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.