Pictures of the first finished Dwarfs

After promising pictures for a long time both on the blog and on a Facebook group, I really felt it was time to deliver. So here are a few pics of my finished unit of Dwarf Rangers, and some characters. The pictures are taken outside on my balcony table, as it was the only place I felt the light was good enough to show the colors.

To show off a single miniature from the unit, I took two pictures of the musician. The first is from the front and the second from the side showing off more of his horn.

Here is a picture of the unit of Dwarf Rangers. They are built from the Thunderer/Quarreller sprues, but to make them stand out as Rangers I have given everyone a two handed axe that they carry on their backs. The only exceptions are the few dwarfs carrying an axe already (musician and standard bearer), they carry a crossbow on their back instead.

The unit is painted in greens to be one with nature. Their armor and shirts are painted Elysian Green, and I used Castellan Green for their capes.
The chainmail is painted Stormhost Silver. This is a quite shiny metallic, and I think that is a good match for dwarf armor. All my dwarf chainmail will have this color, in contrast to the plated mail that for many dwarfs will be painted Warplock Bronze (same as the musician's horn). This so I can shof the details on both, as some Dwarfs wear chainmail with plates outside.
All leather (boots, belts, cuffs, etc) are painted Mournfang Brown. This is one of three brown colors used. The other two are Rhinox Hide for the garments that some dwarfs show under their chainmail. This is meant to be rougher, unprocessed leather. The final brown is the Doombull Brown that I have used for wooden parts like the crossbows.
I have gone for three hair colors for my Dwarfs: Blonde hair is Averland Sunset, brown hair is Skrag Brown and gray hair is Celestra Grey.
For the skin I have used Bugmans Glow, and the gold is Retributor Armour. I have also used some Leadbelcher for the metallic parts that aren't supposed to be processed too much.

While working on the Rangers, I also painted up two Runelords. One of them has the same cape as my Rangers, while the other is painted Caledor Sky. I see I need to do a little bit of cleanup on the details of the blue cape when I look at the picture.
The one on the far right here is a classic metal Dwarf Lord with great weapon. This is one of my many favorite dwarf figures as he looks like he is studying the battlefield. There are no special colors on this one, just the standard colors used throughout the army.

When I bought the dwarf on the left he was a special character named Grimm Burloksson, but with the new rules that came with Age of Sigmar he is now just known as a Cogsmith. To me he will always be Grimm (but maybe with another name to fit in to my backstory). Beside Grimm is the Warden King, formerly known as Belegar Ironhammer. Here I tried to use the new gemstone paints for the first time, and although I think it looks nice I am not sure I did it right...

This is the Dwarfs that are completely finished at the moment, alongside a unit of old metal Ironbreakers that has been done for a while. I also have a lot of painted figures that I either painted ages ago or that I inherited, but I would like to revisit them before I let them in to my army. Some of the ones I have painted have bases that doesn't fit in to my current plan. If possible I will remove the rocks from their bases, or alternatively cut the bases off and replace them with new ones.King Alrik with shieldbearers and a unit of miners are examples of figures that I need to give this kind of treatment. I also like to repaint the inherited Dwarfs as I would like to have painted my own army.

Hopefully it will not be too long before more Dwarfs can be shown here...

My thoughts for Armies on Parade 2017

Since I didn't get to participate in Armies on Parade 2016, I have started to think of the 2017 event that probably will take place in October 2017.
My plan (as stated earlier) is to participate with the Dwarfs that I didn't manage to finish in time for 2016.
I had planned to present the gates of a Dwarf hold with some mountains, but after seeing how the entries were for 2016 I am now thinking of making two "levels". I will make the top level as intended, but under it I will have another board with caves and tunnels of the hold.
I plan to make at least 3 storylines on the bottom level, one with some Night Goblins that have managed to breech the hold, and are being met by Irondrakes lined up to take care of them.
The second with Grudge Ponies going in and out of the mine on top level, and seeing others going down in to the mine shafts on the bottom level where miners will be at work.
Then the third will be small cave that is closed off and only visible from the front of the board, where Grombrindal dressed as a vampire hunter will take care of a vampire.

