The Lair of the Breviks: Missouri Edition

Finally, I get around to posting for the first time in a month or two, and I'm in a different country to do it...

The Breviks are in Sedalia, Missouri visiting Mrs Brevik's family and friends for Christmas.  As well as experiencing my first ever white Christmas (seriously, I'm 34 and this is the first), eating so much I can barely move and watching hours of both types football from both sides of the Atlantic, I actually managed to purchase some miniatures.

A few days before Christmas we were in St Louis visiting some good friends of ours (thanks Julie and Glenn, we had a great time!), and they took us to see the Napoleonic exhibit at the history museum.  Inspired by the collection of artwork and the weapons on display, I decided to get myself something historical to paint.

So our friends called around and we found this place - CRM Hobbies, a fantastic little hobby store/model shop, staffed by some really friendly and helpful people.  I didn't go crazy, but I managed to pick up a couple of nice 54mm figures:

Granted the first isn't Napoleonic (Crimean instead), but it's a nice model still.  The wife was a little horrified when the owner of the store said that he shipped world-wide...

Just after Christmas we met up with some more friends including Big Al from The Hogs of War.  Al provided me with my next miniature that I'm going to paint as soon as I get back to Blighty (cheers mate, a superb choice!):

Photo from Games-Workshop.com

I've always considered getting this chap, but there's always been something else that I needed first, so now he's in my possession and he's going to be painted to fit in with the noise marines I did a while back.  I'm now thinking about a Slaanesh themed army with both Lucius and Fabius Bile in it...

I probably should finish the Eldar first, but what the hell.

My next post should be when I'm back in England, where I've actually got something to show for my efforts...

Oh motivation, where art thou?

Argh, just argh...

I have little progress to report.  My motivation has gone completely, I barely have the enthusiasm to pick up a paint brush. I've been working some long(ish) hours (for Britain anyway) and I don't have much energy at the weekends, let alone in the evenings.

When I'm at work I wish I was painting, but when I get home it feels like one of the last things I want to do.

So how do I get it back?  How do I "feel" like painting again?

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Busy, busy, busy...but not painting

Argh, not much painting done recently, doing some long days at work and not really feeling like painting when I get home.  Add this to getting a little burnt out on the Eldar, and I don't have much to report unfortunately.  To get my mojo back I'm painting a few different (and pretty old) things, which I'll hopefully have some pictures of soon.

Anyway, just so this isn't a boring picture-less post, here's an old project that I've made some progress on recently:

I'm pretty happy with the way these guys look, the greeny-blue is possibly a little light for Dark Elves, but it doesn't look too bad.  These are my favourite of all the Dark Elf models, I just love the look of them.

Gluing those damn swords on are a royal pain in the backside though...

Fire Dragons Completed

Far too long between posts again...

Not had much painting time recently, social life (yes I have one occasionally) took up some time, as did a new found addiction to the Blood Bowl computer game - great fun, although very frustrating, "The Black Death" Chaos team are starting to find their feet (and the ball, although picking it up seems to be something we still need to work on).

I've also just finished Dan Abnett's "Blood Pact", and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I'm also reading the Calpurnia trilogy, and now moving on to the Sabbat Worlds anthology.

Obsessed?  Me?

In amongst all that, the Fire Dragons are finished!

Yep the picture wasn't exactly well posed, but never mind (the photographer should be shot to be honest...) - the guy hidden behind the Exarch is of the same pose as the guy far right, and the guy partly hidden was in the last post on this blog.  I'm particularly pleased with the Exarch - I spent a little extra time on the yellow of the helmet - the battle damage was the result of a couple of scratches on the miniature, which I didn't want to file out in case I damaged the rest of the model.

Front and back shots of another one just to show the paint scheme:

...and finally, as I've done the first of the Dire Avengers, a comparison shot of all 4 of the units:

I'll post more pictures of the Dire Avenger when I've got some more of them finished.  I didn't want to paint his armour blue as I wanted him to fit in with the rest of the army, so I've gone for a dark brown.

• Armour:  Chaos Black, Scorched Brown, Bestial Brown, Vomit Brown
• Helmet:  Khemri Brown, Dheneb Stone, Skull White
• Crest: Scorched Brown, Badab Black, Scab Red, Scab Red + Vomit Brown, Vomit Brown,

I actually had a bit of a disaster with him, the matt varnish spray left the model with a chalky finish that I couldn't get rid of, particularly in the crevices of the model.  I think I must have sprayed too much on somehow.  :(

He needed a bit of a repaint to fix him - very frustrating, but a useful learning exercise in the end.  Just have the 4 Dire Avengers to finish, and that's the combat patrol army done.  Although I've no idea if the store is holding the event still, so I may be bringing them up to 500 points and finding a gaming club to join...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Here be Dragons...

