Wooden train project

This is a project that will need some planning and some external help (probably) before the finished product is ready.
The idea is to make a great gift for my nephew and niece to play with alongsinde their BRIO trains and rails. When I was a kid, my uncle did this for me, and I still remember all the fun I had and how cool it was to have something nobody else had (except for his other nephew, that is).
The plans are a little undefined at the moment, but the rough sketch is as follows:
Make one large plate that can be perfectly connected to the rails, and that the trains can run on just as easily as on the tracks. This will be a station and a relay/interlocking plant where trains can be parked, engines can be switched, and perhaps I can find some more ideas...
So far I know that there will be a switchplate that circulates around beween the different tracks, and that is the only gadget I know will be there (except for a lot of tracks with buffers at the end).

But there are lot of stuff I could add:
- An electric barrier
- A level-crossing barrier (electric, or preassure activated)
- A cargo area with loading cranes that can lift containers (if they still exist in the BRIO system)
- Electical lights of different types
- and surely a lot more that I probably will think about later.

The main concerns at the moment are:
- Weight (will be a large wooden plate, so it will be heavy. How to make is as light as possible?)
- Size (got to make it easy to store, and also make it exactly the right length to fit x tracks)
- Tracks (do I carve my own, or split existing tracks and add them on to the plate somehow)

Weekly update

And as we wave a hastily goodbye to week 51, I have to say that nothing more has happened on the miniature front since the last update.
But now the Christmas holliday is upon us (I have my last day at work today), and I can look forward to almost 14 days with relaxation as the main purpose.
Hopefully, that means that I get to do a solid job on my minatures.

I'm gonna drop by my local GW store today, to re-stock some of the colors that I'm getting really low on, and perhaps pick up a few brushes as I need some that are optimal for painting vehicles.

I have started to drill the holes to glue on the arm of the Chaos Champion. Found some paperclips at work, and I hope they will work as a pin.

Also this weekend, I got the great idea of building a train station and shifting yard for my niece and nephew for their birthday in June. This is not really a miniature (like Warhammer) or scale model realated, but I hope I can make some nice blogentries about it anyway.

what has he been up to lately?

The answer to that (sadly) is... not much!
I have come closer to finishing the miniatures in the mobile workshop, but none are finished at the moment.

The closest one is my mounted Khorne Lord who at the moment needs some basework before he is ready for the tables. I made a small hill out of styrofoam and mounted his chaos horse on that, but I need to do some washes to this grey hill and also add some static grass or flcok where there is just the black base. I have some scorched grass that is intended for use with the chaos army that I will try out here.

The Chaos Champion was just missing the basework, but then for some reason both his hands fell off, and I'm struggling to get one of the hands glued back on. I think I will have to use some sort of pinning technique, but I've never tried that before so he just stands very still in the corner of the mobile workshop at the moment. Hoping that the Chaos Gods will grow him a new hand in a hurry (or something like that...)

The chaos sorcerer is also getting closer to the tables, but I still have some detailing issues to sort out here. There are so many details on his staff, so I have tro find a way to make them stand out there they are supposed to, and to blend in where that is better... But I have some ideas that are being tried out.

The Goblin King is just about ready for basework. All that is missing is glueing his cape to his body, and painting the chains and sculls on the cape (two of each).

The night goblins are slowly getting ready, but there are still some details left on these lovely grenskins. They are only the humble start of the second core unit, so it will take some time before the entire 2nd core unit is ready for battle. The nettes are as good as done though, only missing thing is to do the bases, and then glue their arms (with the nets attached) to the main body. I've chosen to wait until the bases are done, as one of the netters will have a small squig under his net, and I want to do the basing before I glue the squig to the base and then I have to position the arms so that the squig can be seen under the net. I've done a "dry fit", so I know it is possible.

The squig herders have come a little further, the squigs are at the moment missing their teeth (are just primed black), and their claws (still unpainted) and one of the squigs are missing the detail color of his horn filled body (thinking of doing him in the Space Marine colors with darker shells, and white horns/bones as with all of those things). The herders are at the moment missing their green skin and the detailing on the poker and the bagpipe, still looking for the perfect bagpipe color though...

The Space Maine chapter masters has turned out to be quite detailed models, but they are comming along nicely (with one exception). The main bodies are painted, but I have to paint their heads and glue them on. Also I need to attach arms with weapons or other equipment and finish the painting of those.
I had a terrible accident with one of the chapter masters holding a broadsword in front of him, so a piece of the hilt broke off. Haven't been able to get it back on yet, so while I try that I'm also looking into options of replacing the sword with something from the Fantasy range (a Chaos warrior sword or similar).

I belive that sums up the content of my mobile workshop.
Hopefully there will be some finished models to show off here pretty soon, but I know there won't be much painting done before Wednesday...

Finally based the night goblins...

Finally last weekend I finished the last 20 bases on my first core unit of Night Goblins. While I was working on the bases I did my 10 Dwarf miners as well. They got treated with Citadel Sand. The dwarfs live in the mountains, so rocks should be a good theme for their bases. For most of them I guess there will be sand bases, but I hope to add larger rocks for some of them.

New projects...

With the first core unit of 40 night goblins out of the mobile workshop, and both the mounted Lord of Khorne and the Chaos Champion soon to be finished (only some detailing and assembly left before basing), and the Goblin King well on the way there are room for some new projects.

The mobile workstation is containing the mounted Lord of Khorne (not mounted yet though, but will be very soon), the Chaos Champion, the Goblin King and a few night goblins from my second core unit (3 netters, one standard bearer and two gobbo soldiers).

Yesterday I added two more units to the box.
The first unit is my first batch of Goblin squig hearders (2 goblins and 3 squigs).
The second unit is Masters of the Chapter, 4 highly ranked commanders for my Space Marines army.

Next I will try to do the final brushup on my dwarf miners, and when they are ready for base work, I plan to start on my Iron Breakers.
When I have cleaned up my workshop a little, the plan is to have several units on the table, then take some troops from each unit and paint and asemble them in the mobile workshop.
I think this is the best way for me to assure that all armies get worked on,while at the same time making sure that it doesn't take too long before I get the armies up to a certain point value.
This also keeps me from getting bored with painting lots of one type of troops.

The armies that will get this treatment are:
Space Marines, Ultramarines, 2nd Ultras (my only Warhammer 40.000 army)
Goblin Army (almost "all goblin" army)
Dwarf Army
Mortal Chaos Army

I also have one set of Dark Elves and a few sets of Bretonnians, plus a few partially painted high elves. I haven't yet decided if I will sell these or just keep them stashed away if something should come up.

