Another week, another update...

So we see the end of yet another week (or as this is written the beginning of the next), and I thought I should put in an update to sum up what has been done.

I have just one tiny detail left to paint on the three chaos Space Marines, and that is the tubes on their backpack. After that it is just a quick wash and basework before they are ready for the gameboard. Just have to figure out what wash to use as I have both dark green and silver to wash.

I have finished painting two of the five Chaos cultists, and the remaining three have one or two sessions on them to be finished before washing and basing.

The two Meganobz and my Big Mek is almost done. They are missing a few small details on their back, and the BigMek is also missing a few tubes on his teleport-thingy.
The Big Mek is already based, but the Meganobz and the Grot oiler still needs some basework. All models also need a thin layer of wash.

I have gotten a lot more painting done on the "snap-tite" Orks, and the only thing missing on them is getting their heads and the hilts of their weapons painted. Then they will get a little harder wash than the Meganobz, and then basework.

The bikers are comming along nicely. All three bikers now have their bodies attached to the bikes, and the arm holding the handlebar is positioned just right. It was not as hard as I feared before I started, but it was a little clumsy to get the body in a good position on the bike.
One biker has also gotten the arm with the weapon attached.
I got a tip from Mike at Games Workshop in Oslo on how to paint bones, and I used those colours he recommended on the skull motif on one of the bikers, and it looks really cool.
The bikes are mostly done, but I can't attach the exhaust pipes before I have painted up and glued the weapons on. The weapons will be done in two sessions (one if I make it a long one) and they can be glued on the minute they are done.
There are also some bumper-thing that is supposed to go in front of the front wheels on the bikes, and they will also be ready with two sessions (or one long).
All three bikers are still missing their heads, and I will probably need the same ammount of sessions for them. I have done a test, and found out that the heads can be added after everything is done if I wish to do so. I will also need to finish the big axe for the leader and the shaft of the pipe another biker uses as a weapon.

I have almost finished building the modified Deathknell Watch tower. It ended up slightly different then I had planned, but I think it looks good still. The ladder that was in the set was too short, because I had to move the tallest platform a bit higher than I had planned. So I ended up using a ladder from a Manifacorum building from 40K. I have done some modifications on it to make it look less space-age. I will paint it up as a wooden ladder with metal in the steps, and I think it will wotk fine in the end.Also I used the stairs from my Imperial Bunker to make two small stone stpes from the platform and up to the door on the upper tower.
What is left now is to blind off the doors leading to nowhere, and to do so I need to use some greenstuff to get rid of a lot of small sculls on the pieces designed for this. I got the greenstuff Saturday, so hopefully this won't take long.

I have also done a lot of painting on my first Imperial Bunker for my 40K world, but this will take quite a while to finish as there are lots of small details in the form of Imperial equipment and bodyparts in front of the bunker walls that will take some time to paint up. But I have painted the sculls and bones with the same colours as was recommended for me, and I am sure this will look really good when the bunker is fully painted.
I ended up painting the bunker walls with a colour called Skavenblight Dinge. It is a little lighter than I expected, but still it looks nice. I was expecting a dark gray or "light black" from the picture on the Games Workshop webpage, but it was more of a blueish gray really. I will drybrush this on to the big buildings, and paint all the fortifications with it.
Except from the small details there are only a little bit of work (one session) left to paint the bunker doors, some panels and the details on the metal girders.
Then I think it will be at least two sessions with wash, to get this done properly.

got some more painting done

I just had to write a blogpost to say how much I love painting with Warplock Bronze. It is by far the best metallic paint in the Games Workshop paintrange in my humble opinion.

Yesterday I sat down for a quick paintsession and painted up my Space Marine statue from the Honored Imperium set.
The entire statue is now painted Warplock Bronze, and then I will use one of the special paints to make it look old and weathered. I just need to look at other bronze pictures to get some idea as to what areas I shall paint. I used a standard brush for the job I've done so far, and will use a fine detail brush for the effects.

I also painted some Warplock Bronze on my Imperial Bunker. My plan is to have the sheet metal painted like metal, this is done now and I am very happy with the way it turned out. I used just a little paint and tilted the brush sideways to just gently drag the paint over the surfaces so that I didn't ruin the fine pattern on it. I also painted the wings on the skull on the front of the bunker in the same colour. Then I painted the laurel and scull Warplock Bronze, and I will paint all metal girders and perhaps some details on the doors the same way. The wall sections will be painted dark gray, but I have not decided what gray tone to use yet. I need to check what the darkest base color gray is, if that is the Mechanicus gray then I will probably have to drybrush the walls with a layer color.

I will use the drybrushing on the building walls, but my thought was that the bunkers were made of another material, as they clearly hold out against the enemy bombardments while all the city buildings have sufferd various staged of battle damage.

Skyshield conversion

Don't have any picures yet, as this project is only on the planning stage.
I have got my hands on a Skyshild landingpad that's missing the legs, so I have decided to make it in to a building with a landingpad on the roof.
So far I am thinking of making a building with Manufactorum wall segments around the edges, and then I will make the building a little higher on one side, so that I get a door to the landingpad.

I will also build a regular landingpad, with the feet, to stand outside of the town I will build. This will have an Aegis defenceline at the base. The defenceline will not be glued together, so I can use it elsewhere if I don't put the landingpad on the table.

