I love/hate these. I love how the aircraft came out: I think the results are excellent, particularly considering how little effort went into them. I hate how the bases came out: I feel like every decision I made around them was wrong and I ended up spending more time on the damn bases than the aircraft, if that’s believable.
When I say “little effort,” I mean it. These are all basecoated, a few details picked out with solid colors, and weathered with oils (burnt umber). That’s it. The Tau got the tiniest bit more effort, with the top being different colors from the bottom and with a second color being airbrushed on for “camo.”
Really the key is going light so you can go nuts with the oils. I started trying to just pin wash, and got lazy. That’s fine: it’s way to remove oil paint and that’s kind of the point. By brushing it away from nose to tail, I can clean up my mess and add texture & depth.
Bases aside, all of this was the work of maybe two afternoons.
These were my first batch. I skipped decals on these, and I feel like that was a huge mistake: just the tiniest bit more effort and they’d have come out quite a bit better.
Early last year, I painted up a few kits of Genestealer Cults because I felt like it. I told myself maybe I’d play Kill Team with them, but really: they’re neat models and I felt like painting them. In the end, I picked up a few more Genestealer Cult models than I ended up painting and they’ve been rattling around the shame pile since.
No longer!
They’ve all gotten LoF arcs in the off-chance I actually play Necromunda with them at some point.
Actolyte Hybrids
Can I just say: Genestealers on 25mm bases are tall, unbalanced and weird. Genestealers on 32mm bases are unimpeachable. They’re flawless. I love them.
Iconward & Genestealers
I also banged out the box of Slave Ogryn models in pretty speedy time: I did 2 each for my Goliaths and Enforcers and then 2 more just in their own scheme. I also painted up the Enforcer Null & robo dog.
During my staycation, I painted up some more Crimson Fists: the Hellblasters from Dark Imperium/Know No Fear, and power-sword’d models from Indomitus.
I want to take a moment to shit on the Judicar. This is the dumbest GW model I’ve put together in memory. This dummy has a mask over his mask? And a coat over his armor? But also armor over his coat? Ugh, I just hate this model.
I’ve been painting Necromunda because why not? Hopefully I’ll be able to play the dang game after the Quarantimes have ended.
I actually tee’d all of these up like a month ago but got really disheartened by how they were coming along. I’m glad I came back to them: I think they actually came out really well.
The Sumpkroc is based on a toad we see every night while walking the dogs.
I wrapped up the first chunk of my Crimson Fists, so I wanted to get them into the lightbox.
They’re weirdly very frustrating. The recipe is extremely simple and speedy; I’m painting them in what I would describe as the Citadel/Duncan style, which is to say I put down a bunch of base colors, wash it, tidy up the colors, and highlight.
Step 1: Base
GW Night Lords Blue basecoat on pretty much everything
VMC Dark Grey on flex, tubes
GW Leadbelcher on emblems, bolter parts
VMC Black on bolter case, grenades
GW Night Lords Blue to cleanup edges
Step 2: Wash
GW Nuln Oil
Step 3: Clean up
GW Night Lords Blue on large surfaces
VMC Dark Grey on flex, tubes
Step 4: Highlight
GW Thunderhawk Blue edge highlight on armor
Stop halfway through to do eyes:
P3 Inferno Orange
GW Gryph-Hound Orange
P3 Heartfire
GW Fenris Grey edge highlight over Thunderhawk Blue (on characters)
VMC Light Grey edge highlight on flex, tubes
Step 5: Cleanup (again)
GW Night Lords Blue to de-chunk the Thunderhawk Blue highlights
Step 6: Fist, Seals, Holsters
Pretty much the same as above but with GW Mephiston Red & GW Wild Rider Red, GW Zandri Dust & GW Ushabti Bone, and GW Mournfang Brown and GW XV-88 with GW Agrax Earthshade in the middle there.
Probably because it’s got like 12 steps that involve me applying Night Lords Blue it starts to feel old pretty quickly. Fortunately, I’m using NLB Air.
