Busy day

Its been a hectic day! I made a lot of progress on a lot of projects. The Mystery Dragon got some work with refreshing the base flesh of the embattled dwarves and a light green work up of the underbelly and transition scales as well as the wings and face of the monster. The next Orkk Trukk went from bare sprue to completed rolling chassis. It has the same black primer + Tin Bitz (Citadel) + Bolt Gun Metal (Citadel) as the last rolling from but the wheels are weathered and dirty using the same basic finish as the rolling chassis followed by heavy splotchy applications of Brown (Craft Art) and layering up through Spice Brown (Ceramcoat), Golden Brown (Apple Barn) and Flesh Tone #5 (Horizon). After wards topping with Devlan Mud (Citadel Wash). I may powder or chalk the wheels but that can be accomplished in the round up at the end.

The five Juggernauts of Khorne got their basic red treatments. Mechrite Red (citadel foundation) followed by dry-brushes with Harvest Orange (Apple Barrel) and Apricot (Apple Barrel) and a Baal Red (Citadel Washes) wash. The Citadel premixed washes, while expensive, are handy for repeating effects across large numbers of figures. The same effects can ,of course, be achieved by mixing our own washes but its quick and easy and doesn't require me to make a note of it in my color recipe book. I also began the black blocking process on the Juggers. This takes a lot of time and is terribly tedious but produces great results in the end. Basically all voids and metal items get painted black as well as some of the joints. This will make the metal effects stronger in the end and imply depth.

So where are we? Dragon, Trukk, Juggers... oh yeah Sisters of Battle Fortress personnel door got the basic work up of the icon and the colors (Which seem to have gravitated to red and black) and wings! I found the Wings for Azzazel on the priming tray with the Juggers. I thought I'd misplaced them but am happy to find them. They got a Flesh Tone #5 (Horizon) wash and a white brush up. The pinions and longer flight feathers will get a further white dry brush and we'll see where that leaves us.

Mystery Figure

While I was digging out and organizing the "to be repaired" pile I came across an old dragon. I've based it and am going to update the paint. That may be kind... I don't think I ever actually finished painting it the first time! At any rate I can't recall where I got it or who manufactured it. If anyone recognizes it please post!

Finished up the Ripper Swarms this morning. Bases were Spice Brown (Ceramcoat) wet brushed with Golden Brown (Craft Smart) and then with Bone White (Citadel) after that a heavy splash of Devlan Mud (Citadel Washes). Another coat of matte sealer then static grass and done. Static grass was only applied to the leading edge and occasionally to the side to represent the Ripper Swarm devouring every living thing in its path! These are play peices and you can see the edges and transition areas are not sharply dressed and the highlights are exaggerated to better show up at gaming distances. I was intending to move on to the next Ork Trukk and sprayed the sprues black before I discovered that I have a pile of Blood Crushers of Khorne that I had been working on before we were sent out of town for three months. Looks like they are next up! In between I'm still working the Sister of Battle Fortress and got a lot of basic work completed on the small personnel door. I added a fleurs-de-lis to the center of the door and accomplished base coats and initial weathering.

Ripper Claws

Picking up after a hectic weekend (I managed to knock a cap off one of me teeth on Sunday and it took a couple of days to get it put back on) by working on the claw and teeth whitening. Here I brushed over the old Mold Yellow (Ral Partha) with light wet brush of Bone White (Citadel). After this I went back and retouched the faces of the individual rippers with Blood Red (Citadel) to get some definition between the very similar claw/teeth and carapace textures.

Ripper Claws

Today all I got done was the base Spice Brown (Ceramcoat) for the claws on the rippers. Mostly this was due to the arrival of Imperial Armour II from Forge World! I also got the Crusher Carnifax and The Modeling Masterclass book but it was Apocalypse II that ate my afternoon! At any rate I'm may not get round to finishing these little guys until sometime next week. They are getting close just the claw work up, carapace tie in, definition for the muddy areas, and bases left. That will probably take four or five days just because its a hectic week coming up. I'll start prepping the next Ork trukk this tomorrow and possibly put a little time in on the Sisters Fortress between now and Monday.

Rippers Carapace

The rippers next get some gray streaking on their carapaces (Ral Partha Gray) followed immediately byt a Sepia wash (Citadel Gryphonne Sepia Wash) This makes the little beggars look like proper roaches! I will finish the carapace top dress at the end to give one more texture layer and tie it all together. At the moment the carapaces look awesome from three feet but very splotchy up close as the pictures reveal. I'm a big fan of making the finished general use figures look great at about three feet since that is the most commonly viewed range. Center piece figures should be a bit more refined as they are often picked up for closer inspection.

