Chaos is comming!

The first two Chaos warriors of The Shining is standing finished on my livingroom table. 5 more have semi-finished torsos and these torsos will be finished this afternoon if all goes according to plan. Then it will just be a matter of painting hands and heads.
I have stumbled on a small problem regarding the Champion though. I had planned not to use the regular cape and arm that comes in every Chaos warrior set, as I think it will make all champions look alike. But the plan of making him stand out by using more gold on his armour makes it possible to take him for a Chosen one, and that is no good either. So at the moment I am a little stuck. But I will make him out of the last 5 torsos, so hopefully I have found a solution before I start on them.

I havent posted pics of the Russ yet. Was going to yesterday morning, but found out I had forgotten to paint the searchlight, so I had to do that. Hopefully I can take the pictures when I get home this afternoon and post them then, or at least no later than tomorrow.

The Russ is finished!

I am glad to announce that my Leman Russ is finished (finally!).

I will take pictures of it and post them here tomorrow in daylight. With minus 20 degrees celcius outside, there is not much else to do than reading the new White Dwarf magazine, and painting up models.

The Leman Russ is finished, and tomorrow I am quite sure the two first chaos warriors from The Shining will be ready. Their torsos are painted up, and I'm working on shields, swords and heads now. If I get them ready, I will post pictures of them as well...

New week, new chances...

Didn't get to do much last night. When I finally got home at midninght I had to remove over 20cms of powdered snow from the driveways. First time in a long time I got to use my Volvo as a snowplow...

 

Before I went to work this morning I found the time to catch a quick look on the new chaos warriors, and I really like their look so far, and I don't belive the unit will stop at 12 warriors. I will do some calculations to see how many warriros that gives the best effect, and add up. So far I am thinking either 4 rows of 6 warriors (total of 24) or 4 rows of 5 warriors (total of 20). If I go for the last option, I will have 4 "spare" warriors to use for another unit as they come in boxes of 12. I will have to do some math to see how it all adds up in numbers and points. 

I do know I want a chaos army with as much warriors as possible as I love the models, but it is important to make sure that it can also perform on the gaming table and it's not much help in having lots of units that never gets used. Then it is better to spend the time and money on units for other armies so that they can be used as well... At the moment I'm thinking of going for a 3000 points army, and I think I will get several units of warriors in there, along with knights, a General of some sort, a unit of chosen (maybe more than one), hounds and marauders. Might add some magic in here as well, depending on points. 

I have been thinking a bit on how to build a blimp. Building the basket hanging under it should be no problem, plenty of materials that can be used there. The challaenge as I see it will be the air container (balloon) and the ropes attaching the two pieces together. One idea I have is to use a balloon, fill it with some air and put plaster around it. As a kid I remember we did this in scool to make an Easter egg. The chalenge is to find a shape that makes it look "blimpy" while still maintaining the feel and smoth surface of an airship. Will think some more and try to make a sample as the weeks go along. The blimp won't be my first project anyway. I also started to think about doing some buildings, as I feel I have very little scenery. I have a temple and a guard tower that is painted, two Citadel woods (one halfway assembled, one still in the box) and a Temple of Sculls (assembled, not painted). Would be nice to have some more buildings. Some not straight out of the box if possible. Then again, some of the boxes makes pretty nice buildings as they are. Also it would be nice to have some buldings for the dwarf clan that is on it's way (so far it is King Alrik with shieldbearers, an old version (I believe) of Josef Bugman and a unit of miners...). A brewery and a blacksmith of some sort would be nice. I am already thinking of how to make a mineshaft. But first I have to build and paint some minis...

The Shining...

The Tank is only missing the shoulderguards, arms and head of the tank commander and the serchlight. Painted the skin colour tonight, hopefully I get to paint a little more tomorrow night. I'm going to a concert with my wife, but I hope to be home well before bedtime. If so I will give the arms their final colour and glue them on to the torso, and also try to paint the helmet.

I did a final brushup of the turret tonight, and I think the tank looks very nice now.

I also started to do the first colours of my second unit of Chaos Warriors.

The first unit is the first I ever painted, and it is very black. This time I am going for a totally different look, while still trying to maintain a similarity so that it will be easy to see that they are part of the same army.

This unit is called The Shining, and they are regular warriros from the Empire or Bretonnia, that has been temped and later consumed by chaos. Their commander will be a champion called Kubrick (and yes, the pun is intended).

Their armour is a 3 color scheme with Chainmail, Shining Gold and Mithril Silver. Boots and capes are Bestial Brown.

To make them identifiable with the other units I am thinking of painting the shields black with gold details like the other shields, and have this as a signature thing for the entire army. Also all further warriors will have Bestial Brown capes and boots. But most of the remaining units will have black armour. There will be a unit of Khorne warriors though, that will be black with red armour plates.

Well, time to hit the sack. Are going to participate in a commercial for a telephone information service (sort of the old operator services that patches you through to people you don't know the number to) tomorrow morning in about 8 hours...

The Low King is comming...

I feel a little like the White Dwarf magazine now, speaking of something to come in the future...

But I re-discovered dwarfs these last few days, and I have already decided my next project in the Warhammer genre (after I finish 24 chaos warriors) will be dwarfs, dwarfs and even more dwarfs.

As I told in an earlier post, I bought some new dwarf boxed sets on a trip to Sweden to shop for food and beverages.
I have used some time trying to think if I would like to have Thunderers or Quarrelers built from the box. For the cannon I have already decided on an organ gun (as I have a cannon and crew already). This means I will have a spare cannon that can be used for other purposes.

I seem to buy every number of White Dwarf Magazine that comes out, as there is always at least one interesting article in it (usually a lot more), and have for this reason decided to buy a subscription for 2011. Since the 2011 subscription miniature is a dwarf fighter pilot or engineer, I have decided to build an attack-blimp for him. How I will do this, I do not know at the moment, but several ideas are running through my head. Some of these involving thin metal sheeting and balsa wood...