The idea with Grombrindal is just to add a little extra to the board, and it will be a very nice way to show off a lovely miniature that doesn't really fit in to a traditional dwarf army.

I plan to use four blocks of wood as support to keep the top level in place, and around these I will have the tunnels so that I get as much light as possible in to the lower level of the display. Then the blocks of wood will keep everything in place without being visible. If I do it this way then placing the miniatures on the bottom level should be quite easy and still it will give the feel of a cave.

There will be a hole in the top level where my mine shaft is, so that the Grude Ponies can pass up and down to the mines below. Originally I had just planned to make a little hole in the styrofoam up top and paint it black to indicate a mine, but now I will build the ramp down to the lower level and maybe I will put Grombrindal in a cave behind that ramp. This depends a bit on the strength of the material and how big I need to make the ramp. I plan to carve the details out and then protect it with a thin coat with plaster strips. This will both add stability and make painting a lot easier. Then I will add thin wooden strips for mineshaft support girders.
In this area I will place miners and time will show if they will be working or if they are preparing to go fight.

In the main cave I will place the Irondrakes and the Night Goblins, but how I will do this I have not yet decided. I think I need to play around with the design and see how much space I have and how things will look.

On top I will need to make some changes to the gate to be able to field two cannons on the top guarding the entrance. This is just using some plasticard to raise the stone blocks, and should be done quite easily.
Then I will see if I should add an observation balloon or two as well as the Badyear Blimp, or if the blimp will be enough. I don't know this until I have made the design and seen how much space I have available on the mountain slopes.No matter what I end up with I will make some observation balloons for the army, as I think it would fit my back story with the engineer that has made the blimp. He started with balloons but then got the idea to take the balloons to the next level and thereby creating the blimp. But I will need to have some Gyrocopters in the display as well, so time will show what there is room to place on the board.

Dwarfs progress report

It's finally been some progress to my production of Dwarfs. I have the Ranger unit of twenty Rangers all painted, washed and based, alongside four single miniatures.

I will post pictures as soon as I am home while there is daylight so I can get some nice pictures of the miniatures. I thought the washing should go real quick, but with six different washes it took some time to get it done. With the pictures I will also describe the colors and washes.

At the moment I am working on a unit of twenty Warriors with full command, they are getting along quite nicely, and they are the first time I have used bright blue on my dwarfs (I do have some Miners painted in really dark blue from earlier) and I like the look of it. A handful of them are wearing capes, and they are all painted purple with gray linings. 

These warriors will all be armed with double-handed axes, except for the three Dwarfs that are the command unit. The leader will have a big axe that he holds up in the air while the other hand is giving the command to move forward, the standard bearer and the musician will both have an axe in the hand where they are not holding the standard or the horn.

I might expand this unit to thirty or forty in the future, at the moment I'm thinking thirty is enough but time will tell where I end. After all, I will have several units of Warriors so the total amount of Warriors will be the same no matter the unit size.

I have started to re-think my Ironbreaker/Irondrakes decision as I think thirty Irondrakes might be too much. If I keep them in separate units it should be ok with Ironbreakers with different looks. So I might make one unit of twenty or two units of ten Irondrakes, and one unit of twenty Ironbreakers. They are not first in line to be finished, so I'll see where I stand when time comes to build them.

I have a unit of thirty Thunderers primed, as well as a unit of ten Longbeards and a unit of sixteen old-school Dwarfs. I have started to paint the old-school ones up a little, and they will be the next unit I work on after the ongoing Warrior unit is done.

Ï have also started on a White Dwarf subscribers only miniature, where Grombrindal (THE White Dwarf)  is dressed as a vampire hunter and standing on top of a coffin with a vampire in it, ready to hammer a stake in to its heart to kill it. This will not be a miniature that will be used in my normal dwarf army, but I will have it as a miniature on my shelves and I will use it for the 2017 Armies on Parade (more about that in a later post). This is a resin miniature, but so far I have not experienced the problems with getting the glue to stick as I usually experience with these miniatues.

