Astral Claws veteran sergeant

Here is my as yet unnamed veteran sergeant to lead my first Astral Claws tactical squad. He is kit-bashed from Tactical Marine components and parts taken from the Space Marine Captain set to give him a suitably distinctive appearance.

I’ve also been working on a Rhino. I must say, I’ve never really liked the Rhino kit. The design is very boring and I really didn’t enjoy putting it together. However, now that I have started painting it it is growing on me. The tank looks a little rough in places as this is its third paint job.

It started life as a Predator for my Death Guard before being converted into a Rhino for my Dark Angels and then stripped and repainted to join my Astral Claws. Also, a botched attempt to fill in the ubiquitous gaps along the edges of the tank adds to the roughness of the overall finish.I’ve tried to use battle damage and weathering to conceal some of the imperfections but I’m not too bothered about this as it is not a display piece and will only ever be used for gaming (if that).

A close-up of the symbol of the hatch. This is a decal from Forge World. Applying decals of this size was a first for me and it took a bit of practice to get it right as they are much harder to move around without creasing or tearing them.

Hopefully I will be able to get the rhino finished soon along with the final marine to finish off my first squad.

-Andy.

Skaven warlord wip

Just a quick up date to show off the Skaven warlord model I am currently working on. The model is taken from the Island of Blood set. I’ve opted for a classic Skaven colour scheme of red armour and black fur. More details on the painting process once he’s finished.

All the best,

Andy.

Pre-Heresy Death Guard conversion

This model was created for an online hobby challenge on Twitter called #BitsBoxChallenge organised by Andy Tunley (@atunley). The challenge, as its name suggests, was to create a model using only those parts found in your bits box. My idea was to create my version of a pre-Heresy Death Guard marine in the modified mkIII Iron Armour that they are famed for. The inspiration for this came from an illustration in one of the fantastic ‘Index Astartes’ articles in an old issue of White Dwarf.

The inspiration.

I used a spare Forge World Death Guard torso which I had left over from doing my Chaos marines as the basis for the conversion. The chest plate had to be cut away and replaced with a suitably Heresy-era looking chest plate taken from the Tactical Squad set. I then had to sculpt the neck area in green stuff. The plastic arms are also from this set as is the studded shoulder pad. At first I was uncertain over which shoulder pad to use. I was toying with the idea of using one from the Chaos Space Marine set as it matched the look of Forge World’s Iron Armour more closely. However, in the end I decided to go with the ‘rule of cool’  and use the studded pad instead which looks much better.

The bolt pistol and backpack are ones that I have had in my bits box for a very long time and come from the previous Space Marine range (before the release of the current line of multi-part plastics). The legs are from an old metal veteran model which was sawed in half. The gaps were filled with green stuff and parchments and grenades from the Space Marine set were used to cover the join.

What started out as an idea for a simple kit bash became one of the most ambitious conversions I’ve attempted to date (I usually just build stuff straight out of the box). There was a lot more sawing, filing and sculpting than I anticipated. I really enjoyed this little project and hope to get him painted up soon. The next #BitsBoxChallenge is scheduled for 6th May so check out the hash tag and get rummaging through your bits box!

In other news, I have made some more progress on my Dark Angels army and I hope to share this with you soon.

All the best,

Andy.

Dark Vengeance – Raphael wip

Just a quick update to show my progress on the Dark Vengeance set. When I showed these photos on Twitter I got an overwhelming response so I thought it was worth posting them here with a slightly more detailed write up.

Painting Dark Angels

A lot of people have asked me how I painted my Dark Angels so here is a break down of the paints I used. In order to maintain a dark look overall I kept the majority of the armour dark green and applied extreme highlights only to the very edges of the armour (in a similar way to the ‘Eavy Metal team’s Dark Eldar).

All of the Tactical Marines started with a black undercoat.

1) Basecoat Dark Angels Green (it took about 3 coats to get a smooth, even finish).

2) Highlight Snot Green.

3) Highlight 50/50 mix Snot Green and Goblin Green.

4) Highlight Goblin Green.

5)Apply very tiny highlights to the helmets/face using Rotting Flesh.

The idea behind the final highlights of Rotting Flesh is to subtly draw the eye to the model’s face and make it stand out more. This gives the Dark Angels a focal point which they would otherwise lack as the helmets are the same colour as the rest of the armour.

Painting Faces

The part of the Sergeant  Raphael model that got the most comment was his face, particularly his stubble, and a number of people have asked me about how I achieved this. The face was painted following my usual method:

1) Basecoat Tallarn Flesh.

