Dark Angels – Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer – Mo’ Bone

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I’ve been #paintingwarhammer Dark Angel Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer. If you recall I saw this video by Artis Opus showing how to paint a Rhino and said to myself – “why yes, that’s how I should approach the Land Raider”. The reality is I far from the results they achieved and although I was realistic in what I hoped to achieve and part way there I’m still feeling disappointed.

Now I know I shouldn’t judge it until it’s finished. I mean I’ve been here so often – salvaging models or shifting my perception as I add and refine elements.

This is still very much the scruffy stage and although there are some tones and textures I think have come out quite well I’m hung up on the fact I have drybrushed this in places. Now I know I shouldn’t look down on this technique – it can really work in places but usually I hide it with my texture paint.

But unfortunately I don’t have that crutch to rely on. The doors in particular don’t work for me, although they look far more yellow in the pics than they do in real life. I’m sure when I get onto the reds it’ll definitely help bring it all together.

As you can see I’d tried adding the red rivets above, but realised there wasn’t any point as then next set of highlights covered some of them up so this side hasn’t had them.

I’m sure once all this ‘messy’ stuff is out of the way I can clean it up with some proper white line highlights in places and pin washes to define all the elements.

Then tsponge on some battle damage to further break the panels up and that should stop the focus being how the bone was achieved because there’ll be the whole to consider.

And if all the red weapon casings look cool and they’ll be a bit tidier then it should even things out.

I had seen a Deathwing Land Raider with an offset diagonal company badge across the back and sides but I can’t find it now. It looked really cool and I was considering trying something similar but with the badges on the door and bronze engine it didn’t seem feasible. Perhaps it’s a blessing I couldn’t find it. Anyway, I’m going to go off and do something else until I get my head straight enough to move this on. Why do I get so bogged down with these projects, I wish they could be easier sometime.

Blood Bowl – Nurgle Team Test Model TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I’ve been #paintingwarhammer in this Nurgle Blood Bowl Bloater and some of the turn markers. I’m currently in avoidance mode so I found something completely different to play around with which was marginally effective in keeping me productive.

I don’t normally do test models, but the original thought was these were something my youngest and I could paint together but I’m just not convinced that’s going to happen. Either way if I gave this a try I would have an idea of how to do it so I could share with him if he showed interest. Otherwise I;d just find somehting else for us to paint.

I’d been contemplating what to do and which bits would be which, typically it ended up far more complicated than the rough and rusty approach I’d had in my head originally. Saying that the dirty cream pants are a revelation thanks to my Dark Ochre art acrylic.

In particular the seat of the pants came out so well, although I’m less pleased with the lack of highlights on his back. But I’m planning to do a wide variety of skin colours, again to play around. Some will start with the same base but I may diverge in how I approach each rotting player.

The tar came out just as I’d hoped with the sickly bleached branches sticking out of the muck. I drybrushed the lower parts of the boots black [after painting all the highlights, must not do those again in future] then added some gloss varnish to keep the wet look and some blobs of the 3D gloss texture paint to complete the effect.

I did one of the markers Nurgle Green, some purple and strong tone washes helping to give that diseased look.

I had not noticed I’d caught the knuckle with the 3D paint, rather annoying. 

All the boils were yellow, with a gloss varnish and red and purple washes to make them painfully sore looking.

I struggled deciding on how to do the team badge but I just threw on the bone and dark ochre to help tie it in with his clothing.

I was really pleased with the end result, can’t wait to do the others, although I realise that I may have to switch around the colouring on the pants. I think if I stick to dirty cream pants some will end up with very little orange. So we’ll see what happens.

The plan is not to batch paint, or at least not in large numbers so I can try and get them to be subtly different, which is odd because on the box they look great doing them the same despite the diverse range of models. But I just want a random mix of shambling creatures.

I also cracked on with these counters, once again trying to get Ryza Rust to work for me.

Not sure how good they look and the BB logo and Nurgle symbol was falling back on the filthy cream, with a bit more green thrown in for different tones.

I then added Tamiya Clear Red  X-27 on all the fleshy bits. Liam has been dissing the use of gloss on models for a while now and I just can’t help myself  adding it, even to the detriment of the model.

I think it may well have been better with out, what do you think?

Anyway, I never expected to use the Great Big Minor Project Galactic Stamp of Approval. I don’t consider Major and Minor projects a thing but it makes sense to acknowledge a minor TO DONE! all things considered. So I get’s one.

