zondag 25 september 2011

Regiment a month: the revival!

It has been way too long since anything appeared on my blog, the meddling of everyday-life getting the best of me...Despite of several nearly finished projects, none came to revive the derelict wasteland that is my blog.

As you may or may not have seen in several fellow (much more active) TSA blogs, we started collecting Gundam models for an all out but simple demo-game featuring these fantastic giant combat suits. Here is the first of my two chosen Gundams: Sword Impulse



The model is simple yet very dynamic, and much of that comes from those two huge blades, so they are the main focal point on this Gundam...no doubt about that!


Colourwise I had no big plans so it retains it's original colour-scheme, the only addition I made was to very lightly spray all of the parts before assembly giving the model a weathered look.
Then battle damage was both painted and converted on and once everyting was put together final paint touch-ups and added decals finished the model.


As these models stand roughly 15cm/6inches it needed a good sturdy base so in came a CD.
I glued big chunks of plastic and styrofoam onto it to give it that rubble battlefield look and then added sand, finishing off with black basecoat, grey drybrush, rust and flock.


I'm very pleasd with this model as it really reflects the nature of a close combat Gundam Suit.
The battle damaged look and the rubble base show that this model stops at nothing to get to it's opponent and carving him up!!!

maandag 30 mei 2011

"A Regiment a Month" part 1

For this first part of "A regiment a month" I chose to paint up my Nurgle Chaos Marines.
Unfortunately they're not entirely finished yet but I'm pretty pleased with my progress already.


Main feat on these models was to get them from regular Chaos Marines and Space Marines to sick Nurgle Marines!
For this I chose a combination of green stuff and a rather unique though unconventional method of melting plastic...blistering buboes and fleshy metal forges being the result.



As far as painting goes, I tried different varities of green, in the end going for a mix of three spraycan greens applied liberally and thus getting different shades in different places.
Next step was the nurgle's rot. Painting over all irregularities with a dark shade of red and working my way up through a light fleshcolour to Bone white.

For the metals I opted for boltgun and copper, wich contrasts nicely with the greens.


Still need to tone down some of the colours and the copper, and most impotantly, give them a thorough wash with brown ink and adding some grime wich will complete that all important Nurgle look!


In the end, although very nice, I thought they would end up differently and I would have liked to see them in another shade of green...but this spraycan method was way faster!
Still need to get them based and shaded and hope to get a playable army af these guys together!

I always liked Nurgle and finally getting around to building an army around it, hope you like it too!

zaterdag 7 mei 2011

Look out below!

Here is another one of my finished projects, soon to be used in 40k Apocalypse.

There's a little bit of a history behind this little thing. I bought the model kit in Omaka, New Zealand where I was visiting the WWI aviation heratige centre (http://www.omaka.org.nz/)
...after seeing all of those excellent flying displays I came by the famous "Red Baron" and seeing that funny red plane I thought :

"I oughta make me sumfin like that!"

And so I did! Here is my Ork Fighta!!!

The whole kit was put together as it was intended, the only major difference being the wings which I attached upside down so they were angling down instead of upward giving the whole thing a very different dynamic feel.

As you can see I also added some sort of turbine/jet engines 'cause the propellar just wasn't gonna cut it, so I left it off. I had to fill a gap behind the pilot where there should have been a gun turret, but I didn't need that for my Fighta. The whole kit was then plated over and I could start with details such as guns, wires, nut & bolts, more plates and the likes

Most of the Fighta's I've seen have either some open cockpit or just a frame on top, but the glass cockpit frame really suited this model and so after squeezing an ork model in there (wich required some cutting and grinding) I glued the thing in place. The result is a damp, foggy window through wich you can just make out the crazed pilot, excellent!!!

This thing needed a solid base so I "salvaged" a cap from some sort of light fitting and set out to making it into a propper base.
The pole is actually a wooden meat skewer, the best and most solid thing I could find at that time. The entire base was then loaded with sand, rocks, rubble and the occasional debris lying around.
When I glued on the oil drum, I had no intention of painting it up like a toxic waste barrel but when I chose the colour yellow to paint it, the toxic theme introduced itself and after painting the symbol I couldn't resist adding that "Simpsons-style" green glowing ooze...

After I decided to make myself a Fighta the first thing I did before I started was looking up how a Fighta was armed. So two twin-linked big shoota's, two rokkits and a bomb later I had everything to make this regular little airplane into a speeding bolt of death!
Now tell me, who doesn't like a bomb with a gnarly smiling face on it?