Yeah alright, lame post title...

The first of the Fire Dragons is finished - took a little longer than expected, but I think he was worth the extra time spent.  It's amazing how pictures can show up little things I couldn't see with the naked eye, so there are a couple of things that will need to be neatened up, but otherwise I'm happy with the end result.

The "business end" of the fusion gun might also need a little extra work, it was meant to have a "ceramic" look to it and I'm not sure if I've pulled that off very well.  

The paint scheme used:

• Green elements:  Catachan Green, Devlan Mud, Catachan Green + Camo Green
• Weapon: Orkhide Shade, Orkhide Shade + Rotting Flesh, diluted Devlan Mud wash
• Weapon end:  Scorched Brown, Badab Black, Scorched Brown + Snakebite Leather, Snakebite Leather, Snakebite Leather and Dheneb Stone
• Wraithbone elements:  Khemri Brown, Devlan Mud, Khemri Brown + Dheneb Stone
• Armour:  Scorched Brown, Badab Black, Scab Red, Scab Red + Vomit Brown, Vomit Brown, Tausept Ochre
• Yellow Helmet: Tausept Ochre, Gryphonne Sepia, Iyanden Darksun, Iyanden Darksun + Dheneb Stone

I decided not to paint the curved line of "bumps" on the helmet as jewels, as I thought that would be a bit excessive, so I've gone for the green I've used on other parts of the mini (and the the same colour as the Striking Scorpions' armour).  I wanted a deep red for the armour to fit the arboreal/autumnal theme to the army, and even if I do say so myself it works rather well. Plus, I really don't like the orange scheme that 'Eavy Metal used.

For the combat patrol project at the local store we had to set ourselves challenges, to do something different from what we usually do.  I set myself these challenges:

1. Finish an army that wasn't space marines
2. Paint a multicoloured army and make it look cohesive
3. Don't use metallic paint

I'm definitely succeeding with 1 and 3, and it's 2 that I'm trying to focus my attention on.  So I'd like some feedback on how people think I'm doing on getting the force to look "cohesive" (if that's even the right word):

I think the weapons do a good job of tying the different colour schemes together, I'd considered giving the Fire Dragon a green helm, but I don't think that would have worked.

Let me know what you think...

As always comments and criticism welcome.

Slow progress, but something to show for it...

The combat patrol project is still going and I've finally got some pictures to show.

Rangers

These are the chaps who won the squad category of the local painting comp:

The paint scheme used:

• Coat Brown:  Scorched Brown, Devlan Mud, Scorched Brown + Bleached Bone
• Coat Green:  Catachan Green, Devlan Mud, Catachan Green + Camo Green
• Gloves and Leg covers: Camo Green, Devlan Mud, Camo Green + Rotting Flesh
• Gun: Orkhide Shade, Orkhide Shade + Rotting Flesh, diluted Devlan Mud wash
• Body Armour and back pack:  Scorched Brown, Devlan Mud, Scorched Brown + Bestial Brown, Bestial Brown + Dheneb Stone
• Wraithbone elements:  Khemri Brown, Devlan Mud, Khemri Brown + Dheneb Stone

Some individual shots:

Really chuffed with these guys, and the colour scheme works well with the next group...

Striking Scorpions

Now I'm really pleased with these chaps, a much brighter colour scheme than I would usually do, but not anywhere near as bright as the GW scheme.

The paint scheme used:

• Armour Green:  Catachan Green, Devlan Mud, Catachan Green + Camo Green
• Weapons: Orkhide Shade, Orkhide Shade + Rotting Flesh, diluted Devlan Mud wash
• Wraithbone elements:  Khemri Brown, Devlan Mud, Khemri Brown + Dheneb Stone
• Pouches and straps:  Scorched Brown, Devlan Mud, Scorched Brown + Bestial Brown, Bestial Brown + Dheneb Stone
• Yellow stripes: Tausept Ochre, Gryphonne Sepia, Iyanden Darksun, Iyanden Darksun + Dheneb Stone
• Braids: Chaos Black, Adeptus Battlegrey, Codex Grey, Astronomicon Grey

Some individual shots:

While these guys won't win any competitions, I'm hoping they're going to look good on the tabletop.  Next up are Fire Dragons, hopefully some pictures of these guys soon.

As always comments and criticism very welcome.

