Day 22: Herald of Tzeentch

I built this guy/gal (Tzeentch likes to keep you guessing) a few years back because I had too many spare parts. I purchased the Vampire Counts Cairn Wraith to use the scythe on my Plaguebearer Champion, which left me with a whole lot of mini left over.

While going over my options, I noticed I had a face & hands from the Pink Horrors box. They fit nicely onto the wraith body and voila, a unique & mysterious Herald of Tzeentch.

Where's his body? Tzeentch likes to keep you guessing.

I had this almost entirely complete early Thursday, except for the base. I'd just added a wash to its base when I I tipped the mini after I'd set it down. It broke off its round base, & splattering Nuln Oil wash across the whole mini. I was able to clean most of it off under a faucet, but there are still a few spots I missed.

As I was preparing to reglue the mini to its base I remembered that this month is a WFB painting competition at my local game store. I'm not really happy with the conversion I've been intending to submit, so I decided to whip up a quick scenic base using some cork and a bit from the WFB Battle Wizard box. He's only held onto the base by a peg, since I plan on using him in my 40k army (Those Malefic powers sound crazy).

It's funny though, if I hadn't tipped the mini & broke it off its base I wouldn't have thought to use it as my fantasy competition entry. How well will it do in the painting competition?

Tzeentch likes to keep you guessing.

~Muninn

Days 19, 20, & 21: Dark Vengeance Cultists

I actually finished these guys on Tuesday, but didn't have access to my work photo studio before today. My newspaper is actually in the middle of moving to a new location, so closer to the end of the month I might have to switch to amateur methods.  It happens.

Once my Night Wolves commission is over, and once this mini challenge is over my next big goal will be to finally finish my Dark Vengeance box before the *next* starter set comes out (rumored to feature Blood Angels vs Orks this August). At this point I've completed 9 minis from Chaos, and 12 from the Dark Angels. This leaves 18 chaos types (ugh) and 9 marines.

Here's a small chunk of DV box:

 One of the nice things about my batch painting plan is that it utilizes relatively few colors. In an effort to make them look both like a ragtag group, and a cohesive army I'm using the same palette throughout. This mostly means I'm using deep red, tan, black, brown and leather. Because of that, whenever I mixed paint I could work on three minis at a time.  Past that, the paint tended to dry up. So I figure three at once will be the golden number.

Today's mini was almost done, but then I dropped it. Shouldn't take too long to fix & repaint though.

~Muninn

Day 18: Celestial Lion Veteran Sergeant (3/4)

Here's the third Celestial Lion. I consider him the most impressive, although that's probably because the most work went into him.

When I'd originally put these guys together I wanted the sergeant to stand out, so I came up with a little conversion. I eschewed the arms that came with this mini (a pair of lightning claws) and gave him some plastics.

If you aren't familiar, The Celestial Lions chapter are known for loudly criticizing the Imperial Inquisition, an being largely destroyed as a result. For that reason I knew the sergeant needed a special sword. This sword in fact. I thought it'd add a fun bit of character. (Don't worry about the Inquisitor, he borrowed a sword from Mephiston)

Overall, this guy is my favorite from my Lions. Someone even posted him on Lexicanum for the Celestial Lions while he was still a work in progress. Maybe now that he's complete I'll have to see about putting him back on.

~Muninn

Day 17: Celestial Lion (2/4)

Today brings us another member of the Celestial Lion kill team.

This one brought a new challenge: that axe. I like my power weapons to look wicked, but I don't want to overuse my magma technique. I've seen this kind of colorful high contrast metallic look a few places, & I've tried to emulate it before (on a Tiefling Paladin & an Eladrin Warlord) but I haven't had a lot of luck. This time, instead of attempting to wet blend metallics and inks, I used a multi-step process.

I started with a base of Mithril Silver/Asurmen Blue, then picked out highlights and lighter areas in Mithril. I then used another wash of Asurmen, resting the mini upside down so it would be darker towards the tips of the axe. Then I picked out highlights in Mithril again.

I think it worked out well for a quick & dirty coloring effect.