I know I do!!!

Some of the finishing touches are always the red 'cause red ones go fasta, the checks and dags and of course skulls and kill-counts!

I'm very pleased with how it turned out! It was really fun and not too hard to make. I already bought myself a second model kit so this mad ork doesn't have to fly all by himself!

Hope you like it!

zaterdag 23 april 2011

It's Stompin' Time!

So as you were able to see a sneak peek in my previous post, it's time to reveal my latest Ork contraption; the Stompa!
After building my Skullhamma, talk started of playing Apocalypse! However with just the 'Hamma it wouldn't be much of a game so after a while I set out on getting myself an Ork bashbot! Although GW's model is pretty nice, it's also far too pricey...so how hard could it be making my own?! Let's find out...

Pretty basic at first, I started with an upside-down plastic container/bucket and a spraycan cap!

Switched from one cap to another, reason for that will be revealed later.
The body got it's first layer of "plates" made from simple cereal box cardboard, this was the easiest and fastest way to cover it up and would make a good start to build upon later! The head got a visor slit and jagged teeth...but as vou will see in following pics none of these head-features survived the end result!

The addition of the "shoulders" was a very important step, as Stompas usually have some sort of shoulder plates as where these bulby additions gave it an entirely different look! They were connected with lots of piping and tubes, and got the magnets attached to them wich will be used for the removable weapon arms you can see. (intention is of course to make a lifta-droppa arm so it can be used as a Mek-Stompa too!)

The spraycan head was raised so it wouldn't sit flat upon the body, the construction it rests upon will be used as a cockpit for the Ork-pilot. So as you take away the head you can see him steering frantically!

The Dakka-dakka arm with lots of killy stuff like the Deathkannon and Supa Gatler. I didn't make it so it that is is exactly WYSIWYG to the rulebook armament, most important thing was that it looked good...no, awesome!

This is a big jump from the pics shown before, a lot of details and gubbins were added already like engine, exhausts, a lot more plates, glyphs, guns, feet, pipes, wires and of course a supa-dupa red paintjob!

Gave it a good and dirty was and added some checks, dags & coloured plates!

As you can see, the visor and teeth were replaced with a plated Skull face and as big sharp Iron Gob! Way better than
before!

Still need to finish some details before completing it entirely, mostly painting some battle damage and small details! Hopefully I can get this done soon and then this thing is ready to make some mayhem!!!

woensdag 20 april 2011

Up and running again!



Well it's been a while now since I got back from my other-side-of-the-world trip and between getting back to reality and wargaming, a lot has happened!

For starters, I'm heavily updating my Ork 40k army, especially on the Apocalypse matter!

Scratchbuilt Stompa, soon to wreak havoc on Tyranids!

This means I've nearly completed my Stompa, started a Battlefortress and a whole bunch of new units or additions! They will hit the table pretty soon, once the 'eavies are finished completely I'll start nagging Creepy Corridor Andy to get his fantastic new Bio-Titan out to play!

As if this isn't work enough already, I'm also competing in the Lead Painters' League, 10 weeks of frantic painting wich in the end will leave me with over 65 painted models of all sorts!
My round 5 LPL entry

Then there are all the games from wich I have the new rulebook and models, but haven't played em yet...but soon...
Games like Future War Commander, Uncharted Seas, Supersystem, Valor Steel & Flesh,, Apocalypse (yes, lots of models, never played!) and probably some more I forgot!
Getting into that many new games also involves buying and painting a lot of new models!

All of the above are the reason I had so little time for my blog, but I will try to make amends now!

It's back to the workbench now to make another effort to get all the goals I set myself, finished!


zaterdag 12 februari 2011

South Pacific Paint-A-Thon

Some of you may know, most of you won't but I've spent the last six months "living" Down Under. 3 months in Australia and 3 months in New Zealand!
Even though I had a lot of other plans I managed to stuff some miniatures and paint into my luggage to help me through the occasional rainy or lazy days. (not all that much of them, honestly!)


As said, our time here was packed to the rafters with activities and in between sunny days at the beach, surfing, hiking, skydiving, canyoning and driving around a lot I still succeeded in finding painting time...
My selection of models involved a lot of 40k Ork Boyz and even more fantasy Night Goblins. These were the main things to tackle as I had bought several Ork Black Reach and Gobbo Skull Pass sets in the last couple of years! Also some Deffkoptas, Burnas, Spider Riders and empty spaces in my box were filled with 6mm Dark Realms Pax Arcadia.
The majority of all this stuff was even unprimed so I had to start from scratch!