Dark Son: Making progress...

Not too much to report, but nearly done with this chap.  

Not entirely sure about the dirt on the leg, and the white on the backpack has come out a bit rough, but I've got to the point where I'm itching to get on to the next project, so it will probably have to do.  Really all I have left to do is the chapter symbol and static grass on the base, and this chap is finished.

...and what have I learned from this?

Painting white is still a real pain in the backside, and I'm not sure I want to do a whole army of these guys...

As always comments and criticism welcome.

Up next:  The local GW store is running a combat patrol project, so I'm taking my recently triumphant Rangers as the required troops choice, and adding five Striking Scorpions (assembled, based and awaiting undercoat spray) and five Dark Reapers (yet to be purchased) to make up 400 points.

Dark Sons

Two posts in three days?  I know, it will never last...

I pledge to do more WIP shots, just to show what I'm up to.  This chap really got my enthusiasm back:

Very much WIP, the green and gold are completed, and aside from the leg, the white is pretty much done.   The whole miniature was undercoated grey, which is a change for as I usually undercoat in black, but with so much of the miniature being white I thought it better to use grey.  The white is better shown from the back of the miniature:

Colours used:

• Green - Orkhide shade, Devlan Mud wash, then Orkhide Shade through Knarloc Green, with some Rotting Flesh added to the last highlight.
• Gold - Tin Bitz, Devlan Mud Wash, Dwarf Bronze, Shining Gold, Burnished Gold, Mithril Silver added to the last highlight
• White - Devlan Mud wash on the grey undercoat, Dheneb Stone through to pure Skull White

Lots still to do, and he's taking a while, but he's enjoyable to paint.  I probably won't do an army of these guys, but he'll make a reasonable display piece. Inspiration and motivation is back!

As always comments and criticism welcome.

Getting back to blogging again...

Long time no update.

Not sure why, just didn't feel like posting much, plus I lost a bit of enthusiasm for painting, so it all kind of slipped away, and now it's been over a month since I posted anything.  I've not even posted comments on others blogs and for that I am especially sorry.

So, just a quick update (no new pictures I'm afraid).  I finally finished the Eldar Rangers, and if I do say so myself they look pretty damn good.  In fact it wasn't just me saying it - I entered them into the squad category of the little "Golden Demon" competition they held at the Swindon GW store.  Out of the three entries, they were voted the best, beating the second place squad by one vote.  I entered my Lamenter Sergeant in the single miniature category and he won too - much more competition for that category, and it felt like more of an achievement.

So what's next?  I'm giving Golden Demon a miss this year, I just didn't have the inspiration to do anything.  In the painting station at the moment is the still unfinished Commissar Yarrick, a couple of Orc Warg Riders and the Witch King of Angmar.  What I'm actually working on is the limited edition Space Marine Sergeant from a while back that I'm painting as a Dark Sons marine.  I wanted to try something a bit different, and I've never really painted white before.  Chickened out a bit and went for a quartered colour scheme so the whole marine wasn't white, but hey I had to start somewhere.  Hopefully a WIP picture or two tomorrow.

Future projects fill my head, and it hasn't helped that Forgeworld have started making the different Space Marine Armour variants.  Sheer awesomeness, there's no other way to describe them, and to release the bolter variants, and old style special/heavy weapons too - just fantastic.  I am seriously considering getting some Mk II and Mk III sets and building a pre-heresy Iron Warriors army - as I'm really liking the pre-heresy colour scheme for these guys.

Anyway, that's enough for now, hopefully more tomorrow...

A quick update, another Berzerker, plus an Empire Soldier

Not much of an update, work, plus World Cup (and the pain of being English), plus a trip to London has eaten into my hobby time these last couple of weeks - off to Hard Rock Calling festival this weekend, but after that I should be back into the swing of things. 

First up is a Khornate Berzerker icon bearer I'd been working on - same colour scheme as the test model from a while back.  

Another reclaimed and stripped job (I think he cost me £2) - I can't stand the icon that came with that miniature, so I replaced it with the Khorne icon from the Chaos Space Marine box.  I think it works pretty well.

Next up is a test Empire militiaman/mercenary, part of my Witch Hunter themed Empire force.  A real quick and dirty paint job, I wanted to hark back to 3rd edition Empire, with a stripey pattern on the trousers.

He won't win any competitions, but if I can get a few more of these guys painted up, he'll look pretty good on the table top.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Space (Wood) Elves...

