Death Guard marine with plasma gun revisited

I'll be surprised if that hunk o' junk can even shoot...

So bit by bit, I attempted to follow Deadestdai's advice and put a glow effect on the energy coils of the plasma gun.  Never tried this type of glow effect before and I'm not entirely convinced I've got it right, to be quite honest.

I've tried to give the glow a purple tinge in an attempt to be in keeping with the purple in the helmet lenses. Part of me is thinking it looks OK for a first attempt. Part of me is thinking "that's the same colour as Windolene".

Anyways, this guy is pretty much done.

Work in progress Death Guard marine with plasma gun

This one's been taking a while.  Where does the time go?

Thought I'd take another opportunity to post something up as it's been a while.  This guy had been partially completed for a few weeks, so thought I'd take the time to do a bit more on him this morning.

I've added in a bit of purple on the helmet lenses. Not sure how strongly it comes out in the photos, like. But the colour seems to contrast well with the rest of the model (cheers for the suggestion, Tim!).  Thought I'd see what other people thought before I added it in to the models I've already been working on.  So please comment. And it's fine to say it looks crap or whatever. Which it is possible that it might.

As I was saying, this is a work in progress and I've a few more bits to do on him yet.

Hopefully I will be feeling a bit better tomorrow, as currently feeling too thick-headed to concentrate very well.  Thanks, man-flu.

Test pieces 27th Feb 2012

Some spare chaos marine shoulder guards I found laying around seemed like a good place to start on  attempting to use colour theory in my Death Guard scheme.

So, the last week or so has been a total write-off for one reason or another. Which I probably shouldn't go into, but I love moaning. So moan I shall, in a minor way.

This week, I'd hoped to get painting sessions in most evenings. This did not happen. My cunning plans were ruined.  Instead, this week has mainly featured some mentally long working days and man flu.  I've been feeling pretty rotten and tired.  It was very rubbish indeed.

Minor groan over with.

Anyways, above is a picture of some spare chaos marine shoulders which I finally got round to working up as a test piece.  Earlier on in this blog, I've probably mentioned hoping to try and learn something about colour theory.  So it seemed like I should get some purple into my colour scheme somewhere.

So first off, in the top part of the picture are some Chaos aspiring champion shoulder guards. I'm working on a Nurgle army, so obviously I had no reason to use the other three for anything.  I started out with a thin base coat of Tin Bitz and then gave it a wash with Leviathan Purple, and left it to dry. For about a fortnight (Thanks, busy life).  The one at the top left has been left in this state so as folk can see it.  From there I painted on Knarloc Green in a patchy covering on the raised parts, so that some of the base coat showed through.  Finished off with a 50/50 mix of Knarloc Green and Gretchin Green thinned out with Vallejo's Thinner Medium (invaluable stuff - you need this in your life).  White bit done as usual. Mix of Dheneb Stone and Vallejo Off-White and Thinner Medium.

The stuff at the bottom is worked up from a different method.  Nothing ground breaking, obviously.  Base coat of  Knarloc Green.  Washed over with Leviathan Purple. Again the white bit was done as above, and again I used the mix of Knarloc Green and Gretchin Green which I attempted to put on roughly.

The state of greeness that I've left these in is a bit different from what I'd previously been doing, as it's brighter and sharper as opposed to the mouldier green finish I've put on to the full models further down the blog.  I'll add in the mouldy green later.

...And they shall bray henceforth like the beasts of the fields

This will be the squad leader for my first squad of Possessed Death Guard marines. The head is a spare part from the Hellpit Abomination kit.  I find the long neck to be fairly obscene.

I got these beastman heads from the bitz box at the local gaming club. I've trimmed off the braids and pony tails and what-not as they were just getting in the way, and wouldn't have looked right in any case.

I quite like the beastmen heads. They don't seem to look that out of place on the top of a power armoured body.  The grimacing faces help to make them look like they are in distress or pain, and the forward jutting posture makes them look quite aggressive.  I need to find some legs for these lads.  Waiting to stumble across some running legs - probably from the assault marines kit, if I manage to stumble upon any on Ebay or whatever. Unless someone following this thing speaks up and says they've got some going spare...

Powders of dubious repute...

I nearly shat myself. Maelstrom managed to send something 2nd class and it arrived a day later.

And these be the colours.  I'll be using them for the bases on my models, and also on the tanks.

T'other day, as we say in Yorkshire, I ordered some Vallejo weathering pigments, for weathering stuff and the like.  I got the Rust and Oil set.  Looking forward to learning to work with this stuff. I predict many tragic experiments in my future.

Recovering the opposable thumb

So, I had a top quality game on Sunday with Tim.  Take and hold type mission for 3 objectives.

As it turns out the rot could be stopped. However, I can think of several things that I'd do differently next time.

I started out the first few turns too cautiously, and I probably suffered as a result.  I'd also make some revisions to my army list, and try not to forget to utilise the stuff I've paid good points for...

Closing moments of the game were fairly fast paced, and for a good amount of time, it seemed like either of us could take the victory.  But a decisive last turn from Tim and a poor round of shooting from me saw victory go the Guard.  Next time, they won't get off so lightly...

