Its a Bird! Its a Plane! No wait it's..it's......Trogdor?

Well its been a month filled with red and brass paint.  So much damn red and brass!  On top of all that, winter is now officially here.  After going back to my parents for Remembrance Day I spent approx. 2 hrs shoveling the damn snow out of my driveway.  I love winter but I could definitely do without the foot and a half snow fall/drifts in the driveway.  

As far as painting and modeling goes it has been a fairly productive month.  For the 40k Radio Freeboota Motivational Challenge I pledged my Helldrake and finished it last week.  It was a fairly slow process and pretty tedious at times but I love the way it turned out.  I still have to decide on what to do with the base.  I have an old OOP Rhino model that I was thinking of half melting half wrecking on the base but im still a little torn.  I'm also busy with a few other projects at the moment so for now the base will stay unfinished.  Here is the completed Helldrake.

Since completing the Helldrake I have moved on to trying to get some of the Dark Vengeance stuff done.  Here is the lord that I finished a few weeks ago and now im working on the Chosen.

Along with the Chosen I have built 2 different squads of havocs.  I have always wanted some but I couldn't bring myself to buy the metal ones.  They kinda looked crappy and they cost a fortune to get 4 of one kind.  So I went on ebay and bought some Space Marine lascannons and coverted 4 heavy bolters to autocannons.  Now I need to get them primed and painted.  Because I have a Nurgle army and a Khorne army I couldn't decide which paint scheme to go with.  I decided to go with Black Legion colors for both squads.  They are easy to paint and add to my armies and this way they act as detachments to both armies.  It sounds fitting to me seeing as how Nurgle doesn't employ a lot of heavy weapons and Khorne is all about close combat.  Here is where I stand with them so far.

Last but not least here is something I have been working on for a friend of mine.  In my last post I mentioned that this friend had given me the new Chaos Warpsmith model and for that I was going to build him a model.  The model he wanted built is a counts as Huron Blackheart.  I didn't have a helmetless head to use so I had to opt for the one with the mask piece.  I used an ork choppa for the power axe and a raptor lightning claw for the claw/flamer hand.  I also had a really old Ral Partha model that looked perfect for the Hymadra (pretty sure I spelled that wrong but oh well).  I think it turned out pretty good and once painted will look pretty bad ass.

Tonight a friend and I are going to try out some casting.  We shall see how that goes.  Hopefully we have everything we need but I guess we'll see.  Also tomorrow I'm going to get in a game with my Epidemius/Chaos Space Marine list.  I know its a bit of a net list but I have always wanted to be able to use the Epidemius model in my army and who doesn't want to use a bunch of zombies as well.  Hopefully I remember to take some shots of the game and I can do a BatRep with the next post.  That's it for now.  Talk to you guys soon.

Red Paint for the Blood God?!!!!

Red Paint for the Blood God?!!!!

This picture just speaks for itself

This past weekend was a very productive and game filled one.  Prairiecon held their "Gamesday" on Saturday which is something I usually try to make it to.  A full day of gaming, drinking coffee and hanging out with other nerds?  SOLD!!!  As long as its not the smelly nerds.  You know who you are!  

We started the day off with a Megabattle.  Chaos vs. the world.  I of course played on the winning side and by that I mean the Chaos side.  Of course I was to immersed in dominating the damn Dark Eldar across the table that I didn't take any pictures.  That took us until supper time and after some wings and much needed beer we finished the night off with a 2 vs 2 Warhammer Fantasy battle.  Its always fun to break out my Ogres.

Gaming wasn't the only thing that I enjoyed on Saturday.  I was also able to pick up this little beauty.

 On top of that a friend of mine brought me the new Warpsmith.  Oh man what cool models.  I can't wait to try them out on the table.  So Sunday saw me putting these two together and getting them ready for primer and paint.  

 I really wanted to try and get a different look for the Heldrake as the picture on the box just didn't do it for me.  However, as I opened up the box and started putting it together I started liking it more and more.  Its big and only being 2 sprues its hard to justify the price of this thing but man its going to look pretty bad ass on the table.  

So like I said I wanted to try and convert the look of the Heldrake a bit while I was putting it together but they made this guy hard to change.  Without a ton of cutting and molding there wasn't much I could do.  Im ok at converting but this guy looks pretty damn good the way he is.  I just angled his neck and head a bit and put him at a bit of an angle to give him a more predatory look.

The Warpsmith I'm really happy with.  I had to heat up some of the resin pieces to get the bends out of them (friggin finecast) and position the arms properly but other than that he was really easy to put together.

With the Warpsmith and Heldrake built I moved on to finishing my October motivational challenge and finish the paint job on my Chaos Rhino.  It went pretty quick and here is the outcome.

I really like the look of the Rhino and I love painting red but I don't know what I think of the pealed paint on the bottom of the sides.  I think I'm going to "mud" the track and sides up a bit to mask it a little.  It kind of has to much of a comic book feel.  What do you guys think?  Right now its going in the case as finished and I'll take it out and touch it up once I decide what I'm going to do. 

