Gutplates and Hive Minds

[Azendral]

I seriously have issues with continuity, didn't do anything on the Mournfang today. Saw a trailer for Assassins Creed III so I opened the Assassins Creed: Revelations I hadn't started on again, noooo I'm not suggestible at all...

Well I actually got something done today anyway, finished the Forest markers, now I just need to get a ghost for the abyssal wood. Or maybe I'll just build a really angry horror-tree...



I've colour coded the bases, stegadon scale green for the mushroom forest as it reminds me of trolls and trolls are stupid, green of course for the venom thicket, red for the blood forest and black for the wild woods. I chose black as it's the worst result you can get and apparently black means violence according to a colour meaning-chart I googled. I might have gone a bit overboard on the colouring of the mushrooms but they're supposed to get you stupid so I went for far-out, Alice in Wonderland with goblins on top shrooms.

Didn't notice the Wildwood marker was facing away until afterwards, excuse the bad focus, should have gone with a higher depth of field.



I've also been starting on another of the Maneaters, haven't gotten that far yet, it's slow work having to wait for the green stuff to set. It doesn't show because I've covered it in green stuff already but the legs have been sawed apart at the knees, the ankles and on one of the legs the hip.



And apparently I suck with the camera today, think it's time for bed. It's tiring to assassinate people and run across rooftops.

[Azendral]

Even though I've already got 4 original GW Mournfang Cavalry I'm now thinking of making a more unique unit but that requires more similar sized animals. Got a few in mind but what I lack is a really big horse, any one know of a miniature, of any brand that's more or less ogre sized? I'm not scared of having to do a lot of modding if there's a large enough pegasus or unicorn or daemon steed, I'll have to make barding for it anyway.

[SkawtheFalconer]

Superb Waywatcher - brilliant idea.

[Azendral]

Thanks! I'm really happy with how he turned out.

Regarding your signature, if the Wood Elves got a new Army book in mid 2013 I would be a happy camper indeed. Don't know if I dare believe it but it would be nice.

[Azendral]

I wanted to try out a Gorger before our Warbands event ended, I didn't however want to buy the actual Gorger mini from GW. I mean, I like all the new Ogre minis, the Ironblaster(WIP), the Thundertusk(WIP) and the Mournfang cavalry(WIP), but all the old models look like... well not nice... So I got a Dark Eldar Clawed Fiend instead, skipped using the tail and sculpted some fur over where the tail would have fitted. It might look a bit alien with the multiple set of eyes but I really wanted a way to use the mini.



This mini was a joy to paint, actually finished it, assembly, spray and paint in a single evening. Fur is awesome!

[Discover&See]

the stealers are looking pretty awesome some good ideas there. the Carnosaur looks awesome but the saddle looks abit out of place i would suggest
cutting down abit cause with the ogre on it looks abit unnatural that would be my only critic other than that looks amazing keep it up look forward
to seeing more of your works

Regards
D&S

[Azendral]

Thanks for the suggestion, I did think he was a bit high over the Carnosaur myself but wasn't sure if it would be worth fixing as I'd already done some work on the saddle which I would have to redo if I cut it down. I think you're right though, and I wasn't that happy with the saddlestraps or the rings they attach to either so I'm going to give lowering the saddle a shot.

[biginbelgium]

Good solid paint job, keep up the good work!

cheers
Tim

[Azendral]

Thanks Tim, always nice with some positive reinforcement!

Over the next couple of days or possible weeks I'll switch focus to 40k as both my gaming groups are preparing for the release of 6th edition(I probably wont be able to resist building on the Carnosaur or the Maneaters anyway...). One of the groups I'll play a variant of kill-team with, a home built escalation league of sorts starting at 250 pts with requirements of only painted models on the board. The other group will play larger battles but with no painting requirements although we've spoken about meeting to just paint, and possibly drink beer.

So, to prepare for both of these I've been assembling some kits I had laying about and yesterday I sprayed most of them. I thought it was a great idea to bring all of them to the club for today's painting session...



I spray all my Tyranids beige/bone, so far I've been using Montana Gold's Sahara Beige but I ran out of it yesterday and will probably see if Army painter has a bone colored spray I can try. Not that the Montana Gold sprays are bad, I've got several of them but theyr'e not available locally and just the postage will be too much if I order just one can.

Anyway, the next step is applying a home made wash, which basically is bleached bone, Vallejo Model Color Green Ochre, Bestial Brown or Vallejo Model Color Flat Earth and some dish washing detergent although I've been trying out Glaze Medium lately instead of the detergent. I focused on the Hormagaunts now as I need them painted for the first step of the escalation kill-team league. I also applied the base colour for the carapace which is Necron Abyss, also did this for the gargoyles and the body of the tervigon.



Unfortunately I didn't take anymore pictures until I was done with 5 of the Hormagaunts but most of it is pretty basic stuff, speed was more important than getting a perfect result with these. What I've done is apply a feathering of Hawk Turqoise on the carapace followed by individual streaks of hawk turqoise/skull white. The claws, hoofs and talons are abaddon black with a highly thinned out mechrite red followed by a quick lining with undiluted mechrite red. The visible joints and the openings in the arm and leg chitin is Vallejo Model Color Rose Brown with a point wash of Baal Red. I finished them off with a quick brush of Tyrant Skull. I can really recommend the new Citadel Dry brush colours, they are really easy to use I give great results.



