Ninjas Skinks, damn...

Yeah, so, Skinks.

I had so many plans, but over the last couple of weeks my plans have been undermined by small reptiles.  My sons Lizardmen army is apparently much more important than anything I might be interested in. So, to avert a small-scale nuclear weapons exchange I have been helping to build, undercoat, paint and base over 40 Skinks and a mother-pig-sticking Stegadon. 

Needless to say this, coupled with work, has taken up pretty much every waking second of my life for what seems like years.

Anyway, today I've managed to paint (finish off) some stuff of mine. Tony kindly posted me up the Dark Angel half of the DV boxed set, so in addition to my Ad Mech mania, I'm now building a DA army too. You know, cos that's how I roll, yo.  Or something.

So, instead of just diving in and messing up all those shiny new DA minis I thought I best practice on some of my old marines... I apologise for the horrendous photos, I promise to improve. Maybe.

Bog standard dread. 

Marines. Old Apothecary in the middle. White is a bitch and that is all I'm going to say about that.

Army is going to be 3rd Company hence the diagonal red stripe (yeah, I said 'hence'), backed up with the usual Deathwing and Ravenwing.

I really need to dedicate some time to cracking on with this lot now, cos all these unpainted minis are making me cry inside.

This weeks no-need-to-know-info is that listening to Lemon Jelly (the Lost Horizons & Lemonjelly.ky albums specifically) makes dealing with Skinks almost bearable.

Tony has been posting some dark, yet strangely poetic words lately so I thought I best join in:

"Echoes of past events nudge the tiller on my present course, I await its reflection in the future"

I love Adventure Time, please don't tell my wife....

Relics of a fallen Imperium part 1

Death Guard Possessed marine #3

"Guardeth thine very soul and harden thy resolve lest thy inner weaknesses provide a gateway for the denizens of the Immaterium.  Pride and petty jealousies are as beacons to them.  Beware, for they shall feed on thy very fear itself.

These befouled daemons and their insidious ways hath brought low even they that were created in the very image of the God-Emperor himself.

Seeketh not power. Seeketh not glory, lest it be in His name.

Purge the corrupted. Purge the damned. For their very befouled nature itself shall propagate and spread if left unchecked.

They are beyond redemption, they who were once as Brothers. Smite them, for you shall be as instruments of His holy wrath.

The Emperor protects."

Excerpt from the Battle Catechisms of Brother Chaplain Clovis Baeleon, Dark Angels 9th Company.

Fear yae in the longe nacht those for whome their immortale soules hath been forsaken. Spaketh their names at thine mortale perile.

Exhibits from the Nurgle Grotesquerie part 3

Death Guard possessed chaos space marine from start to finish

I actually sat down and did some painting yesterday afternoon and this morning, after what has seemed like ages.

Some of you (well those that have had the misfortune to be following my misadventures for a while at least) may remember this chap from quite a few months back...

Handsome sucker, no?

Well, for the first time I've decided to try and do a bit of a from start to finish type post on the painting process.  Here goes:

1. I started off air brush priming him with Vallejo model air black primer.  Once that was dry, I airbrushed him with  Vallejo model air (can't remember the exact colour...) dark green or something.

2. For the next bit, I gave his head and neck a heavy dry brush with GW Gretchin Green.  I also started on the shoulder, using a 50/50 mix of GW Dheneb Stone and Vallejo off white.

3. I then continued to do the flat areas of the armour with the Dheneb Stone / off white mix, before then coating the metal areas (or the areas I perceive to be metal areas) with Tin Bitz

4. I then gave a rough stipple of of Formula P3 Pig Iron on the metal areas, and a rough dry brush of Formula P3 Thrall Flesh to the head and neck.  The whole model was then given a wash in my own "Murk" wash mix.  This was left to dry over night.

5. I then mixed a bit more off white into the Dheneb Stone / off white mix, so that it was roughly 1 part Dheneb Stone, 2 parts off white, and proceeded to go over the flat armour areas by roughly dabbing the paint on kind of Van Gogh style. Obviously with nowhere near the finesse though. The idea was to try and create a fairly uneven effect that would give some illusion of grime and / or texture.

6. With this bit done, I then went to work on the metal bits, starting with a reasonably heavy but patchy over brush with GW Scorched Brown. This was followed by a rough and randomly spaced stipple with GW Calthan Brown, and a further stipple with a 50:50 mix of GW Calthan Brown & GW Macharius Orange (or whatever it's called. I think the label fell off, and you can't get it any more anyways...

7. To finish, I gave the head and neck a wash with GW Hormogaunt purple, and then worked the teeth back in with pure Vallejo off white.

 

A brief explanation of my absence from the Warp...