‘nids part 278 – Rippers – TO DONE! White pics

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I’ve been #paintingwarhammer on the Rippers and here we have the white pics.

Not entirely sure what else to say about these, but it’s been really good to get them complete.

It’s great to have this extra variety of models, things I’m familiar with that I can just dip into inbetween the challenges.

Which means I also need to consider what happens once these items get done.

I really need to go on a bit of a building spree again. Get some additional things built and primed.

It could well be that come the Winter I have significantly more hobby time available to me and it would make a lot of sense to get stuff ready and take advantage of the good weather I have to get them primed.

So, I might build up my spare Tyrannofex, the 3 attack bikes and perhaps my MkI Proteus Land Raider and my old skool Whirlwind.

Having them ready alongside all the other things I on my list should keep me busy for a good while.

Then again I’ve 15 terminators to build, a load of Genestealer Cultists and some Adeptus Mechanicus as well, but I’m not really feeling all that building work right now.

We’ll just have to see how things go and what takes my fancy.

Actually, coming back to the Rippers it’s worth noting that I got a bit random on the turquoise, some of the plates might have 3 striations on one side and 2 on the other.

Still not 100% certain some of those gloss varnish elements on the eyes work. They bled a bit into the surrounding area so there are inexplicable reflections/highlights.

But I can’t help myself, I just have to add them.

Anyway, enjoy the est of the shout uninterrupted until the end, where I have another comparison with my earliest of painted Tyranids.

Here we go, the latest alongside the oldest. Looks like I can go back over some of those old ones and bring them up to standard. Shouldn’t take too much but it’s not a particularly satisfying feeling to go back so it’s difficult to factor this into my workstream when I’ve so many other things to do.

Not to worry, I’ll get to them eventually. In the mean time hope you’ve enjoyed the showcase.

‘nids part 277 – Rippers – TO DONE! Red pics

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I’ve been #paintingwarhammer on the Tyranid Rippers. Once again prepping so many projects in advance bears fruit. Granted it can feel like not a lot of progress is getting done at the beginning but when you suddenly get the urge to get something done it’s often only a small push top get them over the finish line.

The great things about these Rippers is they still match up to my recent attempts at recreating the Forgeworld Ripper Swarms, as shown by 5th one in front.

Now the 4 I made included this Spinemaw swarm, it actually means I have 10 bases of Rippers, when I really only needed 3 more to make the 9 bases for my ‘Troop tax’ – just at the point Troop tax is no longer relevant – than you 9th!

What is frustrating is I tried to fish out all 10 bases to do a collective shot, but could only find 8 in total so there are 2 bases still hiding in some figure case/box somewhere 😞

I’ll find them eventually but there are at least 4 that will require some repainting to bring them up to today’s standard.

Shouldn’t be too hard, mainly the chitin is the issue, so a quick splosh of blue, wash and turquoise. Maybe red on the fleshy bits, wash and highlight and the bone just needs a little wash in places and highlighting.

In fact the same needs to happen to some of the old Warriors too, but I’ll tackle those when it feels right and proper to do so.

I’m chuffed with some of these close-up shots, if you’re in the market for hobby desktop pics I think these will be great.

Especially with these where you can’t even see the base.

You might have two screens where this left-handed shot could be useful…?

I just think they look really cool. Not sure I’ll ever need anymore bases but these were certainly far more fun to do than I expected.

You see a lot of people complain about painting the Forgeworld ones, not sure why… perhaps its the many many Rippers that need doing and they can be fiddly.

Mince don’t have quite as many little gribblies on and I did feel a certain tedium but I’m super chuffed to have got them done.

It also felt really good to get them done reasonably quickly. With the Deathwing Knights taking SO long, and so challenging it felt like a breeze to do, even when I hit the ‘hard’ bits.

Anyway, enjoy these ‘swarm’ pics – like a carpet of Rippers.

Some pics against white backgrounds next, hope you don’t mind.

Great Big Galactic Stamp of Approval for being a good boy!

Deathwatch Overkill

I love the simplicity of Deathwatch Overkill. I think it might have been a stepping stone in the game design of Warhammer Underworlds and Blackstone Fortress – limited models with the use of cards to buff or reinforce what’s on the board. It’s a frustration that I’ve never played past the 4th mission. However, at the beginning of lockdown I managed to cajole my youngest into having his second game, I can’t recall how long ago we played mission 1 but I don’t seem to have a record of it on the blog. Mission 1 is incredibly easy for the marine player, it’s a great introduction to the game and letting him play as the marines gave him a sense of achievement that would hopefully encourage him to play again… like I say, I can’t recall how long ago that was!