I also thought it would be very cool to design a large stronghold for my dwarfs, and these last few days I have started to think how this can be done. A stronghold complete with a brewery, big mountain gates, a watch tower and not to forget a landing pad and service area for the attack-blimp and gyrocopters. This will have to be quite large, so I don't see me building it in the near future, but then the planning is a lot of the fun anyway and the building mostly a pain in the behind to get it to look as good in real life as it does in ones own mind. I should probably start small and build a few buildings or terrain pieces. One thing I plan to build to get some experience is the entrance to a dwarf mine for my grudge pony and miners.

The Dwarf fluff always mention the High King of the Dwarfs, but I like to go against the grain, so I have decided that I will have a Low King. He might answer to the High King, I see no problems with that, but my idea is that the Low King lives in the deepest caves of a dwarf stronghold, and thus has the title Low King. I haven't yet worked out the details around it, as the title really is borrowed from Terry Pratchett and his magnificent books about the Disc World.
If you haven't read these books yet I would certainly recommend you to check them out at once. There is no need to start at book 1 and read all the way through, just find a book with a story line that intersts you, and take it from there. Some of these books tell a lot about dwarfs, and others don't mention them at all... Some very funny characters like Officer Carrot of the police department, who was adopted by dwarfs as a kid and thus see himself as a dwarf while he really is a giant of a man. Not at all like Warhammer, but several of the races are there, and the books are really hillarious at times.

so much for progress...

What I wanted to name this blogentry was "Watch out for the Cavalry" (or something in that way), and then post pictures of the finished Leman Russ. But it seems like that tank is a project doomed for stand-still even though I really do want to get it finished.

Saturday me and the Wife was in Sweden (just across the border) to do some serious shopping. Norwegians go to Sweden, Swedes go to Denmark, Danes go to Germany, Germans go to Poland, and the Polish go to the Baltic States. There's always some place where you can save a lot of money on food and other stuff.

Since we were in Strømstad, I decided to stop by the local Citadel Miniatures supplier to see if they had some sets that I wanted. Since Games Workshop have the same price for Norway and Sweden I tend to save some money on this, because of the difference in the currency.

This was probably my last time shopping miniatures there, as they had a clearance sale for what Warhammer stuff they had left. Everthing was 30% off.

I am quite sure I could have bought myself a decent Skaven or Ogres army (the last one was actually quite tempting), but instead I ended up with 4 boxes for my existing armies.

1 Space Marine Chaplain on bike (plastic biker kit with a metal chaplain). 1 Imperial Guard Sentinel (the new all-plastic kit), 1 Dwarf Cannon (will be used to build an Organ gun), and finally 1 unit of Dwarf Thunderers (the future will decide if the will be Thunderers or Quarrelers).

Today (Sunday) was Father's Day here in Norway, and I spent some time with my father helping him around the house. Among the things we did, was packing all his outside furniture away for the winter.

Speaking of Dwarfs, I really like the new mini you get if you buy a subscription for White Dwarf for 2011. I buy the mag anyway, so I might as well subscribe and get it home instead of trying to remember to stop by the store to get the newest edition.

The miniature is sort of a fighter jockey, and that got me set on an idea...

In the 8th Edition rulebook for Warhammer there is a pic of a Dwarf blimp, and that gave me the crazy idea that some time in the future I might make myself something like a small elite Dwarf Airforce. I already have the first gun for the blimp as there are both a regular and an organ gun in the Cannon set... I will start to think about this and see what I can come up with. Might get some help from people that are more handy than me to make the blimp itself, we'll see...

Progress is slow...

I just have minor details left before the Leman Russ is finished. I have to paint the commmander's head and arms, and the medals upon his chest. Also I need to paint and glue on the searchlight to the tank tower.
The only problem is that I seem to have lots of stuff going on beside painting miniatures.
Last weekend I was an instructor on a Big Band seminar, the weekend before that I had a big concert on Saturday and who knows what on Sunday. And the afternoons just fly by, with me comming home from work quite late, dumping down in my chair ending up in front of the computer and staying in a vegitative state until it's time to take my dogs for their late walk and then go to bed.

This weekend I'll try again... But on Saturday I know I am going for a field trip to Sweden. Who knows, I might pick up some more Warhammer stuff while I am there...
Sunday I will help my dad for a few hours, but there should be time to get the tank done. Unless I have to babysit my Niece and Nephew, but I haven't heard anything about that yet...

So hopefully on Monday afternoon there should be a picture of a finished Leman Russ with a commander in the hatch on this blog.

Leman Russ update

The Russ is comming along nicely. I used a long time to decide on the camouflage pattern and what colour to apply first, but I'm quite pleased with how it all turned out.
The pattern is large stripes, and consist mostly of Vomit Brown (almost ochre in colour, at least I think it looks a lot more yellow than it does on the Games Workshop website), and Adeptus Battle Gray (basically dark gray). On the back of the sides there are also a field of black.

What I have found is that the side sponsons gave me a little trouble, because they seem to be designed too tight, so that the paint is ripped off when they are turned. And what's the point of being able to turn them if the paint gets ripped off all the time? The solution is to find a position that one likes, and leave the turrets there. After all it is a model and not a toy! I have not found the same problem on the front revolving gun turret, and that is actually the only flaud I found while assembling and painting.
One very positive thing is the tracks, they have the best assembly system I have seen on any model I have built in all my years of model making. The only drawback to assembling tracks in pieces though, is that you can't roll the vehicle forward on the tracks so you have to lift it to move it. Then again, it's not often I roll my Tamya tanks forward either, even though it should be possible to do so.

The Russ ended up with a lascannon for the front weapon, and heavy bolters for the side sponsons. The turret is outfitted with the Battletank cannon, so all in all this is a fairly standard Russ. None of these weapons are glued on yet, as I will try to see how the interchangeable parts work first. They all seem to fit tightly enough in to the mounts not to create any problems by doing it this way.

I am currently assembling and painting the turret and the commander, and painting the tracks. I am quite sure the tank will be ready this weekend. Pictures will be taken when all is done.

