The Dragon's Den

[Dragon Lord]

I do have to admit it gave me some false hope on seeing an army of Dragons... But you're forgiven, given the fact that this stuff looks awesome.

Thanks very much. As and when I get around to redoing the other version of my main chaos lord there will be dragons, or at least a fellbeast stolen from the witchking, that version of my chaos lord is my avatar, but sadly it is showing it's age somewhat. It's also sorely in need of some alterations to make it more useable in games.

One tip, either use washes or drybrush a bit more to give your models more depth.They look a little flat, which is especially noticable on the Imperial Guard heads dangling from the banner (which is awesome by the way).

I had been planning to have a go with some devlan mud on the silver parts of that icon, and maybe do a few mithril silver highlights on the gold, but thanks for pointing out the Guard heads. I did do light drybrush of camo green/skull white on them, but I think they were probably the first thing I really tried doing drybrush highlights on and I was a bit frightened of overdoing it, the end result being that you can barely see the highlights at all I'll have a go at them too and maybe do a gryphonne sepia wash too, or maybe even thraka green aswell/instead, not sure if that's actually darker than the camo (I got the wash set the other day so now I can do any colour I want). On the topic of the Guard heads my other problem is the flesh of the heads, I want it to look recently deceased, but at the moment I'm not very happy with it, I used elf flesh and gave it a drybrush with the same camo green/skull white mix I used on the helmets, which did add to the dead look a little but they still looked too flat and plain. I tried a bit of thraka green on them the other day but wasn't hugely happy with it, I think perhaps a bit of gryphonne sepia to darken up the recesses and then some bleached bone/skull white drybrushing. Anyway I'll give it a go and post some pictures up later for suggestions.

THeres just one thing that I'd suggest though, maybe lose the admech shrine thing from the back plate?

Don't worry, I have plans for the shrine on the back. I'm hopefully going to be changing it from an Ad Mech shrine to a somewhat more chaosy Dark Mechanicus shrine.

[Tonberry]

The GS animals are so cute!

[Dragon Lord]

Update time!

I had a go with some devlan mud on the silver parts of the icons on my icon bearers and then gave them a drybrush of chainmail. I also tried doing a wash of gryphonne sepia over the gold adding a few hard edge highlights in mithril silver, I quite liked the effect on the second icon that has more gold so on the guy with the black cloth banner I decided to have a go at going over all of his gold banding in that fashion, not sure how well you can see it in these pictures though. I also gave the Imperial Guard heads an all-over wash of gryphonne sepia, including the faces and then drybrushed the helmets with a mix of catachan green and skull white, I also gave the eagles a little edge highlight in shining gold.

So what do you think? (other than the sizes of those photos being a tad odd...)

Also happened to get some of my Tyranid ships out earlier so thought I'd post a couple of pictures. At some point I really need to come back to them and blend in the various components with a bit more greenstuff.

A couple of gaunt-weapon escorts and a cruiser based on either a deathspitter or a barbed strangler (can't remember which) and a pair of large scything talons.


One of my hiveships with (really!) massive claws and feeder tentacles, and with the help of Plague Claw why I made the claws that size, they can fit any cruiser and all IN battleships.

[Ghaust Mortium]

That disturbs me on a number of levels

[Dragon Lord]

Unfortunately no new pictures in this update and won't be any for a while as I've been borrowing a friends camera to take the pictures (as mine is rubbish and doesn't even have a macro function) and he's currently on holiday, so I only have what pictures I already had at the moment.

Anyway work is continuing on the Stormblade, I think I've got the turret extension to a form I like now so it's just a matter of cutting out and sticking together all the plasticard.

Unfortunately while I quite liked the look of the results on the icon bearers with the gryphonne sepia wash and extra highlighting there was some sort of bizarre reaction between the wash and the burnished gold that meant that any gold that had wash on it became sticky. I didn't notice this until after they'd been put away into the case (as I hadn't held them by a bit with gold on) with the result that they got some bits of detritus stuck to them. I've managed to clean the visible stuff off and have now given them a spray of purity seal to cover it over, which seems to have worked fine, they're perhaps a little bit shinier in some places than before but overall it seems ok (I'd never used purity seal on a model before now), but none the less it was a rather annoying experience. I spoke to one of the guys at my local GW who was equally non-plussed as to what could have happened, I'm going to paint up some sprue with burnished gold and then wash it and see if it happens again, and if so take the sprue and the offending paints down to the store.

