'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 :)

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