Painting a lot of the same models tends to become pretty boring but taking on small batches and switching between the 3 options helped somewhat.


The 28mm models (Ork & Gobbos) remain unbased for now as that was too much a hassle to do! (basing stuff was something I didn't bring). However, the Pax Arcadia had to be done because I always base them before painting so some creativity with local sand, rocks, twigs and kids PVA glue was in order! Now my time here is almost up, it was absolutely fantastic but all good things come to an end! While I'm still painting up models in my last week, it's time to look at the numbers and this is what I've managed:

-about 115 Night Goblins (lost count somewhere) including champions, musicians, standard and battle standard bearers, Fanatics, Gobbos with bows, spears, hand weapons, shamans and spiders!

-95 Orks comprised of 29 Shoota Boyz, 40 Slugga Boyz, 4 Burna Boyz, 3 Big shoota, 5 Deffkoptas, 4 Kommandos, 10 Gretchin and a Runtherd.

-a lot of Pax Arcadia being 8 Scout bases, 8 Heavy Weapons bases, 4 Valiants, 4 Hammerjacks, 4 Ramjacks, 4 Chasseurs and around 16 troop bases.

Now most models still await some dip or ink followed by a dullcoat, which will have to wait 'till I get home. Then the whole lot needs to be based or finished with static grass and flock, so I'm not entirely there yet! But I'm extremely pleased with what's done and with this and the Lead Painters' League coming up it seems that my lead mountain is getting considerably smaller!!!

So...no other conclusion then to go on another 6 month trip to reduce it even futher!

...if only...

dinsdag 18 januari 2011

A league of their own.

Last year one of my clubmembers said he was going to enter an online painting competition called "Lead Painters' League".
Now I had never heard of the thing so after some online searching I learned it was quite an extraordinary event. Most of you may know it already and some of you won't but I'll explain it none the less..
The concept is to paint miniature "teams" over the period of 10 weeks, a new entry every week!
With teams being 5 figs at minimum that still totals at least at 50 miniatures (there are times I don't even paint that much in 6 months!)
Some challenge!

Now it doesn't end there, every week your team is matched up against another painters' team and then voted on by Lead Adventurers. Points given depend on the amount of votes and either a win, loss or the occasional draw. You get additional points for entering a new, previously unpublished entry and another way to earn some points are the bonus rounds.
These themed rounds allow you to enter teams in that specific setting and thus granting more bonus points!

At first I wasn't planning on entering at all! Painting that many figs in so little time, and to the best of your abilities to stand any chance in match-ups?! No way...
But then my paintbrushed started calling my name, and when I heard 2 TSA clubmembers and master bloggers (Societa's Tomsche & Creepy Andy) were entering I just couldn't refuse.
Without much thought or planning I entered "the League". Luckily our annual games convention "Crisis" hadn't been that long ago so I had bought a multitude of miniatures that could have their use in this league.

First round started as a bonus round themed "Conan the Barbarian", be it barbarians or peoples of Conan's world.
Now despite my considerable number of figs, nothing that really resembled barbarians or the likes...I would have to miss my first chance on bonus points! I nearly had another team ready when I vaguely remembered some Dungeons & Dragons minis I had bought ages ago! And hey, suddenly I had myself a team of Serpent peoples that had to be repainted faster than Superman can fly! And that would be round 1 of the infamous Lead Painters' League...all 10 entries can be seen below with their round number, win or loss status and miniatures used.


round 1 - win

miniatures:

Dungeons & Dragons miniatures

My very first and very last minute Serpent peoples enrty, good enough for some bonus points!

round 2 - win
miniatures:
Black Cat Bases/Grey Aliens
I added the sheep in the end while taking pics, this one was good for a few laughs!


Round 3 - win

miniatures:
Black Scorpion/Fantasy Pirates
Undead pirates
Black Scorpion/Pirates
Pirate girls
I just love these pirate figs! They will be part of my future Mordheim Pirate warband!



Round 4 - loss

miniatures:
Privateer Press/Warmachine
Menoth Choir
I collected Warmachine before, but sold it off. Bought these especially for the league and I think it wont be the last we see of this new Menoth army.


round 5 - win

miniatures:
Artizan designs/KissKissBangBang & thrilling tales

guards & Lily

Mantic games

Undead Ghouls

Aaah yes, zombies...who doesn't want at least a few zombie figs in their collection?! I do!!! Actually I ordered Wargames factory ones but that order didn't work out...so I was left with no zombies a week before round 5! (Again the bonus round proved a difficult task) I asked the store-manager for some alternative zombies and he kindly suggested these Mantics! Lil' bit of converting and zombie-esque paint job and these were good to go!!!