A new week, new goals!

Finally I have finished the entire unit of Chaos warhounds. 20 hounds is now painted, washed and glued to their bases, waiting along with other miniatures to get their basework done. There are some extra room on the cavalry bases that comes with the hounds, so I am thinking of adding some small shrubbery, some skulls and other stuff to give them some character. This basing will begin as soon as I have cleared some room on my workdesk.

The next project for the Chaos army is a unit of 12 warriors called "The Shining" (pun intended). The unit may grow in size at a later time, I'm quite sure that will happen... This unit will definately have the Chaos feel, but they will be a lot brighter than other units in the army. They will also have a similarly painted knights unit to follow at a later time.
The Shining are all powerful warriors that have been corrupted by the forces of Chaos. They all use swords and shields, and the unit will have full command. Their leader will be a champion named Kubrick and it is said he gets his orders straight from Prince Sigvald. Their armour will be Mithril Silver with gold detail (Shining Gold or Burnished Gold will be decided later), their chainmail will be painted Chainmail (surprise!) and all leather will get the usual browns.

But before I start on this project it is time to do a Warhammer 40.000 project, and this will be the first tank for my Imperial Guard army.
It will be a Leman Russ, but what variant is not decided yet. There are possibilities of making several versions with one kit, and also interchangeable weapons parts, so I will see how I will do this as the project goes forward.
The tank wil have either a two tone or a three tone camouflage pattern, I am still working out the details of the colors. But it will most definately fit with the colours of the remaining elements of the army.

Also I will try and spend some time finishing my units of Imperial Guard, Space Marines and Sisters of Battle standing on my workdesk, in order to be able to start basework on several otherwise finished models. Also I look forward to seeing them completed, as they have been standing on my workdesk for way too long. The longest waiting miniature is probably the Forgeworld Dreadnought; it has been standing there for ages. This is also the model that has needed the most work, but I know how to do all the remaining touches and look forward to seeing it in the glass cabinet along with the rest of the Space Marines.

Sunday, and time for an update!

Today I should've had some pirate minis to paint, as it's "International talk like a pirate day", but I don't feel that I have any pirate-looking minis in my armies (at least not yet). I have some thoughts of perhaps making some buccaneer-type units fighting with my Bretonnians (but I have no plans to paint Brets in the near future).

But I digress...

Just before I logged on to write this update, I finished painting the teeth and horns on my last 10 hounds for now (the same ones from my last post). All that is left now is to paint their eyes Blood Red and the inside of their mouths Red Gore. Then they will receive a heavy wash of Devlan Mud and the teeth will get a light wash of Baal Red. Depending on the light-conditions, I hope to do the painting later today and the wash tomorrow or Tuesday. Then the only thing left will be to mount them on their bases. Since I have decided to go for flat bases this time, this will not take more time than it takes for the glue to harden enough for the minis to stand alone. I might consider pinning 4 of the hounds as they are only standing on their hind legs, but I'll see how it works out.

The next Warhammer project will be the Chaos Warriors that are cut from the sprues and waiting in two boxes ready to paint and assemble. This is two units of 12 warriors. Considering the long time it took to finish the hounds, it will probably take some time before all 24 are ready to march to war.

The next Warhammer 40.000 projct is actually an ongoing project already, and that is the completion of all the Imperial Guard and Space Marines standing on the table in the hobby room. There are regular Imperial Guard troopers, Elite forces, Ratlings, Ogryns, and several types of Space Marines. They are all in different stages of painting and assembly, but quite a few of them are only missing the final touches.

After they are done, I will do a Leman Russ Battletank (haven't chosen what type yet).

I've also assembled a forrest of 3 trees and base and the Temple of Skulls to paint up for Warhammer Fantasy. The temple will look good on a table with my Chaos army.

I have no plans to buy my own table yet, as I have no place to keep it, but one can always use a table piece.

Slow progress, but still...

Well, there has been much going on the latest weeks. Puppy training twice a week, arrangements on the weekends, but still I haven't totally laid off painting. I have managed to paint the fur and skin on the last 10 hounds, and hopefully I will be able to start the detailing this Sunday. 

I am planning to have this batch of hounds standing directly on the original bases, but for the next batch of hounds (will follow some time in the future) I am considering to build up the bases to make sort of a rocky terrain. 

 The hounds will be possible to use as two units of 10 or one unit of 20 depending on what the rules say is most optimal and what kinds of enemies I will be facing. The plan is to make movement trays for them, and while doing this, making two trays for 10 hounds and one tray for 20. The trays will be made some time before I am ready to play my first game. Considering the slow pace I paint, I expect it will not be before 2011, even though I had a pledge to do this in 2010. I will see what kind of units I have ready before the year is over...

I'm slow, I know...

I am not the slowest painter in the world, but I'm probably in the top ten.

The problem is more that I don't seem to find the time to paint. I've bee working on my first ten hounds for what seems like ages now.

Today I finally finished the hounds. I have a problem deciding if I should paint the "rash" on some of the hounds black like chaos armour or just use a wash to make the cracks in the skin stand out more. I will decide what to do tomorrow when the light improves and the wash is fully dried (so that I can compare the two alternatives). No matter what I decide, all 10 hounds will be done by tomorrow night. Then I can finally start on the next 10. Hopefully they don't take as long as the first batch, as there are 24 chaos warriors and 3 knights waiting to be painted. Also there are the usual lot of 40K figures waiting for completion...

Missing pictures should follow soon, as I bought myself a new camera. At the moment I am trying to learn the ropes, and I think I'll get the hang of it in a while. I take a lot of pics of the dogs, especially the little one. I haven't studied the results yet, but my wife seem to think there are some nice pictures among them so there is hope...

I'm still working out of my portable workstation in the livingroom, as I don't want to leave my wife alone with the dogs for too long as the young one is quite a handful. Still, I think my wife is much better with the puppy than me. I try to help out though...