It would seem that I have been very quiet recently.  Quieter than the very grave itself.

However, I have been doing stuff which unfortunately has mainly included being very busy at work.  Luckily I have managed to soundtrack a good deal of this busy time to Propagandhi and such like. Which has contributed quite drastically to life being bearable.

This period has also seen the introduction of my good bud Tom to the world of Miasma...

It has also included me going a crazy building spree. This has mainly involved cobbling together loads of bits I've been getting off Ebay, along with some Forge World parts.

I also managed to pick up a copy of the new 40k box, Dark Vengeance.  The sculpts are really nice.  Quite looking forward to painting them up.  I have to say, they seem to be yelling

"WORD BEARERS"

at me in a very loud voice.  Which is no bad thing.  No reason why the sons of the Urizen can't go campaigning with Mortarion's lads, right?  Particularly with this new Horus Heresy book Forge World are doing.  And, erm, the rumoured Dark Apostles that will be appearing in the new Chaos Marines codex...

But yes, I shall be attempting to put in more time on this here blog.

Exhibits from the Nurgle Grotesquerie part 2

More Ad Mech madness

The bits box took a mild leathering.

Firstly, I scratch-built some kind of anti-grav weapons platform thingy.

Had to crank up the levels using Photoshop a bit, black undercoat doesn't like to be photographed apparently...

The weapons platform consists of 2 heavy bolters from a Sisters of Battle tank sprue, the anti-grav/hover plate doobery underneath is an old Rhino hatch I think, the other stuff I honestly couldn't say... not sure if this fits into an Ad Mech army, but it was good practice for me to build it!

The servitor crew are Void miniatures (Junkers, I think?) with extra mechanicalness added. I bought them originally to use as Adeptus Arbites in my Witch Hunters army many moons ago.

I also painted up a couple of Servo Skulls and made another one from various shiznit I had laying around. These will mainly be used as objective markers I think.

Blood Angel, skull split with his own combat knife. Unlucky.

This one was cobbled together using skulls from a Lizardmen sprue, 2 administrators still hot-desking for the Machine God after death? Needs more work, skulls look flat and the tubes need tidying up a bit.

Next on the agenda is to paint up the weapons platform and servitors, then I need to finish converting a Tech-Priest/Enginseer I started...

Loving it!

Also, for your information and piece of mind, I have been mainly listening to Rust in Peace by Megadeth and Roots and Crowns by Califone. Also, I have been eating waffles.

A big shout out to...

...my main man Alex N (my best mate's son) who has just made his first blog post. Please check out his blog - it's about Lizardmen.

As we speak he is having his first Warhammer intro session at Games Workshop in the Sheffield region.

Go team Lizards!!

http://thespawning.blogspot.co.uk/

Techmarine conversion

Ok, Tony has asked me if I'd like to contribute to his blog, so here I am, contributing... I'd like to point out straight away that I'm a brush licker. I can't help it. Sorry.

I've had a 'start-stop-start' few years of painting and gaming, I actually managed to put together a 5000pt Witch Hunters army once, never won a battle.... sold 'em, stupid Nuns with guns. Anyway, I appear to be back into the hobby again with a vengeance, probably spurred on by combination of a stack of free stuff from Tony, finding my old bits box and my eldest son starting a Lizardmen army.

So, what army(ies) am I going to work on? Well, Fantasy wise I've inherited a metric ton of Empire and Brettonian stuff so I'm putting together something along those lines, but for 40K I was a bit stuck.

I've done Marines, Witch Hunters and faffed around with Eldar. Unfortunately Orks, Tyranids, Necrons and Tau interest me less than zero, I thought about Imperial Guard but I'd probably need about 20 army cases to carry them round and Tony is doing Chaos. Choices were limited... I sighed and wept softly into my cup of tea.

A few days ago I stumbled on Tim Huckleberrys rough Adeptus Mechanicus list, this was it, I got obsessed. From a hobby/makey/painty standpoint and the amount of fluff to work from it's perfect. It's 10 years old or so and I know its not legal in a gaming sense, but then I don't intend on taking part in tournies or campaigns or owt like that just yet. 

I've got a load of Inquisitor henchmen that look suitable, a couple of old style techmarines and a bunch of other stuff that I can work with. Conversions will be done, fingers will be superglued, kitchen tables will be overrun.

First one done-ish, still need to tidy bits up and do some more work on the base. Old Techmarine, Empire head swap, IG comms backpack, auspex changed and a servo arm added in place of his, err, arm. 

I'll be keeping a record of my successes and inevitable failures on here. If I get good you can look on in awe and wonderment, if I suck badly please pretend you never saw any of this.... move along, move along.