Into The Mech - the WiPs

Crikey - has been ages since I posted. Since last time work has been a bit mad and of course had a honeymoon to go on!! Went back to Ireland and then a week in Italy with the wife. Missing Italy again already!
While at home I was able to pick up the Mechanicum Castellax Battle Automata and the weathering powders that I ordered from FW. My first resin piece - awwww!!!

Anyways - back in Korea now since the middle of August and been hard at it. Got painting on the Castellax (after a ton of reading etc on how to treat a resin mini) and did him alongside GW's Tech Priest Dominus. If you haven't got one yet - go and buy one. Seriously gorgeous figure and for once, defintely worth the nonsencical clampack prices.

Kept with the colour scheme I've come up with from my homegrown forgeworld Achlys III and tried to improve on it a touch. So here are the WiPs (I'll put up the finished stuff in the next post) starting with the Dominus; well, he is the boss after all

Everything gets mounted on their own Jenga block and painted seperately

Getting the metals down first. For this scheme I decided not to base paint with metal as I wanted a darker more deep look. So I drybrushed 3 layers over a chaos black base. First Warplock, then Ghenna's Gold and finally Ironbreaker. Much later a little light dusting of Runefang was used to give a final gleem. Some of the metal parts were washed with Drak Blue Shade a few times to give a 'blue steel' look. The edges and some parts were then painted with Runelord Brass, washed with agrax and then highlighted with sycorax

Onto the greys. 10 (I think) thin thin layers later........

 The castellax comes with a multi-melta for his should mounted weapon but I really didint like the look of it so choppity-chop, off came the melta barrels and I pinned/glued on the eradication ray that was left over from building the Dominus.

 For the metals< I did a much rougher drybrushing on the castellax as I want it to look more worn and used than the Dominus. Another 10 or so layers of grey later....

The two boys are nearly done. The Achlys III forgeworld symbol on Cass's shoulder is half decal (the cog part) and half freehand.

So, with Cass & Dom done - decided i NEEDED to make a wee dio for them. But it should match in with the basing I'd already done for the Sydonian Dragoon. I'm not gonna say much about the dio WiPs but any questions - please feel free to ask :)

Dragoons & Hulks

Finally finished the AdMech Sydonian Dragoon I was working on. The usual coour schemes from the Skitarii codex did absolutely nothing for me (esp. Ryza....I mean orange....really??!! yuk) so I went ahead and just made up my own forgeworld and respective colour scheme - Achlys II. I'll write up a full fluff about it at some other time and it will be tying into the backstory for the Freeblade Knight I'm (oh so slowly) working on. Anyhows - The AdMech of Achlys II are garbed in a mech grey and slate blue scheme with a cold brass trim. Really chuffed with how it turned out. So chuffed that I've also picked up a box of Skitarii to paint in same said scheme. And there's the Dominus Tech Priest as well, which has gotten as far as being dry built.
Here's the Dragoon -

AdMech Sydonian Dragoon

AdMech Sydonian Dragoon

AdMech Sydonian Dragoon

Orignially I did the tazer lance differently but it really didnt come out well so totally redid it. Needless to say, this guy will NOT be getting a coat of Purity Seal!!!

In other news - Saturday brought an unexpected early delivery!! Mr. Taekbae turned up with a package for me.....

 

Open her up.........

 

BOOM!!!! Sealed copy of the 2014 limited release of Space Hulk finally arrived!! Swweeeett!! $90 on ebay. Cannot sniff at that price. Torn open feverishly and barr 2 broken 'stealer hands, everythings is totally present and correct. Trying to get all the figs clipped, trimmed and built now.....more on that later as I'm getting back to it!! Happy painting folks :D

A Killing Joke

But no, we're not done just yet!! Today - 2 posts for the price of......well....none really! And yeah...excuse the cheesy Batman but not Batman related title!

While doing the Chosen and also as a part of the entry for June's comp, I finally got the new Harliequin Death Jester painted up. Colour scheme needed a little thought as he is part of the 'Masque of the Shattered Mirage' troupe that I'm (slowly) bulding up. Their colours are white with red motley and a light blue/turquoisey spot colour......not very Death Jestery at all! Anyways, came up with a scheme which, I think, stays true to the usual Death Jester garb and still has him a recognisable part of the Masque. I had the same problem with the Solitaire too but now I had to come up with something again in the same vein as the Solitaire but different to what I did with him!

