WiP Catchup 2 - Kat-man-Do!

And onto what I've been working on more recently. Adding a new squad to my Achlys III Admech force - a squad of Katraphron destroyers. When I got these tasty little fellas I remembered reading in one of the new AdMech novels from BL about a Dominus riding ino battle on the back of a Kat and decided that was a class idea and having a Kat that another fig could use as a command/transport platform was defintely the way forward. Time for some conversioning ;)

Kataphron Destroyer Conversion

Not the hardest of convs but did need a bit of fiddling. I reserved the chasis within the track units so it would jut out the front more and therefore allow for a bigger space at the back on which to build the central post(?) that the platform would be mounted (mag'd) to. The platform was then built from metal grating and thes filed and sanded lengths of sprue were bent with heat to fit around the plate shape. The underside and sides of the projecting 'bucket' into which the servitor fits need carefully cut and shaped pieces of plasticard to be made to seal it up. Magnets have been greenstuffed into all the Kats' servitor bucket so they'll be able to turn and face once painted. SO - with construction finished - onto the painting!

I started with just the lead Kat to test out how the paint scheme would work and then have a reference to paint the other two from. Needed someone to ride on the back though and the Dominus is a touch tall. When mounted on the back he does kinda take over the whole thing and it just looks a bit overbalanced. Luckily I had a box of skitarii waiting for build and paint. Skit Ranger Alpha quickly built and fits the bill perfectly~!!

 Lead Kat is mostly set. Wearing the grey armour plates of his forgeworld with the secondary blue colour on the underside of the servitors bucket and one or two other places.

For the Alpha, I inverted the usual colour scheme (you can just see I have my Sydonian Dragoon model in the background for reference) and drilled two holes into his feet into which I glued into 2 pieces if paperclip which will then attach to the magnet within the platform's post. The Skit feet are just way too skinny to allow for 3mm magnets to be used.

That done - time to paint the Alpha. His robe has been inverted to blue on the outside and grey on the inside. Markings are a fusion of cutup transfers and freehand. Happy with how he's turned out :D

The other Kats are nearly done now (all the brass takes FOREVER) and I'll pop up some finished shots when everything is done.

Cheers for looking  and C&C welcome as ever :D

Jan

WiP Catchup 1 - The Colour of Knight

 

Came into work today to find that all morning classes have been cancelled bcs of student elections - Loooooovelllyy Jubbly! My Friday schedule is a bit of a bitch so having 4 classes wiped off the board certainly helps especially considering I was woken up in the middle of the night by a fething mosquito....in novemeber.....a mosquito. Not impressed. Anyways, 'nuff of that.

 

I'm gonna use the sudden gift of a few hours of time to try adn catch up with my WiPs here and over on Dakka. Yes, yes - I'm quite sure that there are much more important teachery things I could be doing but.....:P

Anywho - first catchup is about that imperial knight I bought.....a while . Magnetising a Knight I fully magnetised the brute as these knights have so many awesome weapon loadout options, it seemed a shame to just glue on one loadout and consign the rest to the bitzbox. Origninally I dug out the places to hold the magnets by hand using some crafting gouges and awls. Since then I have got a dremel and really really wish I had bought it earlier! I've started 'wrting' some fluff to go with this Freeblade (admittedly mostly in my head!) Homemade destroyed/ravaged by Chaos due to his brother knight turning to the dark powers (future project will be building his brother, Diomedes' Chaos Knight for which I hope will come even close to the amazing conversion that Krautscientist completed - check his work out over here at  Kraut Scientist's Chaos Knight - absolutely awesome inspiring stuff. ) was rescued and taken in my the AdMech of Achlys III, whom he know fights alongside in his hope of eventual vengeance against his former brothers in arms. Sarpedon is the pilot and his engine has been rename 'Orphan's Wrath'. In thinking up a colour and heraldic scheme for the Freeblade, I wanted to give it quite a 'Greek' feel as the fluff pulls a bit from ancient Greek culture and mythology, albeit in a rather loose and twisted way. Of course as ever, I do love to sketch ideas, things and bits out as I go along. The first page of doodles I bloody lost! So I started over and the new stuff did actually come out a lot better imho!

Freeblade 'Orphan's Wrath' Heraldry Ideas

Main elements are going to be playing around with a Greek(ish) helmet, laurel leaves and the trident. The main decision though was the main colour scheme was going to involved a creamy marble scheme. Now, finding good marble painting tutorials is not the easiest of things. At all :/ However after a load of searching, reading, head scratching, swearing, reconsidering, re-reconsidering, stubborness, more swearing, a lot of coffee and a final ' fuck it - I'll give it a bash anyway' - a faux marble effect was attempted.

