Cronos Redux and Mandrakes

Recently I have been working on some Dark Eldar and have had the chance to repaint the Cronos to match the rest of the army.

As you can see, the typical black carapace has been replaced with the Necron Abyss/ Ice blue scheme.  I feel like it holds it all together.

Additionally, I have had the opportunity to paint some Mandrakes.

Please forgive the basing, I was in a bit of a rush and did not have time to base them before they were due.

It was fun to paint some of these for a change. The I feel like the blue skin brings a cohesiveness to the army.  With these I was worried that black primer would lead to them being to dark, so instead I used Armory Grey Primer.  I feel like they came out well.  As with most of GW's higher end kits, I would have liked more than 3 poses.  I suppose I can just place them carefully :P

Until next time,

Dave

15mm ACW- Batch Painting Faces

Today I was working on painting some 15mm ACW units and was a bit frustrated with the lack of progress that I was making.  In order to speed things up I attempted an Ink and Blot method.

I really liked the results and I was able to progress at a quick pace. This would be ideal if you had 2-3 people all working together.

Below is a shot of the batch I was working on.  It is around 108 figures. The goal is to get these to a very nice gaming standard.

*Note* All of their uniforms have been completed at this point.

At this point the face has been painted with one layer of GW Dwarf Flesh and one quick Highlight of Elf Flesh. Now we begin the process of inking and blotting.  

The first thing you will need is some ink and cup in which to thin it.  I chose Vallejo Game Color- Brown ink.

The next step is to mix your ink with some water in about a 2:3 ratio of ink:water.  If you have no way to count out drops go for a watery consistency. 

Once you have the consistency right you want to take an older medium sized brush and load up on ink.
 

In this example I am using an older Citadel Standard Brush

 Then liberally drench any flesh portion of the model that you want shaded. 

Blot with a cotton swab to remove excess ink. The harder you press the less shading you will get. The lighter you dab, the more shading.  By varying how much ink you remove, you should be able to create some flesh tone variation.

Your swab should have quite a few little dots of ink on it. Replace it when it is no longer effective .

I have included some before and after shots for your viewing pleasure. This technique is very fast and in my opinion effective. 

Before

After

Below are some close ups.

Thanks for dropping by,

Dave

As the wargaming world knows, our good friends at Citadel have released what they consider to be a superior miniature.  I will not go into the ins and outs of resin nor will I write a review, I simply painted one and thought I would share it.

One day at my local game shop I was informed that there was to be a painting competition, I gladly entered. 

While this chap did not win, I must say that I have been very happy with my effort and consider this my best work to date. 

Thanks for looking,

Dave

15mm ACW Union

These are some 15mm ACW guys that I painted up to give me a break from 40k for a while.

As I do not play any historical game I put them on ebay

Thoughts?

Yes Ladies and Gents, I am not quite dead yet.  I have however been painting like a fiend this week, and most of last week.  Come to think of it, I have been painting..... as the title indicates..... like a fiend.

Now, in describing this fiendishness lets take a quick recap of what has been painted the past two weeks and what will be competed by this weekend. 

Space Marines

38 Tactical Marines

Devastator Squad

10 Terminators

2 Rhinos

1 Razorback

2 Vindicators

2 Landspeeders

1 Land Raider

1 Dreadnought

1 Drop Pod

1 Predator

This is what is on the table for this week and will be finished in time for Saturday's 2500 pt. tournament 

15 Scouts + Tellion

3 Scout Bikes

10 Assault marines + Chaplain

Chaplain Cassius

Librarian

3 Scout Bikes

5 Sternguard

Captain Sicarius 

My to do list consists of

8 Chaos Terminators

8 Bikes

8 Bloodletters

1 Bloodthirster

1 Daemon Prince

4 Rhinos

1 Landraider

2 Dreadnoughts 

And then various other bits and bobs

On to the pictures!!!!

The Work In Progress Ultramarines

Chaos in various stages

A Bit of Freehand I tried

More Freehand

Chaos Star on a Landraider

For this chaos star I used Dave Taylor's tutorial.

Work in Progress Bloodthirster

Test Bloodletter

Daemon Prince of Khorne

Two Dreadnoughts

Dreadnought Number 1

And number 2

Ad Hoc Multimelta

Well there you have it, my weeks work.  I hope that in the future I will have time to slow down and work on a few different projects with less volume and more time.

Until next time,

Dave

Space Marines: Ultramarine Elites

For all of you regular readers out there I suppose you are about ready for some hobby related content.  I have been super busy the past two weeks, painting like a fiend.  I have progressed quite a bit on the Ultramarines Project and will have it complete by tonight. In an attempt to do one of those neat National Geographic photo stories, I present

My Week In Pictures

Monday and Tuesday were spent painting up some terminators.  While the original project called for 5 I found some spare bodies lying around and the owner gave me some lightning claws.

What's better than an Assault Terminator?

10 Assault Terminators!

Assault Terminator x 10

Here are some individual shots.

Lightning Claw Sergeant 

Side Shot

Several assorted shots.

Thunderhammer Sergeant

*Note* I was able to get ahold of some shoulder pads from The War Store. I have to give those guys 5 stars.  I ordered the pads on Monday and I had them on Wednesday evening.  They made this process possible.

Late Tuesday I was able to tackle the Dreadnought and the Landspeeder

For those of you who like group shots.

For the last three days I have been working on The Blue Tide: Parking Lot Edition

These will be finished by this evening.

Stay Tuned,

Dave