Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  The Dark Eldar Reaper is assembled except for accessories like chains and spiky poles etc... and the sail!   I'm also going to add some edging and patterning to the rudder.

As far as the sail itself goes I'm thinking to put the Kabal logo in one of the three patterns and add the fractal white to that sail segment while the remaining segments could be solid black or red with bone colored spars.



The Steersman/Weapons officer ended up in Bone White Armor.  I have traditionally painted the Kabalite Warriors in a yellow scheme but the vehicle doesn't really need another color. I think that I'll run all the Trueborn in bone colored armor using a darker base color while crew will be in the whiter style and regular warriors retain the yellow.  Also in the scheme Incubi ar black with bone trim and regular wyches are red.  I'm undecided if the Blood Brides should just be red like the rest of the wyches or if they should be alternately colored in the same way as the warriors are.

This gives a more colorful Dark Eldar force than is usually the case and is similar to the appraoch I took with my Craft World Eldar.  In that case each of the aspects is colored in variations of their traditional scheme while the Guardians wear the Craft World's colors.  I think its a good way to remember that the Dark Eldar and the Craft World Eldar have common roots.

Confession Machine from Max Mini

 Today I painted up a Confession Machine from Max Mini.  The casting was very clean and the whole look of the machine is awesome. 

I elected to add this to the mythology of my Order of the Ebon Chalice.  The essential theme being that personal sins, up to a particular level, are authorized to be submitted for summary judgement at the machine.  Of course Heresy is a totally different story so the machine monitors confessions for heretical content and reports to the local Inquisition facility.  More development is in order but its a good start!

There has been some progress on the Dark Eldar Reaper as well and its looking to be finished this week although there has been a difficulty with the main gun body separating from the deck plate during, or after, I installed the upper gratings.  I had initially thought that the out of sequence installation of the upper gratings had gone without a hitch but not so! I'll have to carefully re-glue that and do some repairs along where the control pylon joins the main gun but these seem to be relatively minor hiccups.

Most of the detail bits and the primary crewman are complete at this point so I should be able to begin final assembly and touch-ups.  Except... I forgot that the enhanced aethersail is still primer!  fortunately that is the last bit to add on so it doesn't really impede construction.  I'm still deciding on an actual color, or pattern, for the sails themselves.   I will likely wait to make the final call on the sail until I get the rest of it assembled so I can see what needs balancing.

Since I've opted for a fairly clean look on these weathering is minimal so far.  It may be that I'll return and weather the lot of them together at some point.

Dark Eldar Reaper details WiP

 Work proceeds on the Dark Eldar Reaper.  The prow plates for the gun are blocked in with basic fractile shapes and the Kabal Glyph.  These were all blocked in with Bleached Bone and will be re-coated and highlighted as will the mirror imaged glyphs.  The black armor plates will likely be edged in  Mechrite Red and then highlighted in Blood Red.  This vehicle looks like it will be a lot more red, or perhaps a lot less black, than the first generation vehicles but the colors should tie together well.

 The main gun is almost complete.  There remains a repair to one of the large gems that managed to dry with a portion of its dust cover touching the gem.  I should be able to assemble the main hull at this point and we'll see how difficult it will be to work the decking plates into position.  Fortunately the paint in the tight areas is unadjusted Mechrite Red so repairs should be relatively invisible.

More of Da Big Red WAAGH!  status markers.  This time its vehicle speed condition.  I'm closing in on finishing this set with only a large Waagh! marker and the infantry status markers remaining.  Then its on to the Dark Eldar Counter set.

Dark Eldar Reaper WiP and Computer woes...

The Reaper is coming along with a lot of the base coats falling into place.  I've already encountered some planning fail in that I put the hull together without placing the decking inserts.  DoH!  This is the first of the new Raider hulls I've worked on so I was bound to get something wrong.  I'll have to do some 'convincing' to get these plates into place but it doesn't look like it'll be THAT bad....

Otherwise I'm happy with the way the color patterns are laying out.  I'll still add the fractile white similar to the one on the Razorwing with the idea that all of the new models will be of this scheme and that they will make a complimentary addition to the older pattern vehicles.   I like the more baroque look of the new models and want to emphasis those elements with the color scheme.

The white build up on the main gun elements is done with P3 paint that I'm experimenting with and I like the subtle, complimentary,  highlights.  With a little more practice I think these will work out.  I'm now very keen to try out some of the Reaper Master series triads.

In mundania...

I'm experiencing some computer fail where my card reader has ceased to be recognized my the computer which makes it a bit more difficult to add photos.  Thus the WiP photo here is not the photo I'd like to display... but, rather, the one that got added to the computer before the card reader failed.... yeeee haw!

Updates may slow down for a bit while I get this sorted.