Bizarre occurences aside I've also started work on what will be a decorative piece, a couple of pictures of it pre-undercoat below.


I decided a while ago that I wanted to make a ornanament-cum-paper weight type thing for each of my close friends, among other things as something to remember me by when we all go our separate ways after university. What I decided on was a standard bearer, painted in their favourite colour with their initials on the banner on a 60mm decorative base. The above is one of the first three that I've made (the other two are below), it will have turquoise armour and the stonework will be a limestone like colour, at the moment I'm going with grey robes and silver edging as I can't think of anything else that would go with turquoise, if you have any ideas do let me know. Given that this was my first attempt at making banners out of greenstuff I think they went quite well, I did realise afterwards that I would have liked to put a bit of a flick at the bottom of the hanging banners to show them being blown in the wind but I think a little bit of careful bending in some hot water has done a decent job. The pose on the one in the temple is the one I like best so far, it's supposed to look like he was standing there guarding the banner and then heard something off to his left and so pulled up his plasma pistol and turned his head suddenly, I'm still not sure about the auspex on the one standing on the mountain-top though. This will also be my first attempt at slightly larger scale free hand doing the initials and a background on the banners, so hopefully that will go ok.



Comments and criticism welcome as always.

[Jihad_Ragsta]

Okay, comments...

Firstly, leave your Lord's lightning claws as they are if you're dithering- I think they look solid and mean as is. What I might suggest is a little edge highlighting around his eye slits to make the face more prominent, as it is it just looks black (might just be the picture).

Secondly, on highlighting. You talk about drybrushing highlights on over washes, which is great. No problem there. HOWEVER, have you tried just slapping some Devlan on those banners and leaving it at that? In my experience using the washes leaves natural highlighted areas anyway and saves me alot of time. That may not be to your taste tho!

Are you watering down ur washes? I find I get better results undiluted, it's hard to make out the washing on the banner bearers. I still like them!

Love the Nid ships and those claws n tentacles are just bonkers!

Your paper weight project idea is a novel one and I look forward to seeing more of that. I suggest you make the models as robust as possible- no frilly plastic niceties hanging off them and maybe a heavy washer under the base for stability? That's assuming your friend's are unfamiliar with models like this of course!

Hope you forgive my longwinded message, I have PMed you about the Ad Mech bits by way of apology haha!

[Dragon Lord]

That's a good point about the face, I think it is just black at the moment apart from the red eyes obviously, but they're difficult to see, I might try doing a bit of edge highlighting around the eyes.

The silver parts (boltgun metal) I think would be perfectly fine just with the wash and no highlighting afterwards, I really felt the gold needed it though. I didn't water down the washes no, I think it's one of those cases where the camera doesn't do a very good job of showing it, if you look at the gold on the icon of the middle icon bearer, which did get washed and highlighted, and compare it to the gold on his armour, which didn't, I think you might be able to see the difference.

I believe all of my friends have some idea of the delicacy of models like this, but I will be trying to make them fairly robust nonetheless. I'm planning on making, or buying if I can find a reasonably priced source, wooden plinths for them that should add some weight solidity.

Long winded messages are always welcome, it means you're making useful comments

[Dragon Lord]

Been a while since my last update, sorry about that, I've been quite busy with various non-painting and modelling related things.
Anyway I do have a few things to show for my absence.
First up a Word Bearer strike cruiser (devastation class cruiser), the Eternal Jihad, named for Jihad_Ragsta who provided the strike cruiser prow along with some bits that were used on the next ship.


Secondly an Adeptus Mechanicus forgeship, the Omnissiah's Blessing.

The vacant square of plasticard on the sides is waiting for a greenstuff ad. mech. symbol that I will hopefully be producing using a press-mold off a techpriest.

Finally I've made some progress on the ornament/paper-weight.