So, we played mission 2, essentially I have control over some comms relays in the top right, kill-team Cassius must occupy the four relays. He has 6 team members to do it, if I kill 3 he fails.

Some early ambushes flooded the board with cultists appearing from the shadows.

But as usual they fell to significant shooting from the Deathwatch

This meant the marines could try a two pronged assault, coming on from the flank with the fast moving White Scar and Blood Angel, while being covered at the rear by Rodricus Grytt and his Frag Cannon. 

A couple of Purestrain Genestealers tried to take on Edric Setorax claw to claw…

But both of them and the Aberrants who had faced Vael Donatus failed to capitalise on their ambush.

With such fast using units the comms room suddenly became packed with bodies, with at least one fallen from its comms relay leaving it open for capture.

Despite this more Genestealers were incoming but was it too little too late?

At this stage I was struggling to make a dent in the Kill Team, Setorax had clearly taken a wound but I couldn’t convert it to a kill. I decided to just make the best of bringing on bodies, using the gambits [stratagems] may well have been more productive but they felt a little shady and I needed bodies on the board, but most of them were coming on too far away to reach the melee in the comms room.

As the Kill Team pressed forward there wasn’t much the cultists could do to hold them back with 3 out 4 of the relays occupied it would only require a small push for Donatus to capture the last one.

Which he did. As you can see many cultists were converging on the comms room, but for all their meticulous planning they would arrive too late as the Kill Team destroyed all the relays.

There we go, another win for Kill Team Cassius. I had a fun time with my son, there were numerous times where the dice rolls caused roars of success and cries of failure. Not sure the bug has bitten [no pun intended] but I think he finally saw what it was about. Whether we play again sooner than last time is anyone’s guess but for now I’ll just take this for what it was 😍

Blood Bowl – Troll – basecoats

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I’ve started #paintingwarhammer my Blood Bowl Troll. It had been annoying me that this figure was just primed black. I needed to break it up so I could see where the Troll began and the uniform ended. As it is I haven’t decided on my Ork team, I was thinking black armour with rust and stains.

Having done a little black and rust on the Blood Bowl Ogre I thought it might be fun to carry that through on the Orc team. Anyway, the Troll was really about making a decision on skintone. Again, I’d seen an amazing Troll/Troggoth that I liked but forgot to bookmark it, I was sure I’d saved it to my phone but can’t find it. But I pulled the trigger and went with turquoise [yeah I know I must be obsessed]. I figures it’s something I was familiar with – aside from the nids I’d done the ‘Turqs’ in my Genestealer Cult army. But I also added a pale grey belly, which I think aligns with how trolls are being painted nowadays but it also is a challenge as that will eb new for me.

The stony plates on the back might end up like my nid carapace. Again, this was the element that I’d seen on another troll that impressed me so much but I can’t recall what it was… I’ll just have to wing it.

Anyway, I’m just glad I’ve got something else to look at on it and try and work out what is going where. However, I don’t think it’ll progress much further than this for a good while. I’m pretty sure I’ll just look at the Orks themselves – I’ll do all the skin on the Orks which then gives me the next step of the armour and clothing and then that should feed into the troll.

Sector Mechanicus Galvanic Servohaulers – The little one WiP

Afternoon #warmongers I’ve been #paintingwarhammer the littlest Galvanic Servohauler. You may recall I wanted all these elements from some lucky acquisitions of Warhammer Conquest to be weathered and rusty. I thought I’d shared some WiP pics but this appear to be it, from prime to three quarters done! I started with all sorts of browns and orange as a base and then just sponged on some yellow for the paint. Instead of a reductive technique – removing the yellow through salt, hairspray or chipping medium I tried the additive technique. It seemed easiest to me and although it’s far from perfect I’m getting to a point where I’m happy

The red canister was a last minute choice, so I still have to do a number of things to weather it in and make it not look like the afterthought it really is. That said, it should match up with my Genestealer Cult Sentinels which is half the reason for the colour choice, but also if I go down the yellow route with my Adeptus Mechanicus elements they’ll fit with them too.

But it’s yellow, my favorite colour, and it looks awesome on Red Planet BASE! So I really don’t need any other reasons than that.