At the moment I have started to prime it with Imperial Primer as there are so many small pieces I don't think using the usual spray will be the best choice this time.

The final miniature in the making at the moment is my first Gyrocopter. The Gyrocopter sets comes with the choice of buliding a regular Gyrocopter or a Gyrobomber, I will have a few of both in my army (as well as my blimp that also will carry bombs and an organ gun) but for this first build I am going for the regular Gyrocopter.

I am thinking of painting it a greyish blue as I think this will look good for a flying machine.

I have started to prime the cockpit, as this must be painted on the inside before assembly.

The pilot is glued together, and he will also be primed and painted before being glued in to the cockpit. 

For future Gyrocopter builds, I'm thinking of taking the sprues outside and priming them before cutting the parts off, as I think it will be a lot of job doing it the way I do now with manual primer all over. 

Slow but steady...

I haven't been good at finding time to paint these last few weeks, so it is just as well that I decided some time ago not to participate in Armies on Parade 2016. The arrangement was this weekend, and from what I've seen of pictures from Games Workshop in Oslo it looks like it was some great boards in the competition this year.

Last year there were just a few boards (including the winning one) that had any height to it, and this year most of the boards had height to them in one way or the other.

I might have to up my ideas a little more for my Dwarf borad next year to stand a chance in the competition. Maybe make some tunnels below ground level, and still do what I had planned for this year above ground...  

I do have lots of Night Goblins as I collect a mostly Goblin Greenskin army, so it won't be too hard to assemble a few units and field them in the caves advancing towards a section where my Ironbreakers and Irondrakes stands ready to fight them. I think I will need to start to think about this solution right away, and find out how I can place and remove miniatures from the tunnels...

Since the last update I have finished the two Runelords and the Warden King. They came with their own bases, so they just need a wash and then they are completely done.

My Rangers are still missing their axes and their crossbow bolt-pouches, but they are primed now, and the axes have one of four colors done. 

I've decided to give the Rangers the same Astrogranite bases as my other units to make the bases as unified as possible throughout the entire army, and then I will put grass turf on top of that to show that the Rangers are out in the nature. Later I will try and make the forest look the same.

The Imperial Dwarfs have gotten their chainmail painted, and I will soon start on the leather parts. I still have to decide what color to use on the wool parts of their vests though.

I have come quite a long way with my first unit of Warriors. At the moment I am painting the leather parts on them, and their chainmail, armor, clothes, skin and hair is already done. What remains after the leather parts are their helmets, and then I will have to prime and paint their weapons and the arm and hands attached to them. I have decided to go for a twenty strong unit armed with double-handed axes and with full command. Then the idea is to make a unit of the same size armed with a mix of hammers and axes and with shields.

Then I will see how many warriors I have left, and see if I should make a third unit or just add the remaining Warriors in to these two. Warrior units can be up to forty Warriors strong, so I don't have to worry about overstepping maximum unit size.

Haven't started on the blimp yet, but I have primed the pilot.

For characters this time, I am working on two Engineers, one with two pistols and one with a huge mechanical hammer of sorts. I also have an old Dwarf Lord leaning on his great-axe. I think I am about half way with them at the moment.

Mid month update

We are just a bit over half way through September and I have decided that I will not enter the Armies on Parade this year. I haven't got the time to prepare my army and the board to a high enough standard for me to be completely satisfied with it. So instead of using up my idea on a board that don't stand a chance in the competition, I will wait until next year and deliver an entry that I can be proud of no matter if it wins or not.
I will keep working on my Dwarf army though, so that I don't get the same problem next year...

The work has been slower than I would have wanted, but the Ranger unit is almost done now. I need to paint some details on the banner, and the weirdly looking horn for the musician. Then there are a few hands holding axes that still needs paint.
When this is done the unit can go in to battle as Quarrellers, then I will paint up the axes (or crossbows for the ones holding axes in their hands already) that goes on their backs to make them Rangers. I will also paint up the pouches with crossbow bolts that they all will carry.
I hope to start doing this when I get home from work today.

