What is new?

As explained in my last post, the 12 first warrirors of "The Shining" are done. The entire unit is now sitting in the box togehter with 20 hounds and two knights waiting for the base work to be done. This will probably be quite simple. For my Chaos Army I'm thinking of using tainted grass, some stones, and if I find some sculls or other "chaosy" bits I will add them as well (just as my goblin bases gets mushrooms whenever I come across some)...

As custom is, after a WHFB project it is time for a 40K project. So I am working on 3 dreadnoughts at the moment (to read about this see the "Enter the dreadnoughts..." post).
This weekend I finally managed to take some ok pictures of the Leman Russ, and hopefully they will be posted here in a few days time.
I was planning to test my new light box for photography on the Russ pictures, but it was such nice weather that I decided to go without it.

I also managed to paint the shoulderguard of one of my marines to see if I could find a chapter symbol that can look more similar than the # that I use today. The problem with using # is that it never looks the same from one shoulderguard to the next, so I had to re-think it all.
I am not 100% convinced of my new symbol either, but I think it fits the fluff and it looked suprisingly good on the marine.
The new idea is to use Necron Abyss on the shoulderguard,as this matches the legs, then paint a strip of shining gold vertically down the middle of the shoulderguard.
It is very simple, but since using stickers didn't work out and I am a very bad freehand painter I need a simple pattern. I will try to paint a few more and see if I still like it.

Last week I saw the preview of a new spider for the Goblin release taking place on March 5th. It's a gigantic spider and it's sure to find it's way in to most greenskin armies in times to come, and I expect one or two will crawl down to my study as well this spring.
I must say I look forward to the release of the new codex, even though I didn't know a new one was needed.
But new releases often brings with it new models, and this is also the sitution here. Goblin assassins (nasty skulkers) will be cool to have in the army, it looks like there are more fanatics on the way (I really like fanatics). I will try to give my Goblins a more unified look, so they will fit together in one huge army. There should be some tribal differences both among the Night Goblins and between them and other Goblins, but it would be cool to have them quite similar still. Think I had a plan for this when I was working hard on the greenskins a while back, but I will revisit them and re-think the plan for my next WHFB project (this will probably be river trolls).

Enter the Dreadnoughts...

For some days now I've been building dreadnoughts.
After finishing off the 12 Chaos warriors to start off "The Shining" unit (12 more will follow at a later time), it was time for another 40K project.
Looking through my Space Marines shelf, I found one venerable and two ironclad dreadnoughts, and I thought they might be a worthy project.
My Venerable dreadnought is only missing his smoke launchers and the searchlight before he can march in to battle.
Games Workshop made the parts really tight, so the arms will stay on without the use of glue. This gave me the opportunity to use almost all weapon options on one dreadnought.
The left arm ends in a power fist, and it will do so on all configurations. Under the powerfist there is a stormbolter, and this will also be there for all three configurations.
The shoulderguard on this arm will match the one that is used for my standard configuration, and the standard right arm will be the assault cannon.
Optional right arm configurations are the ornate twin lascannon or the plastmacannon.
Originally GW has designed the dread so I can use the same shoulder for all weapons and just replace the weapons. But since there are slight differences in the needed equipment for the weapons to function, I decided on replacing the entire arm.

The Ironclads are still just in pieces. The sarcofarguses are mostly done, except for the powerplants as I like to paint them separately before assembly. I think the Ironclads will get permanent weapon placments,  but I will have to see when the project evolves a little further.
The first Ironclad will have permanent weapons for sure. It will be armed with hurricane bolters and a seismic hammer. I might add some hunter-killer missiles as well, I know one of the two will have it but have not decided which one or if both will have this. Guess I'll have to check a bit about the use and point values first.
The second Ironclad will (as it looks now) have a chainfist and a close combat weapon. The latter might be replaced with hurricane bolters, but I will have to see as the project evolves. Might be cool to have more of a close combat dreadnought as well, and the Ironclad is perfect for that role.

Chaos progress

Just now I have glued the banner to the pole of the standardbearer of "The shining", and in just a little while I will start to paint the last five warriors of the unit. I hope I will manage to have them ready in less time that it took both for the two test models and the five warriors I just completed.

This time I will do it a bit smarter I think, because I will paint all the same colours at the same time. Last time I started with the bodies, then did the heads and then the arms, but this time I will try to do it all at the same time. This takes up a little more space, but hopefully it will get the job done a lot faster.

The plan was to go straight into a new unit of warriors, this time warriors of Khorne. But I do believe the warriors of Khorne will have to wait one round as I feel that will benefit both the unit and me.

The unit because the more inspired I am, the better looking the unit will be. And me because I need the variation.

Haven't decided if I'll make river trolls or a unit from Warhammer 40.000. The proper thing according to my big sceme would be to make something from Warhammer 40.000 but I'll see what I end up with when the time comes.

new week again

As yet another weekend have passed, once again I have failed miserably when it comes to my painting.
Only thing I can truly say that I have achieved this weekend is that I have decided on the colour of the banner for my unit of chaos warriors known as "The Shining". The unit will be *drumroll* Kommando Khaki. This will be washed gently with Devlan mud. The golden symbol will be washed with Sepia as I do with almost all gold details I paint.

