Bad Moon ork – part 2

I have made some progress on the Bad Moon ork nob. The black has been finished using my usual blue/black mix (Chaos Back and Regal Blue highlighted by adding Fortress Grey). I decided on a bluish tint rather than just highlighting black with grey as a nod to the classic yellow and blue colour scheme of the Bad Moon clan. The yellow has been blocked in using Tausept Ochre and the metalic areas have been given a basecoat of Boltgun Metal for the silver and a mix of equal parts Tin Bits/Dwarf Bronze/Scorched Brown for the bronze/brass.

Have a great week,

Andy.

Related Posts:

Bad Moon ork – part 1

Let there be light

For my birthday today my wife bought me a Konig Portable Photography Studio (thanks, Lindsey). I’ve been wanting a light tent for ages and this is a nice compact design which folds away into its own carry case. The studio consists of a  light tent, the two lamps pictured, a camera stand and a number of coloured backgrounds. Hopefully this will make miniature photography much easier and improve the quality of the pictures here on Miniature Miscellany. One model I had trouble photographing before was my Mordheim ghoul (owing to the pale colours). Here is how he looks photographed in the studio:

and here is my vampire. On the left is the vampire without the studio and on the right is the vampire in the studio:

In both cases a significant improvement. The camera stand certainly makes it a lot easier to take decent photos. I’m still having trouble getting the lighting right but I think I just  need to experiment more and find out what works and what doesn’t. I’ll also have to try out the different coloured backgrounds.

If any of you bloggers out there have any miniature photography tips please let me know.

All the best,

Andy.

Bad Moon ork – part 1

Over the last few days I have been working on a Bad Moon ork nob in mega armour. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently received the ‘Eavy Metal Masterclass book which is a great source of inspiration. I wanted to try out the technique for painting yellow and decided to paint up an old ork model I’ve had lying around for years. I’ve always loved the aesthetic of the orks (particularly the Brian Nelson designed orks) but have never wanted to collect an army of them due to the high number of models I would need to paint so this will be a strictly one-off project to try out new techniques.

Painting Ork Skin

Because the ork is wearing mega-armour, pistons, hydraulics and armour plates obscure most of the skin and clothing of the model and so the only way to paint these areas is the ‘inside out’ method: starting with the recessed areas and building on these. This way the top ‘layers’ of detail will not get in the way of what is underneath. Therefore I started with the skin and trousers. The skin was painted Knarloc Green and washed with a couple of brown mixes (50/50 Dark Flesh and Catachan Green followed by a roughly 50/50 mix of  Scorched Brown and Catachan Green with a little Chaos Black added). This was highlighted by adding increasing amounts of Vomit Brown to Knarloc Green followed by Bleached Bone and finally Skull White. The areas around the eyes were painted by adding Regal Blue to the basecoat and the lips by adding Scab Red to the basecoat. They eye was painted Blood Red with a single Skull White highlight.

So far this has been quite a fun side project and I look forward to working on this model more, especially the crucial yellow stage (a colour I almost never use). Stay tuned for more.

-Andy.

The Ruins of Mordheim 2

Wooden House

I’ve finished constructing another building for my Mordheim table. This one is a wooden house. As with the other buildings the basic structure is made from foamcore which was then textured. Because I was using thick plastic card and balsa wood sheets for the exterior I used 3mm foamcore rather than 5mm so that the walls would not end up too thick. I chose a more rustic looking stone (Wills Random Stone) rather than the stonework I used on the tower house as this was more in keeping with the overall look of the building. By using a variety of different materials on my buildings I hope to achieve a more realistic look to the city as real cities are not uniform and different buildings are constructed from different materials  using different techniques.

Interior Detail

The interior is pretty straightforward so I won’t say much about it here. The floorboards were made from sheets of balsa wood with a pattern scored into them using a ruler and a pencil (the same technique was also used on the wooden exterior). Piles of rubble were built up using offcuts of foamcore which were covered with DAS putty and then had pieces of wood and roof tiles stuck into them. When dry they were covered with sand.