More Ork status marker mayhem and Greasus Goldtooth WiP

Work is progressing on the Dark Eldar Reaper.  I've added some new paints (P3 Menoth White Base, Menoth White Highlight, and Bone Jack) to my inventory and am still getting used to the way they work.  So far I really like the consistency and flow.

I should have some WiP of the Reaper up this weekend as well as some views of resumed work on Greasus Goldtooth and some other odds and ends.

Here is some more of the Ork status marker mayhem!  I decided to stick with the yellow text for adverse effects and go with white for positive effects 

The release of the Ogre Kingdoms has motivated me to finish up my small backlog of Ogre Kingdoms models with a view to adding a couple of the new kits to the pile.  The new kits are as stunning as they are spendy so I'm waiting to pick them up until I really take a look at the Army Book... which I'll get to as soon as I finish reading a borrowed copy of the Malifaux Rising Powers book.



I've been resisting Malifaux since I really don't need to add another game to my stable at the moment but the models are so cool and you don't really require many of them to play casually... 

Famous last words...

Laser Etched Counters painting tutorial

After seeing the amazing custom laser etched counter sets that Silver Compass Designs put together for the Heroes of Armageddon charity event I decided to look into getting some of them for my own armies. 

I sent Pete an email and learned that they don't really have any standard packages.  Most sets are completely custom!  He was very helpful and gave me some ideas about where to start with designing a set and made sure I was aware that EVERYTHING about the set could be customized.  There is no requirement, for example, that the tokens be of any particular shape and the lasers can do incredibly fine detail so practically anything could be put on them in terms of designs or text.

Caught up in a frenzy of design I came up with counter sets for My Orks "Da Big Red WAAAGH!" and my Dark Eldar "Blood Rain Kabal".  Pete managed to convert my eccentric sketches into polished art and shapes on the first go round.  He even added my Kabal rune to their new three part pain tokens so they would match my theme!

The design process was a lot more fun than I imagined it would be and I'll be doing it again in the near future with a counter set for the Tyranids.

I got the two sets a couple of days ago and immediately set to work on the Ork set just to see how it shook out.  It looks like it'll take me the better part of a week each to get them set up.  I could knock them out in a basic way in a day or two but decided to run a bit amok with the painting!

Of course I'll be posting a picture of each of the completed sets as I finish them.  The Ork set is over 200 counters and the Dark Eldar set is 166 counters so they'll take just a bit to get up to speed.  You could do effective sets at much lower numbers of counters.  These are large sets because  I really liked the large sets that came with the Heroes of Armageddon armies.. and because the design process was so much fun!

I've also added a tutorial page with a detailed tutorial of how I painted these... check it out!

Silver Compass is also putting together Laser etched custom dice where all the faces can be customized.  Having seen a couple of samples I'm looking forward to those as well.

Of course I had to have something cool to carry my awesome counters in so I got looking for something appropriate and found it at Marsbarn Designs.

The Skull bag is a square bottom dice bag.  Great bag at a decent price with really fast turn around and a huge selection of fabrics and patterns to choose from.

Grotesque Wracks

 The Wrack group took a little longer because I spent some additional time on the bases. 

I've painted up a dozen old metal Grotesques and swapped out the spare weapons and arms from the Finecast Wrack set to make them look a little more like the current Wracks... of course I haven't added the namesake bony rack!  I'll do the next batch up basically in Gray on this same format of 5 new Wracks and 12 old Grotesques to fill things out.

I can still use the Grotesques as ... Grotesques!

Which will be handy until I replace them with larger models.  I know its more efficient to keep using the old models with their conveniently smaller bases but I like the idea of larger grotesques.  That said I'm not at all happy about the price point of the new Grotesque model... especially since it is cast in such a dynamic pose that all of them beyond model one will have to be modified to avoid the appearance of the unit being stuck doing The Monster Mash!  So I'm looking for a model to use in place repeating the Current official model 10 times.  I have two of the new model and think I would like to look at a half dozen alternative models that have the right ambiance.  Let me know if you have any recommendations.  I think Ogres would be workable of course but some of the Steampunk stuff that is out there might have application as well.  I'm not a tournament player so it can be a non-GW model if there is something out there especially cool and appropriately horrific!

 I had a great time working on the bases.  I was going for a swampy effect and am pretty happy with the result.  I still have some work to do with making the water effects deep enough to be convincing on this size and style of base but I think I can sort that out.  These did eventually achieve enough depth of water effect to make a believable surface texture and I was really pleased with the way the stones turned out... they even look a little mossy!

The skin on these fellows looks particularly mottled and unhealthy.  I like the pastiche of color and, although they are too textured and splotchy for the GW style, I think it has a good B-movie horror feel to it.