Scenery party part 1

So sure you can have a great army inside and out but what about your battlefield? Lately most of us in my gaming group have been painting our armies with a renewed dedication to having a completely painted army. It's great, I'd best describe it as going full nerd! We also scoff at the amount of money some of this pre-made scenery costs and the quality as well. When the tedium of painting tiny models saps your spirit try making something abstract to jive up your painting mojo. A change of scenery is what you need :)

Over the weekend I went to my brother's house with my girlfriend to have a sunday night scenery party. I brought a big box of junk I've been collecting as well as some handy tools and my airbrush. Our friend Mike joined up with us, contributing a 12 pack, and we set to it.

First up is a building my brother was pulling together. It's made from some empty staple boxes he grabbed form work, some pvc, bendy straws, granny grating and one deceased tape deck.

It's all rusted up and ready for some masking and a paintjob, hopefully john finishes this during the week, I really want see it completed.

Mike threw together a classic statue piece that you can do with any model, I think it looks great especially for his first piece. I helped him fill the gap at the bottom and plan to paint it up real soon. 

My girlfriend Brittny also had a go at her first piece of scenery and some airbrushing. I'm really thrilled about the piece she made, unfortunately I don't have any decent shots of where it wound up but I'll be including finished pictures in part 2 when everyone gets their stuff done. In the meantime here are some in progress pictures.

Very nice ; )

So maybe you guessed that I didn't take much of my own stuff because I was too busy tracking everyone else's progress. I did manage to get one off at the very start.

not much, just a melted smoke detector and a fanblade for now, later it will become a cooling system for some sort of underground complex ; )

I also had a piece laying around all primed and ready for paint for a while now and I was happy to get a start on it.

The plan for next weekend is to paint a new table with some zazz, we'll see how far we can get. There are always real life disasters that can happen at any moment. If you see this creature, detain it at all costs.

What is it? An inside out pidgeon? No doubt the most recent crime against nature to walk off of plum island.

Finished Dark Eldar and Deathwing army!

Three days of constant labor and five kids. I've been diligently working on a small Dark eldar squad for a competition on spiky bits and I'm happy to say they're finished. Now to paint 50 more...

Thanks to massive voodoo for the background ;) I sat down with a friend and he showed me some more photoshop techniques and I'm very happy with the results, thanks buddy!

Here's an army I finished a couple of months ago, I have to say it was difficult to fit all the pictures together and I'm not too pleased with the end result but hey if only I knew then what I know now...

Dark Eldar work in progress

I've been busy painting a squad of dark eldar for a competition on spiky bits, the prize is a 500 point dark eldar detachment, which would be perfect for me because I only own one box of these guys so far...

After some trial and error they're coming along nicely, the one on the right is further along. So far so good but I need to keep at it, the deadling is tuesday the 22nd so back to work slave!

Sanguinary guard take flight and Harthrod takes the warp

Here are the completed sanguinary guard units along with and extra banner and an auxillary model. I have to say I'm quite pleased with the way they came out. I've also painted some more backgrounds for my photos, here's unit 1.

I took a little more time on the second unit so I could add some close ups and some better views :)

and just in case you want a plasma gun there's this guy, the banner is for an honor guard unit.

I'm not sure why these came out so red...

So I also wanted to re-shoot an older model of mine that I felt wasn't living up to his potential. So I sank an hour or so of painting into him to spruce him up, mainly the eye on his axe, and while I was working on him I thought of a fitting back story.

"Harthrod has long ago lost the battle of will between himself and the gift bestowed upon him by his patron god. His body and lifeless eyes are nothing more than a physical extension of the demon bound in his axe, wading in and out of the warp and through time, from one blood bath to the next"

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/samson

Gold Man 60k and sci fi bases

Well it's been a busy week and not pertaining to 40k. I was hoping to have the sanguinary guard done by now but what can you do :) I did manage some progress on them and they're shaping up nicely, there are just some final highlights to do on everything but this is the fun part of painting as you get to see the model come together. I have to add that these photos don't quite do these guys justice and I can see I'm going to have to work on photographing subjects with a large amount of true metallics.

It is nice seeing them assembled though and I think after the power weapons are done they'll really kick ass. I have some time this weekend so the next photos of these guys will be the finished gaggle, or maybe it's called a flock, either way there are 11 of them total.

I've also put together some industrial ruins on 10 bases that I intend on molding so I have some themed bases for my dark eldar. More to come on them. 

-sam

Gold Man 40k

I went to the hardware store today in search of and attachment that would let me adjust the pressure of my air compressor. I know, I'll only bring $30 in case I go to the nearby hobby store afterwards and blow all the money in my wallet. A mere $31.99 and I could have the final piece I need. So back home I went to grab the twenty I had second thoughts about earlier and bought the attachment, Finally! I went home and experimented on a Khorne lord mounted on a juggernaut I've been commissioned to do. 

I painted some silver to break up the red and he still has a long way to go but I'm happy with him so far. I also haven't decided to go more orange or pink with the highlights. Between coats I kept plugging away on the sanguinary guard which are coming around the bend. The bases are almost complete and everything has a base color with the exception of the black which I've already started to highlight.

I've also been working on a model for myself, I thought he was almost done but inspiration hit and I couldn't leave him on a regular base milling about with everyone else at ground level. So I grabbed the base from another project, although it's a step back I think this base adds a lot more to the model, I'll  be able to do something with water draining off the base now as well which I've wanted to try for a while now : )

Still a lot of work to do on him and the new dark eldar are just around the corner...

Sanguinary Guard in progress

I got to work today on the unit of Sanguinary Guard, gold as fuck. There's still more work to be done, I'm thinking another highlight or two, on the metal but I'm pleased with the result so far. I also went back and added some shadows with a dilluted black. I'm thinking I'll have to paint a deeper shadow towards the inside of the wings too so the backpack is casting a deeper shadow on them to add more depth. Tomorrow I'll tackle the bases and hopefully have a little something I've been painting for myself finished off to post.

The end and the beginning

Well I finally got around to photographing Njal and he's standing in front of one of the new backgrounds I painted up. I made some with warm colors and one with cool colors to start and I plan on doing more of the spectrum of the respected temperatures. I also wanted something darker as the white on blue has gotten old to me. So brace yourself for new backgrounds in the upcoming photos on this blog. Here we see a cool Njal on a warm background to create a little more pop.

I also threw him up on coolminiornot for some merciless judgement, you can vote here if you dare, http://coolminiornot.com/263487.I've also managed to finish a unit of dryads I intend to auction off on ebay. I'm pleased with the way they came out considering how much time I spent on them, having no idea how popular wood elves are right now I'm curious to see how they do, I'd probably be better off painting a blood angels or space wolf hq but I did just have the dryads laying around and that fantasy project has been long abandoned so I figured I'd liquidate them into hard silver pocket change. Note that new background!

These were a fun change from all the power armor I've been doing lately, having deviated from the usual grey and brown I see dryads done in they remind me of swamp thing in the end, which is better than vegetable monster which I was thinking halfway through. Well back to the grind, next up more power armor but of the artificer kind, 11 sanguinary guard. I also have a load of work in progress pictures I should have up sooner than later.