I have also arranged for my dad to get me a large cardboard box (he works in a store and get a lot of supplies in cardboard boxes) that I can use for a simple indoor paintstation. I have spoken of my mobile paintstation (the coca-cola cardboard box) before, but this will be for priming large models (and small models if I should decide to start priming them too).
I have a plan to start working on my Temple of Skulls this winter, and to make sure it is nicely primed I think it will be good to prime it indoors in a controlled temperature. I even found the perfect location (at least until I finally get around to paint the rest of my basement). I will need to find out some arrangement for making sure the very fine paint particles doesn't go all over, but I've got an idea for how I will do that also, and then we'll see if it is a good one after I've primed my first model this way. This can also serve as a station to coat the finished miniatures, as I haven't coated anything except my first 15 Chaos Warriors and a few test miniatures.

The Sisters of Battle will get a few reinforcements in the comming weeks, as I won a couple of auctions on Ebay. Won't be that many, but at least they might be spotted in a battle scenario fighting alongside the Imperial Guard and the Space Marines.

And speaking of Space Marines, I have once again started to doubt myself when it comes to company markings. It's stupid I know, but it's better to have doubts when 18 minis have gotten the new symbol compared to when all painted minis have it.
As of now the symbol is a black # on white background and between the company colours and the markings of the 1st Company there is a thin black line. I sort of liked the white shoulderguards, but I see that the # is impossible to get to look the same for all guards. So now I'm looking for other solutions.
I have a few general ideas, but nothing close to a desition yet. Hopefully I can find a symbol that stands well both in appearance and with the name Gatekeepers as I would like to keep that name for the army.
I'm thinking it must be a very simple symbol, as my freehand painting really sucks. Still it must be something that stands out as a little unique, still also easy to paint exactly the same for all shoulderguards. Updates will surely follow on this...

The pledge...

These last two years I have taken a pledge to paint more miniatures than I buy.
Two years ago I was way off, but last year I think I almost made the pledge. Only thing that tipped me over I think was the new towers, as they are much larger than a regular miniature.

For 2011 I will not take a pledge, as I see how slow I am with painting, and I know there are a lot of nice miniatures out there and more to come...

Just read yesterday that Grey Knights are comming in April, both a new codex and new miniatures. The existing ones are pretty cool, but all metal. Now they will be released in plastic, so I am quite sure that some Grey Knights will find their way to my basement worktable this spring.

Also, there seem to be some new goblin stuff on the way if rumors are right, and even though I have plenty of Goblins to paint, it is always nice to have a wide varitey of minis for the army as an all Goblin army can look rather dull if you have mostly the same minis. When you need units 40-60 strong it is nice to have something to break up the monotony.

Dwafs will probably also get some new minis, if the picures in the rulebook for 8th ed. is something to go by, and I like to think so...

Also, I saw a great post on the Warhammer Forum the other day, where a guy had built an entire town based on the scenery sets from Games Workshop. He had done a lot with the buildings, but it seemed to me that most materials were from the different GW scenery sets. That looked über-cool, and I have decided that I will try to get toghether a smal village during 2011 and take it from there. I have some buildings laying around, so why not assemble and paint them in such a way that they might belong to the same area... 

just a quick update

I have started to experiement a little with the colour of the banner for my Shining ones. The usual Chaos banners (or at lest the ones I am used to seeing) is black, but since the unit itself stands out a lot from the regular chaos warriors I thought it would be nice to do something "new" with the banner as well. 

Creating a shiny banner of silver or gold is not something I think would fit the fluff, as I don't think the chaos warriors have tailors that make fine quality banners for them from exotic fabrics. Instead I am now trying to see how it will look with a banner painted Kommando Khaki. By itself it looks quite ok, but I plan on painting the chaos symbol this weekend. This will be done in gold as with the other banners. Hopefully this will still stand out, at least if I use some washes both on the khaki and on the gold. If not, it's back to black... 

I will also do a small experiment with colours for the wash of the Mithril silver armour of the warriors. The two warrirors that are 100% finished looks like they come straight from a convenient-store, and even though the warriors have an interest in keeping their armour shiny, they should have a little shading. Iwill try to paint two spare parts with Mithril silver and wash one part blue and one part Badab Black, and see what looks best. The idea is to keep them shiny while still getting some shades on to them.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year to everybody out here in the digital world.

If I should have a new years resolution this year, it would be to update this blog more often, and with more interesting posts. Bear in mind that I do not make new years resolutions, but still I hope to be able to follow up better this year.

I managed to go through Christmas without painting anything (don't know how really), so I'm still working on my second Chaos warrior unit ("The Shining"). 2 warriors are done, 5 warriros are almost done, and 5 warriors are still just off their sprues. The unit will be 24 strong, but the remaining 12 will follow a little later after the first 12 of the unit of followers of Khorne are done.

Some projects to follow this year, will be Dreadstone Blight, Witchfate Tor, Temple of Skulls, a forrest or two, lots of Space Marines and Imperial Guard units, River trolls, Goblins, Dwarfs, and Chaos.
And there might be more, one never knows...