I have decided on the paintscheme for the buildings and stonework. I have bought two gray paints for this, everything will get the darkest gray and then some areas will be highlighted with the lighter one. I will also see if I need to use some wash in between the layers, but this will need a little bit of testing.

For the metallics I will use regular metallic on things like stretch metal, and then do some of the more detailed metalworks like lamps and some girders in copper.
One of the Games Workshop staffers had done a two tone paint on his bunker for Armies on Parade, and it gave the building a little bit more life, but he had used a light copper or gold tone, but I would like to use the same dark copper tone as I use on the Aquila on the Shrine of the Aquila.
I think this dark colour looks good, and it is a huge plus for me that it is a base colour as I work best with those. As of now it is too dark, but I feel it will be a lot better when the black wall panels get some gray drybrush on them.
I will try and get some pictures of this when the weekend comes, as I plan to get some scenery painting done then. Hopefully both before and after pics of the drybrushing.

The art of converting (and a status update)

I have always liked to do small conversions that people might not see or think about at first sight. I almost always end up swapping heads, arms or other parts on the miniatures when I build boxes with more than one miniature in them. Often it is just a matter of giving head A to body B and placing ams C on the same body, other times I delve in to my bitz box (or rather several boxes) to see if I find something I like better there.

I haven't built too much scenery before, but when I made the chapel for Warhammer Fantasy I used greestuff to plug the hole in the roof. Not a big conversion, but something someone might notice sometime (or not).
When I bought the Skullvane Mance, I thought from day one that I would like to replace the astronomer globe with a regular tower. Then I would put the astronomer globe on something else. Deathknell watch would be a perfect place for it as I didn't like the weird skeleton signal thingy that came with it that much.
But I have never gotten arround to it, partially because I am lazy and partially because I have been afraid that it wouldn't fit. Now I know it fits!
I was at Games Workshop yesterday, and they had the Armies on Parade competition. One of the boards was an undead army with a Deathknell watch tower and a Skullvane manse, so we tried to swap it with the owners permission, and it fit perfect.
After doing some more investigating we were quite sure that the tower in itself is the same frames for both sets, and when I came home and finally opened my boxes I could confirm that.
After chatting with the others in the store, I decided to add some more height to the tower. so I bought one more tower with the plan of taking one wallsection. But suprise, the sections was not one floor by itself, but the entire height (2 floors) in one section.

Here is a picture of the two towers placed on top of each other:

And with the astronomer globe added to it, the finished tower will be like this:

There are so many sculls on the tower to begin with, that I really did't want or need all the sculls in these pieces. They are the ones blocking off the doors that lead out to nothing.

The greenstuff in the last pic is not dried yet, and I will add a little more and file it before I'm finished. 

I will make sure is is as smooth a surface as possible.

In other updates I have just the ammo and horns left to paint on my first 3 Chaos Marines, and if I only decide on what colour to paint the horns, they will be done in a short time.

The ork bikers are comming along. The bikes are now completed, and I have started to fix the riders so I gan glue them on and fit them correctly.

Summer holiday is over...

My summer vacation is over, and it's back to work today.
I have gotten quite a lot farther on my Chaos Space Marines, they are now only missing paint on their weapons and then a clean-up before the final wash.

The Chaos Cultists are almost ready too, but I need to paint their skin and a few details on face masks and weapons.

The Ork Bikers are also comming along. I have started to glue the painted drivechains and exhaust pipes to the bikes. The bikers themselves are partially painted, and have a very special look. They look a lot like the motorcycle gang in the movie "Any witch way but loose" and "Any witch way you can" with Clint Eastwood and an monkey named Clyde. Maybe that is why I like them so much...

I have also started to paint the Aquila on my first Shrine (the second one really, as it is the one built straight from the box). My first attempt with the copper paint was not very successful, but I used a thin layer of paint, so I will see if the result gets better with one more thin layer of paint.
If not, I will switch to another copper tone, that I saw a Games Workshop painter use for the new board in a tutorial video. The copper tone doesn't really matter to me, all I want is the buildings to look nice and look good on the shelves and on a future board. I will update with progress...

What is going on

Thought I'd drop in a little update on my miniature production.

My first Ork Trukk is 100% done. I'm still debating if I should add wash to it, but so far I have only washed the driver and gunner. I'll see what I can do with the truck some time in the future, as I think it is so nice the way it is.

Grukk Facerippa is almost done ,just needing wash and eyes on Grukk and his "pet" squig. I plan to field Grukk as my Biggest Boss and the general for my Ork waagh, Hazza' Hoff.

I have finished two Meganobz, and the third is going to be my Big Mek Gyvva, the Big Mek genious.
Hopefully he will be finished in a little while, all that is left is painting some tubes to his teleporta and finding out exactly how the Games Worskop designers have planned for it to fit to the contraption.

I have also started to paint my three Bikerz from the box with the Trukk. The bikes themselves will be black with red front, red details and red rims. Some details will also be yellow, like with the trukk.
I have painted most of the basic parts of the bikes, and started to paint and fit the riders, but that will take some time, as I need to have the bikes done before I can glue the riders together as I need a perfect fit for the riders arms.

I have started to paint up some chaos Spacemarines and cultists. I have the "snaptite" box with three Chaos Space Marines, and I am using them as tests for my army. The Cultists looks so cool I just had to start on them right away. They are a box of five, and will be tests for the twenty Cultists in the Dark Vengence box.