Here’s the thing, because I don’t know that I’ve advocated enough for the GW Air paints here: brush that stuff on. It’s fine in the airbrush (despite being in a damned pot and not a dropper), but their air paints tend to have great coverage w/r flow when just brushed on. When highlighting stuff, I would very much prefer their air paints over their non-air paints. The flow of the NLB, compared to the weird flow of the TB, makes it a lot easier for me to just not fight the Thunderhawk and then clean it up with the Night Lords.
Anyway, it’s so easy I expect progress to be faster than it is, which discourages me, which makes progress slower, etc. Vicious cirle.
First batch is done, anyway. These are Intercessors and characters from Dark Imperium & Know No Fear and the Phobos LT from the SC! Vanguard box.
Intercessor Squad V 1Intercessor Squad VI 1Intercessor Squad V 2CharactersGravis CaptainPrimaris LieutenantsPhobos Lieutenant, Primaris Ancient
I’m also particularly pleased with how the power swords came out.
I feel like I need to defend the decision to paint these guys. I don’t know that I can, besides noting that I’d bought them before the police violence had gotten out of control, they’re fundamentally just another gang, and I just like felt like painting them.
I’m loving the blue here. I love the blue so much I’ve decided to paint up a bunch of Crimson Fists because I need to live in it some more.
I picked up a few Genestealer Cult models a few months back for no reason other than that they look cool. I didn’t intend to paint up a 40K army of them (nor did I) but I certainly kept the idea of playing Kill Team with them on the table (I haven’t).
They’re painted up Duncan-style, per one of the WarhammerTV video guides. I deviated a little where it came to carapace and flesh, but otherwise, there’s nothing revolutionary here.
I’ve got to say: painting these was kind of a delight. I didn’t do it for any reason other than “I felt like it.” The Citadel method’s easy and produces good results with little effort. And Games Workshop minis really are pretty great, and it feels like it’s been a while since I painted them. (Not true, I’d just painted some Adeptus Titanicus before these, but that’s a little different.)
I think I might still have one batch left (Acolyte Hybrids? and an Acolyte Iconward?) but I don’t know that I’m likely to get to it soon. And I don’t think I’m likely to pick up any more, either.
But man, it felt good to just build a box of GW minis, paint a box of GW minis. Done.
Turns out I haven’t photographed anything I’ve worked on since…. before NOVA. Time to fix that.
These are the models from the Adeptus Titanicus Grand Master set. I spent the better part of a month working on these: I’m quite happy with them… although I haven’t had the chance to play the game yet. It’s my understanding that the game plays better with some Reavers & Warhounds, but I’m having a hard time finding it in my heart to buy more models for this game until I’ve pushed these around.
No deliberate house here: I just picked colors and decals I thought would look good.
It’s been out for a couple of months now, at this point, but I’ve only just now gotten to playing a game of 8E.
Scott (who has a blog, but I can’t remember the name) was kind enough to run me through a quick game to help me see how it plays.
It seemed alright. The mechanics of it kind of hummed along, but referencing the rules was a fucking goddamned nightmare. Flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip flip. I hate the Warscroll format.
Otherwise, it was OK. I’m not afire with a need to build a new army for it, and I’m not likely to update anything especially for 8E (especially given that Dark Angels and Khornate Daemons are still in Index-mod), but I won’t turn down a casual game of it.
Although a bajillion other scenarios have popped off (Stormtroopers assaulting a Kroot encampment! Cultists infiltrating a Militarum base! Goddamn Space Marine! Just one!), my initial plan was to do Stormtroopers vs. Cultists.
I got a bunch of cultists back in the Dark Vengeance box and, even when I traded away the rest of the Chaos models, I hung onto them because they’re cool and they’re the sort of model I’d like to have around painted. Obviously, it took me a bit to get to them.
They’re definitely Chaos-y, but maybe not so specific I can’t use them for whatever.
I was really excited about painting up some Stormtroopers. I’ve been into the models since they came out, but haven’t had an excuse to paint them up. Because they’re supposed to be stealthy, I used the same paint scheme for them that I used on the Deadzone Pathfinders I painted up a few months ago, and I’m nuts for it. It’s black without being black, which is always the problem with painting things black, you know?
I also used some of the Mantic Peacekeeper shields because, well, I thought they deserved some riot shields.