I will also start to paint up my "Imperial" Dwarfs today as they will be the next unit out. They are Warriors, but because of their old style they look so different that I will need to field them in a separate unit. When I start to paint them up  I will see if there are some single miniatures with the same look in the box I inherited. If so I will see if I can join them in to this unit to make it a little bigger.

The next unit to be assembled and primed is a unit of Longbeards. They come in boxes of ten and can be max thirty in a unit. I have three boxes, but I think I will make them with two full commands, so that I can either split them in one unit of ten and one of twenty, or in two units of fifteen each.

The three single miniatures I have worked on (two Rune Lords and a Warden King) are almost done. There are just a few details remaining to make them stand out a bit more. I need to paint some thin golden lines and gemstones on to their armor.
I tried to paint gemstones directly on their dark armor but that did not work as planned. Turns out I need a bright background of either gold or silver to get the right effect.  I recently saw a video of Duncan at Warhammer TV painting gemstones, so now I know how to do it correctly.

Armies on Parade 2016?

I see that time is going real fast, so at the moment I am very unsure if I will be able to participate this year. I still haven't finished my Rangers, and I only have one unit of Ironbreakers that are done apart from the Rangers.
This is not enough to compete in the event, and I would rather wait one year and deliver a very good entry, than doing something hasty and use up the idea.
But I will see how it goes, as of now I am working towards the goal of having an entry to present on October 15th.

I am starting to see the end of the Rangers build. Saturday I painted all the skin, and yesterday I painted hair on ten of the Rangers. Today I will paint the rest of them, and hopefully start painting the crossbows.

Also on Saturday I detailed the bases for the Rune Lords and the Warden King. They are now washed, and the runes on the stones of the Rune Lords have been painted in gold. On the Warden King I have painted all the intricate patterns on top of the stone in gold, as well as the runes inscribed at the front and back of the stone. I am quite happy with how that turned out, but not that happy with the trim I painted on the cape of the Warden King, so I might paint his cape again in order to get the trim correct.

Armies on Parade 2016 - Part 1

It's that time of the year again, and I now believe I have the plan for my board for 2016.
It will be a flat board this year, but I don't know if Games Workshop will sell single tiles this year or if I have to cut myself a tile from plywood.

On the board I will have the gate section from a Citadel Fortress and then I will make mountain walls going from each side of the gate and to the end of the board. What angle I will use will be decided when I see what else I want on the board and how I can get everything to fit.

Behind the walls there will be a few small scenarios. There will be a mine with two Grudge ponies going in and out of the mine. One will be on the way down with a cart that is either empty or carrying a little equipment, and one will be on the way up carrying a load of rocks of some sort.

There will also be a shaft going in to the thickest part of the mountain wall, and my unit of old metal Ironbreakers will either be on the way up or down from the shaft. These will probably only be visible if one looks at the board from behind.

On top of this section my Badyear Blimp will be placed. I think I know how to make it now. I will use styrofoam balls from Panduro and cut the ends off except from the one in front and in the back, so that it looks fairly blimpy.

Here is a picture of the original Goodyear Blimp. I am going for the sort of medieval version of this.

 This is sort of what the air balloons will look like. I found this pic on Google image search.

The plan is to use styrofoam balls and glue them together (not sure if I will use 3 or 4 yet, will have to see when the compartment underneath is done). The balls will then be coated with strips of plaster, both to add them together and to make a surface I can paint.
The balloon will be given an eye-catching color, and the compartment underneath will be dark wood (probably Dryad Bark).
Then I will make some sort of rudder and either add it to the balloon or to the wooden construction.

In front of the wall on ground level, there will be trees, and among them the Ranger unit will be placed. At the same side of the table, there will also be a small cave where one or two Goblins is hiding, spying on the Dwarfs. They will be hidden by some moss that will appear as bushes on the board so the Dwarfs can't see them.