Happy birthday, Space Marines

As you will probably be aware, this weekend GW are celebrating 30 years of the venerable Space Marine. I thought I would take this opportunity to share with you some of the limited edition models painted by the Warhammer World Studio to mark the occasion. From left to right we have a White Scar painted by James Karch, my own Space Wolf and an Ultramarine by Dan Hyams.

These models are currently on display in the store cabinet at Warhammer World. If you are in the area why not pop in and take a look.

Gun for hire – Imperial bounty hunter complete

Happy New Year! Instead of partying into the early hours last night I stayed in and managed to finish my bounty hunter character for Inq28 (I know, I’m so cool). It’s been a long road with this model but he is finally complete. Initially, I was uncertain how to paint him but once I’d settled on the light grey body armour the rest seemed to come together quite naturally.

I think this is one of the models I am most proud of to date. I really pushed myself out of my comfort zone on this project in terms of kit-bashing and it is the most heavily converted model I own. I am also really proud of him because he is the most original model I have created. Many of my conversions have been copied from White Dwarf or inspired by something off the internet but with this guy the whole concept and execution was my idea.

I was at one point concerned that the model had too much black on him but I have tried to paint the different black areas differently so as to distinguish them from one another. The leather coat was blended up through blue-grey highlights whereas the gauntlets were highlighted by adding khaki to black. The gun casting has sharper, more harsh highlights in pure grey to make it look like a hard, cold material to distinguish it from the fabric areas. Splashes of red were also used on the model to tie him in with Inquisitor Sterne and to add some visual interest.

Gun for Hire (wip)

 

Work continues on the bounty hunter for Inquisitor Caleb Sterne’s retinue. I am really pleased with the face as it has turned out exactly the way I envisioned him: a hard-bitten veteran of many adventures. I think the stubble and shaved head really add to this.

The colour scheme was one of the hardest parts of this model to figure out which is why there has been such a delay between finishing building him and getting some paint on him. Initially, I knew I wanted a lot of black on him but didn’t have a clearer idea than that. In the end I opted for a colour scheme which would give him an individual look but also tie him in with Inquisitor Sterne. For that reason I painted the black coat and grey armour using the same methods as I used for the inquisitor. I then added some chips and scratches to the armour and glazed the bottom of the armour plates with Agrax Earthshade thinned with Lahmia Medium to make them appear well used, further emphasising the nature of the character.

In other news, I can announce that I will be returning to Warhammer World in the new year for a three-month stint as a Studio Painter. I really enjoyed the experience last time and am looking forward to going back.

Have a great Christmas everybody!

Andy.

Inq28 bounty hunter

Another common Inquisitorial agent is the bounty hunter, individuals skilled in hunting down criminals whose skills are of great use to Inquisitors. While building this model I had an image of Harlon Nayl from Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn and Ravenor books in my head. He is described as wearing a long stormcoat over a black bodyglove and having a shaved scalp. While the model isn’t intended to be a direct representation of Harlon I have incorporated elements such as the long coat and shaved head (although I left the original Mohawk as it looked cool). I also gave him some body armour, always useful when your line of work involves being shot at a lot.

The main part of the model is made from a Cadian’s torso attached to the legs of one of the ever-useful Dark Vengeance cultists. I really like the design of the lasguns carried by the scions and converted a pair of arms from the scions kit to fit. I resculpted the left shoulder and hid my rough greenstuff work under a kroot shoulder pad adorned with an etched-brass symbol. A small holstered knife provided the finishing touch to the weapon and gives the impression that he is armed to the teeth. The rest of the model was decorated with purity seals, pouches and grenades.

I decided not to use the backpack from the scions kit as the hanging wires attached to the weapon hid the trenchcoat which is one of the defining features of the model. Instead I used a pouch from the ogryns set as a backpack and attached a space marine knife.

Overall I am very pleased with this model, especially as I didn’t have a clear idea of what parts I was going to use at the beginning, just an image of what kind of character I wanted him to be. The rest was a case of trial and error using blu-tak to try out the parts first before gluing them together.

Agents of the Inquisition

Here are my assorted characters for Inq28. Initially the models were created to be a part of my Inquisitor’s retinues but as I worked on them they have developed their own characters and I am planning on splitting them into two warbands, one for my Inquisitor and one for my Rogue Trader. I imagine the Rogue Trader to be an ally of my Inquisitor who provides him with transport when needed which means the warbands will fight together on occasion, allowing me to mix and match models for different scenarios.

The first character is a Rogue Trader inspired by an old illustration by John Blanche. The model is the chaos cultist wearing a commissar’s from the Dark Vengeance set. His head was swapped for one from the Empire Greatswords and the arms come from the Scions kit. A bit of greenstuff work filled in the rest.

Initially he was intended to be used in my Inquisitor’s warband but I decided that Rogue Traders are too important to just be henchmen and decided to give him his own warband. Plus I liked the idea of playing with a Rogue Trader and his retinue as the swashbuckling fortune-seekers would play very differently to the more austere Inquisitors and their agents. I would like to add some abhumans or aliens to his warband at some point in the future.

The next guy is a heavy stubber-wielding muscle man who will form part of the Rogue Trader’s retinue. Again, a Dark Vengeance cultist with a simple head swap and some added details. For this guy I wanted to stay clear of the usual archetypes of him being a hive ganger or former guardsman as these character types usually are. Instead I see him as a rating or other crewman from the Rogue Trader’s vessel who labours on the ship and is strong enough to carry a heavy stubber.

Here is an Adeptus Arbite enforcer who is one of my Inquisitor’s retinue. The conversion is closely based on one I saw on The Convertorum and is a combination of Scion and Mechanicum parts with a shield taken from the Ogryn set.