Time to go to bed now, and hopefully the morning wiull bring some clear skies and lots of light for me to work in thoughout the day and perhaps also in the late afternoon...

Progress and future plans

I managed to get a good finish on sunday, and finished the fur on 9 hounds, bringing the total up to 10. When all 10 hounds are done, I will start on the last 10.
I also took a look at the hound painted when the light was a little too low, and found I missed a few spots, so I fixed that. Tonight I hope to paint the hide on the hounds, and then I will have to fix some spots on the one that was used as a test scheme as well.
The test actually looked quite good, and I am looking forward to seeing vast numbers of Chaos Warriors with those kind of capes. If I hadn't coated my old warriors, I would have gone back and redone their capes to the new scheme.

When the hounds are done I will start on my warriors. From the new rules it seems good to have larger units. I had originally thought each unit to consist of 12 warriors, but I might re-think and go for 24 instead. But I don't have to decide before I start on the next batch of 12 warriors, and knowing me that might take a while.

I have also started to think about building some scenery to use with the miniatures.
I have assembled my Temple of Skulls (really not much to assemble as most of it comes in one big piece) and I think it is so big it will need a layer of black basecoat. Then I will see how it is best to proceed with the painting, but I'm guessing a combination of techniques. Also I think some work with flock or sand might be needed.

When the new Warhammer Rulebook was released the GW store in Oslo had a very cool tower with a building on top of it, and in the rulebook there is a picture of a tower with a ship on top.
This combined with the book I'm reading (Nation by Terry Pratchett) made me want to scratch build my own scenery. The idea with a boat being somewhere it's not expected to got to me, and I would love to build a house or fortress and put a boat on top of it. Then for fluff I can say it belongs to a Bretonnian sea captain. After all, I think I will paint my Bretonnian army eventually. I relly like some of the miniatures, and I have enough sets on the shelves to make a small army.
But knowing how fast I am, it will probably be a long time yet...

Progress...

I got to a slow start on the hounds, but I'm finally on my way.

The plan was to have 20 hounds done by the end of the weekend, but I will have to expand that timeframe a little. I've been spending the day at my In-law's cabin together with that side of the familly and my two dogs. Still, I managed to paint the fur on three dogs, and I also managed to paint the skin on one of them.

I could have done the skin on all three, but I figured it would be a good idea to see how the color scheme looks before I go into mass production. So far it looks good, but the light is a little low so I will wait for the regular daylight tomorrow before I decide.

Last saturday saw the release of 8th edition of the regular Warhammer rules. One of the events in the Games Workshop store in Oslo was to guess how many metal pieces they had stuffed in to a large plastic jar. I came closest with my guess of 298 (the correct answer was 315) and my price was that I won the enitre thing. 5,4 kilos of bitbox fun! Looking for something special, let me know and I will see if I can help.

I have looked through it and found that it was some LOTR minis that I will try to pass on to others (except perhaps for some figures from the movie that I can paint up for fun), also a lot of Warhammer stuff, and some 40K stuff (an Imperial tank driver and two Cadian snipers to mention some of the stuff I will use).

I will look through all the Warhammer stuff and try to sell off some of the things I know I will never use, like a lot of elves, lizardmen, etc.

But There was some really cool stuff there as well, some Bretonnian minis that I will use for my Bret army whenever that will be painted up, some nice chaos stuff for that army, and some Dwarf pieces.

Among these pieces were a cannon (just the barrel sadly) that turned out to be a Dwarf Flame Cannon. I also got the crew, except the Dwarf with the flag. I will try to use this for something experimental built by a semi-crazy Egineer (the dwarfs seem to have plenty of those).

yet another update

There has been some changes in the progress plans...
Last friday my house got hit by Hurricane Amanda...
Relax, it's not that kind of a hurricane, so there is no need to send relieve packages of any kind. Me and my wife just got a second dog.
From before we have Nemi, the very prototype of a kind dog. She's a 6 years old German Shepherd, very easy going and very relaxed. My workspace is in the basement, and on hot summer days she likes to be there with me since it's one of the colder places in the house.
Last friday (1 week ago today, where does the time go...) Amanda hit the house. She was 8 weeks old (9 now) and has a lot of energy like little puppies do. It's 100% action for some time, then comes a time with sleep and relaxation before it's 100% action again.

Because Amanda came to our house I have to work from the livingroom for a little while, sort of like I did with my mobile workstation before I got my workspace done.
This reduces the number of minis I can work with at the same time, so what is on the worktable is left there for a little while. I will get some time to sit there when I start my holliday in little over a week. Until then I work from my recliner chair, packing away my stuff every night.
I use newspaper to paint on, so I decided to paint things that didn't need to lay long to dry and risk being stuck to the paper (it always looks ugly when the paper is removed).
20 Chaos Warhounds seemed like a good start, they are now assembled and ready to be painted. The idea is to paint them in the same colours as the capes of the warriors. Not suggesting anything ofcourse, purely a coincidence... (yeah right...)
The hounds will be fielded in 4 units of 5 or 2 units of 10, depending on rules and tactics.
Beastial Brown skin, Graveyard Earth fur, and Bleached Bone horns are the main plan for the colour scheme.
The old chaos warriors have Scorched Brown capes, but I have found that it might look better with capes painted a little lighter brown, especially for those units that will have other armour than the regular black old warriors.

A month is over...

June has it's final day today. Tomorrow it will be July 1st, and I still have the same miniatures on my table as I had in the beginning of this month.
Granted, something has happened with several of them, so it is not a complete stand-still.

My Imperial Guard veterans are being detailed at the moment, adding backpacks, helmets, grenades, daggers and other equipment that fit in.
Some troops will get a lot, others barely anything at all. It is all depending on how much availabe space there are on them. I hope to have most of this work done by the end of this weekend.

The Scout Sentinel is washed and ready to be pinned and glued on to its base. It actually turned out quite nice, and I look forward to assembing more of these Sentinel models in the future.
The base is primed in earth colour, and will receive some flock and other details before it is ready to receive the miniature.