In other news, I've actually managed to do some more painting, in particular I'm working on some minor adjustments to the Death Guard colour scheme I've been working on.  Hope to do more tonight when I get in from work.

Can the rot be stopped?

I may well be playing the first game of 40k I've played in 4 years or so.

I'll be playing with 1500 points, of mainly part built models and proxies. I'm a total class act.

I expect Tim to be playing with about 4 million guardsmen and tons of tanks.  To steal a phrase from another blog I follow:  and they shall know loads of fear...  They meaning me.

****

In other news, I've had what I hope to be a fairly excellent idea for making a second squad of possessed chaos marines without using that crap GW kit. Not that I've made the first one yet... I will have to give it some more thought, and look for some bitz on t'internet. I tell thee.

Weekend was a write-off painting-wise

Yep. Got nothing done, and got stranded in the snow in North London.

4 1/2 mile hike back to the Mrs' parent's house. Sunday was therefore totalled. Been knackered all week.

I did build a predator last night though.

Hopefully get some stuff done this weekend and maybe tonight.

Brilliant colour wheel tool

So, the other day, I found this great website that helps loads with designing colour schemes and picking out spot colours. http://colorschemedesigner.com/  It has loads of useful features, and you can view the way different types of schemes work together.

You can view how many styles of applying colours work by clicking on the small dial type circles above the colour wheel.  Within the wheel itself there will be one or more dots (dependent upon which dial you've selected) which you can drag around the wheel in either direction, and this will show suggested colours in the big square on the right.  Not only this but you can adjust the palette too, which I've found invaluable.

Worth a look.

Test pieces and musings

My original colour scheme test piece for the Death Guard is the torso of a chaos terminator.

Thought I'd post this up, so people could see how I arrived at the colour scheme for my Death Guard marines.

After loads of discussion awhile back with my mate Tim (thanks Tim) over a fair few pints of ale in our usual drinking den, I decided to do a few test schemes based around using off-white as the main colour.  It seemed sensible to test out the scheme on some spare parts from kits I was likely to use in the future.

The off-white was achieved from a base coat of the Dheneb Stone foundation paint that GW make, which was then worked up lighter by adding in Vallejo Off White in increasing proportions.

The green started off from a base coat of  Knarloc Green, which in subsequent coats was worked up to the mouldy fruit type level by adding in increasing amounts of Dheneb Stone.

Throughout this process, there were also several stages of washes over the entire piece, of Devlan Mud, Thraka Green and a mixture of the two.

I think the contrast works pretty well, here.  The build up of grime seems to add some real depth.

* * *

Last night, I had another pub discussion with Tim over several pints of Grumpling Ale, which I strongly suggest you seek out, as it's properly awesome, and the chances are it's one of the reasons drinking was invented in the first place.  I'll skim over the bit about the belligerent Spanish lesbians (no offence to Spanish lesbians intended, I'm sure the majority of you are not belligerent) that seemed to be trying to pick-pocket folk and were also in possession of a coil of some fairly heavy duty tubing. Weird.

Anyway. In this discussion, we were talking about colour theory, and I've decided to do a few more test pieces based around the existing Death Guard scheme to see if I can manage to get any extra contrast to come out in the paint job.  I think we've also cracked the conundrum of what I should be using as a minimal spot colour, and how I should apply it.  If it works out, I'll put some pics up in the near future.

The conclusion to another conundrum has also been reached. I'd been wondering how to work on the resin bases I'm using, and it seems the way forward may be to use some kind of weathering powders.  Which are something I've never used before, and I'm quite nervous/excited about...

Lord of Nurgle

Who ate all the pies?

Fat back.

Got to love that his axe handle is actually being held in his belly and the intestines are spilling out over the top...

That's some rusty sheeeit right there

Did this guy a while ago. Thought I'd bung him up.

Picked him up as I liked the look of the model. GW have done a fairly decent job on some of these new plastic character models...

Death Guard marine #3

Close(r) up of  my first finecast model.  This was great fun to paint. Tons of texture, a really gnarly model.

From a bit further back, as it's technically known.

I love this back pack part. You can get a real sense of the mutating influence of the warp from the shape and textures of it. Almost as if the ceramite has flowed like thick liquid. For example frijj milkshake or whatever it's called.

So this one is the first finecast model I've ever painted, although not the first one I bought.  It's from the GW Plague Marines box.  Size-wise they are a teeny-tiny bit smaller than the standard chaos marine models, probably as the mould they were cast from is pretty old.  Tons more definition on them that the previous metal versions too.

This stuff is pretty weird feeling. But I reckon I quite like it.  I'd been really wary of picking any finecast miniatures up due to the quality control problems they'd been having.  I saw some real shockers when browsing in shops.  It seems that they've now upped the quality control, though, so the fault / error rate seems to have reduced drastically.  Beggared if I know what was going wrong before. Probably taking them out of the moulds too early to maintain high production numbers or some shit.  Anyways, the set I got were absolutely fine. Sorry for the digression.

On this one, I had a go at using thinner coats, and it seems to have worked for me, as the fine textures on the model are quite visible.  Job's a good 'un and that.

I really like this guy's head. A bit reminiscent of pushing a rusty gas mask through a load of soft wax or something. It reminded me of the last time I did that very same thing... er... Anyway, I need to eat me tea.

In a bit.