Really really nice fig to paint but a right fiddly wee shite at the same time. He really needed to be painted in pieces and then assembled which was fine......except for his shawl/cowl thingy which was an absolute bitch to get lcoked into place at the end. The little vignette base is the same one as the Solitaire is posed on.

Well, see what you think.......

 

A Chosen Disaster

Back again! Been meaning throw out an update but things (as per usual) just kept getting away from me! Have of course been painting away like a lunatic! So, what's been happening.....finally finished the DV Chosen figs. Really really happy how they turned out and then DISASTER. I went to seal them with some Purity Seal spray and the damn stuff frosted the lot of them!!! Long story short - I found a brush on matt varnish at he local arts'n'crafts store that fixed them .....90% or so. But seriously.....that is not a good feeling when you spray on and see the figs I'd spent about 50hours or so painting start to look like they had taken a trip 'north of the wall'. I was gutted. Couldn't even bring myself to take a full load of proof photos. I have one....somewhere....I'll edit it in later if I can find it.
Anyways - I e-mailed CC at GW in the off chance they'd be able to help. I honestly wasn't really expecting much as at this point I can re-varnished them and only had one shot of one of them all frosted over. And no receipt for when I bought the DV boxed set last December. A few e-mails later though (with an incredible member of their CC staff) explaining what had happened and that it had happened (albeit to a very lesser degree) with the Harlie Skyweaver - I attached the one photo I had a screenshot of my Visa bill showing I had bought stuff from Orctown (a flgs, not an actual GW shop) they said they were sending me some replacement models. SCORE!!! I was however only expecting the figs that had got ruined. Nope..... a few days (yup - from Britain to Korea o.O ) later a whole brand new DV boxed set and a new Skyweaver boxed set arrived!!!! They do not muck around!! They didnt replace the affected figs but the entire kits that they came in! Dammnnnn - now that is awesome CC. There's one in the eye of all the whinning whinging maggots who incestantly harp on about how GW is the worst company in the 'verse et cetera et cetera!!
So, Chosen fixed and diorama built!! My biggest one yet too. Entered into Paradigm's monthly painting challenge (for June) over on DakkaDakka and thx to the nice folk who voted - I took 1st place :D   Anyways - less yapper and more photos eh?!!! Here's how it all came out (yes, I really do need to reshoot the photos but ...later..later ㅋㅋ)

. The posters I found about the net again, printed them on recycled paper and then tinted with shades. The unlucky guardsmen is from the Cadian squad box. The rest is all foamboard, sand/stones from the local river, mosquite screen repair patches, paperclips and plasticard for the marble tiles I painted to put in the back building. Oh - and a nightlight candle case for the podium that Draz is standing on :) Loved building this thing.
Hope y'like them

You can still see a few bits where the rescue varnish ( as I will now forever call it) didnt quite beat the frosting but overall, I think it did an amazing job.

Any questions, comments, C'n'Cs always welcome :)

Irish Steve

Chosen Diorama

Busy and yet not busy at the same time. School has been closed for the last week and will be until next Monday - well......closed to students, yet we teachers must still come in and sit in our offices. Mercifully I get to go home at lunchtime but sitting at a desk all morning is soul crushing. Anyways, due to this and also the wife is and has been away in Australia visiting friends till Sunday, I have gotten an inordinate amount of painting and modeling done in the last week.
Am working on the DV csm squad - 'The Chosen' for Paradigm's monthly painting comp over on DakkaDakka. These are seriously gorgeous figs. There is 6 of them in total, 2 of which are duplicates so it's five different and really awesome sculpts. If GW got rid of the standard CSM models and instead released a box akin to these Chosen - the whole Chaos contingent would be so much better. Anywho - The Chosen  - stunning sculpts of marines who have had their armour also start to be affected by Chaos; we've got daemonic faces growing out of armour plates, just the right amount of spikey and more vintage looking weapons. Such lovely figs deserve a diorama I thought, so have been building one for them as well. Biggest one I've made so far. As I built it I suddenly realised that it was really reminding me of the little campos or campiellos of Venice. I must be missing Italy again!! Anyways - here's a few WiP shots of what is going on. The Chosen are much further ahead now than shown here but I haven't gotten around to taking newer shots yet. I wanted to try and show their tabbards are having been made of flayed skin. They're very clean looking the now but I will be dirtying, bloodying and weathering them up at bit in final details.
Hope you like 'em
Cheers
Irish