Base work

Yesterday evening I started basing the first core unit of night goblins. 20 night goblins are based so far, and the remaining 20 will get their bases done on thursday (if everything works according to my plan).
Some miniatures ago I decided that my goblin army should have all grass bases, so I try to live up to that while still making some variations to keep it exiting. Since my Dwarfs will have sand and perhaps some small rocks on their bases, I decided to experiment a little with this on my goblins as well. So some of the bases have a a combination of sand and grass, a very few are all sand, and most are all grass.

All basing materials for the goblin bases are from Games Workshop / Citadel Miniatures.
The sand is Citadel sand, and the grass is my own mixture of Games Workshop Static Grass and Games Workshop Modelling Flock.
On some bases I will add things like mushrooms or fungus or details from other sets that haven't been used there (like from the Night Goblin Fanatics sprues) to give a little more variation.

Mobile workshop

Just thought I'd post a few pictures of the mobile workshop I talked about in my last general update...
Here are two pics of the workshop ready for use, and the third pic is added to show how easy it is to put it away if we have guests.
This is a very cheap and quite practical solution for me to get more work done on my miniatures and scale models, and my wife to see more of me in the afternoons and weekends.
I will still do heavy and messy work in the workshop, but the painting and some assembly work is perfect to do from this workshop.

The weeks keep flying by...

...And with this post I mark the ending of yet another week, without the finishing of my first core Night goblin unit.
This weekend I had to go shopping with my in-laws on Saturday, and after that me and my Father-in-law did some repairs on the house (or rather he did the repairs with me as a helping hand holding the Mag-light and fetching tools. I think that is for the best though... Letting me replace light switches is like praying for a short in the near future).
After that both my In-Laws and my parents joined us for a wonderful dinner (thanks to my wife for coocking), but after they left I got some paint done.
Sunday went flying by with a trip to my sister-in-law and her family. Celebrating her husbands 42nd birthday and spending some time with my nice and nephew (spoiling the kids as usual).

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to painting my core night goblin units. On saturday evening/night I managed to finish the fixup of the skin for 30 of the 40 little green rascals. The remaining 10 will be fixed today, and hopefully there isn't too many other faults on the paintjobs. I know of a few minor flaws, but they should be fixable tonight as well. Then they need basing, but I will use my standard flock mixture along with some sand. This will take one evening to finish.

I have never been good at finishing projects before starting new ones, so I started on my Goblin King on Saturday, and have painted his skin so far. He is quite an easy model to paint, so I don't expect much trouble. Still it will take a little time, as the amount of details demands more colors than usual for a Goblin. The Golbin King is a model from the Avatars of War studio, and is an option to use for friendly games and diorama purposes. It is a fantastic sculpt, and I have a few more of the AoW models to paint in the future.

My mounted Chaos Lord of Khorne is comming along nicely. I have started to assemble him, and hopefully he will be ready for basing in a few days. The base will require some thinking, as the model clearly is sculpted to stand on an elevated base. The elevated platform was not a part of the kit, so I have to figure out some nice material for this and sculpt it before I can finish the model. The plan is to make some sort of a rock, perhaps with some extra detail, and then I need several skulls to detail it with. I'll go down to my local GW store in the afternoon to get some tips.

The Chaos Champion only need the same brush-up as the night goblins, and then I need to use some greenstuff to keep the miniature attatched to the base. The base will need some skulls, but apart from that it is quite simple to detail and will be done along with the night goblin core unit.

I made myself a mobile paining studio on Saturday evening. I got the idea after reading an article in the November issue of White Dwarf on how a mobile workshop could create more time to work on the minis while still spending more time with the family, so I thought I should try it out. The enitre thing is made out of a cardboard tray that used to contain 24 cans of Coca-Cola products, so the cost is non existent and something everyone can afford.
The mobile studio will not replace the workshop, as there is a lot that needs to be done there. Cutting new minis from the sprue, removing mould lines and the groundwork on the bases are typical things that will need to be done in the workshop no matter what.

When I don't spend time in my workshop, chances are quite good that you'll find me sitting on the couch watching TV or a good movie with my wife or sitting on the same couch playing with my laptop. The laptop is placed in my lap on a cussion that works a little like an American TV-dinner tray. So I found that this same cussion also can keep a mobile paint studio steady.
The mobile work studio isn't exactly large, but I have found it has room for my water glass, some cans of paints and washes, some brushes, glue and the models I want to work on at the time.
It is clear that I can't work on too many models at the same time, as there is limited space for models and paint cans, but at the moment there are 40 Night Goblins with spears, 1 Dreadnought (decided to give the base a little more detailing), 1 Champion of Chaos, 1 mounted Chaos Lord of Khorne, 1 Goblin King and 5 Night Goblins with nets or hand weapons (including one small squig) on the box along with the paint nessesary to finish these models.

Status update November 10th

The last week and the weekend has been full of other activities, so the painting activities has been rather slow. Still, I have managed to finish my first Dreadnought, and since this was a rather simple thing to do I know that there will be more of these in the future. I have one Venerable Dreadnought in the pipe, and then I guess I might visit Forgeworld to get some diversity in to Dreadnoughts still to come...
I had planned to do all the decal work on my finished Space Marine troops this weekend. But as I soon found out, this proved to be a lot harder to get right that I'd thought before I started.
Still, the Dreadnought, two Devastators and one unit of 8 Scouts are ready for their final layer of protective varnish and then the rest of the scouts will follow shortly.

For the Goblins there are no update. I still have to do their bases and do the fixing up on the paintjob. I hope to have a lot done by this time next week.

Since Mortal Chaos is being released in full scale these days I have decided to do some work on my previously bought units and hero choices as well as the spearhead.
On my desk now, I have one Lord of Khorne and one Chaos Champion, and they will hopefully be done in a few days. I'm using these two minis as a test for my future color scheme for the Chaos army, and so far I think the Champion is going to look great. I'm not shure of the Khorne Lord yet, as he will have a lot more red on the armor than the Champion has. But for the moment I am optimistic, and I hope to get both models painted so you can see their stand while still seeing the resemblance to the rest of the army. The plan is that the Champion leads some of the infantry units in to battle, so there will have to be similarities there...

