Blood Angels Sanguinary Priest 2

I've been continuing to experiment with white. On this Apothecary, I used a light gray as the base color, with white highlights. I was concerned that it would turn out too dark, but it seems like it works out okay. Jen wants me to try using bone color as the base, but I'm afraid that it will make them look like Deathwing...

Eldar Pirate Captain

Here is the second model I acquired for my nautical/pirate themed army prior to the actual release of the Dark Eldar. It is a special character from the Dark Elves army (fantasy) that I intend to use as a squad leader. The squad will be a mix of parts from the new Dark Eldar warrior and the Dark Elf corsair models.
Of particular note; this model marks my first attempt at crystal swords. The instructions in WD 361 sounded very simple but were anything but during execution. The technique requires a lot of frequent, quick transition blends between extreme shades of color which were very hard to do on such a small surface area. Despite several redo-s, I'm happy with the results.
The base is supposed to look like the wooden planks from a ship and were actually made with wooden craft sticks that I "weathered" and stained with brown ink. The chain is from a necklace chain that I superglued together (to keep it from moving around) and then painted.
Although I like this model and feel it came out pretty good, I'm concerned by how dark it is. If all the models in my army come out this dark, it will not have the "pop" required to distinguish it from any other army; even if I did a good job at applying the paint. In essence, I need to stay away from black as much as possible and make sure my colored bits have extreme amounts of contrast.

Blood Angels Land Raider

I've been busy building up my Blood Angels army, and I couldn't resist the temptation of a flying Land Raider. I'm probably going to have to add one of the Land Raider variants at some point.

I didn't do a lot of customizing. This is the largest thing I've painted, so I was a little intimidated. I did add some bullet holes to the starboard side, and some weathering/damage to some of the leading edges (you know, from hard landings and such).

Eldar Pirate - Part Two

So, the paint job on the Pirate Lord is complete. I thought the sword looked big in the green-stuff stage, but it looks even bigger painted. I like it. Below is the image I used for the inspiration on the color scheme. I wanted a stormy seas and cartoon look.
I originally wanted to avoid black in this army since I think it lacks depth (since you can't shade it) but I couldn't imagine pirates without a healthy amount of black. As a compromise, I decided to go ahead and include black, but highlight with color (in this case blue) rather than the usually shades of gray. As with the Eldar, I'm sticking with the Non Metallic Metals. To kick up the painting a notch, I've decided to include color transitions in the highlights. For example; rather than blue highlighting to light blue, it will fade to a purple (see back of cloak). Below are the before and after shots. I still need to make a suitably fancy base to call this model complete.

Eldar-rrgh Pirates!

The Dark Eldar models are now available for advanced order and they are very attractive (http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat440160a&rootCatGameStyle=) . I intend to use these models, their new rules, and their hit and run nature as a basis for an Eldar Pirate army I've been contemplating for a while. The look of their new transports (Raider pic from GW web page below) make me both happy and sad. I was going to add sails to the models to match my pirate theme, but they've apparently beaten me to it. I'm happy they did such a splendid job on them, but I'm sad that I will no longer have that unique sail-look.

The actual composition of my army will include some of the DE models and some modified Eldar models. For example, I intend to use the Eldar ranger models for the base troops because I like the look of the long coats and loose clothes. Additionally, I wanted to do something special for the lord character that had a look of Eldar-gone-rogue. The plan was to merge an Eldar Farseer model with an empire noble model, add an elf head, and sculpt him a fancy tricorn hat and buccaneer sword. The images below show how the plan unfolded this weekend.

The messiest part of this project was the preparation of the metal Farseer and metal noble models. In the Farseer's case, I was lucky that the head model was not part of the main model but I still had to remove his skirt, below the belt (which is going to be replaced by the noble's legs). This required some precise grinding with the dremel tool for about an hour. The only thing I needed from the noble were his legs and his surgery was completed entirely with a hobby saw and exacto knife.The sculpting of the cutlass and tricorn were a blast. The cutlass is made mostly from plasticard that I shaped using the dremel's grinding wheel attachment. The tricorn hat was surprisingly easy and actually took me less than ten minutes. The base shape of a tricorn (or bicorn) hat is actually a circle. After sculpting an appropriately sized flat circle, I simply pressed it down over the top of the head and folded it up on three sides.
The next post will include this model fully painted and will demonstrate the color theme I intend to use for the army.

Another Eldar Tank

So these posts are a bit out of order. I painted this tank just before the NOVA open in August. The tournament before that, the ICGT, proved to me the value of mechanization and I meant to fixed that gap in my army. I hope to add another Wave Serpent to my army soon as well as beef up and double my jet bike squads (see blue jet bike in previous post). I've even been toying with the idea of a second, three-strong squad of war walkers. I don't really like the paint job on the current ones and my 'Ard Boyz list for 2011 requires six :-)I think this model turned out quite nice but a little dark. When compared to my early tanks, it is noticeable a shade darker. Next to the newer, glowy Fire Prism, they are about the same. This model also fell victim to a phenomenon that was slow to recognize but is now undeniable--varnish will change the color of your paint job. Sometimes it is nice, because it tends to bend together fades and hides the brush strokes. Unfortunately, it can also dull and darken the highlights. After spraying this model I had to go back and repaint all of the hard lines. I wish I had taken a "before" shot to show the difference. BTW: the same problem occurred with the Black Queen and I had to repaint her skin and hair highlights. I switched to a new can of varnish before coating the most recently painted jet bike. The fading is less obvious on this one.

A small break for Chess

While drooling over the Golden Demon models at Games Day, I was captivated by the amazing skill with which the artist are painting faces. At the same time, I realized that my flesh tone paints have nearly dried up, from lack of use. There are but two un-helmeted heads in my entire Eldar army and account for about a micro ounce of elf flesh paint. Therefore, I took a small break from Eldar to work one of my Chess pieces. The below image is of my recently completed Black Queen model.
Although I think her flesh is highlighted and blended well, it is not the color I had set out to paint. She is supposed to be a frankenstein-like creature and I wanted the flesh to a have a blueish tint. However, I started painting her like any other humanoid and was so pleased with the blending that I wimped out when it came time to tint with blue. Oh well...