2) Shade with thinned Dark Flesh followed by Scorched Brown in the deepest recesses.

3) Highlight with Tallarn Flesh with increasing amounts of Elf Flesh added.

4) Apply a final highlight by adding Bleached Bone into the previous flesh mix.

5) Paint the lips Tanned Flesh.

The stubble technique was taken from the excellent Painting Faces Redux article from White Dwarf  3356 which can also be found on the White Dwarf archive (see link). One thing I would recommend is adding some Lahmia Medium to the wash in order to give you more control over the flow. You want the wash to be translucent so that the flesh colour still shows though and the medium is great for this.

Hopefully more Dark Vengeance goodness to follow later in the week.

All the best,

Andy.

Nurgle preacher – scenic base

My apostate preacher is now nearly finished. However, I’m going to hold off showing him until he is completed so as not to spoil the finished effect. Also, I don’t think that a work in progress shot at this stage would give you anything that the finished model won’t. Instead here is the scenic base I constructed for him.

The preacher has taken me longer to paint than anticipated. The reason for this is that I was lucky enough to win a copy of Dark Vengeance in a competition on Twitter and I ended up getting sidetracked and painting up some Dark Angels which I hope to show you in the near future.

Stay tuned,

Andy.

Apostate preacher of Nurgle – continued

A quick work-in-progress shot of the Nurgle preacher. I’m experimenting with glazes and glaze medium on the skin and metallic areas but I’ll do a more detailed write-up when the model is finished.

Apostate preacher of Nurgle

A quick preview of my next project, one of Forge World’s apostate preachers of Nurgle from their chaos Renegades range. I’ve had this model for ages but never got round to painting him. This should keep me busy over the weekend.

Battlefleet Gothic terrain – part 1

I’m currently working on a board for Battlefleet Gothic. I’ve played a few games so far and really enjoy the system so I thought it was time to get some terrain together (well, perhaps ‘terrain’ isn’t strictly the right word given that the OED defines terrain as ‘of the earth, terrene, terrestrial’ but lets not get bogged down in pedantry). So far I have painted up a 2′x4′ board to look like a space-scape. Above is a work-in-progress shot of the board which still needs details such as stars added.

What’s really nice about Battlefleet Gothic Terrain is how simple it is to make. The board is MDF which was painted with black acrylic paint using a paint roller. I then airbrushed on a nebula and a galaxy to add some visual interest using astronomy pictures as a reference. The board looks a little more crowded than a real space-scape would be but I’m aiming for visual interest rather than realism.

I also made some asteroids. These were also very simple to do and are simply lava rocks glued to flying stands. I simply copied the technique detailed in Carl Woodrow’s blog post so I won’t go into detail about the process here as it would only be repetition.

Finally, I made a planet. Again, this was very simple. It’s half of a polystyrene sphere purchased from an arts and crafts store. I gave it several coats of fine masonry paint in order to disguise the obvious polystyrene texture before airbrushing it in various shades of brown.

I have a game of BFG scheduled for Sunday so I’m hoping to get the board finished by then. Time to break out the airbrush.

-Andy.

In space noone can hear you paint

As those of you who follow me on Twitter will know, I have recently been working on an Imperial fleet for Battlefleet Gothic. I’ve only played one game of BFG but I really enjoyed it and really like the models. As with most of Games-Workshop’s Specialist Games range, it is relatively inexpensive easy to get into; the rules are free to download from the GW website and you don’t require all that many models to play.

Above you can see the current status of the fleet. Most models are largely finished and only need details such as weapons, figureheads and markings painting. The ships are nicely detailed and quick and easy to paint. In a later blog post I will give a step-by-step account of the colours and techniques used.

In other news, I have created a dedicated Miniature Miscellany email address and added a contact section (top of page) should you wish to get in touch with me. I have also created a Miniature Miscellany Facebook page which you can find here: http://www.facebook.com/MiniatureMiscellany

Have a great week,

Andy.

Dark Eldar Incubi

Over the weekend I spent some time working on a Dark Eldar Incubi model. I bought a box of these back when they were first released and only ever got as far as assembling and priming them. This model is something of an experiment in extreme edge highlighting for me and I went for a high contrast look similar to that used by the ‘Eavy Metal team.

The model only needs a few more highlights on the weapon and, of course, a base. I might wait until the whole squad is done before basing them though.