I've been thinking about doing an Eldar army on and off for the last few years, mainly due to the rather cool looking Ranger models.  I bought the Ranger box a while back and got one painted:

The worrying bit is I'm not exactly sure how I painted some of him, so I'm going to need to go through some trial and error - D'Oh!  One thing I might do with this chap is repaint the gun - I'm not entirely happy with the shade of green, and I'm thinking about black highlighted with a dark brown instead.

So this chap got me thinking about an Autumnal/Arboreal themed army.  Yep, "Wood Eldar" - it's probably been done to death, but I like the idea, and I haven't seen anyone do it locally.  The standard Guardian colour can just about be seen on the chap above - brown body and khaki helm with black/green faceplate.

I've knocked up a quick 500 point army list - I very much doubt it's competitive, but it's got a bit of variety in it, and should be good fun to paint.

• Autarch with Power Sword - 70pts
• 5 x Rangers - 95pts
• 6 x Dire Avengers, Exarch, Diresword and Pistol - 94pts
• 6 x Fire Dragons, Exarch, Firepike - 116pts
• 6 x Striking Scorpions, Exarch, Biting Blade - 113pts

So far I have the Rangers (1 painted) and the Autarch - a second hand, soon-to-be-stripped Asurmen model, minus the back banner (I'm not really a fan of back banners to be honest).  I was thinking about a very dark green for the Dire Avengers to tie them into the woodland theme.  The Fire Dragons would be a muted orange with Bestial Brown as the base colour, and the Striking Scorpions would be more of an olive drab shade of green.

This is a "project for the future", so I'll be painting the Rangers occasionally, while I get rid of the backlog...

In other news, I actually got a game in at the local GW store!  For those of you who know me in the analogue world, yes that is the first time in over 12 months... 

750(ish) points of my Crimson Fists joined some Dark Angels and Imperial Guard up against Eldar and Tau in a 3 person and 3,000 points a side battle.  We lost due to the forces of humanity forgetting about objectives, but Brother Captain Mortis did himself proud before falling to some Shining Spears.  I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the games, so I'm hoping to make it a regular Sunday afternoon thing.

Getting ratty... (Part 1)

I'm going through an "irritable" stage at the moment, it doesn't take too much to annoy me, and there have been more than a  few days these last couple of weeks when I wish I'd never got out of bed.

Painting has been slow this last week or so, I've managed to complete two miniatures.

Just the two.  I've got into a painting rut again, the enthusiasm has died and I'm not sure how to regain it.  Nothing much appeals to me at the moment, and it's a bit worrying.  I'm tempted to just put everything to one side and start a new project, just to get the energies flowing again.

The next source of irritation is my lack of a decent photography set up - I need somewhere permanent, lord only knows where that will be though.

Anyway, just the one photo (i.e. the only one that came out OK in my last session):

Queek Headtaker

Pretty pleased with the paint job, hopefully some better photos should show him off better.  I went for metallic armour rather than red, as I didn't like the bright red armour on the GW paint job - this feels a bit more Chaos ratmen to me, although not quite so distinctive.  The warpstone pendant worked well too, might need a bit of work, but the OSL's not too bad.

The other miniature completed this week was a quick and dirty Warg rider for War of the Ring, 3 more of those to go...

What would people like to see me do next? I'm really open to ideas - my next post will be about an autumnal themed Eldar army that I have an idea for, but after that, who knows?

Damned...

Not too much of an update - first Warg rider of four is done bar the basing - quick and easy paint job for him - they're not going to be display quality, just good enough to look effective on the tabletop.  Yarrick's on hold for a bit until I can get the enthusiasm to start on him again.  Kuffeh's Warrior Priest got me thinking about me doing some more to my pathetically incomplete Witch Hunter themed Empire army, and I painted up quite a decent test scheme on a Free Company soldier - I'll get some pictures of him up soon hopefully.

As for completed work, the only thing I have to show is this chap:

I've ditched the "brown" colour scheme as it just didn't look right, the black is much more effective I feel.  This was a reasonably quick paint job, again going for the tabletop, rather than display.

The black had only a couple of highlights, and the metalwork was washed a few times with Devlan Mud and Badab Black to get the"older" tarnished feel to it.  The flames weren't mixed at all, just layers of pure paint from red through to yellow.  The bone areas were Charadon Granite, Khemri Brown, Dheneb Stone, Skull White, with no mixing of paints.

The bad news is that I'm suffering a bit enthusiasm wise, it's proving quite tricky to motivate myself to paint.  I'm planning on taking some Crimson Fists to the GW store on Sunday and trying to get a game, hopefully that might help rekindle some enthusiasm...

Comments and criticism always welcome!