As I said, nothing fancy but enough that I don't feel ashamed fielding them. I'm not so sure they are all that fast to paint though but I'm not that much of a speed painter either so I'm sure they could be made faster.
Apparently I've misplaced my static grass but I'll add some patches of that when I find it.

Tomorrow it's five more Hormagaunts and I'll probaly won't be able to keep away from the Tervigon even though I probably need the gargoyles before. Will upload some pictures of those when I've got some more progress.

[EmperorNorton]

Good work, I hope you can keep up the pace.

[Azendral]

@EmperorNorton: Thanks! I hope so too.

Well, didn't get that much time for painting today, roughly two hours but I finished off 5 more Hormagaunts bringing the total up to 10.



With the ones I had since earlier I've now got enough painted for the escalation league. Now it's time for the Tervigon for my other gaming group. While it doesn't need to be painted for that one I always paint my Monstrous Creatures in parts and so I have to paint it before I assemble it. Still haven't found the static grass...

[Azendral]

So I've been mostly working on the Tervigon now and have reached a stage where I'm not entirely certain what to do.



I'm happy with the belly sac but I decided to paint this ones carapace a bit differently from the Trygon and this is where I've hit a snag. I decided to make a real try for blending and I've started that on two of the nozzle-chimney things on the back of the carapace but wasn't sure what to think of the result so I switched the order of the colours on the other side and now I don't know which one I want to use... I really need some input and feedback on this.



The one on the right is the one I did first and I thought it looked a bit "rainbowy" so I did the other side where I switched the order of the dark blue and the turqoise which eliminated the greenish hue. The problem now is that the rainbowy side has grown on me a bit and I dont really know which one is best.

[azhagmorglum]

2nd one is the best (and the right order of colours too I think).

[Azendral]

Thanks Azhagmorglum for the feedback, I've had some mixed opinions asking friends what they think but in the end I went with the one you chose(I think, the one on the right). Haven't really done much on the Tervigon the last couple of days while considering the scheme but it's coming along and hopefully I'll have something to show soon.

I haven't been able to not do hobby stuff anyway so I've been assembling Termagaunts and made a Ripper Swarm that I've been thinking about for a while.



I also went to Ikea last saturday and bought some much needed shelves for myhobby stuff, found one with available slide-out addons. Really happy with it.



At the moment I only got slide out shelves for my Tyranids and my Ogres. The Wood Elves and the other random stuff I have will have to wait until I've got space for more of these. Maybe when we move to a bigger apartment.

[Azendral]

I've been really lazy over the last six months and haven't really finished much of anything, thereof the absence of posts. Well at long last I've finished some things I thought was worth sharing.

First out I finally managed to get ahold of a set of miniatures that will work as Yhetees, Titan Forge Big Bad Wolves. They're a part of their undead orc range and in this case it's three Were-orcs of which I've finished a prototype. I removed the tail from the original miniature and made my own base since it comes with a graveyard scenic base. It's also my first try on snow basing, woodland scenics soft flake snow mixed with resin.



Not sure about the snow though, I mixed several types and made some sample bases before making this one and settled on the resin-mix but in retrospect I wonder if it looks too melted. Might add a thin layer of whiter snow on some areas.

I've also started dabbling with 3D-sculpting and realized that I'm much better at that than sculpting by hand. I'm using Sculptris which is a free software and is basically like using a virtual ball of clay with a set of simple but effective tools. I'm nowhere near professional level but I'm rather happy with my progress so far. I'm then using Shapeways to 3D-print my models.



The material used is called Frosted Ultra Detail and even though it's somewhat more expensive than the other available materials I strongly recommend this one for miniatures of this scale.
I've scaled the miniature so it's more or less the same size as a Maneater Ogre which was the plan. Unfortunately I forgot that Ogres has less human adult proportions and more of a giant baby proportion so the head is way too small and he isn't really fat enough. But that will be fixed in the next revision, as soon as I finish the model I started on while waiting on delivery of this one...

[Disposable Hero]

Amazing!

Looks really cool.

[Azendral]

A Work in progress picture of the 3D-sculpted and printed guy:



As he is heavily inspired by a set of armour from a video game I played A LOT a couple of years ago I'm more or less following the same colour scheme as in the game.

[tau_caste]

wow love the lizardman ogre. gives me inspiration to do something similar. the wood elf one looks great too.. i just wish i could sculpt haha
love the blue carapace on the trygon too!

also quick question, how do you find the avatars of war ogre fits into ranks with other ogres.. it looks like the weapons would hit other models. ive been thinking about grabbing it but was worried about that.

[Azendral]

Thanks for the encouraging feedback!

Yeah, I really should try and get around to finishing that Lizardman Ogre one of these days...

The answer to that question is that he doesn't fit at all which is why I've made him stand on top of a small cliff leaning somewhat forward. That way he still has his weapons more or less in the face of the Ironguts I usually run him with but he fits, barely. I should mention here that I magnetize all my bases and use steel sheet as movement trays, without that there would be a clear risk of him toppling forward when moved. On the plus side it kind of looks like he is on his way off the cliff straight into whichever enemy is in front of him.

[Azendral]

Bought Zombicide a while ago and decided I would paint all of the miniatures in the box, horrible decision since I already have an infinite amount of Tyranids to paint, loads of Ogre stuff, bought the latest 40k starting box when that was released and the Dark Angels Codex last week and the Kickstarter-Dreadballset arrived just before Christmas and I'll still get several more teams for that during this year. I have a serious addiction...

Anyway, I test painted one each of the normal zombies, tried out some different skintones on them. Since there are like 80 of them focus is more on speed than on detailwork.