Blz Bob's build pile reduction

[BLZBOB]

@ Wayfarer They are built up from several sources, the module it sits on is made from hexagon builder sets with car repair mesh added for a walkway. The gun is from a gundam kit and then greeblified with many things from my bits box such as chain feed, braided cable and solder to name but a few, they are quick to build with both being done of an evening and only the solder cable being tricky to glue in place.

@Voronwe[MQ]

Yup its a few piranhas and those units bring my gun drone totals up to 30 (I have lots of drones) whats more is I have 3 TX42s in the build pile which should be primed on Friday with some luck.

@ Jasevx

Thanks, I just felt the scouts were far too cartoony and wanted to hark back a little to 2nd edition with the searges mohawk. Plus I can sculpt hair with a little bit of sucess the rest of my green-fu is sadly lacking.

[jasevx]

Now what you mean, I'm converting second edition scouts for my Cadian, they are alot more lifelike.

[SgtKnivek182nd]

WOW

That is all i can say. That is a lot of great minatures you have there BLZBOB, The individual hair do on the scouts and the poses really set them apart. The vets and the Termi`s are looking good. I can`t wait to see some paint on these i`m sure they`ll be as good as the Tau you`ve finished

Sgt Knivek

[BLZBOB]

I have decided that I must hate myself as I have started assembling two landspeeders, urghh. The one I have already painted went together fine with no real gaps but this one...

Lets just say I may need to order some more green stuff and this is after clamping it all over. I now take back anything I may have said regarding other peoples speeder builds and how mine just fell together. They are in fact forged in hell from demonic plastic and forever cursed not to fir right. And to irritate you all further I am fitting one with the assault cannon the second is a toss up between a multi melta/heavy flamer or a typhoon, I have the pasrts for both but am not sure about building up the Typhoon. I dont exactly game (how would I find the time) but am concerned about fit problems into the equipment bay. Of course I can always improve the speeder.

Have some time off on Friday so with the missus out at work its prime time. Then all I need to do is get out of my non painting funk I have been in for the past week and a bit.

[BLZBOB]

Well its clear I hate mself or my bank balance anyway as I have just forked out on a ravenwing battleforce 2 boxes of devestators and an attack bike plus sundries. Now I won't be using the dark angel components as I am using it solely to bolster my 8th Company Ultras but I clearly am not aware of how much I had to paint including that nid battleforce that has been primed and waiting for 18 months.

*slaps own forehead*

Ah well the new sculpts look cool enough and to be honest in this business thats most of what matters I dont think may if us on here are that sane.

[BLZBOB]

Well the postie was good to me this week, earlier on I got two boxes of devies which have already been divvied up into compartments ready for use and this morning I answered the buzzer to a box containing these



As stated not for a dark angel force but to expand my 8th company forces, during the week I have been working on a couple bikes, they are done save for squad markings and the riders are coming on well enough



And the seargents ride



And something a touch different, I thought to myself its all well having these tau forces but how exactly do they get to any hot zones? Well here is how



They didnt turn out quite how I anticipated them and are a little shiny I dont however have any dull coat to hand to dull them down any so they have to do, of course I dont actually play BFG but then I can count the number of 40k games I have played in the past decade and a half on one hand and still have a finger or two spare.

[BLZBOB]

Next up we have a few pieces which I hadnt gotten around to photographing properly, due to the large number of tanks I have it seemed only appropriate to have a couple of techs on call and here are the first two:




I have yet to assemble let alone paint the direct services special or any of the 8 servitors but I am sure they will get seen to in due course. Next a couple shot of those units everybody loves to hate thats right spam bringers, erm sorry I mean assault cannon toting terminators note how I boldly fly in the face of accepted practice and freely mix NMM and real metallics, seriously I don't know why I do it, its just that the grey is a dull grey metal as opposed to 'shiny' I think it comes out okay on the ammo hoppers but I will let you the viewer judge I imagine most will find it contrasts with the gun barrels but hey ho.




Today I spent most of the afternoon fumigating the wife to be through my prodigious use of spray primer nearly two cans later I have primed a full ten strong squad of veteran marines, ten sniper scouts, 5 regulars and 10 terminators, oh and 3 tau TX42's. If all goes according to plan I should be able to fire up the airbrush and basecoat something next weekend what that willbe I have no idea as I still have a lot of guard and marine tanks awaiting paint and came across a thick wad of primed tanks sprues earlier posing as a reminder that they are still needing fnishing instead of languishing in my to-paint pile. Ah well nothings perfect back to the grind.

[SgtKnivek182nd]

the bikes and the termies look great BLZBOB
very clean and crisp i like your painting style i can`t wait to see more keep up the good work

Sgt Knivek

[Huw_Dawson]

BLZBOB, if you and Deadlyhead joined forces, you could keep GW afloat for years alone. Good luck! And teach your family to play so you can play more games!

- Huw

[Steel_Legion]

those terminators are looking great, the highlights on the armour is great, care to share the recipe?

[BLZBOB]

those terminators are looking great, the highlights on the armour is great, care to share the recipe?

Certainly but once I have done so you will realise why it takes me so freaking long to paint them up!

First off prime them, black then base coat them UM blue, this generally takes four coats although sometimes only three to get a good even coverage.