Devastator

This is the second Devastator I have made, it is also my first "conversion".
I bought this one on Ebay, and in his left hand he was holding a combat knife. The knife was broken, and instead of using a lot of time trying to fix it and risk it breaking off again in the future, I cut off his hand and replaced it with a hand holding a bolter since that is the standard weapon of the SpaceMarines. Because of the ornaments on his feet and on the left shoulderpad, I decided this soldier would have to be a veteran. So he is the first member of my 1st Company.
The model has been standing painted on my shelf for a long time, waiting to get the Ultramarines and company markings done. I have done this for my Dreadnought (went very well) my two Devastators (not so well) and 8 of my scouts (not well at all). I used to be pretty good in placing decals on miniatures, as I've done plenty of this for my 1:35 minis. But getting it to bite on curved shoulderguards proved a challenge, specially when I also had to tilt the markings according to the angle of the shoulderguards.
The Ultramarines insignia could be better, but the Devastator insignia turned out just as planned.

I used the following colorsceme for this veteran:
Main body color: Ultramarines Blue
Lower part of the legs: Midnight Blue
Cannon and most metal parts are Boltgun Metal
The ornamental pieces on his legs are painted Chainmail
The belt buckle and the eagle on the chestplate are as always painted Shining Gold
Helmet, company colors and the "nametag" on the left shoulderguard are all Scull White
The boltgun is Scab Red
The "exhaust pipe" on the backpack and some weapon parts are Chaos Black
The leather pouches are painted Vermin Brown.

Here are two more shots from other angles:

Dreadnought

Here is my first Dreadnought. I don't know what company it belongs to, but I have to decide before I give it the final layer of varnish. I'm thinking of painting the company colors on the edge 'round the missile launcher. My chapter, the 2nd Ultras, use the regular codex, so it will probably belong to a unit from 3rd or 4th company. My best bet would be 4th company, and that means goblin green.
It took some time to decide how to transfer the dark lower legs of the regular soldiers over to machinery like the Dreadnought, but the way I have done it here will set the standard for all Dreadnoughts and Venerable Dreadnoughts to come (There will have to be more...). One Venerable Dreadnought is in the pipe, and will be started after I have finished some Chaos miniatures for the Warhammer FB.
The glue stains will dissapear when I spray the miniature with the final coat of varnish.

This Dreadnought has been painted with the following colorscheme:
Main body color is Ultramarines Blue
The lower parts have been painted Midningt Blue, as this is the one thing that separate this chapter from the Ultramarines chapter.
All tubing, exhaust vents and some other parts are painted Chaos Black
The golden emblem on the front is Shining Gold
The name tag and the lower part of the seals are Skull white
The "wax" on the seals and the tip of the rockets are blood red
All metallic parts are painted Boltgun Metal
The searchlight is Bronzed flesh
The sight for the cannon is goblin green (as are the sights on the sniper rifles of my scouts).

The base is painted Codex Grey, and then I washed with Badab Black, and then again with devlan mud and gryphonne sepia on selected spots to make a more multicolored base.

Below is a more detailed pick of the base and the bottom part of the Dreadnought.

What's going on?

It has been some slow weeks in the workshop, but still something has been done.
The first core unit of goblins is slowly getting closer to the finish line. Two more operations needs to be done, I need to go over and check the paint so that all areas are covered and no area is tainted with another color, and then there is the process of doing the bases. As for all of the other Goblin units I will use a mix of grass on their bases, but I will try to experiement a little, to see if I can make them look a little more alive than they will look with all grass bases.

After the first core unit is done I will keep working on my 2nd unit, they will be armed with hand weapons and shields and will also include three netters. Apart from the base I have finished my first demo netter, and found how to make him look as good as possible.
The unit is spread out over the worktable, and I think I will do them little by little along with the Chaos army and my Space Marines.
When making such a large army as the goblin army will have to be, I think it is important to try to make some variations, and with the netters, one of them is trying to catch a renegade baby squig. The squig was really from the fanatics sprue, but I felt it could look nice with the netters instead.

The Chaos army is going to get some work next. My 15 warriors are looking forward to some more company. I think the next units on the table will be chaos knights, and some chosen warriors. I have 10 of each, and look forward to working on them. I will have to see what to do with the knights, as 5 of them are the old type and 5 are the new plastic knights. The new knights have much larger mounts, so that gives me a slight problem putting them together as one hard hitting unit. But I guess the old knights come from the mountains where they have a lot of wind and that might be the reason that the horses are small but very tough.
I also have at least 3 boxes of warriors to assemble, and I plan to make these warrior units a little different but still in the same style so that they are clearly one army.

As for my Space Marines army, the 2nd Ultras, Scout sergeant Telion is one of the models that soon will be assembled. I will have to decide if it will be Telion on loan from the Ultramarines (will require that I paint him as a regular Ultramarine) or if it will be another senior scout sergeant. At the moment I am leaning towards the second option, while still using him as Telion in regards to the rules.
Also I will start to work on my first (and at the moment only) venerable dreadnaught.
I have been working on a regular dreadnought for a little while, and it is almost completed. I just need to check the paintjob and add the markings. I plan to do this during the weekend.
The base is not the regular black gravel, but instead Codex Gray washed with Devlan mud and Badab Black with some Seraphim on there as well.
I also hope to add markings to a lot of my scout units this weekend, as they are ready to receive the final layer of protective coating as soon as this is done. When I start "playing around" with water and decals, I might as well do the job on as many troops as possible.
Pictures of the Space Marines units will follow as soon as they are done.

Skarsnik & Gobbla

Finally, here's the pics of the finished model. It was fun to paint this one, but it took quite a lot of Greenstuff to get it right.
I decided on giving Skarsnik the classic goblin look, with the black robe and hat. One of the horns on his hat was broken, but that is ok, it just makes him look like he has been in a fight before. On his back he has two holes, where I think there should be added horns. But either them or the teeth of Gobbla was missing, so I decided to use the two I had for Gobbla.
Apart from that I am very happy with the way Skarsnik turned out.

Gobbla is supposed to look scary, and in all the pictures I've seen of this beast the color is red. But I wanted to make some contrast on the scales, so I decided to make them green.
Also there are a shield under Gobbla, and that is painted as a test for the shields I will make for my Dwarf Ironbreakers.
The following colors has been used:
Skarsnik:
Cloak and hat is Chaos Black
Skin is Goblin Green
Armor is Chainmail
The added armor and the chain for Gobbla is Brazen Brass
The horns, skulls and teeth are Bleached Bone
The tongue is Blood Red
The leather pieces are Vermin Brown
Skarnsnik also have some captured dwarf beards at the front of his armor. These are pained Codex Gray.

