Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Painting Squad Symbols On A Rhino

I’ve always fancied squad markings on the top hatch of Rhino’s.  I’m not entirely sure why, but they’ve always seems fitting.  So naturally that what I want to do with my Rhino’s.  The unfortunate reality is that I can’t free hand paint worth a damn.  Here’s one solution that I came up with, it’s probably not new, but it works really well.

Scotch Tape is a great thing…

rhino hatch (1)

Here I masked off the area in the shape of a tactical squads arrow.  I made sure that the very inner edges were pressed flat to keep any paint from running underneath.  If you try this you can tell that you have good adhesion when the tape is nearly transparent.  Since I wanted my arrow to be white, in this step I filled in the area with Codex Grey.

rhino hatch (2)

 I used Fortress Grey in this step to help make it easier to paint on the white.

rhino hatch (3)

I forgot to take a picture in between painting on the white and this step, but I’m sure you’ll be able to fill in the blank.  After painting on the white I pealed the tape back to nice crisp lines.  Sadly I also discovered that my arrow was slightly off.  So I again used some Scotch Tape were I needed to make corrections.

rhino hatch (final)

Here’s my WIP Rhino with the hatch.  Overall it came out pretty nice.  While doing this though I had a stroke of madness and thought up a crazy idea for the second Rhino.  Which may end up being repeated here depending on how well it turns out, but you’ll have to check back after the holidays to see.  ;)

Happy Holidays everyone.  Cheers!

Friday, December 18, 2009

Titanicus by Dan Abnett

titanicus

I finished reading Titanicus and I have to say that this book is incredible.  It’s due for re release in paperback soon so I strongly suggest buying it.  Surely I am not the first person to give this book rave reviews and I hope I’m not the last.

Titanicus is actually my first Black Library purchase and a fine one I have to admit.  This book has single handedly sunk its claws into my imagination and thrusted me into all that is grim and dark and magnificent in the Warhammer 40,000 universe.  For the first time ever I’m more than just fascinated by the Warhammer 40,000 universe and its stories.  For the first time I want to know more, I want to read more and I can give my thanks to Dan Abnett for that.

Titanicus is the book that I will forever compare future Black Library books to and I honestly think the bar is set high.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

The Tyranid Force

I completed assembly of my Tyranids…

nid army 

It’s the core of the army, I’ll of course add to it as I see fit.  Maybe some more Carnifex’s and/or Zoanthrope’s.  Perhaps a Trygon or nine.  The army will lay dormant until I get my hands on the new codex, but afterwards it’s straight to paint and then the tabletop.

Righty the Ravener from my last post is making another appearance.  I gave him just the tiniest bit of a face lift with the addition of extended carapace bitz on his shoulders.  I think it adds a lot to the model for being such a simple addition.

righty the ravener

That’s all I have for now.  I’m off to assemble the new Fortress of Redemption, which by the way is absolutely massive and gorgeous.  It’s definitely a must-see model.  Cheers!

Sunday, December 6, 2009

The Great Ravener Dilemma of 2009

So in my massive box set of Tyranids that I purchased there were three Ravener’s.  One of which had no right arms.  GW was very gracious in replacing my model, but that still left me with a Ravener with no right arms.  Poor guy was almost discarded, but I dug through the accumulated Tyranid bitz and found a solution…

tyranid ravener (no right arms) (1)

I came across the left over rending claw arms from the warrior sprue as well as the scything talons not used on the Genestealers.  Problem solved…

tyranid ravener (no right arms) (2) tyranid ravener (no right arms) (3) tyranid ravener (no right arms) (4)

Normally Ravener’s have six arms and if they have rending claws, they are the middle pair of arms.  I had to improvise here.  The Genestealer scything talons are far too small to be the primary set of arms and the warrior rending claws are slightly bigger than the normal Ravener ones.  By flipping them I feel I maintained cohesiveness.  As for the third set of arms… I don’t have anything else that really works so I’ll just fill the holes with some green stuff.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

Back In The Saddle

It’s been awhile, but now that the thunderstorm looming over my head is finally gone I can get some hobby done and some blog posts up.  If you’re wondering where I’ve been… I’ve been dealing with a preverbal shit-storm of bad fortune.

To sum it up as quickly as I can… Both the wife piece and myself wrecked both of our cars two weeks apart, no one was injured.  She needed to buy a new vehicle because hers was deemed totaled. I then bought a new one because I wanted to.  Thanksgiving came and went, much travelling was done.  After the holidays the wife piece and I both became ill.  Thankfully none of that H1N1 crap going around.  A month later we’re well and I’m back in the saddle and ready to go.

I just finished up my one set of Urban Barricades after leaving them only primed for months.  I kept them simple, but made sure to do enough that they wouldn’t be bland.  Each piece was first primed black and then given a base coat of Chardon Granite by means of heavy over brushing.

Urban Barricades (1) The door in this barricade was first painted with Camo Green and then given a liberal coating of Devlan Mud.  The rusty grate was done using the technique described in this months White Dwarf.  (Painting The Coach Inn p.86)  I started with with a base coat of Dark Flesh, then stippled on some Bestial Brown followed by a tiny bit of Blazing Orange.  I have to admit the new GW Stippling Brush was the VIP here.  I’ve used old worn out, cut off brushes to stipple before, but the new GW brush is designed for the technique and really does do a better job.

Urban Barricades (2)On this barricade you can see the lite dry brushing of Graveyard Earth around the very bottom to give the effect of dust and dirt being kicked up onto the wall.

Urban Barricades (3)  The gold on this was done very simply by dry brushing on Shinning Gold followed by a highlight of Chainmail and washed with Devlan Mud.

Urban Barricades (4)Take note to the fallen statue in front.  To make this barricade have bit more personality I focused on making the statue a lighter color.  I started with a base coat of Dessert Yellow followed by a highlight of Bleached Bone and then finished it by painting a small amount of Devlan Mud into the deepest recesses.

Urban Barricades (5) Here’s another example of the rust technique.  This one would have been pretty boring without some additional contrasting colors in the mix.

Urban Barricades (6) Lastly the wrecked bike.  The gold is done exactly as described above, but the body of the bike started with a base of Modian Blue, washed with Badab Black and then highlighted with Mordian Blue.

That’s all for now.  Thanks for stopping.  Cheers!

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