The Space Marines on the table are all in a different state of ready, but all of them are now painted with their base colour of Ultramarine Blue. Some have also gotten their boots painted Necron Abyss.
For the Assault marines I have gotten all 5 on their bases, and started to paint their arms as well as their jump packs.

The Sisters Repentia are getting close to complete, I just have some challenges with the one sculpt that I have to try and resolve. Apart from that there are just minor details missing before they can go to basing.

The Ogres are also just minor details and a god wash away from going in to basing.

And so it is June...

Summer is slowly getting to my part of the world, and with that comes more spare time. The band I play in has taken summer holliday allready, and in a few weeks the School Band I'm conducting will have a summer holliday until mid-August. This means more afternoons to spend at home, and when I get to be more home I might also get more time painting. 

This weekend I managed to get two painting sessions in to my schedule. I have a Venerable Chaplain Dreadnought that has been laying in pieces on my worktable for too long. The first session this weekend gave this a good facelift, and after a few more sessions it will be ready for assembly. I chose to go for the regular blue body instead of the black armour the chaplains usually are seen with. I am not sure if this will be the rule for my regular chaplains, but I felt it was a nice touch for the dreadnought. After all, dreads are very old and vise warriors, so by giving it a blue body I signal that it is a warrior first and foremost. I also managed to do a lot of the painting on my first assault marine with jump-pack. I believe he will be ready for final assembly after the next session. This is a marine with both legs planted firmly on the ground. I am still working to find good ideas to pose the other four that hardly touch the ground at all unless I make them look very wobbly (and I don't intend to do that). 

My Imperial Guard veterans are only missing the wash and extra detailing, except for one dude that will need to get his face re-painted after I accidentaly gave him a big stripe of black with a runaway brush. 

I really like the way these veterans have turned out, and I am quite sure Forgeworld will see another order for veterans (the batch I didn't get this time) in the future. 

 The Scout sentinel got the final touches this weekend too, but I see I need to go over some details on the lascannon as the black brush ran away again... 

 My Sisters Repentia are also almost ready. There are some minor details to paint, and I need to decide what is what on the one mini that looks to be badly sculpted. I don't think the Sisters will see much action, as I don't intend at this moment to buy a full battleforce. Still they will look nice in the glass cabinet of my workspace, and I might find a way to incorporate them in some Apocalypse or Imperial units in the future.

Status update May 25th

As usual things are taking way too long...
But here is an update on what is going on.

The Space Marines have got their new insignia, and some of the 1st Company are on their way into the glass cabinet in the near future. Just need to check them a final time for details. The insignia for my Marines are a black # on white background. For the troops of the 1st Company the background and company colors are separated with a thin black line. The remaining companies will not have this line.
The Marines are now called The Gatekeepers, and their home planets are located in the Cygnus Arm and can be seen as a smal cluster of bright stars just North of the Eye of Terror.
I will use som time working on their fluff, to get it to be as good as I want it Hopefully it will be almost as detailed as the Imperial Guard fluff I have written for my IG army.

For the Imperial Guard, I noticed that I had not finished painting some of the details on the Scout Sentinel, and I will do this as soon as I have the time.

The Veteran Squad is just missing the fine details and the wash. I am quite happy with the way they turned out. I will add some grenades and extra ammunition and things like that before I put them on the base-work box.

The Ratling snipers are also underway when it comes to painting. Skin color is applied, and more will follow shortly. They have proven to be a little hard to paint, as they are both smal and detailed and that is not the best combination for me. But still I am sure they will turn out very nice in the end, as they are great miniatures.

I bought some Elf heads (wood elf gladeguard?) with free hanging hair, and hopefully these heads will make for nice female Imperial Guard heads with just small modifications.

I also got hold of a few Sisters of Battle miniatures, and they are a nice change to paint. I have not decided if they will be part of a small Sisters fighting force, or if they just will be minis that sticks out a little in the glass cabinet where my 40 K minis (Marines and Guards) will be standing between games.

The plan for the future is to paint the minis on my table at the moment, so that I can get room to do the base work on these and some previously painted miniatures.

Then when these minis are done (some Imperial Guard models, many Space Marines, and a few Sissters of Battle) I will make one Fantasy and one 40.000 unit at the same time until I have solid armeies to field in tournaments.
The plan is to make a unit of Chaos Warriors as the next new set for Fantasy, and some Kommisars for my Imperial Guard army.

Sentinel is done! (almost)

I finished building the Scout Sentinel today, all that is missing now is some paint on the engine and the drivers cage, and the usual round of washes. Plan to do this tomorrow, or perhaps later tonight.

This was the old sentinel model, and that is partly why I chose to make it a scout sentinel. The model is a combination of plastic and metal, and I am not too fond of that.

As i understand the new sentinels are all plastic, and also seem to have more equipment to add and choose from. I plan to add some to the army at a later point, but for now my main goal is to build and paint what is in the shelves and there is a lot to choose from.

The veteran squad lead by Sergeant Bastion is comming along nicely. I had a little challenge painting the resin black, as the paint wouldn't stick right, but I got there eventually.

I find this a little strange, as the grey went on without any problems at all yesterday.

What is missing on the elites now is to do the leather, the skin, and the metal parts of weapons and insignia. The sniper's cape needs to be painted on the outside, and some of the models needs to have head or arms attached to their bodies.

Catachan command squad

The eastern part of the continent is not as industrialized as the western part. The eastern part is mostly farmland, forrests and some swamps.

The troopers based in this part of the continent need to rely on airsupport to move fas tfrom place to place. They are mostly different kinds of infantry, supported by sentinels and Valkyries or Vendettas. The big unit in the east is the 82nd Airborne Division (Nicknamed the Fighting Falcons).

Their first platoon is lead by this command squad:

Lieutenant Hill, with boltgun

Medic with lasgun with foldable stock

Standard bearer with lasgun

Vox operator with lasgun

Specialist with sniper rifle

Several troopers have grenades.