Dark Angels – Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer

Afternoon #warmongers I’ve been #paintingwarhammer Dark Angel Deathwing Land Raider Redeemer. I keep chipping away at all these different projects – a little here, a little there. If we go back to the middle of April we’ll see a rather anemic looking tank that I was steadfastly trying to hang onto the original bone colour. But I don’t paint that way and I saw this video by Artis Opus showing how to paint a Rhino and said to myself – “why yes, that’s how I should approach the Land Raider”

So I washed the whole thing in sepia, managed to avoid most of the defects in the crevices and I ended up with a decent base to start with. You’ll also notes I did the red and white quartered heraldry on the front, both left and right and even got the highlights done on the relief sculpture.

There’s still some washes to do on the tracks, weapons and the red elements.

It’s a bit one dimensional in places, I saw an amazing Deathwing Land Raider a while back with a massive Deathwing symbol diagonally offset over the rear and sides . I really wish I’d done something like that but I’ll persevere with what I’ve got.

I’m still highly wary of the next step, but this is a much more comfortable starting point. I need to not think to hard about it as it doesn’t matter in the long run. I just wanted a painted tank, it doesn’t need to be perfect so just need to crack on with it!

‘nids part 276 – Rippers

Afternoon #warmongers and I’ve been #paintingwarhammer on those Tyranid models, but I’ve started to ‘taper’ [as warhannam calls it] my efforts and focus on the Rippers. So I applied the first set of chitin highlights, against protocol as I normally do the bone first – inside > out!

I think I had some turquoise on my palette I needed to use up, which is why I went for the chitin first. I think it might have been over 2 nights. I know a lot of people hate the Forgeworld models for how much effort they take. These aren’t that bad but there were moments where my motivation was challenged.

But I was able to surf that crest, get the second highlight done and then crack on with the first bone highlights. With only four to do it was manageable so every time it felt overwhelming I’d almost completed what I had to do. Progress was steady and I could see that my focus would bear fruit reasonably quickly.

This was such a brilliant project to take on after the Deathwing Knights – so much effort, so many decisions and details. While the Rippers I can do without decisions or delay and just get on with them.

I did have the common sense to keep one of my recent Rippers around, just so I could see how much effort I’d put into them to ensure consistency.

I was surprised to note [although it’s not quite apparent in this pic] but my old Ripper on the right has more dark blue visible. My newer ones have more turquoise, not a problem it just surprised me I’d been more reserved.

Anyway, almost done at this stage, but I don’t think I took anymore pictures as progress was so rapid, just teeth, eyes, claws, a highlight of the red and additional highlights on the tongue and Hive Node. Pick out the Bonewhite chips and edge the base and varnish – gotta love the little fellas.

Adeptus Titanicus – Titans in Manufactorum – Yellows

Afternoon #warmongers and I am #paintingwarhammer #AdeptusTitanicus. |These are on of a plethora of projects that I’d been working on simultaneously alongside my Deathwing Knights. With the Knights being so challenging I needed many different things on my palette to keep my mojo ticking along. I’ve done all the metallic highlights and got to a point where I wanted the armour panels on. Typically I’m not sure if that’s premature and I’ll suffer for adding them too soon.

I think previously there were orange panels, I’ve added a thinned Iyanden Dark Sun to begin the Legio Gryphonicus yellow panels.

Added some sepia on all the trim and it also helped blend the yellow with the orange base.

I’ll be looking to stipple on more yellow in a diffuse mottled effect akin to the original War Griffons colour scheme.

There’s so much here that I had achieved in the preparation of these Titans I know I’m going to end up covering, it’s infuriating I can’t just leave things as they are.

An additional frustration is that I had intended to follow Duncan’s guide to painting War Griffons on Warhammer TV but typically I’ve just gone with how I would paint these things myself.

It would have been so good to just follow each step, come out with something new, with new skills and knowledge and no need to make decisions, which I fear I’m going to end up doing as I make my own way.

Here you can see mottling effect with further spots of Iyanden Dark Sun and then Valejo Game Color Sunburst Yellow.

It’s not entirely what I was after but I still have some battle damage and some line highlights to add which will help define the shapes and give the impression of more detail which will then change the perception of what the mottling is.

I think I have to shade the entire grey pieces with black. The grey primer is very different to Stonewall Greyand as such I can’t use it as it looks odd.

The primer is a cool grey, while Stonewall is a warm grey.

I also picked out the blue shield, still have to done the bone scrollwork.

The shoulders have come out OK, like I say, the damage should help tie everything together.

I mean these are great and everything but once they’re done I’ve all the weapons to do! 😳 Anyway, I’ll keep chipping away at these, literally and figuratively for now.