Sword Brethren and Command Units

"Fire and Faith are our tools to crush those who defy The Emporer's Will!"

Over the course of the week, I added five more Sword Brethren to bring the whole unit to ten models. I also found the time to add a Chaplain Consul who I'm hoping will make these cats a nightmare combat unit. I've got a Zone Mortalis game coming up in April and I expect big things from this unit. Which means they will probably fail abysmally - haha!

In a bid to keep as much as possible of this army plastic, I made the Chaplain
Consul out of a plastic MKIII Marine, the arms and weapons of the Chaplain from
Deathwatch Overkill, and a head from a Primaris Reiver. He's got a nice Immortan
Joe vibe, and I'm looking forward to muttering "Mediocre" whenever the unit fails.

I also made some time to build a new Praetor for my Legion. I used some resin chest and shoulder pieces and the rest was plastic. I also added two more Chosen to the Command Squad. So this unit will be rolling around the battlefield with six Power Fists. Pretty scary.

We put the "fist" in Imperial Fists.

This guy feels a little more imposing than my previous Praetor. 

I used a cloak from the Sisters of Silence sprue to give him a nice half-cloak.

I'm so close to finishing this army up, I can taste it. I've got a unit of Breachers, another Vindicator and an Apothecary to paint up and the army will total to 3k points.

Cheers!

Kharadron Arkanaut Step-by-Step

My first unit for my Kharadron Overlords is finished! A stalwart company of Arkanauts is ready to join the hunt for Ur-Gold or whatever it is they do besides look cool as shit. I dunno. I was able to take some time to take photos for a step-by-step of how I painted this unit.

"Sailing! Sailing! Over the bounty sky!"

After assembly, the model was primed with a white spray. Once that
was dry, I then sprayed it with Testor's Model Masters' Africa Corps  Mustard.
The color is a dead ringer for GW Zamesi Desert and that can be used to
touch-up anywhere the spray missed.

Next, the model was heavily drybrushed with GW Ushabti Bone.,
paying particular attention to the areas of the suit cloth.

The suit was then highlighted with Ushabti Bone applied as thin lines
and then final highlights were added with a 50/50 mix of GW
Ushabti Bone and Vallejo Skull White.

The armored parts of the suit were then painted with P3 Coal Black.
At the same time, belts and straps were painted with Vallejo Scorched Earth
and GW Leadbelcher was used to base coat parts of his weapons and
tools. The base was coated in P3 Greatcoat Grey.

Once dry, all the previous areas that aren't under suit were shaded
with Army Painter Dark Tone Ink. Shading everything all at once is
more efficient when you are batch painting models. 

All the gold areas were then coated with GW Retributor Armor.
Highlights were added to the straps with Vallejo Dark Flesh.
His rag was painted Vallejo Squid Pink and the base was finished
by drybrushing GW Administratum Grey followed by a light
drybrush of GW Ushabti Bone. The rim was then painted
Vallejo Black.

GW Reikland Flesh Shade was applied all over the gold and pink
areas pretty liberally.

Now it's time to highlight the metals! Gold areas got a highlight of
GW Auric Gold and then GW Runefang Steel was used to highlight the silver
metals and as a final highlight of some areas of the face - like the nose, brow,
and mustaches.
A wash of GW Druchii Violet was applied over the sash and in the
sockets of the eyes.
Eyes and lenses were finished with Vallejo Foul Green and a dot
of 30/70 Foul Green and White mixed. 

And there ya go! I generally did one or two of these guys a night, so the unit came together in about a week. These guys were a ton of fun to paint - and I'm glad they were seeing as I need at least 10 more in the army. Before I tackle a second unit of Arkanauts, I'm going to treat myself to some of the ballon guys first.

Cheers!

Weekend of the Weird

Last week, a coworker of mine named Jay picked up a crazy cool looking toy by a local designer (motleymiscreations) at Emerald City Comicon and brought it into the office. Somehow it came up that I should paint it, and I jumped at the chance. I don't do too many toy repaints, but this one just screamed for a lick of paint.

Robo-rabbit-pig-undead Action Monster Go!

This thing has such a 70's alt comic vibe and was a ton of fun to  paint.

Love the exposed spinal column on this thing.

What's really cool about this model is that the arms and head are held in place with strong
magnets. I hope the artist makes some alternate heads or arms for a whacky line.

This thing was a crazy amount of fun to paint and I'm really pleased with the results. Jay digs it a lot as well, which is what's most important at the end of the day.

I also managed to finish up some Hired Guns for my  buddy Aeryn (who you can find on the net at rejectomancy.com), so he can add some extra muscle to his Cawdor gang in Necromunda. These were great models to paint, but I'm still not sold on the idea of resin models for human-sized gaming models. The brittleness spooks me. 

Some bad hombres ready to fight for creds and a swig of Wildsnake.

Gimp? Deepsea Diver? Blacksmith? You decide.

The Hunchback of Necro Dame.

She will cut you. Bad.

And finally, I got a little more done on my Kharadon Overlords Arkanauts. Still a few left to do, but they should be finished up this week. 

Good for hauling cargo or poking a fool, the Skypike is a staple of the Arkanauts.

Sky Dorf Assault Cannon is ready to rock.

Ive still got two more regular dudes and the officer to paint on these guys, they I'm going treat myself to a character in a
top hat...

All in all, a pretty productive week even if most of these stuff is making its way to the shelves of other people!

Cheers!

Looking Ahead

So I've hit a point where I'm super close to finishing up my Heresy Era Imperial Fists and now I'm trying to nail down my next big project. Or projects. Because I can't just stay focused on one thing apparently. Ugh.

Stalker 7 miniatures by Lead Adventure

While I've been deciding what to start next, I've continued hacking away at my lead pile - literally this time as I finished these old sculpts of some Pockeylips Survivors. I have no idea what I'll use them for, but they are ready to raid the Radzone and fight off mutants, cannibals or talking apes of all sorts now. As I was painting these cats, my gaze fell upon an unopened box of these fellows:

"Avast, ya weak-kneed land walker! Blood and Plundaaaaar aaaaar ours! Yaar!"

When they came out, I really dug the whole aesthetic of the Kharadron Overlords and was champing at the bit to paint some up. Unfortunately, I got wildly side-tracked by new 40K goodies and never got around to putting paint on the dorfs. Now Age of Sigmar is calling to me again, and I'd really like to take a crack at one of the sky-ships. Fortunately, its turned out that painting the basic infantry is a lot of fun as well. I've still got six more to do for a first unit, but I can see collecting a small army as a nice project to work on in the coming days.

The start of something new.

Not to be one to bite off only what I can chew, I've also decided to build an Arab army for Lion Rampant. My buddy Ron and I played again with a few modifications and it felt better. Enough so that we both wanted to paint some more for the time period. I wasn't too keen on adding more guys to my Norman army, and since Ron has a pretty generic middle period Medieval era army I thought they could serve as Crusaders in the Holy Land. All they need is some adversaries! And someone dippy enough to paint them!

A first unit of spearmen is taking shape. 

I've also got some more Napoleonic stuff I should be working on as well as some Necromunda commissions for a friend that should be pretty cool to paint. If I can keep to it, these projects are what will probably be featured most in the next few months. Wish me luck!

Cheers!