I was always very fond of Magos Delphan Gruss from the Inquisitor game and knew I wanted to include a techpriest in one of my warbands. I have seen loads of conversions based on the Vampire Counts wraith model but I wanted a more traditional, human-looking magos. the model itself is a data-smith from the Kastellan Robots kit with a simple head swap. He will probably join the Rogue Trader’s crew, helping to maintain the ship and using his position to explore the galaxy for STCs and other archeotech.

The techpriest will be joined by a combat servitor kitbashed from Mechanicum and Scion bits.

Because a number of models intended for my Inquisitor’s retinue have been co-opted into the Rogue Trader’s warband I will need to create some more models to accompany my Inquisitor into battle. I have already started work on the next conversion and hope to share him with you soon.

The Battle of Vesh’Yo

Things have been a little quite here on Miniature Miscellany for the last few weeks. However, I can now reveal the reason for this. Five weeks ago I started work as a Warhammer World studio painter on a temporary contract to paint the display shown above. As you can imagine, this was a very exciting opportunity for me and it was great to work alongside talented colleagues on a project of this scale. The display went on show at the weekend as part of Warhammer World’s 40k Open Days meaning that I can finally lift the veil of secrecy.

Working on a display of this size was a real experience and I painted literally hundreds of the models on this board. It took a team of six of us five weeks to paint all of the models on the display. The terrain was started before I joined the project so I’m not sure how long that took to build. I was painting 40 Skitarii a day and even batch painting Riptides! I can safely say that I have painted more models in the last month than I have in the rest of the year. My personal favourites of the models I painted are the Kastellan Robot punching a Crisis Suit in the face and the Y’Vahra Battlesuit blasting the Reaver. I also painted my initials onto the Fireblade’s knife using the Tau alphabet. No one will ever notice it but I know it’s there.

The key to painting this many models quickly was a simple colour scheme applied neatly and consistently.The Mechanicum models were airbrushed silver and then basecoated, washed with Nuln Oil and given a single highlight. The Tau were a bit more complicated and time-consuming. They were airbrushed Tau Light Ochre over Zandri Dust base and then shaded in the recesses and edge highlighted. The Tau took about twice as long as the Mechanicum stuff and I was averaging about 20 Fire Warriors/Breachers a day.

If you have any questions or comments leave them below and I will try my best to answer them. Enjoy the pictures (if you look closely you may even spot some as-yet unreleased models).

Astral Claws wound markers

I decided to make some wound markers for my Astral Claws as a quick Saturday morning project. Basically, the number of skulls/helmets represent how many wounds a character has remaining. The skulls are taken from a number of kits (if you own any GW kits then chances are you have some skulls lying around somewhere) and the damaged helmets were taken from Chaos trophy racks. I could have used regular marine helmets but these had battle damage already sculpted on and so saved me a bit of time.

The helmets were painted to match my Astral Claws models whereas the skulls were an opportunity to try out my new method of painting bone. Previously I had used Zandri Dust and Ushabti Bone for skulls, however, recently I have moved to using a basecoat of Baneblade Brown washed with Agrax Earthshade and then highlighted Baneblade Brown, Rakarth Flesh, Pallid Wych Flesh and finally White Scar. This produces a much paler, more realistic bone colour than the creamy/yellow look achieved with Ushabti bone. The ground texture was then painted to match the rest of my army.

I plan on creating a few more themed gaming aides in the future including some objective markers converted from the Space Marine casualty models. Watch this space.

-Andy.

Ruins, Raiders and Rending Claws

Over the last few days I have been working on a number of different projects. I have managed to get these ruins finished for Lord of the Rings and continued to work on my Dark Eldar. I had hoped to get more done with the Dark Eldar but the weather conspired against me at the weekend and a combination of high winds and rain meant that I was unable to prime my raiders for painting. Instead, I took the time to work on Space Hulk and started to paint up some genestealers which have been primed and sitting on a shelf looking at me accusingly for a number of months now.

Below you can see my raiders in their various sub-assemblies. As I plan on airbrushing these I decided to keep them in a number of separate parts to make this easier. However, even if painting by hand it would make sense to paint them as sub-assemblies because of the number of fiddly components that would make certain areas hard to access with a brush.

Here is my first genestealer which was completed a while back as a test model. As you can see, I have gone with the traditional genestealer colours of blue and purple and tried to paint these in a dark moody style like those seen in White Dwarf. I have also tried to get a contrast in textures between the hard carapace and the softer skin by using sharp edge highlights on the carapace and subtle blending on the skin.

And here are four of his mates who I was working on over the weekend.

The raiders are going to have to wait until the weekend before I can airbrush them but hopefully I will get a chance to do a bit more work on these guys throughout the week.

-Andy.

Malcador in winter camouflage

Something a bit different from me today, an Imperial Guard Malcador from Forge World painted in winter camouflage. I used this model to experiment with a number if painting techniques described in Model Masterclass Volume One. The model is for sale so if you are interested check out the ebay auction.

Dark Eldar raider with wych crew

Here is my raider converted to have wych crew. The gunner was simply swapped for the one from my venom while the pilot was made using parts from the wych kit with the original pilot’s arms. All in all a very simple conversion but one which will tie the model in nicely with the squad it transports.

When kitting out the raider I was inspired by the wych’s background. The codex describes them using their reaver jetbikes as weapons when fighting in the arenas of Commorragh and I thought that they would extend this philosophy to their transports on the battlefield. As such I have given it all kinds of aggressive upgrades such as chain snares, a shock prow and venom blades (represented by the spiky, thorn-like rails) to encourage me to use it offensively in games.

Hopefully I will get some time to paint this before term starts again next week.

Andy.