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Knights and Men

On to what's on the painting mat at the mo. (And this is what my workplace is like....nah that's a bit of a lie....it's rarely this tidy lol)

After the wedding, I decided I needed a wee treat (hahahaaha) - still had a wee bit of savings left in my Irish account so a quick (online) trip to Orctown and that was that. Two antsy days later and my (2nd) favourite korean (after 'The Wife' of course ;) ) knocked on my door and delivered this......

The current Knight Warden kit and the new AdMech Tech-Priest Dominus and some sundry supplies incl the new leadbelcher spray. Lovely jubbly!!!!!
Now then - the Tech-Priest is a little on the pricey side.....W40,000 I think. Bloody clampack prices. Everything else (imho) GW does model wise is priced fine for what you get as far as I'm concerned. However, clampack figs take the piss somewhat. However.......the priest fig is GLORIOUS!! He's backbenched for now though.
And on the knight. This kit is huge!!! The 3 original large sprues plus the new upgrade sprue and it's all bloody lovely!!!
Have spent a fair bit of time on YouTube checking out the tuts there as from the start was intending to fully magnetise the bugger.
Getting the appropriate size of magnets over here in Korea (without having to spend a fortune or order from another country) has required a little shopping around and imagination. Here's where I am thus far....

      

 

 

Body and hip joint first. This joint is going to be bearing a lot of weight so I found these 20mm (I think) ND mags in the local Arts'n'Crafts store for the job. The mags have a hole throught he middle and one side is concave. Absolutely perfect for the pillar on the hip joint to fit into and get the full movement. These 20mms fit exactly into the bowl cap piece of the hip joint (forgot to take a photo of that) super glued them in place and then built up some green stuff around the one in the main body.

Works perfectly. The magnets are so strong that there is not slippage of movement when the model is assembled even with the full weapons loadout.

Arms and weapons took a little more time. Especially the upper arm pieces that fit onto the shoulder mounts. For these I had to first file off the ridge that would normally clip into the upper weapon housing and then carve down into the piece (didnt have a 6mm drillbit, so out came the carving tools. Obviously the weapon arms have a bit of weight to them so need a bigger magnet than the little 3mm ones I broght back from Ireland with with me. Looked everywhere......nothing.......until........I found these fridge type magets with 6mm ND inside them. Bought a few packs of those and hacked them apart back at home!! Fitted all the arm and weapons out with 6mm mags and sealed them in with GS and somtimes a bit of cut down sprue as well (the well inside a few of the weapons is pretty deep). Anyways that's the weapons all done and interchangeable. They all fit really snuggly and the 6mm mags are pretty strong so again no slippage. Theonly tricky bit was the carving out of the upper arm pieces. BE CAREFUL or you could ass the whole piece up.

Did manage to give the wee 3mm mags some love though. The 2 carapace weapons are maglocked using 3mm pairs (2 in the weapon and 2 drilled into the hole on the carapace) I also decided to make the face plates interchangeable too. This was more to fit the fluff I'm making for this knight; I want him to have his original imperial knight's house face plate and then a 'vengeance mask' which was gifted to him by an AdMech forge world.......more on that fluff stuff later, laaaattter!!! The masks are fitted using the wee 3mm mags. Simple enough to do.

And so......all the pieces are now cleaned, trimmed, filed, smoothed and magged. Next came priming and basecoating........No way in the warp was I going to be basecoating this monster by brush!!!!  Primed everything with a light coat of Chaos Black spray and then got busy with the new Leadbelcher spray. Was a little nervous as the Skull White spray can be ........odd at times and hadn't heard anything about how the LB spray behaved. But it went on as smooth as silk. beautiful coat. I will say though that the LB spray is somewhat lighter and shinier than the LB paint from a pot.....not by much though, but it sure is quite silvery shiiinny (oh, Shiny!!) I also coated the outside of the armour plates with the Skull White spray, which decided that today was the day that it was going to go on smooth and silky (relief). So, the whole bugger is now primed and basecoated and ready for paint..........well, after I get these DV Chosen and their dio finished up for this month's DakkaDakka competion!!!!!

