Eldar Fire Prism and Falcon WIP

Hello everybody and happy new M2.014! hope the gods of the warp have been kind and brought some nice presents for all (I mean this in a nice way!).

My self-present was the amazing Eldar Ghost Warriors box, with nothing less that 1 Wraithknight, 2 Wraithlords and 15 Wraithguard! I will paint all of them in due time with my own version of the Ulthwé Craftworld, that is essentially Black/Blue with a few bone accents.

Here are some work in progress shots of the Fire Prism and Falcon that I have been working on of lately. I need to finish the highlights, paint the gems, add a few decals and add a nice satin varnish on top. Hope you like them!

The hull was primed black, then painted with a dark Grey/blue tone from Vallejo. Afterwards I added some light grey to create a subtle highlight above the engines and the cockpit.

The blue hues are present everywhere there is a grid or exhaust of any kind, to represent the energy emanating from it.

 Some blue areas have received a dilluted black/purple filter. This is done to smooth the transitions and to give a slightly different hue to some areas.

I use 3 different highlight colors, depending on the area. The darkest is a medium grey and the lighter is Pale Witch skin (or something like that) from GW, which is a sort of marble white. For the blue areas I mostly use GW's Blue Horror, from the Edge line.

 The left hull has some highlighting work whilst the right hull has just been airbrushed. It will make a huge difference in the final look. Don't be afraid of trying very clear highlights, just make sure the paing is watered down and applied as thin as possible.

And that's all for know. I hope you liked them, feel free to post any comments or questions!

Eldar Wave Serpent WIP 1

Hi there! Wave Serpents are the new rage in terms of power gaming (these things are pretty darn good!) but the reality is, it has always been one of the best vehicles in terms of hobby. Just head to CMON or google a bit and you'll find some incredible pieces of art painted over a Wave Serpent Hull. Now I'm not nowhere near the level of these artists but it was nonetheless an idea that has been in my mind for some time and when I heard the codex Eldar was due for a release, I decided I would get a small contingent for fun: a Farseer and some bikes, some Guardians / Avengers in Serpent, and of course the mighty Wraithknight!

This has to be my favourite side of 6th Ed, the pace of codex releases is so fast that it is difficult to keep track! but it is encouraging to find every 2 months or 3 some amazing new kits. And here we are, painting my very first xeno outside of Orks, and that was well 15 years ago. Ah those 2nd edition Gretchins painted in goblin green and blood red :)

Back to Eldar. It is a difficult decision to decide how to paint an Eldar army, since you can pretty much use any color. Then there also fluff or game considerations of course, like I would go Saim Hann if I wanted to go biker/skimmer heavy. Given Eldar are meant to be the Children of the Stars and their long decadence, I decided to go with a dark black/blue scheme and add some touches of "space" (more on this later). It will be a Craftwork Ulthwe contingent with some creative licenses.

The first Wave Serpent has a black base with blue hues around it, to give it a sense of energy. The challenge is I went all in and inspired by this wonderful army by Hortwerth, I will try to paint a nebulae on top of the serpent. The easy part is that an airbrush can blend the colors nicely, but the tricky part is painting light colors like yellow on top of black (it looks very dull) or blue (becomes green). With some patience and a few thin layers this is where I am now:

The inside is being painted with an eery blue

I wanted the bottom to show some "energy". Still undecided about going bone with the guns

This baby still needs a lot of work: finalizing the highlights, add stars to the nebula, paint the guns, and the dauting task of painting some 20 jewels. Doh!

At the same time I am also painting the Vyper that comes with the army force; I'm not really sure about the nebula on the small rear wings so I might just go black / blue on this one. What do you guys think?

Let me know if you have any feedback or questions! cheers

The Gaunt's Ghosts project - first squad on the way!

As discussed in the previous entry I want to create a small detachment of Gaunt's Ghosts for my own pleasure, and of course to field in some games. So I ordered a squad of Border World Rangers from Victoria Miniatures and I have to say I'm very pleased with them - the sculpts are superb, full of details and being components not full miniatures opens the door to the level of customization that I'm after. The only downside is they are made of pewter but again, as they come in pieces it is easy to replace arms or legs and have them look as you want them. The kit comes complete with pouches, knives, water tins and of course cloaks!

So here's a little taste - so far I have a squad almost completed and I just need to finish some details, paint the bases and pin the minis. The troopers are generic so far with no special characters yet, but Milo is already assembled and I will be creating a few officers soon.  Kolea, Rawne and Mkoll will be amongst the first, and others like Domor will follow if I can recreate them properly. Of course there will be a Try Again Bragg in the shape of Harker, Larkin as one of the snipers and some notable troopers like Caffran or Merrt. I'm also toying with the idea of creating a Mkvenner to play Marbo but still unsure of how I want him to look (with black fatigues, green cloak and a wood stick he is going to look like Donatello lol). Gaunt will come in the shape of a standard comissar with a cloak. I prefer those from Forge World but the masked heads obviously don't work. Anyway here's what I have so far:

Cloaks, berets, tattoos and stright silver to make Cadians look like boys

The first flamer, unfinished yet. Brostin will follow

A WIP sniper - not as dark as the image suggests

Notice a piper with a boy face to the right

He's getting a blue tatto soon, sure as sure

Urban rubble bases from SWM - I'll be adding razorwire and empty ronds to some

 Hope you like them. More updates to follow soon!