Up on the Roof

It’s worth saying a little about the roof tiles here. As with the cobblestones I use on my bases, these were purchased from Miniaco and were intended for dolls’ houses. The tiles are available in a variety of styles and colours and are made from reconstituted stone. I really can’t recommend these highly enough; they look very realistic and are easy to work with. They can be cut with a modelling knife or snapped with fingers. Although at first they seem a little fragile when glued down they are very sturdy. I used 1/24 scale tiles which were applied in layers starting at the bottom of the roof and working up. This was quite a time-consuming process as I had to wait for each row to dry before adding the next. There is nothing more frustrating than neatly gluing on a row of tiles only to knock them all off trying to add the next layer (as I found out by being impatient). The roof was topped off with some ridge tiles also from Miniaco. Although I intend to paint the roof, the tiles have a nice realistic look and could be left as they are.

I was planning on writing a tutorial on making buildings but I got carried away and forgot to take step-by-step pictures. With the next building I will try to remember and write a more detailed piece on the construction of the buildings.

All the best,

Andy.

Related Posts

The Ruins of Mordheim
Building Continues

Things that go bump in the night

With the release of the new Vampire Counts army book it seems appropriate that I’m painting undead at the moment. Here are the next two members of the warband: a necromancer and a ghoul. These were fun models to paint and reasonably quick; each of them took about a day to complete.

Necromancer

I wanted the necromancer to look pallid and unhealthy but definitely still alive. The skin was painted following Darren Latham’s excellent ‘Painting Faces Redux’ article (available from the White Dwarf archive on GW’s website). Also, I would encourage you to check out Darren’s blog, Razzaminipainting, if you have not done so already.

The skin was basecoated Tallarn Flesh and shaded with Dark Flesh followed by Scorched Brown. For highlighting I added Bleached Bone to Tallarn Flesh along with some Fortress Grey in order to get an aged appearance.

Ghoul

I’ve always been rather fond of the older metal ghoul models and it was nice to finally get to paint one up. As with the necromancer, for the ghoul I wanted a pallid but alive look to the flesh in order to differentiate him from the undead members of the warband. For this I used Anja Wettergren’s guide to painting Urien Rakarth fromEavy Metal Materclass which was perfect for the model. The book gives a very detailed account of the technique for painting the skin so I won’t repeat it here.

I’m really pleased with how the skin came out. However, it was quite difficult to photograph with it being so pale and looks a little washed out in the pictures.

Bela Lugosi’s not dead

Here is the vampire from the undead warband I’ve been working on. This was quite a quick model to paint (owing to the fact that most of the model is concealed beneath the cloak) and was finished in a day. I chose to use predominantly cold tones when painting the model in order to reflect its undead nature. The only exception to this is the splash of red blood on the sword. This adds a bit of contrast to the rest of the model and adds to the vampiric feel of the model.

The vampire was converted slightly from the stock model which came with a halberd held out to the side. I always thought that this looked a little awkward and this initially put me off the model. However, with a simple hand swap the models has a much more natural and fluid pose. Also, a sword seems like a much more appropriate weapon for a dashing vampire  (and is much more useful in the game). Overall I’m very pleased with this model which turned out much better than I expected. Now all I need is a name for him…

Review: ‘Eavy Metal Masterclass

For Christmas I received a copy of ‘Eavy Metal Masterclass. I was very pleased with this as the Masterclass articles are my favourite part of White Dwarf. The book collects together twelve previously published articles along with a new painting guide for Urien Rakarth which is exclusive to the book. The book is very nicely produced and features loads of brilliantly painted models by the ‘Eavy Metal team. The articles are very clearly set out and the set-by-step guides are easy to follow.

Although the guides focus on individual models, proving a start-to-finish painting guide, the techniques could easily be applied to other models. For example, I applied the NMM gold technique from Darren Latham’s Sanguinor painting guide to the detail on the Heldenhammer’s sails. This was only my second attempt at NMM and I found the Masterclass very useful. One of the great things about the Masterclass articles is that they have encouraged me to try techniques I’ve never tried before and step out of my comfort zone. I believe that this has definitely made me a better painter.

The guides in the book are all based on the ‘Eavy Metal team’s in-house style. I would say that the guides are intermediate and expert in difficulty and the techniques employed are quite time-consuming. The book is really aimed at more experienced painters aiming to produce impressive display pieces. If you want quick and easy techniques for army painting or are new to miniature painting then this may not be the book for you.

The only real downside to the book is that the vast majority of material has been previously published. If, like me, you haven’t got all of the issues of White Dwarf in which these articles appeared or would like to have them collected together in a single volume then this is a great purchase. However, if you have the articles already you might think twice about getting the book.