The Catachan troops have flak vests, and they sre painted catachan green

Their headgear are painted Necron Abyss (same blue as the legs of my Space Marines)

Here are some pics:

Cadian Command squad

The Cadians represent as said earlier the troops from the western industrialized zone of the continent. They will be joined by Ogryns and ratlings.

The troops will have access to Chimeras, and will be backed by Leman Russ tanks, Ordnance batteries, hellhound variants, sentinels and hopefully som big and heavy tanks.

The units are gathered under the 101st Infantry Division (nicknamed The Roaring Thunder). Their tactics is based on attacking in force and hitting their enemies hard and brutal.

Here are some pics of the command squad for the 1st Platoon. It consists of the following troops:

Commander: Lieutenant Katz (might be renamed at a later time), with Plasmapistol

Standard bearer with lasgun

Trooper with heavy flamer

Medic with laspistol

Vox operator with lasgun

Here are some pics:

Imperial Guard Cadian troopers

At the moment my Imperial Guard army hails from the planet Xerxes IV (might change this name later) a small planet located in the Mordant Zone between the more known planets Pavonis and San Leor.

In my army the Cadians reperesent troopers from the industrialaized western part of the continent, and this is how the standard troopers will look like...

The helmet, boots, armour and synthetic material on the weapon are Chaos Black

The pants are Adeptus battlegrey

The coats are Fortress grey

all metal is Chainmail

The waterbottles and grenades are Dark Angels Green

all leather is Beastial brown

First Easter update, mostly IG

Just before the Easter holliday set in, I got a package from Forgeworld with the replacement for my dreadnought assault drill (that I managed to break while cutting it clean) and my Imperial Guard veterans upgrade kit.

Naturally I wanted to make my Cadian veteran squad at once, and this meant I had to clear some room on the table. I had two plastic command squads almost finished, so I finished and washed them, and I also washed the five troopers that I made earlier.

I originally wanted my troopers to have a clear contrast between the torsos and legs, but since I suck at thinning and mixing paint and washes I decided to use a thin layer of Badab black on all grey and metal areas. The result came out much better than expected and they look like a gritty band of troopers that has seen some time in the field.

The brown parts were washed with Devlan mud and the green, gold and blue got their respective washes as well.

The pictures will be in my next post, I just took them and need to pick the best pics and crop them a little to get the right sizes.

I also started on a scout sentinel (the old type that is part plastic and part metal), and wanted to make something out of the base, so I hightened the base and made a hole in the middle to create a river using my MIG watereffect set. But since it is a battlefiled I wanted the river to be red with blood, however the result looks a lot more like a river of tomato soup... Still I think it will be ok when I have finsihed the base later on, and I have thought up a new way to make rivers bloody in the future...

The cadian veterans are in different states of ready. I had a little problem glueing resin to resin, but hopefully that is solved now.

4 veterans are armed with shotguns, two with lasrifles (one of these is the vox operator), two veterans have grenade launchers, and the last veteran is a sniper. They are lead by my version of Sergeant Bastonne, armed with a powerfist and a boltgun. I have tried really, really hard to find a "regular" hand with a powersword, but I have not been able to find this. So I had to use a powerfist instead, the most important thing is that it is a powerweapon after all. Also I could not find a left hand with a gun, no matter how hard I looked. So I ended up taking a spacemarine arm and cutting off the hand and attaching it to an Imperial Guard arm. It ended up a boltpistol instead of a laspistol, but I figure that will work fine as that also is the preferred weapon for commisars.

Space Marines update

As several people on the Warhammer 40K forums didn't find my fluff believable, I had to go a few rounds with myself. And... *drumroll*
I've decided to totaly rethink my Space Marine fluff. As a result of this I will also need to change the apperance of my Marines.
The main design will be as is, but some changes will appear.
The main color will be Ultramarine Blue (as before)
Legs will have a darker color below the knee, Midninght Blue for the minis already finished, Necron Abyss for new minis.
One shouldergard will be Scull White with the chapter symbol painted on in black. For the first company there will be a thin black line between the shoulderguard and the white rim. The other Shoulderguard will be Ultramarine Blue with the company color on the rim.

I really liked the name The 2nd Ultras, and the name might stick as a nickname for the chapter, but there has to be a new official name. I have gone several rounds with myself to figure out if I should use an existing name from the Lexicanum as there are several non described chapters there, but if I choose this I make it possible for someone to write about my chapter and hence change my chapter history without my knowledge. So I have landed on finding my own name and chapter symbol. I have several symbols I would like to use, but my problem is applying it to the small shoulderguards and making it look similar from marine to marine. This means I will have to simplify quite a lot. Also, since my hands are not noted for being 100% steady on a normal day it will have to be simplified further.
I am currently testing out patterns on paper, and will try the best of these drawings on some spare shoulderguards from my bitzbox tonight.
After I have landed on a shoulder guard pattern, I will try to find a name that sounds good and matches the symbol.
I will try and post a picture of a Marine with the new symbol as soon as I have decided what it will be.

Finally, some progress...

The Imperial Guard soldiers are finally starting to leave the table and move over to the box where the miniatures awaiting basework stand. Half of the two plastic command squads were transferred over yesterday. The rest are missing one or two minor details or needs minor mistakes corrected before they join the box. Hopefully they all will join this afternoon. They will need washing along with the basework, but I have to do some tests to find the correct washes before I start. No ned to ruin miniatures with wrong washes...

Some Spacemarines are standing battle ready, just waiting to join the base-box. All that is missing is the final wash. I know what washes to use here, so it shouldn't take too long before they get off the table.
They have several units of battle brothers still to be finished, but hopefully most of them will be off the table during the spring. My assault squad will probably be on the table a little longer, as I am missing most of their arms. I hope I will get to arm them by using spare weapons from the boxed sets I have on my shelf, but time will show.

While assembling my Chaplain venerable dreadnought I managed to break a piece of the assault drill arm, so I ordered a spare now. Also added the upgradepack for the cadian veterans, so I can build sergeant Bastonne and his elite warriors. Will need another upgrade pack to make all 10 soldiers in the unit, but I will see how the upgrade pack is to work with before I buy more.

