Still learning...

So I have been learning a few, most probably very obvious, lessons during this project. Firstly doing 5 conversions at once takes about 5 times as long. Secondly making 5 models at once means making and fixing each mistake 5 times.

Therefore I'm going to concentrate on getting one guy finished and maybe even painted and then finish the other 4.

Anyway, I think this guy has a lot more Gothic look now with the robe, icons etc. I'm not sure about the bat belt grenades but we will see. Not too far left though I don't think.

Progression

Hi all

Another oldie, well 2 in fact.

I was a huge necromunda fan when it was released, it was a great game with great miniatures. It also had cool modular scenery which made games even better. I had a couple of gangs and various hired guns.

Anyway I present to you my old and new ratskin renegade. So one will of been painted when I was around 12 or so, the second was painted last year.

Now outside the hopefully obvious progression of painting skills one thing I noticed is something I have mentioned earlier in this blog. The 12 year old me may of not been the best painter in the world, but he was a lot braver!

The colored tattoos, the eyes and pupils painted. These are things I rarely "dare" risk the chance of them not working. You have spent hours on the skin the last thing you do is start painting freehand patterns over it and risk ruining all that hard work. Same with the eyes. Easier to add a fake scar and just dot the eye ball white. This is not a good trait of mine and something I need to rise above. Being scared of making a mistake is probably the biggest mistake you can make, and I am knowingly and constantly doing this.

Art should be brave and that is something I hope that will return to me.

Anyway, hope you like the models.

Some older works...

In this case not that old really.  Well a few months.

For as long as I could remember I have always loved the idea of a blood angel army,  however if there is a difficult colour to master when painting I would say it would be red.  What colour does it highlight to,  what colour does it shade to,  how to get a really even, smooth finish but keep that deep red look.

It wasn't until I started using an airbrush that I even contemplated starting a blood angel army for this very reason.  Even then my first attempts were far away from what i wanted.  Anyway I thought I would have another go after reading the new space marine codex.  The rules really pulled me in after completing my Space Wolf army so I had another go at getting "the perfect red".

I tried a lot of test models to get a really good recipe.  I also wanted it to work with the current GW paint line as I only had the older colours and didn't want to start a colour scheme that I couldn't expand.   This took a while and lots of paints bought that I didn't end up using,  however I think I did learn a lot from the attempts.

The final recipe is below.  I also got some good tips from the kind people at platoonbritanica on how to get the glowing eyes looking good.  A good tutorial for this effect can be found here so another big thanks to Cyril for this tutorial.

I still haven't decided how to base these guys but rest assured it is on the to do list.  Its not so much not having time but not deciding what would look best,  I have tried plenty of effects so far.

Anyway here are the pics including a line up of my test models.  If you would like to see more you can check out the thread I started for this project on here.

Thanks for reading and hope you like these guys.  Hopefully a future post will have them on bases and finished :)

Winged death

Hi all

So I am putting together some ideas for the Grey Knights army and one unit I would like to include are Interceptors.  Rules wise they are what I like,  fast moving and pretty tough.  Below is a model I worked on last year but I think it would be a pretty good base for an interceptor since they are kind of the Grey Knight equivalent of the jump infantry unit.

I really like the angel look of this guy.   It is actually based on a conversion I saw on Dakka Dakka but I lost the link a while ago(for some reason chrome doesn't save any kind of backup of your favorites,  at all!!) so if anyone else knows of which model I am talking about it would be great to give credit to the original creator.

My only concern is that this guy looks tiny next to my other grey knights but in terms of fluff I don't really see these guys as marines and more some kind of tricked out Crusaders.   Maybe I will try and de-space marine them a little more with some different shoulderpads and such to help sell that idea a bit more.  

The other Grey Knight are around 40% built.  Taking a bit longer than I thought with all the greenstuff and filling etc.  They are still the main priority,  however I thought I would look at some other stuff while they are all drying.

Anyway,  I hope you like!

Death cult assassin

So here is a death cult assassin I was working on before starting the blog. She is more a test model really. The painting is too messy and more just about figuring out a palette for what will be the rest of the unit eventually.

I really like the pose and the face on this model. There's something very 40k about it I think.

Anyway I hope you like :)

More knights of the grey

Hi all

So I have started on the rest of the unit. They have come together pretty quick really. I guess once you figure out how to do the conversion, which can take a while, repeating that conversion isn't too bad.

I'm really happy with these 5 together. I think I will tweak to poses a little while I refine them and add the torsos, hoods etc.

Anyway, I hope you like them!

Grey knight update

So a small update on the grey knight. Most things are now glued. Wires have been extended along with the rest of the midsection. Also I've added a psychic hood. I want to add a tabbard between the legs replacing the roman style part, however I'm not sure if my greenstuff skills are good enough.

One big problem I suffer with in the hobby is I am not daring enough. I play things safe. If it looks ok without, then don't add it as it may make it worse. However with the cloth I think it will help give a more gothic feel to the model.

I'm also not sure if this guy should be a larger base or not. I want to use him and his 4 pals in games so I'm stuck between, should he be a grey knight terminator, paladin or standard power armour grey knight? Also for aesthetics I'm not sure if a big base somehow plays down his size, or simply adds to the drama.

I'm going to start work on the next guy now and make these decisions later down the line so not to waste too much time.

Height comparison.

So here he is for scale next to a marine from the dark vengeance set. I find those marine ever so slightly taller anyway but the grey knight is really towering above.

I have enough parts to male five of these guys.

Testing bloggeroid

Trying another blogging app. Here's a picture of my 3 cats, this is number one ( her actual name )

Grey knights

Hi all

So this is my latest wip. Ever since seeing the old repent blog, back before it was even a full repent, I have loved Cedric's work and followed his website for a very long time.

fullrepent

 He's also a really nice guy too and has to replied to all my annoying questions about his works.   Anyway I have always loved his old Grey knight conversions and have wanted to make my own unit.

Here is my latest bluetac special. I'll try and upload some regular marine to show scale but I think this guy is quite close to the adrain wood proportions that a space marine might be.

Hope you like where it is heading.

Mobile test

Hello again world. Just making sure my blogging app is working on the phone.

Hello world!

After enjoying the likes of spikyrat and fullrepent for a while I have decided to have a go myself at a blog.  This will be a selection of , not only my new work,  but also a place to showcase my miniatures from long ago that outside myself and my girlfriend, have never seen the light of day before.

I hope you all enjoy!

To get the ball rolling here is an image I created for my end of year project at university in 2005.