Hawk Lord and Broom Lady

Not much to report this week, a little purple on the head and right shoulder, but the main thing is the crest, which I think has come out pretty well:

As I'm slowly migrating to the new GW paint range, so Breviccus Flavus is evolving.  The yellows are the same (Tausept Ochre and Iyanden Darksun), but now the shade is Seraphim Sepia, and the top highlights include Rakarth Flesh, and then some white to finish off.  While I've found Nuln Oil, and to a lesser extent Agrax Earthshade, to be a regression from Badab Black and Devlan Mud, Seraphim Sepia is a definite improvement.  It covers better, and it's a stronger colour in my opinion.

The purple is coming on nicely, it's a base coat of the new Xereus Purple, shaded with Druchii Violet, then highlighted up through Xereus Purple and Genestealer Purple, with the final highlight a 1:1 mix of Genestealer Purple and the old Astronomican Grey.  It's not the Hawk Lords purple of the Codex, but it's a colour I'm happy with.  Since these pictures, I've started to work on the gold on the "started" shoulder pad.

Another miniature in my "to be finished" group has been completed:

This lady was a present for one of my best friends, someone who through her hard work, experience and knowledge literally keeps the department she works for going.  There's a bit of an "in joke" between us about brooms, so this miniature seemed very appropriate.  :)

She'd actually had a bit of a mishap (mantelpieces are dangerous places), so I was repairing her, and decided that re-basing would be a good idea too.  She's a very old miniature, made by Marauder (remember them?) way back in the late 80s - I finally found her on Stuff of Legends.  To give her a bit more stability, she's pinned and glued to one of Dark Templar's Malcontent bases.  Painting wise, the yellow and red are my usual way of doing things, but I can't remember how I did the green, so it was just as well I didn't have to repair the skirt at all...

She's now back with her owner, who is very happy to have her back and has a safer place to display her!

In other news, several of the Ancible team got together at Firestorm Games in Cardiff - we had a very pleasant day, and Firestorm is a great place.  Unfortunately, my Crimson Fists got their arses handed to them on a plate...twice.  After a lengthy period of reflection (I was a little grumpy with myself I'll confess) I have a reasonable idea why, so steps are in place to get them a bit more competitive.

I hope.

As always comments and criticism welcome - I've been out of the loop a bit recently, but hopefully will be back in the loop over the next few weeks.

Long time no update...

Sorry everyone, poor health, plus a trip up to London meant it's been a long old time since I actually updated this blog (and commented on all your stuff, which is even worse).  However the trip to London was fantastic with the high point being Saturday.  I've been getting a bit excited about the movie "Solomon Kane" (IMDB link) - OK maybe more than a bit, but anyway...  

Opening weekend this weekend, and the main actor, James Purefoy (he of "Rome" fame) and the director, Mike Bassett, were signing all sorts of expensive stuff at one of my favourite stores in the whole world. Forbidden Planet.  So I got a cool canvas and a "making of" book signed by the pair of them, shook the hand of the director and chatted to Mr Purefoy briefly.  Then off to Leicester Square to see the movie at the Empire.  While not the best movie in the world, it was pretty damn good for the budget (low), and it was an absolute blast to hear an action hero talk with the same accent as me - hurrah for the West Country!  Yes, I loved it.

(...and yep, I'm from the Cotswolds and we all sound like farmers...)

...and easily inspired as I am, I now want to theme my slowly growing Empire army around Witch Hunters (Dark cloaks, pistols, flagellants and Sigmarite Priests)...

...not to mention using Malachi's face make-up on something chaotic.

Anyway, got a couple of pictures of my finished Noise Marines.  I'm stopping at 2 for now, these blighters are hard work and I want to do something else for a while.  I'll be taking some more pictures when I have the time - these two are actually an improvement on previous efforts as I've learnt a little about light-metering now - I just need to practice!

Noise Marines 1 & 2

 

They've both come out really well and they look good next to one another.  As I've said before the third one needs some repair work, before I can even think about painting him.  So this week it's going to be Legion of the Damned and some Empire...

...and good lord, I need to get back on with this updating malarkey...

Breviccus Flavus

  OK, that was a really poor attempt at Latin – Breviccus is a poor Latin bastardization of Brevik and Flavus is Latin for Yellow.

No prizes for guessing what this is about, Dverning said he’d be interested in a stage-by-stage thingy on how I painted the Yellow for the Lamenter sergeant I did recently, so here goes…

It’s all yellow…

This is not the bright yellow you’ll see in White Dwarf, it’s a softer tone.  I’ve also highlighted differently – I’ve never liked the way they highlight Space Marine shoulder pads at GW, so I tend to highlight as if there is a light directly above the miniature.  I can’t stress how important it is to water down your paints, especially for the highlighting stages – go for more thin coats than one thick one

 1.  Basecoat – Thinned Tausept Ochre was applied in a series of coats to create a solid block of colour.  It might be worth trying a lighter primer than black here, as it did take a lot of thin coats to get to this point.