The base design for the Imperial Guard army is now decided. It will be nature bases. This means some will be grass, some rocks, some gravel. Some of the larger bases will get rivers or other larger details. Several of the bases will also get some sort of bushes or growth.
Since battles often rage for as long time, some bases will also have razor wire and other signs of a warzone on them.

I have also decided to make some of the heavy weapons teams hide behind trenches or earth walls, perhaps with added sandbags. This will depend how much of the base is left after the assembled models are placed.

One month since last update

What has happened since then?

I have a 1:35 diorama standing on my table, waiting for me to get some plaster so I can shape the base and attach the ruined building to the base. When that is done, I can paint and flock the plaster ground and paint the ruined building. Then I can add pieces of roof and some more details to the building before I place the German Flak-tank in front of the building, with the tracks a little buried in mud.

I might need the plaster for some Warhammer bases as well, as I am thinking of hightening the bases of my Chaos Knights. I have some extra cavalry bases, so I will tro to work both with plaster and cork and see what gives the best end result. I also have a spare horse to use for this. The plan is to make the horses stand out a little, as they are very great models. Two knights are waiting on my worktable for the basework, and three more are in small boxes just waiting for the first two to get completed.

The Space Marine chapter is under reconstruction. The physical troops are still being produced, and I am in the finishing state for several of my robed elite warriors. Also some "regular" Space Marines are in the works. My plan is to finish painting all the models currently at my worktable, and then make some vehicles, perhaps even the drop pod currently resting on my shelf.
The reconstruction is about their origin. I have gotten a lot of feedback that my fluff isn't holding up, so I will try to re-invent it. This might also mean that I have to come up with a new chapter mark instead of using the Ultramarines U for my logo. It will have to be something simple, as I still plan to paint it on by hand. Would be nice if it could have something to do with the Ultramarine logo, as I have some troops that have molded logos on their shoulderguards (like Scout sergeant Telion).

The Imperial Guard are comming along, I just found some extra equipment I wanted to add to my finished command squads, and this is currently in painting. It comes down to adding grenades, ammo pouches and pistols for some of the models.
I have also decided to re-paint the helmets of my 5 finished troopers to make the color scheme more "whole". I have painted their ear-patches dark angels green, and the rest of the helmet black, but I will re-paint it so the helmet is all black. This will also be done on the helmets of the command squads. I thought the green patches would add some detail to the troops, but in reality it just disturbs the final look.
The ogres are comming along nicely. I am currently having a little debate with myself on the issue of washing the skin or not. All other pieces will be washed, but I have to do a little testing to see if the skin looks better with or without a wash of ogryn flesh. Perhaps I will use some other wash instead, I plan to test on some other minis that have the same skin tone.
Sly and Dolph just need to get their mouths painted up, and perhaps their eyes. Three more Ogres, including the Bone 'ead, are half way done. The last ogre will probably stay in the blister for a little while longer as I want to build a Chimera and perhaps a Hellhound. I will probably make some more regular troops along side this work.

At the moment my hands are a little shaky, so the painting have been put on hold for a couple of days, but I hope and plan to be able to do some more work this weekend.

Status report

I have the pleassure of announcing that I actually managed to finish my Catachan command squad this weekend. Still I might add some extra bits and bobs on them, but as they stand now they are ready to fight!
I still have to do the basework, but that will be done when there are fewer miniatures on the table, so I actually have room to bring out all my basing equipment.

The Cadian command squad has come a big step towards finished too, but there are lots of details on the heads that needs to be done. Small stripes of visible layers that need a different color for each one, and the chinstraps on the helmets also needs to be painted.
I'll also need to paint the ropes for the banner, and glue that on to the banner itself. The heavy flamer guy also needs to get the backpack attached (Still some painting left on that) and the arms attached afterwords.
I have a small problem with arming the medic in this unit, as both hands are used for holding bandages and there are no folding stock lasrifles in this kit as it was in the Catachan equivalent. Still, I guess the medic will get a laspistol or a boltpistol in a holster on his hip. I have a holstered laspistol reday for him, but will look through my Space Marines bits to see if I can find a boltgun as that packs a bit more punch.
Since he is a medic I suspect he will have plenty to do in a fight without using a weapon anyway..

Some of my veteran Space Marines have also gotten some attention this weekend. There are a handful of veterans just waiting to get their shoulderguards and backpacks painted. Was thinking of glueing them on and painting them after, but I see that it will smudge the green robes for sure. That means I stick to my original plan and paint first and just do the final details after they are glued on.
My flamer convertion went a little sour unfortionately, as my arm meassuring was a little off. The flamer looks good, but he can only hold it with his firing arm, the supporting arm is a little behind the flamer, the fingers barely touching it. Still, he might be shifting his grip (or something like that). I guess I just have to make the rest of the miniature look good, then no one will notice that the arm is a little off.
I used one of the beaked heads for him, so he will stand out a little among his battle brothers.

Another weekly update

As usual things are running a little slow, there is so much other stuff going on that the miniature work doesn't get the right attention. But still, there are some progress. The Cadian command squad are fully assembled now, but there are some detils thast still needs painting. The Catachan command squad is ready to march into combat, as soon as their standard bearer gets his arm attached. I will do that as soon as I have used mithril silver on the scull in the middle of the standard. Both command squads might still get some extra stuff added, like canteens, knives, grenades, and such, but that can always be added at a later time. The metal command squad is getting painted a little bit at the time, but it doesn't get too high priority. My Ogres are also in the half-painted state at the moment. Sly (Sylvester) is missing paint on eyes and mouth as well as a wash on his pants and boots. I also need to use some wash on his chains. Dolph just need a few detailing touches such as eyes, mouth and the leather parts of his belts and carrying straps for the grenades. The other 3 ogryns have gotten their pants and tshirts painted. Also yesterday I got my last ogryn for the 6-orgryn squad in the mail, so he will be assembled this weekend. I got a package from Games Worshop HQ yesterday, and in that package was Gunnery Sergeant Harker (Gunny Highway in my army) who actually looked a bit smaller than I had expected from his description in the army books, there were 3 Kommisars that I really look forward to painting, and the first Chimera. I really hope my order of Cadian parts arrive soon from Ebay, as I then can assemble my Sergeant Bastonne too... Then he and Harker just need their elite squads to lead in to battle. 