Gobbla:
Body: Red Gore
Scales: Catachan Green
Hornes and teeth: Bleached Bone
Tongue: Scab Red
Warts on the tongue: Bronzed Flesh

Base:
Graveyard Earth and Fortress Gray, both washed with Devlan Mud
The dwarf shield under Gobbla is painted Regal Blue and Dwarf Bronze, also washed with Devlan Mud.

The Giant

Finally the first giant is completed. This is a giant that can be used both for my goblin army and my mortal chaos army (provided one still have that option with the new coxex that is comming one of these days).
Mostly I guess he will be used with the goblins, and since their natural enemies are the dwarfs I thought it was fitting that he had a hogtied dwarf in his cage. The dwarf is a slayer (that's the reason for the orange hair)
The shields and armor on the left arm and the shields on the shoulders of the giant are taken from defeated enemies and he has tied them on with leather straps.
The base is first painted brown, and the rocks grey. Then I gave the entire base a layer of devlan mud wash to make it look more alive. There are a few details that are painted separately. The broken cart wheel is painted like the rest of the wooden parts on the miniature. The straws are made from an old painbtush, and "glued" to the base using greenstuff. I had planned to do this for my chapel diorama, so this was a chance to see how this effect would end up. When the base was painted and the giant glued on, I glued some spots of mixed turf on the base. This is done to give the giant some unity to the goblins, for all the goblin bases have this turf mix.

The Complete Colors:
Dwarf and Giant skin: Dwarf Flesh
Giant eyes: Midningt Blue
Giant hair: Teracotta
Dwarf hair: Fiery Orange
Giant nails: Elf Fesh
Giant Teeth and bones in beard: Bleached Bone
Giant pants: Beastial Brown and Chaos Black
Giant protective skin on right arm: Catachan Green
Giant Shields (the strapped on armor plating) are: Regal Blue, Mithril Silver, Chaos Clack, Skull White and Shining Gold, all washed with Badab Black.
All ropes and leather straps: Vermin Brown
All wood: Scorched Brown, drybrushed with Vermin Brown
The stone piece on the club: Fortress Gray withdetails in Shining Gold, washed with Badab Black
The Cow: Beastial Brown skin, Bleached Bone horns, Chaos Black hoofs.
The Barrel: BoltGun Metal bnds, and Shining Gold logo, otherwise painted as wood and ropes.

Base: Graveyard Earh, washed with Devlan Mud
Straws on base: Gaveyard Earth washed with Devlan Mud, detailed with Bronzed Flesh

weekend roundup

Another week has gone by, and I haven't been able to spend that much time at my workbench as I had hoped. But on the positive side, I have finished two out of three ongoing projects. But I have maneged to stove away the garden furniture, and cleaned up the attic (both things done along with my wife). Also I have played at an Oktoberfest (october party, like the ones they have in Bavaria).

The first core unit of goblins are still not done, I estimate three more sittings before they are finished. What is left is painting the rope belts and the leather straps that hold the blade of the spear to the wooden rod. This has to be done for 30 gobbos. Then I have to paint eyes and teeth on 30 to 35 gobbos, and then all 40 needs a final check and basing.

Skarsnik and Gobbla are as good as finished, only thing missing is to place the snotling pointing some fungus in front of the rock Skarsnik is standing on. I haven't decided 100% to add him, as the model looks really cool without him as well, but I'll finish the paintjob on him and compare. Pics will follow soon...

The first giant is completed, and based. The base is made so that I can use him both in my goblin army and my mortal chaos army (provided the new rules still allow this). Pics follows in another post really soon.

The next projects will be a dreadnought and some mortal chaos units. But I still have 40 goblins with spears and 40 with bows assembled, and 40 goblins with hand weapons and shileds in pieces on my desk, so I have plenty of goblins to build. Also I got word that my Goblin King is on his way at last...

I find it very nice to have the possibility not to always build the same stuff. And since I have several armies I like to get to the gaming tables, I find this helps me work a little on them all...

What's new? Not a lot...

Still I find it's time for a blog update...
I haven't done much since my last update. This weekend I was trawling fleamarkets with my wife on saturday, and on sunday i had to transpose a lot of music for the schoolband I am conducting. And the evenings last week was either spent cleaning aquariums or being somewhere else. The plan was to finish the first goblin core regiment this weekend, but this will take a little more time now. But I am still optimistic, and hope to finish it the comming weekend instead. I started working on the shields again yesterday, and I hope to get the rest of the moons painted today.

Yesterday I did the finishing touches on the metal base of Skarsnik & Gobbla, so now I only have to finish the models before I do the last detailing on the plastic base the metal is glued to. I still haven't decided on what exactly to do on the plastic part of the base, but since all the goblins have grass bases, I think I will make some sand and grass for it.

I also did some modifications to my giant base yesterday. The plan was to add some high grass to it, but I'm not 100% sure of the outcome. I used the brushes of a large brush that I never could use to paint with, and "glued" it to the base using a puddle of Greenstuff. I guess it will look a lot better when it is painted, at least I hope so. Looks a little strange now...

The end of the weekend...

And so I sit here at the end of yet another weekend where I have spent some hours down in my workshop. This weekend I have been working on my first giant, my first core unit of goblins and Skarsnik & Gobbla. This is the status so far:

The giant is almost finished. I have added two shields to his shoulders, and painted up the sign that is a part of his large club. I have also decided on what extra equipent he will bring with him. In his belt he will have a barrel of the finest beer from the Emipre, and a medium sized cow. In the left hand he'll carry a cage with a hogtied dwarf slayer.
What is left to do now is glueing the cage together after painting the hair on the slayer another layer of fiery orange and then washing it with whatever wash comes to my mind. The club needs a drybrushing with vermin brown to create a feeling of wood, and after that it's just the base left before I can add a giant to my army. The base needs a little work as I plan to add some tall grass that has to be glued on with greenstuff or something similar, and I guess I'll add some arrows that has been fired at the giant without hitting him.

The first core unit of goblins is comming along slowly. The command group is as good as done, and the 35 regular troops are in different stages of almost finished.

Skarnsik & Gobbla are comming along nicely. The basic painting is done, but I need to do some detailing. Also since this set is of metal, some of the paint is peeling off again and I need to to some flicking here and there. But I know from the other metal minis I have painted, that this solves itself after they are coated with the protective coating.

WIP Skarnsik & Gobbla

Here is a WIP pic of gobbla. I have also started to work on the base, and the basics of that is now done. I still have to do some more details before I can say that it is finished though.
Skarsnik is still in many pieces, but he is comming along. Gobbla is almost done, and I think he looks cool with these colors. Looking forward to fielding this marverlous beast in my army.