The Ghosts' project and digressions on painting faces

Now that I made up my mind to paint some Tanith Ghosts for my increasing IG army (the Emperor never stops recruiting!) it's time to consider the faces. Painting faces can be one of the most dauting tasks when putting together a new unit or army. It's one of the focal areas, where the eyes tend to go, and therefore it's important to get it right. I'm still in the process of learning (I don't think you can ever stop learning) but I think I can paint pretty decent faces. Considering the Ghosts are rather monochromatic - dull black matte fatigues, dull camo cloak and no color accents at all - I need to make the rest of elements particulary good, and faces are amongst the most important here.

Getting started with simple faces

This is my version of Azrael, Grand Master of the Dark Angels. Still a work in progress but what matters is his face is finished ^^I think he would look better without the bionic eye but nevermind. The process was something like:

• Black basecoat
• Tallarn flesh basecoat, leaving a very thin black line around the hair.
• Layered 50/50 dwarf and elf flesh for a middle tone.
• Added some elf flesh to the mix and layered, almost glazed, a few prominent areas like the nose tip, chin, etcetera
• Washed with Ogryn flesh.
• Painted the eyes:
• Painted the eyes area black.
• Filled that space with pure white, leaving a small line surrounding the eye.
• Painted the iris with a small dot.
• Back to the face, went over it again with the original dilluted mix, leaving the dark
• Added red glazes to the brow and cheeks.
• Added purple glazes to the area below the cheeks.
• Had a beer.

It isn't as slow as it can seem, when painting the Ghosts I'll just line a squad of them and go over the steps - everybody black basecoated, then everybody tallarn basecoated, etc. Only one beer at the end though :)

Adding camo

Now that I think about it, these scouts were the first time I attempted to add camo to the faces. Not unusual considering I mainly have a ton of power armoured dudes, and most of my IG are Kriegs with rebreathers.

Essentially I painted the faces as usual, then added some dilluted green stipes. I doesn't look that bad but I need to improve it. Am I going to use it in the Ghosts? well many of the faces I have now have beards or other facial hair so probably not. That said, I might use it to reinforce certain characters, like scouts or snipers.

Adding tattoos

While I'm not a big fan of blue moon tattoos in a face, it will help to make the Ghosts more recognizable and will give it a much needed contrast to an otherwise dull black/green minis. I haven't yet made my mind on how exactly I'll do this, but it needs to work for both the faces and the arms. 

Oh and just before my trip to the States last week I managed to finish those Knights below. Pretty happy how they turned out and given they are fully magnetized, I can swap the mauls for bolters and plasma cannons for a completely awesome standard Deathwing squad. Hope you like them!

Deathwing WIP

Moar Deathwing! The Command Squad, Knights and DV terminators are almost finished. Well the Dark Vengeance ones were completed but I went back to them to apply something I did for the other squads - the turquoise contrasts! as you can see I've applied it to the powerfists, but also to the lights beneath the arms and very lightly onto the eyes. I'm quite pleased with the effect as it helps to break the brown/bone tones; I also like how the powerfist looks energized without the usual ethereal glowing. 

By the way, I built the command squad with a combination of spare pieces from the DW kit and the vanilla assault terminators, which is not only cheaper but gets you all the hammers you need :) Without further ado let's have a look:

The apothecary - notice all the arms are magnetized, same as with the terminators torsos. I did the bases for the Command Squad with cork, balsa wood and a few spare pieces. Not ideal but at least have a base now.

The DW champion has a half energized weapon. I need to find some time to finish the airbrushing work here.

A hopefully subtle OSL on the plasma cannon - again trying to move away from a shiny look.

My favourite of the Dark Vengeance set with a now charged power fist. Try hitting that ferrocrete wall again :)

The DW Knights - these will be sitting on some Secret Weapon bases very soon. I have kept them more clean than the other DW as they look busy enough.

Stay tuned for the final version! feel free to leave comment with your opinion.

WIP Ravenwing bikers

Yes I'm officially in a Dark Angels frenzy! after the Tactical and Deathwing updates comes the Ravenwing bikers from Dark Vengeance! I've never been a great fan of this concept (Space Marines in a bike?) but I have to say the new minis are very cool, and I'm sure it's going to be a great fun to field a Ravenwing or Double wing army so I need to get these done.

At this moment all they need is a good base, paint some text in the scrolls and add the Ravenwing mark in the shoulder pad. I wonder if I should add some more weathering / chipping. Thoughts / opinions ?

WIP Deathwing Terminators

I am truly looking forward for the new Dark Angels minis and codex so in the meantime I'm keeping myself busy with the Deathwing Terminators from the Dark Vengeance set. The armour was trickier to paint that I anticipated but overall I'm quite pleased with how they are turning out. I still have some details pending, like the eyes, the knifes, feathers or the sergeant's blade that I should be able to finish in a good evening of painting.

The termies sit in some urban rubble bases, painted in a darker tone to give more contrast. It also looks consistent to the heavy weathering / chipping on the amour.

As usual all the arms and weapons options are magnetized (bar the CML) so I can field them in a variety of ways. Constructive comments / feedback is appreciated!

Dark Angels from Dark Vengeance WIP

Just a quick update on the Dark Angels Tacticals and Ravenwing from the Dark Vengeance set. These minis are a blast to paint and I will be posting tutorials pretty soon on the Tactical, Ravenwing and Deathwing squads so stay tuned for more news!

Shoud I apply some OSL to the plasmagun?

The bases were originally meant for some CSM and that's why the look so dark and grim. No to mention it's the 40th millennium!

Needs some weathering and chipping but otherwise good to go