Sisters Fortress

My long term Sisters of Battle project is being developed sort of backwardly. I've been working on a fortress for the order in the hopes it will inspire me to finalize a background and color scheme.

The fortress is based on a Guns of Navaronne Playset I got for Christmas in the early 70s. I'm really please to bring this venerable set out of storage and give it some new life.

I've added some Sisters Icons to the upper bunker and have done the basic weathering of the structure. The floors have been painted to old oily concrete and I'm working larger Icons into the floor. With five available floors there is a lot of possibility! I'll include both standard Fleur de lys and a symbol specific to the order (once I firm that up!) With the elevator and main guns I've also added some icons and seem to have done a fair bit of picking out detail in red and white. Given those small directions its time to return to the fluff to sort the identity crisis. I'm building the background for the order based on an urban warfare/police action concept that should include several specialist light vehicles that will have to be converted up as well.

Undercoats

Undercoats have such an influence on the outcome of a finish. In this case I want the eyes to be a glowing green color so I'm starting off with Sunburst Yellow (Citadel) over the red base color. Green goes next and the slop round the eye socket will be tidied up when the carapace textures are added.

Pics

Well. I think I should have started taking pictures of work a long time ago! My eyes have faded a bit so its hard to see some of the detail while I'm working on it without some rather draconian headgear! Unfortunately my magnifier is a one size fits all special and my head is, predictably, bigger than that... rats! Anyway the Charadon Granite is working out. The ragged edges will get touched up in the next round.

And Bugs!

The Forge World ripper swarms are altogether different.

My Tyranid army is enormous, very old school, and needs a lot of updating. The color scheme is largely the original tyranid army scheme. Genestealers are the original blue and purple scheme while Tyranid warriors and termagants are red. The other creatures in the swarm tend to be blue with the odd red one more or less randomly dumped in. During the update I want to make a more unified army while updating the technique and scheme.

The rippers are going the red route.

Due to the vast preexisting horde having been entirely painted over white primer I elect to continue with white even though the FW rippers pretty much scream out for a black base.

I thoroughly, or so I thought at the time, cleaned and washed the figures using warm soapy water and an old toothbrush. The figures are deeply recessed and this will come back to vex me later. White primer was applied and then I washed the figures with Mold Yellow (Ral Partha) and then with Alizarin Crimson ( Americana). At this point is became clear that not all of the mold release had been done away with. Pin pricks of brilliant white peered out between the forest of fangs and refuse, despite many coats, to be covered. I then used a heavy wash of Baal Red and it took care of most of the pinholes. Now I'm covering the carapace sections with Charadon Granite (Citadel Foundation) and it is collecting the remaining pin holes.

Trukks

This week I'm mostly working on Forge World projects.

On the deck is an Ork Half track and 9 bases of rippers.

I got the half track mostly finished but am needing to go back and add some flash. Detail bits mostly. This kit was the first full up vehicle I've done from Forge World (FW). The components were really good and the track was flexible. They required minimal clean up and these were then used to modify a Games Workshop (GW) Ork Trukk kit.

The basic trukk kit is actually a bit of a pain to work with. A lot of the optional equipment should really be added before the cab floor is attached to the rolling chassis. This wasn't immediately apparent and the options all show up in the last step of the instructions. Ultimately this resulted in my leaving most of the optional gear off. Not to worry it'll be largely incorporated into the next trukk and has the advantage of being already painted.

The trukk is painted to look crude and some of the techniques i used were pretty crude as well! Its also going to be a gaming piece and is not intended to be a contest entry. Good, solid, Ork stuff.

The basic scheme involved a black undercoat followed with a base coat of either Citadel Mechrite Red (Foundation Paint) or Tin Bitz (Citadel). These were heavily but unevenly applied using a wetbrush technique. All of this accomplished while still on the sprue.

The red areas were then worked up using Harvest Orange (Apple Barrel ) and Apricot (Apple Barrel) then finished off with a couple of coats of Baal Red wash (Citadel).

The bare metal areas got a heavy brush up of Bolt Gun Metal (Citadel). Highlights were made with Rustungs Farbe (Fantasy Forest).

Quick and dirty.

Hello all.

Yeah, there are a ton of folks posting about building and painting miniatures. This is mostly just a test to see if jabbering about it actually makes me more productive.

I've got a backlog of about 10,000 lbs of stuff to build and paint.

Yeah its a bit.

I'm actually not lazy. The built and painted figure total is over 10,000. That is a lot but I've been at it for 30 years or so. Like a lot of gamers/modelers/painters, my appetite for new miniatures is enormous. It far exceeds the time I have to work on it, but hey... you're in the same boat. Maybe we'll all get inspired!


Welcome to Swelter World!