Imperial Guard, Russian Style

I actually made a little bit of progress this weekend!  There's plenty of stuff in a just-started or half-finished state, which I'm trying to whittle down, but I'm pleased to say I've finished Kapitan Ivanka from Raging Heroes.  The gun sword thing is more than a little ridiculous, and feels like it's been ripped straight out of one of the Final Fantasy games I played in the late 90s (Lord knows which one).  I would like to have used the alternative sword, but with it the balance of the model was screwed up, and it didn't fit with the very large scabbard on the model.  Having painted it I like it a whole lot more now, so I'm pretty pleased I went "all-out" ridiculous in the end...

I'm not overly happy with the finished paint job to be honest, and she wasn't actually a huge amount of fun to paint.  I had originally intended to paint her up as a Commissar, but after recently finishing Yarrick, I didn't want to do another black and red colour scheme.  So I went for a World War 2 Russian Army uniform, with some red chucked in, and plenty of gold.  The green was a base of P3 Cryx Base, washed with Army Painter Strong Tone, then highlighted with Castellan Green, Death World Forest, and then a little Ogryn Camo mixed in for the final highlight.  The skin was Rakarth Flesh washed with Seraphim Sepia, then highlighted with the base plus more and more white.  I've since bought Pallid Wych Flesh which I'll be using in the future for pale skin tones.

The gold (this is for GrimKlaw) is started with a base coat of Dryad Bark, then to highlight I mix in more and more Auric Armour Gold, and blend it in until I get to pure gold.  I haven't been at all impressed with the new range of GW metallics so far, and Auric Armour Gold feels like I've been transported back to the bad old days of the late 80s and Brazen Brass, with its inconsistent texture and naff coverage.  Mixing in the Dryad Bark helps with a more solid colour, and once I got to pure gold, I then mixed in some Mithril Silver, which does the same job as the Dryad Bark.

The steel is a base of Army Painter Gun Metal, shaded with Nuln Oil initially, then highlighted up by mixing in increasing amounts of Mithril Silver.  In amongst the highlight stages I blended in a little more shading where required.  My attempt as heat discolouration (I should have done some research first, but I got impatient to finish the model) was a Guilliman Blue glaze followed Seraphim Sepia and Agrax Earthshade.  It kind of works...

With the good Kapitan finished, I'm on to Goblins from the Hobbit boxed set, some more Dark Vengeance good(evil)ness, and getting started on my Kingdom of Britannia army for Dystopian Legions.  Plus a load of other stuff.

As always, comments and criticism welcome! 

Captain of the Hawk Lords

I was going to title this post with a silly quote from Prince Vultan from Flash Gordon, but I just didn't have the heart to do it...

I don't have a name for this chap yet, but he is painted and I'm really, really pleased with the way he's come out.  The purple, yellow and gold are detailed in the two posts here: http://lairofthebreviks.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Hawk%20Lords, so I won't repeat all that.

GrimKlaw convinced me that I needed to put a little battle damage on him (the miniature, not GrimKlaw), so to start with I added a "Leonidas of 300" style slice down the helmet.  To be honest, the helmet was crying out for it really, I imagine he'll be shouting "This is Preyspire!" at some point...

OK, maybe not.  I can definitely recommend that particular head from Anvil Industry though, and they're developing a really good range of products.

The grey stone of the Crux Terminatus was a base coat of Adeptus Battlegrey, shaded with Nuln Oil.  Then it's a highlight sequence of the base coat, Codex Grey and then a 1:2 mix of Codex Grey and Pallid Wych Flesh.  The Pallid Wych Flesh adds a slightly beige tone in, helping it look a bit more like stone. 

The battle damage was then added afterwards, using really thinned Abaddon Black to begin with, trying to get as thin a line as possible.  Then the mix of Codex Grey and Pallid Wych Flesh was applied "below" the damage, and overlapping it slightly to make the black line even thinner.  After that it was just working back through the highlights, blending them in as I went.  This went much better than I thought it would, it's thinning the paints as much as possible that makes it work.  The shield is far and away my favourite part of the model, I keep looking at it and thinking "Damn, I did that..."

The Axe head was a base of Army Painter Gun Metal (see the latest Ancible article for my grumblings about Leadbelcher, although Jeff at Pirate Viking Painting informs me that they have fixed the lumpiness), washed with Nuln Oil.  I then used a little of the NMM technique and added some Abaddon Black shading, to give the body of the axe a little more depth.  The highlights are blended in Gun Metal, Chainmail and Mithril Silver,  The jewels are the standard GW method, learned back when WFB 4 came out with all those High Elves.  The greens are Castellan Green, Death World Forest and Ogryn Camo.  I used these greens to highlight the back of the cloak:

Before anyone asks, I'm damned if I know whether the axe haft is straight or not.  I've altered it so many damn times and it never looks right, so that's how it's staying. Back to the cloak, I'm still trying to decide if I should have added some freehand or not.  I have a horrible feeling the answer is "Yes, you muppet", but I don't want to mess around with it now, as I'm really happy with the way he looks.  The snow is from Gale Force 9, quite frankly a far superior product to the GW offering, although I think maybe I could have made the snow a bit deeper on the base.

Live and learn, and all that...

So he's done, and I'm happy with him, and it's on to the next project.  I'm on Twitter as @Brevikesq in case anyone has a burning need to read my terribly infrequent tweets - I'm going to try and post some pictures up there too occasionally to keep my motivation up.

As always, comments and criticism welcome!

Ancible Issue 19 is out

Hello all, it's been a while (again)...

Issue 19 of the Ancible is out:

Download Link

Lots of good stuff in there as always, and the bad boy (Malus Darkblade, in case you were wondering) on the cover is the subject of this issues "Watching Paint Dry".

In other news, Christmas kind of got in the way of everything, but I'm making progress on the Hawk Lord Captain, and Kapitan Ivanka.  Goblins from the Hobbit are about to be started too.

Regular posting will recommence soon...

As always, comments and criticism welcome!