WIP Goblin core unit 1

The first core unit of my goblin army is comming along nicely. It has taken more time than I expected earlier, but I think the result is worth the extra time.
I have decided to go for standard colors for the entire army.
For the night goblins there will be black robes (not very original, I know) and beastial brown leather hoods. The fanatics, some commanders, skarsnik and the goblin king will not have the brown hoods though.
This is the standardbearer for the first unit of night goblins armed with spears and shields. The unit consists of 35 regular goblins and a command group of 5. A few of the regular gobbos might be replaced with netters to get that option in the unit too.
Many of the units will probably have the same banner, so I have decided to separate them by painting the sun ray halo around the moon in different colors. For this unit the color is terracotta.
The mushrooms/fungus on the top of the banner has bleached bone stalks and teracotta hats.

WIP Giant

Here is a WIP pic of the first giant of my goblin army. His hands are being painted separately and I hope to be able to glue them on tomorrow. Since I plan to be able to use this giant in my Chaos army as well (provided this will still be allowed when the new rules ome out), I have decided to give him weapons and equipment that can be used both places. His main weapon will be a club built of a large sign and a tree limb, but I will add some more weapons and equipment a little later on. I just have to decide on what to use. I will build one more giant later, so it would be nice not to give them all the same stuff.

Goblins and giants

Just a quick update on the progress of the Goblin army.
The core units have all gotten some more color, but I've found that I have to give all minis an extra checkup on completion as there seem to be some places where I manage to touch them with a color that should be somewhere else (if you catch my drift).
But the first core unit is comming along nicely, even though it takes a little more time than I first expected.

Skarsnik & Gobbla are also comming along. I have painted the inside of Gobbla's mouth and glued it all together. Yesterday I did all the greenstuff work on it, and there were quite a lot of gaps that needed filling. Hopefully I have done this so that it doesn't show when I have painted this big mean monster.
The minis are going to be on a metal base that is glued to the regular GW plastic base. I have started the painting on the metal base, but I think it will need some extra detailing to look realy nice, so I'm thinking something out now.
Skarsnik is at the moment still unassembled and unpainted, but I will add him once Gobbla is done.

The giant is comming along well. His body is finished, and yesterday I added his head. All that is left on the face is to paint his eyes and teeth, as all his face is dwarf flesh at the moment.
For his beard I went with Terracotta, as that seemed to be quite good for a red haired fellow.
His arms are attached to the torso, and they got the first stroke of dwarf flesh yesterday. I also started to paint his hands.
I have discovered that the base will need some work with greenstuff and some old brushes. I am thinking of adding some tall grass some places to make it look more real. If this works well, I will use the same tecnique on the base of Skarsnik & Gobbla and arround the pond for my chapel-grounds.
I will try to add a WIP pic of the giant later today...

What's on the table?

Just wanted to post a little update on what I am working on at the moment.
I recently got the last pieces for my giant, so I just had to celebrate by starting to paint him up.
The body is done, but I have to detail his face and assemble and paint his arms and hands.
This is done in between painting my Goblin core units. I'm working on a unit of 40 Night Goblins armed with spears and shields with a full command group. They are mostly out of the "Battle for Skull Pass" set, but I'm not sure if they all come from that set as I've bought them on Ebay.
The command group is almost finished, and I hope to be able to do the rest of the painting on them tomorrow. The regular troops are in every state from "almost finished" to "just started". Hopefully they will all be done within a few weeks, as my table is rather full with 40 Night goblins with shields and hand weapons (and some netters too) in pieces waiting for their initial paintjob followed by assembly and detailing. There are also 40 goblin archers and some more armed with spears and shileds.
I also started on Skarsnik & Gobbla. This will take some work as it is a metal kit. I like the details in the metal minis, but sometimes it is a lot of work getting the different pieces to look good when glued together. I've started to glue together Gobbla, and it is quite clear that it will take quite a lot of greenstuff to make him look "good". The main issue at the moment though, is thinking out what color to paint the skin. I'm leaning towards Scab red with Catachan green and Bleached bone details. But I have to see how the different colors fit together when I get there. At the moment his feet are glued to the body, and I'm working on painting the mouth in order to glue the bottom jaw on to the rest of the body.

Here is a wip (work in progress) pic of my first Standard bearer.

About the buildings

I had some problems with the photo publishing tool, so I had to split the pics into three posts.
All the buildings are painted after the same pattern.
The bricks (especially the gaps in between) and all the cracks in the walls were first primed chaos black, then the walls were painted Codex Grey before the bricks and some other parts were drybrushed Fortress Grey. The rooftiles are all painted in Terracotta and washed with Chestnut ink. The blue on all buildings are Enchanted Blue. The wood is Scorched brown, and the wooden platform and the pillars of the watchtower are drybrushed with Vermin brown.
The details on the walls and the roof figures are Shining Gold and the metal is Boltgun metal.
The yellow figures on the blue part of the chapel walls are Bronzed flesh.

The clock on the chapel wall has the mechanics and the spiked rim around it painted Boltgun metal. Again the yellow is Bronzed flesh. For the roman numbers and the handles I wanted to use gold, but gold on a yellow background was very hard to see, so I used Dwarf Bronze instead.

This is a closeup of the tower door. The smudges of Dwarf Bronze under the door ring has been removed now.
The shields over the door is painted in Shining Gold.
Again like the temple, the guard tower is not ment to belong to any specific area of the world, but it is built on the same standard as the towers in the Empire.

In the novels of Terry Pratchett there are mentions of communication towers called Clacks. I have an idea to build some clacks from scratch, and then use them as signal towers and these GW towers as guard towers where troops can be posted.

The tower (pics)

Here's the watchtower (at last).  I am quite happy with the way it turned out.

The shack (pics)

finally, here are the buidlings

Finally, the pics of the chapel, the tower and the shack. These are all GW buildings, but now that I have finished these I have plans to build some from scratch. They will probably be wooden buildings to begin with.

The Chapel is probably an Empire chapel origianally, but I've decided that this chapel is somewhere in the wilderness in a far away part of the world. I bought a warrior priest to be the minister until I can find a miniature of a munk or something like it to give it a more peaceful look. The idea is to place it on a base with grass, a small pond, and a nice little graveyard. I hope to begin making this as soon as I have finished some of my other miniature projects.

The watchtower and the guardshack will be mounted on a base as well, but I haven't yet decided just what it's going to look like. At the moment I'm thinking something with a rocky hill or a mountainside.

