbed for empire. Been long lamenting the departure of the Dogs of War, and wanted to capture some of their spirit in this new army. The theme is a rag-taglle collection of forces raised from Empire sympathisers within marienburg, ready to fight in the Storm of Chaos. So the troops will be a mix of marienbrg and nordland warriors (lured into their neighbour's army by the higher rate of pay they offer) - named the Marienburg Freeswords.
This is a monthly paint and play, going up in 500 point chunks. The initial 500 points are below - and included a warrior priest, a lvl 2 mage, 11 greatswords, 6 flagelltants, and 10 handgunners.









These guys are WIP, and I want to come back to the generals esp and do some more exciting freehand work on them, as well as a more interesting base for the wizard, and put some spells in his spell book.

one week to go

...weddings in the Uk, wife, children, novel, editors, agents, forgeworld delays: it's tough trying to get an army painted these days. But with six day to go I'm back in the saddle.

Now my forgeworld heads have arrived, I've painted and put the drivers into the sentinels, which are finished with bits of vegetation in the ruins.

I've painted up some crew to go into the tanks:


And ebayers have come through with the last plasma guns I need. The heads of the grenadiers are surpisingly easy to clip off, and i've altered these guys a little with alternate head directions.



I've done a little more with the sergeants. My commander is the guy with the hat, and the other guy is leading my drop troop platoon.

And i've based all the figures i need, and have the four ogryns and about 20-odd guys to paint. Should be easy. :P

Tanks

And here are some pics of the various tanks OI've been working on. They are the same painting scale as above, but as well as this i've used some dirtying/weathering techniques I've notused before.

I've used pastels to add dirt and footprints to the tanks. I airburshed gryhonne sepia around the tracks, then added a mix of weathering pastels and and vallejho plastic putty as mud, with static grass added in clumps to simulate turf that has got churned up by the tracks.

The rust weathering powders were a little underinspiring when mixed with water, and so I've ordered some mig pigments, which I've heard work better.

The chimeras were quite important to the look of the army, which is basically a mech grenadier list, with a platoon of drop troops - and the overall theme is blitzkrieg in the 41st millenium. As these are a high tech army i ordered predator turrets, which give a much cooler silhouette to the tank.