Anyways, that's where the new Knight is at. The magnetising wasn't that much of a bitch at all and has come together really solidly - no disco wobble at all!! Any questions or anything about the build - just drop me a line in the comments

Cheers

Irish

Ravenwinged it!

Double post again today as I have been a bit remiss at posting (not at painting though of course ;) )
First up - The DV Ravenwing detachment. Finally got them done and entered in the Dakka monthly contest (May). Think I came 5th or so. Which was totally fair enough as some of the entries were bloody excellent. Wasn't able to get a huge amount of painting done last month as the family all arrived from foreign shores and then we had the wedding on the 23rd.
Ravenwing.......yeah.....really don't think I'll be buying/painting anymore of those guys. Not the most fun figs to paint at all. The sculpts and poses are fine but they are just dull to pain. Way too much black coverage and just ....meh!!! Still, got them done (have a few wee tweaks I want to do ....at some point) adn dusted. Hope y'like them

Irish

Ravenwing Attack Squadron Arion

Ravenwing Sergeant Arion

Ravenwing Brother Gethal

Ravenwing Brother Arias

'Run Mon-Keigh........RUN!!!'

Second part of today's postings. The finishsed product. Finally the Harlie Skyweaver is all finished and set into its mini-diorama (see previous post for a quick tut on that thing). Am really happy how the whole thing came out.


Harliequin Skyweaver

 Quick notes..... The motley was all freepainted after being lightly penciled on with a clutch pencil


Harliequin Skyweaver

The rider's hair was done with multiple glazes on a pure white base. Wanted to try using glazes to get that blended look for a change and gota say, glazes are defintely the way to go for hair. So much easier and a much better look. The blood streaming off the back of the zephyr black was once again BFTBG tech paint and a few more bristles snipped off my dog's toothbrush! I had a bit of a fuckup when I sealed the bike with a spray of purity seal and the metallics all frosted over as well as the gems. That was not fun. Everything else seemed to be ok but I had to repaint the frosted areas with was a pisser. Oh - the Chaos cultist (with my DV theme base) is just a proxy for the moment. The final mon-keigh that will be there is gonna be a running screaming Space Wolf marine. Need to somehow get my hands on one. Buying all the seperate parts for one on a bitz site ends up being kinda expensive just for one fig........if anyone out there has a spare screaming running SW they don't want....lemme know ;)

Anyways - there it is. Took about a month all told I think to do and finish which considering I'm supposed to be planning/organising/getting ready for my wedding in under 3 weeks, ain't too bad!!!

Hope ye like 'em

Irish Steve

Free-Basing

Double post today as am well behind. The Skyweaver is all done and dusted. Made a wee dio base for them as well. These dio bases are really easy to do but make a real difference to the finished fig.

 The primary base piece is 2 parts (I'll pop another photo in later if I remember) - The bottom is 2mm black plasticard and then the top part is 2mm foarmboard. Using a circle cutter I cut out the slots for the Skyweaver plastic base and a reg. small base to slot into. The steps are made from the same foamboard and stuck together with hot glue. The tiles are drawn out on 1mm card (should have used plasticard but didnt have any 1mm) then a circle cutter used again to get the one for the flying base. This way it ensures that the tiles on the flying base and those on the dio base will line up.

 The tiles, steps and a rock are hotglued on and then sand and peebles PVA'd on in the usual manner. Because of the foamboard and the card, I gave the whole thing 3 coats of PVA/water mix to make sure they were totally sealed in, as the spray primer would eat into the foam and paint would soak into the card and warp it

 2 light coats of the ol' Chaos Black spray and we're ready for paint :)

The finished base. The greys were done with mech grey as a base, washed with Nuln and then layered up through eshin, dawnstone and lightly drybrushed with admin grey and final highlights of ulthan grey. The tiles are based with tallarn, washed first with seraphim sepia, then agrax earthshade where the sand/stones meet the tiles and in the recesses of the tiles and steps and then layered up through usabti and screaming skull and scrub brushed to give a worn eroded feel. Think I may have used a little pallid wych as well.....Came out really well I think. All told maybe 6-7 hours at the most. And the final product is above :)