Another general update

Felt it was time for another general update.
My buildings are now completed, and I hope to publish some pictures of them very soon. I just got to set up the light in a way that don't make the pics too dark. Perhaps I should bring in another lamp for photographic purposes. Would be nice to see the details in the pictures...

My Goblin fanatics are finished (as you can see from my last post), and I hope to be able to give them the final protective coating this weekend.

While working on the first batch of core units I came up with another look for the night goblins, so I did some re-painting on my Goblin Big Boss (shown originally in the "my first goblin" post from july 5th). A little earlier I re-painted his scythe from yellow to boltgun metal (as I decided it was a weapon and not a relic or standard), and the latest update on him is painting his hood brown. I did the brown hoods on a group of my night goblins with spear and shield, and I think that looked a little better than all black night goblins. Also I decided that if I should paint en entire army all black it would look dull and I would use a whole lot of black paint... I plan to give the archers black hoods, and the rest of the night goblins will get brown hoods. Will have to see what I do with Skarsnik though...
The plan is to finish one unit at the time, and when I have finished the units on my desk now, I will start on Skarsnik and Gobbla. Pictures will follow as soon as the first unit (or the command group at least) is finished.

Goblin Fanatics

Here are 4 pics of my Goblin fanatics. There are originally 6 fanatics, but the last two pics were way too dark to see anything. They are part of my (hopeflly) large goblin army to hit the gamingtables sometime in the winter or spring of 2009. More pis of the army and its components will come in future posts.

yet another update

Next time I update I will add some pictures of the projects I've been talking about for some time now. The chapel is 99,8% finished. All that is left is painting a flower motif over the door (some leafs that needs coloring) and finishing two torches that will hang on the front wall. The watchtower is missing two support pillars and two windows. This is all wood, so I need to paint it and do some drybrushing on it to give it the right texture. Apart from that, it is finished and ready to see some action. The Goblin Fanatics are all finished, and I will post a picture of them soon. I have started on the main goblin force, but it will take some time to paint it all. The desk is crawling with all kinds of Goblins, and their King is on his way in the mail. Mostly Games Workshop miniatures, but with a few exceptions. I will try to update with some pictures in the near future.

Status update

I don't have any new pictures at the moment, but thought I should add an update to the blog anyway.
I haven't been able to do as much as I had hoped this holliday, so I am not finished with the buildings yet. The small guard shack is completed, but it was only missing a few brushstrokes, so that's not much of an achievment...
The chapel is the next building that will be completed, the building itself is finished, and the large wall-mounted clock is glued in place. It turned out pretty nice, if I may say so myself.
What remains now is adding the statues (they are painted, but not glued to the wall), adding the angels on the roof (not completely painted yet), adding a plant up againt one wall (needs painting) and finally painting the symbols over the front door (I have to decide on a color here).

The watchtower is detailed and drybrushed since the last update, and the chimney is added to the structure. What remains are details on the stairs, some details that I have to add on to the walls of the top platform (a sword rack at least), and I have to decide if I want ornaments on the tower. At the moment I'm not sure where this would look natural, but I have an idea that I'm thinking of. If I decide to add them, they have to be painted first.

My Goblin Fanatics are glued to their bases, and the bases are primed and the gaps filled. I have also added the grass to them, so (if needed) I could take the fanatics to a game. But there won't be much of a game with one big boss with a pet squig and six fanatics, so I need to finish some more goblins soon...
I plan to add some detail to the bases in the near future, some pots, mushrooms and other goblin stuff is painted and ready to add. I also have two squigs that I might add, but they need to have their eyes and teeth painted first. I will see what bases I can fit them on, and if I don't find a base with the Fanatics I will add them to a separate base. I like squigs...
Thinking of modifying them a little bit since it looks like they have some very very heavy drool (looks like a waterfall from the teeth) or perhaps the idea is that they have very long teeth and an open mouth? I will probably cut a lot of it away, so that they look a little more intelligent (if squigs can look intelligent), but at least I can make them look a little less stupid.

new update on the buildings

This post should be called "The Guard shack is finished", but watching the detail pics I found that I still have some small details left. So instead I'm posting a picture that also show a little of the chapel. Note the yellow figures on the blue field, they still need a little detailing, but they are starting to look right. The hole on the chapel wall is the mount for a wall clock, but that is still being detailed. I will add it to the wall tomorrow or the day after, but I have to paint the wall again in some areas first. Then there are three figures (some sort of angels) that will be on the roof "ends" and four statues that will be located against the two longest walls. Aslo there are some areas that needs detailed painting.
The watchtower is coming along, but it will need some more work before I can say that it's finished. I have to add the chimney, and do some detail painting. The stairs and top walls needs to be drybrushed and the chimney need to have its metal parts painted up. After that it is just the detailing left, like painting the shields over the door and adding the lamp, hook and a few more details. Oh, and I almost forgot the two pillars supporting the tower... Guess it's still a little way to go before I can call the tower finished then...

This last pic is the wodden platform on the top of the tower, I am very satisfied with the way the drybrushing came out on this.

building update

This is the guard shack that will stand beside the tower when it's done.
The building is not complete, but I've got most of it done so I thought it might be ok to use the pic to show the progress since the last post.
This building can also be on top of the tower, but I think it looks better standing beside the path leading up to the door of the tower.
At the moment I have primed the guard shack and the temple, and have gotten the roofs on the buildings. The chapel has been modified so I could have both an attic window and a chimney. This also helped me plug the hole in the roof that was designed to be damage. With a hole in the roof people would be able to look in to the building, and then I would have to do something with the interior. Instead I closed up the windows by gluing dark yellow paper behind the open window holes. This has two functions: 1 - it creates the impression that there is a light inside, and 2 - it prevents people from looking in and seeing that the building is an empty shell.

The remaining steps on the building now is to drybrush the walls with a darker grey to create some texture on the walls. Already I have painted the cracks in the wall and the space between the bricks and tiles black to create the impression of shadows and give some depth, but when I drybrush the walls they will look much more like a normal wall and not like a flat surface.
The roofs and the big wood parts (roof and pillars on the watchtower) will be drybrushed with light brown to create the impressoin of wood.
Also I will add some fine static grass to the lower parts of the walls to create some moss to make it seem like the buildings are rather old.