Round 6 - win
miniatures:
converted Orks vehicles
This round I had a new problem, photography! This can prove really difficult throughout the league and no matter how good you paint, one of the main things is to get those fancy painted miniatures decently photographed! My girlfriend took my super-duper-DLSR camera along on a trip and I was left with the small handheld thingie...so I collected all my biggest Ork vehicles 'cause there was no way I was gonna be able to take pics of itty-bitty figures.
Sadly that meant no new entry as my Orks were painted and published many times before.

Round 7 - win
miniatures:
Warlord games, German WWII Fallschirmjäger

Some figs I bought to get me started into WWII gaming, some of the more difficult figs I've painted I must say. Tried to copy the Jägers' camouflage costumes but it's very hard to see.

Round 8 - loss

miniatures:
converted Hot Wheels cars

I made these cars to be used in a board/tabletop game called "Wreckage"
A funny little card-based game with Mad Max like vehicles! Easy and sometimes highly entertaining!



Round 9 - win
miniatures:
Artizan designs/thrilling tales:
Sky Pirates & captain Villain

I had seen these before but it wasn't until we started playing PULP that I got these! They are really lovely miniatures and can be used in diffrent settings!



Round 10 - win
Victorian Science Fiction bonus round!
miniatures:
Arizan Miniatures/thrilling tales:
Sturm Battalion Zorn
scratchbuilt VSF walker and tank

My very first steps into VSF and I must say I love it! VSF shows so many possibilities for use of miniatures, tanks and conversions. Will definitly look into making some more VSF-stuff!

After a lot of hard last minute work, difficult photography and fiddling with scenery the daunting task of holding out for 10 rounds was over! I collected my share of vote- and bonus points and with some luck not meeting too much painter "big guns" managed to only lose two of my match-ups ending in a very respectable and though totally unexpected 5th place!!! It was great fun and there is a lot of cameraderie among contestants.

The main thing about the Lead Painters' League though is that it gives you the pressure to paint a lot of figs in a relatively short time, something you wouldn't possibly do at any other time, and it's very fun and exciting! I learned a lot through my 10 weeks and entering gave me a lot of new ideas, both from myself and other entrants. If I can I would definitly compete again...

On to the next League!

zondag 9 januari 2011

Mechanical Mayhem!


Something that had been on my to-do list for a long time was a looted Carnifex conversion for Orks!
Andy from the infamous "Creepy Corridor" blog kindly donated me a 'Fex from his Tyranid army, it was time to get started! (I will kindly return the favour, some way - some day)
First it had to be hacked apart, as it was already assembled...thus not handy to convert.
That done, the carapace had armour plates grafted on and one of the legs got a bionik treatment. The blades on the jaw were an initial idea but later on replaced with something better, this just didn't look right!
(Look at pics below every explanation)
I started to replace one of the spore chimneys for a belching exhausts, added a cog and bladed tailmace and started on the second leg. The first leg is only partially bionik while the second will be entirely mechanical. As you can see the jawblades made way for a better-looking iron gob!
At this stage, with both of its legs fitted, most difficult job was to get the pose right...too far down and I would have had problems fitting the arms in, too far back and it would look like it was gonna fall over. Some bits added to the base really helped here. Another chimney was replaced with an exhaust.

With most of the body work done it was time to tackle the arms, again as with the legs, one claw arm was bionically enhanced and the other entirely mechanical. The focal point on this being the huge powerclaw to give the fex that all-destructive close combat feel. Some of the ribs were replaced with steel pipes and bolts, addition of a bionic eyepiece and parts were riveted up. It already looked like it could crush everything and everyone!


A little bit of a jump forward, here it sits with a big new $@*?%- gun grafted to its second right arm. More exhausts were added, the positioning still giving it the Carnifex feel but transforming it more to a machine-beast. Painting well underway, I chose fleshy tones for the Fex to contrast with the metals and wiring.

Finished! The last gun-arm in place, everything painted up in scruffy metals and fleshy bits, and last but not least, a controle device receiver on top of its head. This will eventually be accompanied with a separate Mek model holding a controller.

At some points it was hard to se were this was going or what I should do next, but in the end it turned out great! This is easily one of the favourite models in my whole Ork army and will be used as an Ork Dreadnought.