Well that was my weekend.  Awesome!  Thanks to all the guys and gals that participated in the 40k and Fantasy battle.  Also a special thanks to Maxx Collectibles for supplying us with gaming tables and terrain, and of course to Eye Opener for supplying me with my new Heldrake.  I can't wait for the next Gamesday.  See you all there!

Project Chaos! Still Kickin!

Project Chaos!  Still Kickin!

So it looks like I kinda suck at this whole Blogging thing.  Come on give me a break its only been what....1....2....oh 4 months.  Well at least I can say I have been busy those few months.  Oh no that's not an excuse.  Busy has nothing to do with work.  When I say busy I mean I have been building and painting my ass off.  So in this post I'd like to look at some of the things I have done this past while and what massive projects are in my future.  Lets begin!

I last left you with the Khorne Land Raider that I had just completed.  Well my Khorne army has seen some love this past little while.  I have recently finished a 10 man Berzerker Squad, a Khorne Terminator squad, and a Khorne Biker Lord.

Up first is the Berzerker squad.  I had forgotten how tediouse and dragged out painting 10 power armour marines can be.  I haven't had to do this for a while and i'll have a lot more to do in the future.

Next up is the Terminators.  Thank you Forge World.  I love these models and everyone of them was fun to paint.

Last up for Khorne, the Biker Lord.  This guy will probably also see the table as just a Champion but either way he will be a lot of fun to field.

Another project that has taken up a lot of my time this past year is my Chaos Renegades army.  I finished painting the wheeled Chimera and the last 3 Sentinels and thought I was done that army.  Well it turns out I'm addicted, go figure, so I'm never done.  

 

After playing with the army 2 months ago and having my ass thoroughly handed to me I decided to beef the it up.  As of right now I only have pics of the finished Chimera, but I have recently scratch built a Basilisk tank with the left over tank tracks from my Chimera kit, finished modeling 3 x Lascannon crew, and with some awesome minis out of the Dark Vengeance box set I have added 20 x Mutants with autoguns (Cultists).

Here is the Sentinels and the finished Chimera!

Now last but definitely not least is the Dark Vengeance Box Set.  I picked this up on its release date and i'm really glad I did.  The models in this box set are amazing and have really helped flesh out some of my armies and units.  Not to mention the great Dark Angels minis and the Limited Edition Chaplain that came with the set.  I have finally finished putting all of the models together, basing the cultists and priming all of the chaos models.

Out of the entire set I have only painted one model.  I finished the Chaplain the other day after an entire evening of just painting.  I started and couldn't stop.  This was the first time I have painted such a dark green and I really enjoyed trying to get it the way I like.

I was all gung ho to start painting the Dark Angels squads that I have and the new Chaos Codex came out.  Well consider the Dark Angels on the back burner.  With the new Chaos codex out I have been going over it like crazy and I have pulled out my two chaos armies to get a look at what I have and what I want to add to them.  

 

So I picked up a copy of the new codex on Sunday and Monday night I had built 3 more squads of 10 Chaos Space Marines, primed all chaos models that needed it and actually broke out my airbrush to get some red on all of that Khorne goodness.

Now I'm on to "Project Chaos".  Its time to get some paint on the Khorne units and I am going to keep my cultists and two squads of Chaos Space Marines neutral and paint them Black Legion colors.  Here is what the future holds for me!

That's it for now.  I'm going to try really hard to keep you all posted as I get things done and try out some new army lists against the rif raf out here.  I hope you enjoyed the new finished pieces and the next thing on the paint table is a Rhino to go with the Berzerkers.

Khorne Land Raider

Done, Done, and Done!!!

Now I know I said I was going to do some WIP pics and I really had every intention of doing so, but once I started painting I found myself forgetting to take pictures of each stage.  So i'll run it down a little for you as I post the pics.  Here I go assuming you really give a damn how I painted it but by god you'll look and maybe even read it.  This project took a fair bit of time but it was a lot of fun to complete.  I finished it on the 19th of June but because of work requirements I wasn't able to post anything until now.  Here we go.

Stage 1:  As you all saw in the first post after priming the tank black I sprayed a coat of mechrite red over pretty much the whole tank.  (damn GW and changing mechrite red to some other darn color)

Stage 2:  Now that the base red color is on the tank I sprayed the highlight red which is a Vallejo game color over most of the tank leaving some of the mechrite red showing in some recessed areas.

Stage 3:  The next component of the tank I worked on were the skull piles.  I knew these would be a lot harder to complete later on if I put the main colors on the spikes.  The first thing I did was color the skulls in a skull white.  Then I washed them all with a chesnut ink wash.  Once that was dry I drybrushed white over the piles.  Last but not least I washed them with ogryn flesh wash.  This is how I tend to do all of my skulls and bones.

Stage 4:  Now that the skull piles are done I moved on to getting all of the major colours on the tank.  I started with Vallejo Bronze on all of the icons and the armour edging on the gunner.  Then on to all of the blacks found on the guns.  Next was all of the boltgun metal as I knew this was going to take a while.