This is the beginning of a roof for my guard shack. I haven't yet decided if the shack shall be placed on the top of the watch tower or on the ground beside it. This same technique will be used for making the roof on the chapel. The idea is to use the black basing to give the roof tiles a shadow effect, as someone has said that my minis look too flat.
I will try this technique on the roofs and after this is done I will drybrush with a brown color to get some different colors on the tiles.
The chapel and tower walls will be painted in one shade of grey and drybrushed with another.
This should give the impression of a stone wall that has been built a long time ago but still been rather well maintained. I hope this will give the desired effect, as I would love to build something more like a castle in the future, using some sort of wood and alabaster plaster.
Beside painting the buildings I'm also thinking out a way to put something behind the holes of the windows as I want the buildings to look like more than empty shells.
I'll try to remember to post the progress here.

I'll finish with a picture of the chapel before I start painting...

What's going on?

There's been a long time since the last update, but even so I haven't been totally inactive.
I've completed my veteran Space Marine devastator as far as I can for now. I will do a little more detailing on him when I put his markings on, and when I find a short motto to write on his shoulderguard.
My space marine scouts armed with shotguns are also completed. They still need their markings, but they will be added at a later time.
As with all the former Space Marines I've built, these lot have also gotten the black quartz rock on the bases.

My Goblin Fanatics are awaiting the finishing touches on the extra stuff to add on the bases along with the Fanatics.

Recently I've started to build two buildings as the beginning of a small village. It's the Citadel Miniature chapel and watch tower. My thought is to build the rest of the buildings from scratch, and also make a small graveyard on a hill beside the chapel. the first plan now is to practise drybrushing and shadowing on the two buidlings I already have, and then I'll take it from there.

Space Marines Update

After reading some more in the Space Marine Codex, it is clear that I must rethink my scouts a little from the last post. It is clearly stated that a scout unit is only allowed 1 heavy weapon in each unit, so I will have to rethink my teams a little.
Probably the sniper unit will consist either of one more sniper, making the team 7 snipers and a missile launcher (team led by a sniper sergeant). Then I will use the high risk entry unit as earlier stated as this only consist of a heavy bolter and regular weapons.
This leaves me with both a heavy bolter and a missile launcher to go with the remaining troops, hopefully I can get that to be two teams. If not, I have to go for anther boxed set or a blister or two to comlete yet another unit.

As for my regular Space Marines I've decided to make my first devastator a member of the 4th company, and the space marine I build now (the one from ebay) will probably be a veteran of the 1st Company (unless the rules stop me again, then he will be reassigned to the 4th).

The production of scouts and the devastator is going well, only the small detailing and the creation of the bases left. I figure I'll have them done by the end of this week, or early next week at the latest. Then I can start creating more space Marine troops, so that I get a playable army.

Space Marine Scouts

The first scouts of 2.Ultras have been standing on my shelf for a little while now just waiting to get the insignia added. As the pic shows this is not done yet, but it will be done as soon as my new batch of scouts are finished. They are at the moment in the final phases. They will all have the mark of the Ultramarines as they are an Ultramarine successor chapter. Also they will have the normal marks of the 10th squad.
Represented here is a knealing scout from the Sniper sprue, but the unit consists of 3 metal scouts and 5 plastic ones. 6 of them have sniper rifles, and 2 have missile launchers.
I have decided that my scout unit will be built up around 10 teams of 8 troops plus some special units (bikes and land speeders).
One of these 10 teames is the sniper unit (not sure if there might be a second team of snipers as well as I sort of like them so...), then there will be 2 teams with special skills for clearing buildings, and 6 or 7 regular sniper teams.

The colorsceme used on my snipers are as follows:
Shoulderpads, bodyarmour and gloves are Ultramarines Blue
Shirts and pants are Bleeached Bone
Boots are painted Chaos black with Vermin Brown soales
There are also some Midnight Blue parts on the back of the boots (to match the legs of the regular troops)
All leather's painted Vermin Brown
The eagle on the chest is painted in Shining Gold
The breathing aparatus and the scull in the middle of the eagle are Boltgun Metal
Some of the snipers also have capes, these are painted in a camouflage pattern of Chaos Black and Catachan Green with Bleached Bone spots.
Lasersights have been painted Goblin Green.
The weapons are painted a combination of Chainmail and Boltgun Metal for the metal parts and Chaos Black for the ceramic or rubber parts and the tubes (for those weapons that have this). Also the tip of the weapons are painted Chaos Black to give the barrels some depth.

General update

Well, not really a general, perhaps more of an ensign...
I haven't worked that mutch on my scouts lately, as I've got hooked on Goblins. Over the last few weeks I have bought several boxes, lots and blisters with goblin miniatures, and I just felt like starting to work on my Goblin army right away. I had a Goblin big boss with squig from earlier, and I'm thinking of changing some of his colors to fit the army. No major changes, just minor details.
I have bought two sets of Goblin fanatics that I've started working on, so it is six miniatures in progress. Most of the basic work is done, but I have the detailing and the bases left, as well as painting the ears, eyes and daggers. I haven't decided on how to detail the bases yet, but since the models came with quite a lot of extras I know I'll do something. Probaly something including Squigs, Snotlings or mushrooms either by themselves or a combination of the three. I might also create my first ever unit filler with some of the spare parts.

My space marine scouts are coming along fine. I have to paint the hair, the comms equipment and the cartridges in the gunbelts in the boxed magazines for the heavy weapons. When this is done I can bring out my green stuff and place them on the bases. Then it's time for detailing of the models and finally fixing up the bases. I know that the bases will be done just like the other scouts, as the black rock is a look I want on the entire army. But I might add some more details if my ideas work out.

I bought a SpaceMarine with a giant lascannon on Ebay, but the model was partially damaged on arrival, so I might use that to try out some easy conversion work. In one hand he held a dagger, but that is broken, so I will see if I can fit something else into that hand.

In the future I will focus on finishing my projects instead of buing more miniatures. I think I have enough minis to start playing now. It's just a matter of assembling and painting them and learning the rules of the game.
I have reached the conclution that I probably won't have the best showcase minis, but I think I paint a fair tabletop quality and it helps me relax.

I also upgraded my workplace this weekend as I mounted two racks on the wall for bits and pieces. My bitbox was rapidly running out of room, so I bought two small racks ment for screws, bolts, etc. This has given me 50 small compartments to keep the different bits and pieces in.
I am thinking one row for each army for now, with some rooms for bits that can be used with all kinds of armies or that don't belong in any of my 5 main armies. One example here will be spares from my Dark Elf boxed set, as I won't build a DE army. But spares from this army might still come in handy...

I've decided on 5 armies (probably should have kept the number lower, but that is a little late now since I already have the boxes on the shelves).
The future only know the sizes of the armies, but I am quite sure that some will be between 1000-1500 points while others might be quite a lot more.

