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.