Highlighting the blue I furst start off with a broad swath of 4:1 (Umblue:Skull White) followed by a thinner line of 3:1 next up is a thinner line of 1:6 followed by a very thin streak of spacewolf grey, if you feel like it you can then add a touch of pure skull white. As each highlight is added it covers less and less space not just in thickness but also in length so that by the time you get to the brightest they are almost points instead of lines.

Blacks are a thin layer of chaos back highlighted with 50:50 (codes grey:Chaos black) then codex grey followed by fortress grey followed by a lighter shade if required.

Whites start out as shadow grey and highlight up through codex/fortress/spacewolf grey and finally white.

Bones and parchemnts are generally just adhoc from a dark brown up to bleached bone sometimes with a flesh wash sometimes without it often depends on a whim those last two assault cannon termies are wash free but have a shed load of layers on the crux terminatis to get that colour depth.

Metals are boltgun highlighted with chainmail and then mithril silver the burned effect is achieved by almost drybrushing on tinbitz followed by bestial brown then scorched brown and finally black so that you get a graduated effect from metallic to flat black.

Gold are started from a base of black onto which is painted tin bitx then dwarf brone and shining gold thenbrown ink followed by a rehighlight with shining gold and touches of mithril silver.

That pretty much covers it, lenses are simply done as gems depending on hue they are layers of red or green or blue with some ink and gloss varnish to give depth.

[BLZBOB]

After some time in deep thought over the past few days reluctantly came to a difficult decision...








It was time to strip my old landspeeder, I have long since lost my rogue trader and by lost I mean my brother aquired it from me through various trades but I did have a reasonably well painted second ed speeder which I bought when they first came out. Unfortunately for it this was back before I had my damn brainwave about doing the chapter and is painted up in 2nd Co colours whereas it should be in 8th Co as all bikes and speeders now fall under this company (at least as far as I am concerned they do ). With a tear of nostalgia in my eye I insert a screwdriver and start popping all of the joins then attacking them with a no11 scalpel to clean the glue off. Next up the pieces were dumped into a lager glass and some acetone added, well truth be told peach scented nail polish remover, I asked the missus innocently if she had any going begging and when she said yes it was squirted into the glass quicker than you can say "Oi"

Last night I took the parts out and after some liberal toothbrush application the old paintjob which if I recall correctly took some two weeks to complete back in the day is consigned to the ether or acetone rather as ether evaporates too quickly to be a good stripper

Negotitations are now underway to secure a second ravenwing battleforce to give me two full speeder squadrons and a fair chunk of bikes. I dont have any use for ravenwing parts I will need to dispose of them so if any readers want some bits make me an offer.

[BLZBOB]

Okay I am officially insane after some negotiations with the missus I have acquired another ravenwing battleforce which certainly bolsters my 8th company forces, only trouble is this leaves me with 6 speeders and nearly 20 bikes to paint

More pics at the weekend.

[BLZBOB]

Well a couple days late but hey I just started a new job this week so cut me some slack. The postie was kind to me this weekend and delivered unto me a commander box set and another ravenwing box set I am purposely not working out how many speeders and bikes that leaves me to paint as it will just depress me with the speeders wonderful fit to consdider urgh.

First off the beginnings of my sixth company forces the three current members of 6/1 squad the guy on the left is actually a couple years old and is currently being tweaked to fit in better.



Now a couple of the seargent still trying to get the hang of faces especially that stubble its not quite right yet but its not too shameful

[BLZBOB]

Now a couple of the outrider, battle damage and weathering is to be added, probably at a much later date or ever knowing me and my penchant for factory fresh crispness.





Now to figure out what to next no airbrushing till at least the weekend so may have to do sme more assembling of bikes or work on my vets/termies/scouts.

[schoolcormorant]

wow those are excellent man!
i love the highlighting, a bit different but definetely suitable

good work
SC

[Angel Robertson]

They are looking really really good! VEry crisp and clean. So are you aiming to get the entire ultra chapter?!

AR

[jasevx]

Amazing work making Smurfs look cool!

[BLZBOB]

They are looking really really good! VEry crisp and clean. So are you aiming to get the entire ultra chapter?!

AR

Certainly am, although it will doubtless take time, I currently have a completed (99%) 2nd Battle company and am actively expandinf the 1st, 3rd, 8th and 10th for now

[BLZBOB]

Life as always intervenes but I have manged to get somethings done although sadly most of it is geared towards increasing the build pile rather than reducing it. Still I do have a few piccies of whats been going on recently

Firstly some scuts, I wasnt exactly keen on them the heads in particular werent my cup of tea some exacto jaw reduction surgery and greenstuff hair mods later though and they came out okish. The faces on these pee'd me off I just could not get them to come out right next time I will try sme different mixes the eyes in particular seemed almost impossible to do which was made more frustrating by the fact that my bike squad seargent was such an ease to paint. Still here is the picture a bit different from my usual scouts my beige trousers for these boys.



I was happy enough with the general result of these that I ended up buying another three boxes in order to fill out a bolter and shotgun squad.

The 8th company now has its first full squad complete a bike unit with vet seargent toting a plasma pistol and two flamers for the squad.



And the core troops for a min sized squad (really just an excuse to show the wheelie)



More pics soon including a rather daunting one showing how much I have to work on for the 8th.