The Space Marines are also getting along. The second batch of specialists will get their arms attached to their torsos on sunday if all goes according to plan. Then they just need shoulder guards and their backpacks to march into war. I will also see if some of them can get some extra equipment to make them look even more like special forces. For the Space Marines I already have a base scheme, so they will be based the next time I bring out the white glue.

Imperial Guard and Marine update

The weekend is over, and it's time for another update.
I have worked mainly on my Imperial Guard command squads, but I have managed to get a little progress on my Space Marines also.

The two plastic command squads are comming along nicely.
The Cadian torsos are all but finished, the only thing missing is one coat on the helmets and the medals on the commanders chest.
Then I have to fix the arms on some of the troopers, like the vox operator and the medic.
The vox operator will be holding a chart in his left hand, and I have to paint the chart before attatching the hand holding the chart to the arm.
The medic is holding a medipack unrolling a bandage so I need to have the arms perfectly alligned so the hands will fit correctly. I will paint the hands and bandage before trying to attach it all in one operation to the torso. It's always a lot of hassle doing it that way, but it is the only way I know to get it to fit perfectly.
The same arm problem will come with the heavy flamer, and here I will also need to find a way to attach the hose from the weapon to the connection in the prometheum tanks that will go on his back.
I'll also need to finish the platoon banner, and attatch the arm holding it to the banner bearer.
I also need to add some extra equipment from the command sprue, like canteens and grenades and such.

The Catachan command squad has come a little further, here it's only the arm with the Platoon banner that needs to be attached after the banner is finished. Apart from that the only things missing is backpacks (almost finished painting them) and some other extra equipment from the command sprue that I think will look nice on them. I tend to use all the backpacks (3 on the command sprue) and make sure that every man has a canteen, perhaps some ammo pouches, and some grenades where that can fit.

The elite Space Marines from the Dark Angels chapter that has come to help battle renegade space marines are getting closer to completion. Most of them uses both hands on their weapon, so I will have to have the torsos finished before I glue the arms in place. This also means that the weapons must be finished before this can be done. I will also need to paint the insides of the shoulder guards before they get attached, as the blue probably will spill over to their green capes if I don't.

I hope to get some progress on my miniatures this comming week, as I would love to clear the space on my worktable to start working on my Valkyrie. In order to do that I need to have at least 50% of the miniatures painted and off the table.

I still haven't figured out exactly how I'd like to base my Imperial Guard army, but I have decided to base both Cadians and Catachans (and others if they drop in) the same way. I plan to use some moss as growth, and also some barbed wire on some of the larger bases.

I have an idea to use some barbed wire and perhaps something from the bits box on some Space Marine bases. This will be a small attempt to make some unity in case I actually get an Apocalypse army together in the future, as well as giving me more chances to practice.

Guard update

I have been busy like a little beaver in my workshop in my spare time this christmas/New years vacation, and hopefully the next few weeks will make a god start for my Pledge for 2010.

At the moment I have 4 Ogryns of a unit of 6 ready to paint. One of them is about 80% painted. The remaining 2 Ogryns are on their way in the mail, and will be assembled and painted upon arrival. They are all from the current range of Ogryns, and will work as one unit.

I also have an old-school Ogryn. He is a lot smaller, but just as mean looking. Since he is so much smaller I have decided not to include him into the unit, and instead use him as a bodyguard for one of my commanders. The commander was suposed to be Lt. Fuzz (named after the blonde, childish Lieutennant from Beetle Bailey) but as I painted him I thought he looked a lot like the Norwegian entertainer Jahn Teigen, so he might be promoted and given a new name. I'll decide on that as the army progresses. There might be the need for more command squads in the future...

My last post gave name to some Ogryns, but that idea has been slightly altered... They will now be named after actors known for their muscles (or at least not that much for brains or "good" looks). 

My small bodyguard is Sly (since Sylvester Stallone is quite a lot shorter than other muscle-men). The Ogryn that is almost completed is named Dolph (after Dolph Lundgren) and I will name the others as I see who they look like. But I think my Bone 'ead might end up as a Chuck (as in Norris) or a Bruce (as in Willis) (so far Bruce is a hot candidate because of the hairstyle). There will pobably also be a Claude (or Jean) (Jean Claude Van Damme), Arnold (Schwartzenegger) and a Vin (Diesel), but we'll see when they are finished.

At the moment I am working with 3 command squads, where the command squad with the bodyguard attached will be the high command in the field and it will include some regimental advisors and a commisar or Lord commisar.

The other two command squads will be platoon command squads and they are the start of the real backbone of the army.
I am not too happy with the information of army organisation in the Imperial Codex, but until someone tells me I'm wrong I will use the platoon organization charts and max out one platoon at the time. The platoons will differ in miniatures, but I will try to build each platoon from the same range. At the moment there is one Cadian and one Catachan command squad.
The Cadian platoon will include a unit of elites led by Sergeant Bastonne. As there are no current model available of him, I will make one from my bits box and make him the way I believe he would look.
The Catachan platoon will have both Gunnery Sergeant Harker (or in my case Gunnery Sergeant Highway) and a Guardsman Marbo (probably also assembled from the bit box as he looks nothing special in the current miniature range). Harker will command an elite unit, Marbo sort of is his own elite unit...
I have decided to keep the company colors in a few palettes to make them all look like part of the same army, and they will have the same colors for boots, Combat BDU's, armour and weapons. Apart from that there will be some platoon or unit variation. Catachan units will have green combat vests, while Cadian units have light grey jackets or frocks.