Stage 5:  Once all of the primary colors were on the tank I moved on to edge highlighting everything.  I mean everything.  This part takes the longest but it really makes a difference.  I knew a lot of the red highlighting was going to be covered over when I drybrushed the entire tank with boltgun metal to give it a weathered look, but in places where the boltgun metal didnt get you would still be able to see the highlight.  The color I used to highlight the red was a dark fleshtone.  This color seems to work a lot better than straight orange.

Stage 6:  Next I completed all of the lenses.  The searchlight I did in blue and the lenses on the lascannon sponsons I did in green.  All of the skulls were completed in the same fashion as the skull piles.  Once they were done I finished off the World Eater icons on the side doors.

Stage 7:  Now I was on to the weathering portion of the painting.  As I stated earlier I used a large tank brush and drybrushed the entire tank with boltgun metal.  This automatically highlighted all of the rivets and gave the tank a "used" look.  After I was done drybrushing I went back over the edges and random areas of the tank with the boltgun metal to look like the paint had worn off in certain areas all flowing front to back.

Stage 8:  The second thing I did for weathering was break out my rust and soot pigments that I have had lying around the basement for the past 2 years.  I haven't used these yet and I really wanted to try out a technique I read about.  I used two different tones of rust on all of the spikes and chains.  Starting with the darker tone I mixed it with Vallejo matte varnish and thinned it out with water.  I then spread this on all of the areas I wanted rusted then did the same thing but I little more sparingly with the lighter tone.  Once the rust was done I used the same technique to do the soot on the guns, exhaust and also used it to look like dirt on the bottom of the tank and its tracks.

Stage 9:  Last thing to do was paint the guy hanging on the side of the tank.  I was really looking forward to painting him.  He got the standard, if not easy to paint, black pants and boots.  I painted his shirt camo green and the wife beater white.  I painted the skin by applying a cadmium skin tone then washing it with purple.  I then highlighted it with elf skin tone.  Once complete I placed blood coming out of his eyes, ears, mouth and of course his shoulder sockets.

Here are pics of the completed project.  I hope that helped give you a better idea of how I painted this model.

New Toys

I LOVE NEW TOYS!!!!

The Khorne Land Raider was put on the back burner for the evening.  It's here!  It's finally here!  The wheeled Chimera conversion bits from Chapter House Studios just came in the mail today.

The new in box Chimera that was sitting in my basement / nerd cave has been calling my name for the past 2 weeks.  Most of you that know me know that I can't keep anything in box.  Normally I have it out and put together right away.  With this project however I really wanted to do a WIP of the conversion, build and painting.  This awesome APC will be the newest addition to my renegades and will probably be the only Chimera the army sees.  I just had to share the awesomeness of the vehicle and once its painted i'll get those pics up here.

All of the pieces ready for assembly.

Wheeled Chimera built!

I love the look of the wheels on the Chimera chassis.  It make it look much sleeker.  The build of the tank went really well.  I will have to green stuff some gaps but there aren't that many to do.  Unlike the other tanks for my Renegades I didn't add a bunch of spikey bits to this one.  I like to keep the turret free to spin and with the guns on the rear of the vehicle it didn't really leave me a lot of space where the spikey bits would look good.  Its not going to see paint for a while yet and I'm probably going to keep looking at it trying to figure out what else I could do to it with my limited bits.  If anyone has any ideas to chaos it up please share.  Ok its built.  Whew!  Now back to the Land Raider!

My Very Fist Blog Post!

So my first post huh?  Hmmm.....what to put.  Well if this is going to be a blog dedicated to my painting, modeling and gaming experiences I guess I might as well start with what im currently working on.  Jeez what am I not working on.  Wait lets take a step back.

I have been playing Warhammer 40k for the past 10 years and I have gotten into Warhammer Fantasy and Warmachine/Hordes in the past 2.  There are a heck of a lot of other table top miniatures games I would love to play but I think if I came home with any more "hobbies" my wife would kill me.  I love the gaming aspect of all three games but what pulled me into the hobby is the amazing miniatures.  There is nothing like taking a grey plastic, metal, resin, or the much loved finecast models of these gaming companies and trying to bring them to life.  For Warhammer 40k I have Chaos Space Marines Death Guard, Chaos Space Marines World Eaters, Tyranids, and Servants of Decay Renegades.  For Warhammer Fantasy I have an Ogre Kingdoms army.  Last but not least for Warmachine I have a Khador force.  All are always in a steady state of being added to and completed.  Hopefully this blog emphasizes my love for the games and the hobby and you all enjoy it.

OK so where were we?  Ah yes, my current project.  I am currently part of the Freebootaz year long Motivational Challenge where you are encouraged to complete a squad/war machine/character for 40k for every month.  As of right now I have been able to complete something for every month but March.  For the month of June I have decided to try and get my Khorne Land Raider finished.  I have just started and so far I have the tank primed with my red base coat.  In the next few days I'll post the WIP (work in progress) pictures as I complete the darn thing.  Once its done its back to Ogres as they need some serious attention.  I will also try to get pictures of all of my armies up on the blog.  Enjoy!!!

so much damn red!