The stone and robes are done and the armour just needs a highlight, the trim and details haven't been started yet as you can see.

As ever comments and criticism always welcome.

[eltanko]

Interesting ship, the first one, with the book, very different
Second looks good aswell, a bit "blunter" and bulkier.

ElTanko

[Wintermute]

I'm moving this thread to the new Random Project Logs forum.

Wintermute

[Wintermute]

I'm moving this thread to the new General GW & FW Science Fiction Project Logs forum.

Wintermute

[Jihad_Ragsta]

Dang, those scratchbuilds are impressive, mate! I really like what you've done with the strike cruiser and that massiiiiive book on the prow cool!!

That's a LOT of sprue work you've done for the Ad Mech ship there, I am impressed. Now I feel challenged to produce somthing similarly improvised, nice!

Pleased to see an update, now let's have something else haha! Keep up the good work.

[Dragon Lord]

Glad you like the ships eltanko and Jihad, unfortunately the Eternal Jihad has already lost the two antennae behind the cathedral bridge, well it lost one and I couldn't find it so I removed the other one too. I didn't mention it before but I think the cathedral itself is a bit too tall, I think if I do another bridge like this I'll make it a couple of millimetres shorter.
So anyway first update in our new location in General 40k logs, I must say I'm still getting used to the new arrangement of the log forums, it has certainly reduced the jostle to remain on the first page though.
What we have today is the completed ornament/paper-weight project.


By the standards of some of the other work here on Warseer the banner is nothing special but as my first attempt at free hand work like that I think it is isn't too bad.

Comments and critiques welcome as always.

[eltanko]

Nothing wrong with the banner at all. It stands out very nicely, very neatly painted.
All in all, looks very good.

ElTanko

[Dragon Lord]

Thanks very much eltanko.

Now here's another BFG ship, the Inquisition Black ship Noctis Ateri.


Hope you like it. If I ever do something else I want to put an Inquisition symbol on I think I shall have to find a better way of doing it as while it has turned out ok that symbol was one of the most fiddly things I've ever done, the cross bars on the I are made out of 0.5mm plasticard and are only 1mm x 1-1.5mm square!

[Jihad_Ragsta]

Well, you did a good job of that symbol is all I can say! Very nice job on the Inq. ship, those are cool wings too

Nice work on your ornament, Dragon Lord, I really like that banner you've done! It's actually my initials, we must be sharing a worrying psychic link.

I think that work like this bodes very well for the future, you have some good plastic skills with the conversions on those BFG and your freehand work on the banner was very good too.

[Dragon Lord]

Thanks for the compliments Jihad, that is a funny coincidence with the initials, the friend that one is for also has the initials PB.

So it's been a little while since I last did an update but I have got back to doing some work on the Stormblade. As you can see the turret extension is now made up in plasticard and the pulpit now has a lectern complete with book of unholy scripture, I've also started riveting as you may be able to see on the sponson section by the pulpit.


I've also done some work on the shrine on the back to chaosify it a bit, I've given the skull a horn that is bursting through the top of the shrine, the cog and horned skull, possibly overlain over a chaos star is what I'm thinking of using as a Dark Mechanicus symbol.


Next we have the Dark Apostle whose ride this stormblade is to be, at the moment he's just held together with blu-tac to test poses.


And here he is in the pulpit on the stormblade, I'm thinking of cutting the gun off his right hand and magnetising it so that I can have him thumping his fist on the lectern when he's in the stormblade.


Finally, here's a ray I made with some left over green stuff.

[Pelenor]

Great stuff, love your designs, on a side note i think the chaos lord looks fine without the grass, nice contrast

[BeatTheBeat]

Great log, with loads of variation! You should go ahead and post all your scratchbuilt BFG stuff in the "In space..." thread, it'd generate quite an interest I think

Cheers,

BTB

[Jihad_Ragsta]

Nice work on the tank, if anything I'd say add more Chaosification! That pulpit is ace.

I think that hanging a few skeletons over the exhausts might look kinda cool and evil... Maybe the charred remnants of victims strapped the boiling hot metal in earlier times... Okay I need my medication right now.