I have the following armies for Warhammer Fantasy (traditional Warhammer):
- Chaos Mortals (originally planned as my main army, but there is a new rulebook on the way and if that changes my chaos nights and warriors too much this will be a 1000-1500 point army)
- Bretonnians (this might also be quite small, I'll have to see how I like the models when I've started painting. I do love knights though...)
- Goblins (this will probably be a large army as Goblins are quite cool, and playing them seems like a lot of fun even though it might be hard to win anything)
- Dwarfs (this might be the main army as dwarfs seem to be an army you can have a lot of fun with and win battles as well).

For Warhammer 40.000 I'll only build Space Marines. This will probably be quite a sizeable army some time in the future, but first I have to finish the models I have now and try them out in some games.

More for the shelf

Me an the Mrs. took a trip to Sweden on saturday, and that was a great chance to buy even more miniatures (what can I say, the price was a lot lower than in Norway).
Bought me a Space Marine Chaplain on Bike, another set of Night Goblin Fanatics, and a Goblin Doom Diver. The Doom Diver is a crazy mechanism built for giving the goblins the chance to use aerial attacks. To me it looks like a kamikaze project, and from the description it also sounds like this... "The Doom Diver Catapult is a torsion powered device much like a Rock Lobber or Spear Chukka, but instead of firing rocks or spears it is designed to launch Goblins. These Goblins are equipped with crude, folding wings which enable them to stay aloft for a short time before plunging back down to earth. This technique was developed to provide Greenskin tribes with a form of aerial reconnaissance. Early aeronaunts were given bits of slate and chalk on which to sketch enemy troop dispositions. As few Goblns survived the rather sudden landing, this was felt to be the only way of recovering the information they had gleaned. Unfortunately the idea wasn't a great success as most slates were found to bear a hastily scrawled message along the lines of "Yahooooo!" or "wheeeee!"
It was soon realised that Doom Divers were more effective as missiles."
I look forward to building this metal boxed set in the future.
I have already started to assemble my Night Goblin Fanatics, and I have about a 100 other goblins that are standing on the workbench ready to be painted. I think I see the beginning of an army...

Me - a nerd...

Ok, I admit it... I am a nerd! There is no doubt!
This is the Warhammer 40.000 5th edition rulebook. It was released at midnight, and I was on my way home with this book and some minis 30 minutes later. This is the first time I've ever done something like this, and I think it is a worthy cause...
I had my wife with me to the store, and I'm pretty sure she was the only female there. The majority of the bunch of assembled boys were pimplefaced teenagers, but I was glad to see that there were some gamers at my age too. It was also cool to see two youngsters of perhaps 10 that was there to buy the book (just like me) and to game. I take my hat off to the two dads that was there along with their sons to let them have this experience and play with the big boys. It was nice to see the exitement in one of the boys' eyes as he watched the armies of some of the more mature players as they brought out their scratchbuilt models of all shapes and sizes.
I didn't bring any of my stuff, as I don't have an army of anything yet. But with this book I might be able to put together a Space Marine army that can pack a solid punch. I can take the time to read the actual rules of the game, and perhaps I will learn what all the numbers and stuff in the codex book realy means...

The new sets for the shelf is Space Marine Scouts (think I have enough scouts now...) and for the regular Warhammer I bought Night Goblin Fanatics, Night Goblin Squig hoppers and Night Goblin Squig hearders (what can I say, I really got a crush on those squigs).

Also I got a load from Ebay today, consisting of 20 Goblins with spears, 20 Goblin archers and 15 Dwarf Miners. All groups with command. Only drawback was with my dwarfs, where 8 of the bases was damaged beyond repair so I will have to get me some new bases next time I'm at the Games Workshop store.
Also I got two minis I haven't placed yet, but I think one of them is a snotling on stilts. The other one looks like a cross between a Ku Klux Clan member and a magician. Will have to check the Ebay description tomorrow.
Edit: Ebay desc. didn't give out anything, so they are still a little mystery.

Elves - first miniature

There's lot of first miniature posts going on at the moment...
This is one of a batch of very old Elves I bought on Ebay. They are probably dating as far back as first or second edition of Warhammer as they are from 1984. They were primed when I bought them, but the color scheme is my own. This model is just missing the eyes and the finishing protective coating. I plan on doing the eyes when I have a little more practice...

As with the goblin I made the base all covered in turf. I figure the elves are a race close to the nature so that would look quite nice.
I don't really know if red is a good color for elves or if it shuld be more of an earth tone thing. But since my dwarfs are blue I wanted some different color on the elves and even though it looks a little christmasy I still think it looks nice.
The main color is Blood Red
The chainmail coat and helmet are Mithril Silver
Details on the bow, helmet and belt are Shining Gold.
Leather parts (a pouch and the boots) are Vermin Brown as I figured the Elves would have soft leather.
The bow is a wooden one and painted Scorched Brown, as are the shaft of the arrows.
Face and hands are Elf Flesh (as expected on Elf miniatures).
Arrow feathers are Scull White
The arrow pouch and the wrist supports are Dark Angels Green.
The hair is Bronzed Skin.

The first Space Marine

At last... Here is my very first Space Marine for my very own chapter; the Second Ultras (as described earlier).
The Marine is still missing his company colors and markings, these will follow when I have decided what Battle company he belongs to.
The only thing indicating that this is a Marine from the 2nd Ultras and not a regular Ultramarine is the dark legs. I am working on the nessesary "fluff" to explain this, and will come back to this when all is ready. But the basic idea is described in an earlier post.

The Space Marine Devasatator with Lascannon proved to be a little challenge, so I look forward to creating the next to see if it was just this one model or if it is a general flaud with these kind of troops.
The problem with this mini is that the cannon is so big that it is impossible to get the torso to look natural.
The base is done with gravel from black quarts that I had left over after using it in an aquarium.
The main color of the Devastator is Ultramarine Blue, the contrast color from the knees down is Midnight Blue, which is so dark it borders to purple.
The cannon is mostly Boltgun Metal, with some Chainmail and Black.
The seal on the Devs left leg is Blood Red and Scull White.
The eyes are painted with different reds and some white, just as described in the "How to paint Space Marines" book from Citadel Miniatures. I'm not too happy with the eyes, but I guess it will improve with experience. Probaly the colors should be mixed while they're still wet.

I have also finished 8 scouts, but they are waiting for their bases to dry before I take snappshots of them individually. But I'll end this post with a group shot of them awaiting the bases to dry...