~Muninn

Day 16: Imperial Fist

Years ago I won a few eBay auctions full of Space Marines. They were both pre-built. The first lot still had all it's mold-lines, the second lot looked like the mold lines had been hacked off with a bowie knife, which was worse. I salvaged the ones I could, and tend to use the rest as test minis.

Late last year I felt like doing something new, and like anybody with too much free time, and too little sense, I let 4Chan decide.

Aside from the Star Phantoms shoutout, the best suggestion was Imperial Fists. I've been meaning to try a yellow wash technique too, so it fit. White Dwarf & GW painting guides are always touting how easy it to create a decent yellow armor with washes & glazes, & I thought I'd give it a go.

Obviously, It wasn't as easy as the painting guides make it out to be.

I started with a few layers of Lamenters Yellow Glaze over white primer. The end result *was* really yellow, but it wasn't a very deep color. I wanted it to be darker in the recesses. I gave it a glaze of Seraphim Sepia to give it darker tone. Once dry, I picked out armor highlights with white, then hit it with another layer of Lamenters.

Pros:
* It's still faster than most other yellow painting methods.
* It produces a clean look. Great for tabletop quality minis.

Cons:
* The color is more lemony than I like. This might be fine for brighter armies like Iyanden, but I feel like Space Marines need to be a bit more grimdark. (I usually work from Snakebite Leather to Golden Yellow, up to Bad Moon Yellow highlights. It's a nice rich yellow, but it takes forever.)
* Without having a paint to fall back on, it can be tough to fix blemishes & areas where you overpaint. Usually I painted it black, then silver to make it look like weathering.

I'm glad I did it, if for no other reason than to test a new painting process, but if I were to do a unit of Imperial Fists I'd go a more traditional route.

~Muninn

P.S. It's the 16th, so we're halfway through. It's all downhill from here, right?

Day 15: White Scars Terminator

Last week a friend of mine took to my local 40k facebook group with a problem: He was headed to a TSHFT event in Washington in a few days, but he was short a Lightning Claw terminator for his new list.

We have a friendly little group, so another buddy, Abusepuppy, offered up one of his termis that'd he'd built & primed white for his old Blood Angels army. I gave him a few pointers on how to paint it up quickly, but he asked if I'd give it a once-over for my May Challenge.

So here we are:

I call him Brother-Sergeant Come-at-me-Bro

When I got him last Thursday he needed a little work. Abusepuppy had done some great work converting him, but there were a few small mold lines to clean up, the soft armor at his armpits looked a little off, and his right shoulderpad had a GS skull that didn't fit with the White Scar theme.

It was an interesting mini to paint. I gave it thorough coating of white primer, then lined the recesses with Mechanicus Gray mixed with Lahmain Medium to make it more of a wash. After lining the piece I cleaned it up with a few layers of White Scar paint (how appropriate). It took a bit of practice, but I think it turned out nicely.

One thing I've noticed is that white primer sucks for bases. I had to pant and repaint that base several times because the black kept rubbing off with casual handling. Anyone else notice this problem? I suggested that he seal the mini with dullcoat before it saw any action on the tabletop. Here's hoping he kicks some ass at TSHFT. (and by extension, my friend as well)

Either way. It was a nice mini to work on, and it's given me a few idea on how to paint up my Ethereal conversion, since my Tau army is mostly white. I'll have to see how well the technique transfers to xenos.

~Muninn

Day 14: Long Fang (5/5)

Alright, this unit is done.

I still have 5 Night Wolves to finish this month: 3 sergeants, a Lone Wolf terminator, and a Wolf Guard. All of them are here on my painting table, quietly waiting their turn to reach completion.

There's quite a bit on my painting table at the moment actually. 5 termis, 7 marines, a daemon herald, a Tyrant Guard, some warmachine, reaper, and my end-of-the-month game store painting contest entry. That might not seem to be a lot, but my painting table is a GW painting station sitting on a tray table (now that the twins are walking I have to be able to move my bench to the top of our dresser for protection, for both the twins and minis)

More tomorrow,

~Muninn