The Leagues are here...

There has been another week, and yesterday was the release of The Leagues of Votann, a long awaited release after a long campain of teasers. First we got Squats in Neccromunda and now we have them with a new name in 40K...

I never played Squats, they were gone before I got in to Warhammer but everybody still talked about them and I thought Space Dwarfs sounded sooo cool. 

I'm not sure why, but ever since I read The Hobbit as a kid I've had a thing for dwarfs. They are an exceptional race in fantasy in general and also in Warhammer. Because of that I started buing Dwarf models, then the Fyreslayers came out and I got them, then the Kharadron Overlords came swooping in like cyberpunk dwarfs and I got those too. I've later decided that the Fyreslayers ain't for me so I have decided to drop them. Dwarfs are rebrandes Duardins and they are no longer their own facion, but their models lives on in Cities of Sigmar, so I've chosen to make a Dwarf-heavy Cities of Sigmar army and I am slowly working on that.

Yesterday I read a copy of White Dwarf Magazine where 5 people are having a Killteam event and one of them is uing Astra militarum and had pictures and descriptions of his colorscheme and I liked that alot and decided to try it for my Squats, and I've been thinking a lot and if it works out I will use the same scheme for my Leagues of Votann army. I have already decided that I will not make of the known Leagues but instead create my own. I've already decided what I want their log oto look like but I haven't decided on a name. I hope the paintscheme will look asgood as I think as it mostly use colors I already have in other armeies but not in that combination.

I have also decided to boost up painting on my Sons of Behemat army as they are few but big models. I will paint my other Mega.Gargant like I did my first with Kislev Flesh as they are brothers and should look the same, but the rest of the unpainted Gargants will be painted Bugmans Glow as that paintcheme is the one I am most happy with of the four different I have tried so far. I will also use that on the future Gargants. 
I will not repaint the others as I think a little diverisy is ok, and Gargants are rather filty creatures anyway so I can try and camouflage some of the biggest mistakes and hide it as part of grime and dirt. 

The little I have painted this week has been on the Chaos Knight. I decided to make the plasma orange as tht is a color I haven't used yet so I figure that could work well for chaos. I need to decide what colors I can use to highlight it and make it work. I painted the tip of the weapon in orange as well, but that  did not work out so I've decided to paint it in some sort of metal color instead.

Rest of the week I have been working with planning my armies on paper, and writing some background on them. Next week will be rather busy with other things, but I will try ad get in some painting when I can. 

I have continued to work on my Rockgut Troggoths, and I am almost ready to do the repair-job on the skin where other colors have gotten on to it as I have painted more details. There are a few details left, but not many before I can call them ready for basing.

I've also started to work on my Mancrusher Gargants to try and complete them. But it also ended up with me buying two more the last time I visited my local Warhammer store, so the army will continue to grow. I am waiting for the release of the new rulebook, and the new King of the Mega-Gargant sprue that will come at the same time. I still have one Mega-Gargant to paint up, and I plan to start on him in the near future. He is the brother of the one I have painted before, so I will have to paint his skin the same way.

For the Mancrushers I started to expriment with different skin colors as I wasn't completely satisfied with the first one. Before I put the project on ice last time I had painted one Kislev Flesh and one Bugmans Glow. The Bugmans Glow looked really redish (sunburned), so I wanted to try another color so I took one that was just primed and applied a contrast paint called Guilliman Flesh. I had a thought that the contrast paint would work well on its own, but I wasn't that happy with the result as it ended up looking very streaky. I got a few tips from one of the employees at the Warhammer store and tried to fix the streaks but it din't help as much as I had hoped. Using the tips I might get it decent if I try on another primed model. I also tried to use the Guilliman Flesh over the Kislev Flesh and the Bugmans Glow, and for the Kislev Flesh it also got a little streaky but still a lot better than it did over primer, but for the Bugmans Glow it actually ended up looking quite good so I have decided that most of my remaining Mancrushers will be painted up this way.

Since I couldn't do much more for the skin, I decided to start working on the rest of the models. I had painted some of the wooden parts before, and painted the rest with Gore-Grunta Fur and that was a lot lighter than I had used before, but it looked more like crafted wood so I will keep using that for wood that has been manifctured, and then I plan to use Cygor Brown for the wood that is "raw".

I also started on the pants and painted what I could do with a regular brush, and will come back later to do the intricate parts. I used Morghast Bone for one, as that is the same color I have on the pants of my Cities of Sigmar Army, Averland Sunset as I used that yellow for the pants on the soldier that the finished Mancrusher is holding in his hand. That soldier has a Khorne red jacket, so I plan to use that for the pants of a future Mancrusher, and also paint one with the combination of the red and yellow.
The last color I used today was a new green I picked up yesterday that is called Nocturne Green. It is really dark but still kind of bright, so I just wanted to see what it looked like. That is the great thing with this army that I can use any color I want for their details as they roam all over the world. Then the idea is to try and match the colors to other armies that hey can have fought alongside or against. 

there is still progress

I feel that there is an ok progress on the miniatures since the last time, although I wish I was structured enough to finish what I have started instead of always starting new things. Still some of the "new" things mean painting things that have been standing on the shelves for far too long.

The Chaos Knight Tyrant is now being painted. I have gotten most of the metallic colors done, and started on the armor plates and some details. The legs and arms are starting to look like they should, but the torso still has a lot left before it is done. I still have to decide on some of the important stuff before I paint it, like what color to paint the plasma coils. Traditionally I have used bright greens for this on my Astra Militarum and Space Marine armies, but since this is a chaos force they could have a different color if I wanted to I guess. Also I need to decide if all the armorplates should be green or if I should add some conrasting colors. I know one shoulderplate will be black, like my Marines, but apart from that I have not decided yet.

My Gloomspite Gitz are coming along nicely. The Squig hoppers/Boingrot bounderz are really coming along. I have added one more color each time I've been sitting down to paint, and the Squigs are now mostly done as well as most of the Grots on top of them. I still need to to eyes on the Squigs (some sort of yellow) and on the Grots (probably red) and I have not started to paint their weapons yet, but I think I know how I will do it. Also I need to figure out how to paint the things that keep the Squigs up in the air. Some of the Squigs seem to have some sort of magical thing that does this, while other stands on top of mushrooms.

The Fellwater Troggoths are done for now. I am debating if I should add even more color to the bases, but I think they look rather good the way they look now and I am a little afraid that adding more would be too much. I am just letting them rest for a while until I have decided before either adding more or taking pictures and calling them done.

The Rockgut Troggoths are coming along. I have painted the softer parts of their skins now, and am quite happy with the way it looks. I will have to do a little clean-up with the blue/gray color to get all the details perfect, but that was expected. I will do that next, as well as start to paint the weapons and the various bling they are wearing.

Also yesterday I decided to try a new contrast paint called Guilliman Flesh on one of my Mancrusher Gargants (the "old" giants).  This is supposed to give a darker skintone than the ones I have ued before, but after applying one layer of it I think it covered less than expected and it seems a little streaky (the last part might be because of the selected brush for all I know) so I have not decided if I like it or not yet.
I used it directly over a light basecoat, but it is possible it would cover better if I first applied a layer of another flesh color. That is something I can experiment with a bit painting future Gargants, as they don't all have to have the same fleshtone. I still have a bunch of the Mancrushers to paint and also one of the bigger ones. Also I know I will be getting at least one new big one as GW have leaked the release of an upgrade sprue making it possible to build a Gargant king of some sort later this fall, and I know I will want him to lead my rater sizeable Gargant army.