Here's the progress -

 

 First all lots of nuln oil to tone down the incredibly shiny leadbelcher sprayed basecoat. Then lots n lots of brass fittings and bits as that ties him in quite nicely with the scheme and style of Achlys III's forces.

 Head done first and then one of the masks ansd the cowl were painted as test pieces for the marble effect

Test painting went well, so onto carapace, greaves and leg armour plates - step 1 - basecoat then staining

Step 2 -defining the cracks

 Step 3 - softening down the whole effect

Then onto the metals

Test fit - check the look so far. Happy happy with how this is going :D

More armour plates and time for some weapons!

 

'Orphan's Wrath' - Freeblade Imperial Knight

 And that's where we're at now. He's coming along pretty nicely. Really happy with the overall look. Next week (once the Kats I'm working on are done) it'll be back to the knight for the rest of the weapons, shoulder plates and other bits. After that, decals  (not that many as I've made all my own heraldry) and a load of freehand painting!

 

 

 

 

 

Kickstarted

Came across this little diamond of a kickstarter over on dakka. 'Asylum - The Alderney Case'
They're 54mm boutique figs from Thirdman Studios in France. Dark, twisted and very very cool. I pledged for an individual character box at first bu looking at the sculpts again, just had to up my pledge to storybox (way better value anyways)
Have a look anyway and see what you think

'Trick or Treat'

A bit after the date but hey ho. Finally finished the Dark Eldar Haemonculus I'd been painting for the Halloween paintin comp over on Dakka. Always loved this fig. It's a really beautiful sculpt but fairly fiddly as well. Especially as I paint in pieces or subassembies rather than gluing the whole thing together at the start. Anyways - all finished with an unfortunate Cadian for him to play with. Hope y'like him

Jan

Minus The Merciless, Dark Eldar Haemonculus

Minus The Merciless, Dark Eldar Haemonculus
 

'Stealing Back In

Ahhh - I really do suck at regular updates. Busy as ever but still getting some paint down. Finally getting work done on that Knight Titan I bought months ago and he's coming along beautifully. LOADS of WiP shots to post but shall put those up later in another post. For the now, I painted up a few of the genestealers from the Space Hilk box set I bought off EBay a few months ago. The figs in that set are gorgeous. Really nice varied selection throughout. I'll get onto the terminators at a later point but wanted to have a bash at some of the bugs first. Generally I hate the whole tyranid thing - probably my least favourite faction in WH40K but I do have a soft spot for 'stealers. Probably out of nostalgia for the Space Hulk game more than anything else.

With the 'stealers I wanted to go for a more pale scheme. These things live in the darkness of a Space Hulk as it wanders aimlessly through the stars sometimes for millenia. See what you think C&C always welcome :D

Genestealer Family Shot

Space Hulk Genestealers 1

Space Hulk Genestealers 2

Space Hulk Genestealer Broodlord 1

Space Hulk Genestealer Broodlord 2

Space Hulk Genestealer Broodlord 3

Space Hulk Genestealer Broodlord 4

An Ork, A Hobbit and A Tech-Priest Walk Into A Bar........

The ork orders one ale, the hobbit does not, the tech-priest is confused o.O
Definitely funnier in my head ;)

Anyways - some finished stuff to pop up today. The Dominus/Castellax figs'n'vig are all done and I've also finally got the GW Bilbo fig and the AOBR Warboss all done for some folk over on DakkaDakka.
Warboss was a lot of fun as it was my first ever ork to paint (how the hell have I neever got 'round to painting an ork before??!!!). Gave me a good chance to play around with metals; weathering them and so on.
Bilbo is so tiny. When he first arrived, I took one look and wondered how the hell I was going to do him justice (beautiful sculpt btw) without obscurring the seriously fine detail. Really really REALLY thin layer was the answer to that one. His clothes took about 8 or 9 layers each to do but I think he worked out pretty well. The base is all GreenStuff. He's such a nice fig I thought he deserved a base that put him in context. I wanted to give him a little private moment as he stares and grins at the one true ring so I based him as if he's in his house surrounded by books and went with a darker palette to reflect the seriousness of the moment. Anyways there we are. Hope yez like them. C&C always welcome :D

Bilbo Baggins

 

AOBR Ork Warboss

 

 

 

 

AdMech Tech-Priest Dominus Lant Dor

 

 

AdMech Castellax Battle Automata - 'Delta-17-'LostChild'

 

 

 

Tech-Priest Dominus/Castellax Battle Automata Vignette

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 :)