2. Shading Wash – One wash of pure Gryphonne Sepia – try not to use too much, as it will darken the overall colour.

  

3. First Highlight – Thinned Tausept Ochre is applied to the whole rim apart the bottom right corner (as you look at the picture) as this is effectively “in shadow” from a top-down perspective.  It’s also applied to the top 2/3 of the inner shoulder pad.

4. Second and Third Highlights – The second highlight is a thinned 50:50 mix of Tausept Ochre and Iyanden Darksun, the third highlight is just tinned Iyanden Darksun.  Hopefully the picture shows that these highlights are graduated towards the top of the inner pad and towards the top edges of the rim.

5. Final Highlight – A thinned 50:50 mix of Iyanden Darksun and Dheneb Stone is applied to the very top edges of the rim and the top 20% or so of the inner pad.

The End.

At some point I’ll do something similar about the battle damage on the sergeant.

As always, comments and criticism always welcome.

Brevik's Lament

Mrs Brevik and I went to see the Moctezuma (apparently "Montezuma" is wrong) exhibit in the British Museum last night - the exhibit was really good, but has the side effect that I now want to do a Lizardmen army in the style of the Mexica (apparently "Aztec" is wrong too...).

I don't need new army ideas right now...

No painting done so far today, but I've been trying out a few new things when taking pictures.  I can't seem to get enough light, so even though these pictures are better, they're still a bit too dark.

Lamenter Sergeant

This guy was painted a month or two ago and was an attempt at "better battle damage". I hadn't got the Modelling Masterclass book then, so I was still trying to paint battle damage on, rather than using the sponge method.

Here I used Scorched Brown as the dark colour, rather than using black, and it's a much subtler effect.  I washed the greaves and feet a couple of times with watered down Devlan Mud to "dirty it up" a bit.

Lamenters are supposed to be a Blood Angels Successor Chapter who follow the Codex Astartes, hence the red helmet.  The bolter was Chaos Black highlighted with Scorched Brown and Codex Grey - it's the paint scheme I'm using on my Legion of the Damned models, rather than the normal black.

Comments and Criticism welcome...

An update, and yes I know it's about damn time...

Finally got some pictures to share, been fairly productive the last couple of weeks, but not really got much finished.  Haldir and the Empire Swordsman are done, pictures of those boys to follow some time soon.  The Eldar Warlock has gone back on the shelf, I just can't get the enthusiasm to carry on with his colour scheme, he may be stripped and started again with...


So pictures of stuff I have finished!


Blood Angels Sergeant
Finally got this chap finished, I'm much happier with the red now, having applied some orange highlights which finally brought the red to life.  I was loathe to go that bright with the highlights, but it certainly has helped - I've only applied the orange to the top edges of the miniature and that seems to have worked.  I didn't think red was that hard to paint, I must just be getting pickier now...

Imperial Guard - Corinium 5th Regiment "The Greenjackets"
This is the model I'm most pleased with, he'll be part of the command squad I bought recently, for an Imperial Guard force I'm working on the background for - an expeditionary force made up of squads from different regiments.  I'm not sure how far this will go, but I'm going to be trying my hand at a little short story writing to go with the army.  I wasn't a big fan of the Vostroyan models initially, but they've really grown on me.

The green came out really well, the yellow contrasts nicely with it and the metalwork looks great.  I wanted this guy to look like he'd come from an "old elite" regiment (as he'll be a veteran), something like the Grenadier Guards.

Nothing new, but new pictures of one of my favourites

My dear wife took a couple of miniatures into her workplace (a local college) today, so the photography teacher could look at the best way to take pictures of my miniatures.  Here are the results:

I have to say, I'm somewhat blown away by the pictures.  They're taken using a Nikon D60 (apparently) - guess what I want for Christmas?

Works In Progress...

OK, no progress tonight, but this is where I got to last night.


First up, Blood Angels Marine Sergeant, the red is pretty much done, apart from the top of the helmet, which is way too dark.

Next up, High Elf Champion, silver metalwork done, and the blue dragon wings on the helm are nearly done, just in need of a top highlight.  I'll be using the same blue colour on the forearms and part of the breastplate.  Next to do is the gold metalwork (filigree?).

Off to the GW store for lunch tomorrow, so these two chaps should have some extra paint added to them...

Painting again

Well, after a break of just under a week, it's time to get painting again.  The plan is to start finishing off all the stuff sat half finished in my painting station.  If possible I'd like to get 3 done a week (minimum).

Here's the three I want to get done this week:

The  Dark Elf is nearly done, just the face really, plus some freehand on the back of the cloak.  The Uruk-Hai Captain needs highlighting and detailing, and the Space Marine Sergeant is barely started.

I doubt these will be entered into any painting competitions, they're more for me to get back into the swing of things...

My Golden Demon 2009 Entry

Here they are, a bit of a ropey photo, so I'll probably get some better ones up at some point...