WEM-BER-LEY!!!!!

Sorry, got a bit carried away as my football team got to the playoff final last night...

So the librarian is done, and I'm really pleased with him - much easier to paint than I first thought, the only real hassle I had with him was the mould lines.  I know I've talked about it before, but we really are lucky these days with the relatively small amount of mould lines on the newer models, even if we do have to put up with hedgehogification...

The gauntlets work nicely in red, the only thing I'm not quite so happy with is the force sword - the green is OK, it's just not very inspiring - oh well.  

Photography-wise, I've tried to do as little fiddling with the images as possible - I've just spotted this on Massive Voodoo, so I'm going to be giving some new backgrounds a go at some point...

As always comments and criticism welcome!

Progress Report - Librarian and Yarrick

After a "tumultuous" week in British politics (seriously?), I have some progress to report.  The Warg Riders are undercoated, but before I embark on another "batch job", I decided to paint up a few individuals. The Multi-Melta armed Legion of the Damned marine is finished and will feature soon, when I get myself sorted out and build a proper light box for photos, with a decent backdrop.

Classic Crimson Fists Librarian

One of my favourite ever space marine models, I think the chunky gauntlets on this model make him an ideal candidate for the Crimson Fists.  As you can see this chap has been undercoated and I've pretty much finished the gold on him:

Gold recipe:

• Tin Bitz
• Devlan Mud wash
• Burnished Gold
• Shining Gold
• Mithril Silver with hint of Shining Gold

I'm tempted to give this a wash of Gryphone Sepia to tone it down a little.  The rest of him will be painted in the standard scheme I've used on all my Crimson Fists.  Really not sure how to do the force sword though - any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Old Commissar Yarrick model

I bought this chap whenever he first came out (I dread to think how long ago that was), and he never got beyond 1/4 done, so he's been stripped of paint and I've started again:

I've only done the claw so far and I'm not totally happy with it, mostly because of the blocky top highlight on the smaller of the pincers, I'll have to blend that in better.  The idea with the claw is, because it's from an Ork, it's not going to be a bright red, and the internal workings are going to be rough and need a lot of grease to keep it going, hence the darker, dirtier colour.  I think it works.

The rest of the model will be black and silver, with gold and red (a little brighter than the claw) trim.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Terminated!

Long time no update - apologies for that, real life got in the way the last week or two, so haven't had the chance to photograph anything, let alone update the blog....

Anyway, the good news is that the Terminators are finished (finally!).  I thought painting these guys was fun initially, but all that blue got rather monotonous - they're done now though, and I've managed to get some pictures taken:

I'm really, really pleased with them - comparing them to the veteran sergeant a few posts below, it feels like I've made a fair bit of progress in quality and technique.  I've already posted pictures of the first one here, but here are some pics of the others:

(Obviously the assault cannon guy isn't that much bigger than the sergeant, I just have poor cropping skills...)

So I'm putting the blue down for a bit, next up is the original Commisar Yarrick model, a Legion of the Damned marine with Multi-melta (nearly finished) and some Warg Riders for War of the Ring.

In other news, I braved the wrath of the internet and posted Brother Captain Mortis on CoolMiniorNot (linky) - after 28 votes, he's standing at a not-to-be-sneezed-at 7.9, which I'm pretty damned chuffed about!  I thought he was a 7 at best - but apparently some other kind people disagree...

Some of the stuff on there by people like Artur and Bohun blows my mind, if someday I can get that good I will be a very happy man.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Flash! Aaaa-aaaahhh, it annoys everyone of us!

Huge apologies to Queen and their fans for that dreadful pun...

So I got this chap yesterday (pre-ordered a while back).

(Picture courtesy of Games Workshop website)

The thing I've noticed on a lot of the recent metal models is the sheer amount of flash, particularly the threads of metal (which I assume is left over from the injection process), left on the model.  I know flash has always been there, but has there ever been so much as there is now?

Just looking at the parts, I'm dreading trying to get rid of it all, and I  know I'm going to miss a couple and have to remove them post-undercoat.

Also, I really don't like the way they've attached the wings to the metal "sprue" - that's a big chunk of (waste) metal that will have to be removed - I'm not a big fan.  That's also something I've noticed recently - lots of waste metal, and chunky "attachment points".

On a positive note, the miniature looks very nice, plenty of detail and looks like it's going to be fun to paint - he's my favourite of the Blood Angels miniatures, plenty of character and a dynamic pose.  I'm also a big fan of the fact that he's off the ground, it will put him "higher up" than any marines he's with, and help him stand out.