Just another painting Blog. Nothing to see here.

[bert n ernie]

Yeah. I'm doing one too.
I have, like many others here, sporadic times when I paint, and long stretches without.
I just want to get everything done, and I'm hoping this will motivate me.
I don't hold much hope.

OK, tourney is over, so now for a brand new technicolour update system so I know where I am with all this.
Here is the key:
Red needs building. Yellow needs painting. Green needs basing/touching up/finishing. White is done.

Skaven:
Lords and Heroes:
Friend's grey seer on bell
My Seer on Bell(the seer is not painted, the bell & ringer are complete)
Warlock 1
Warlock 2
Plague Priest
Warlord
BSB
Throt the Unclean/Master Moulder
2 Assasains

Core:
25 Spear rats
25 Clan rats
25 Bell Clan rats
15 Slaves. 4 slave masters
15 Slaves. 4 slave masters
15 Slaves. 4 slave masters
6 slavers/slaves to complete each slave unit
4 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
4 Poisoned Wind Globadiers
2 Giant rat Packs
2 Giant rat Packs
4 Giant rat pack masters

Special:
20 Plague Monks
5 Gutter Runner Tunneling Team
5 Gutter Runner Tunneling Team
5 Gutter Runner Tunneling Team-rebuild
5 Gutter Runner Tunneling Team-rebuild
8 Jezzails need re-doing
1 Mutated Rat Ogre
3 Mutated Rat Ogres and 4 packmasters

Rare:
5 Plague Censer Bearers
Warp Lightening Cannon MIA. This thing has gone missing for over two years now!
Giant

Total points:
Finished: 1275
Needs basing/Touch up: 300
Needs painting: 535
Needs building: 1562

Space Wolves:
HQ:
Librarian
Wolf Lord/Battle Leader

Elites:
6 Wolf Guard
5 Wolf Scouts
5 Marine Scouts
Venerable Dread?

Troops:
10 Grey Hunters
Rhino
10 Blood Claws

Fast Attack:
3 Blood Claws on Bikes

Heavy Support:
5 Long Fangs

Imperial Guard/Cult:
More men than I have Skaven!
Plus tanks and Sentinels


My problem is of course I want my army, as per usual, to look individual and good. At the moment I'd settle for mostly painted. I will be painting a friends bell, then when I'm finished the rest of the army I'm going to convert my own.
I also have a warp lightening cannon in the works.

After this army I have plenty more as I have a space wolf army and lots of LATD and guard to do. And a blood bowl team. And terrain. And some other projects, including a backdrop for a terrain board.

Pics thus far:
(Guard are away somewhere)

[bert n ernie]

Well I thought I'd update with a few pictures of how far I have gotten with my Skaven generally and what I am working on now.
Unfortunately the idea of sticking to one thing and working my way through it is not working. Need... to... stick...to one... thing!
My powers are weak.
Plague monk unit I've worked on over a long time:

My two rat packs I finished last week.(I'm honestly not normally this productive)


Side view. Because the front doesn't really represent:

Not that that represented either. Skaven are tough to photograph.
I'll have to double post due to ammount of pics...

[bert n ernie]

Warlock. I e-bayed this guy. I did a little but kudos mostly go to some guy who I will never know:


This is what I'm working on right now. I have almost completely stripped the paint. It was a very tough job. This stuff was plastered on.


And this is what I'm SUPPOSED to eb working on:


This unit has each rank stuck together bar the last rank. This way I don't get thrown out of tournaments when I deploy. I have had someone almost walk off in disguist when I played guard once. I don't want that to happen in the tournament I'm goign to next weekend:

[Rogue 7]

Lookin' Good! I don't think you can properly call those Giant Rats "done" until the slavers/whatever are done, but looking good all the same.

[Hideous Loon]

Your Skaven look really solid, B&E. Good call using plasticard to stick rat bases together. Why people would throw you out of tournies just because you deploy individually seems incomprehensible to me though, why cannot they accept you having a high model count?

[infernus31]

Its not neccesarily that he'll getkicked out by time limits we have mean all too often poor B&E doesnt get as long a game as we do because of the sheer size of his army.


So far looking good, cant wait to see the bell all painted and such.

[mrtn]

Ah, yes, skaven. Good-good!

[bert n ernie]

@ Rogue 7 Yes you're right there. I am waiting to paint all of my 'leader' models together. This will include the pack masters and one model from each slave unit. I want them to be as cohesive as possible, so I want to paint them together. I am hoping that I can get across a frankenstein theme, and each of them will look a bit like a lab rat(technician).
Hideous Loon, don't worry man. It was in my old gaming group that someone didn't want to play.
New group now!
I find that when I play in tournaments its always a bit of a slog and my games always finish last. I won't be kicked by time limits, but I need the full game as my army does better up close(what with shooting into combat and all)

OK, Gonna go with what you asked for infernus. I didn't do my unit today. I did some bell work:

I totally forgot to paint the center support, so I slapped some paint on just for the pic. I don't think I'll keep it like that.
I am not used to using wash for wood effects, but I'm pretty happy with that. I used the same wash for the little bells. I would complain about how bad the photos are, and how they don't do the models justice, but that's a lie.
A photo is a photo.
If they look bad then they probably are, so do tell me.
Here is the bell.

I'm going for something different, but am not sure how to finish it. suggestions?

[bert n ernie]

Another day, another update.
Well I'm not too impressed with what I've done today. I really needed to do more, and I'm not entirely happy with the bell itself. Otherwise this looks alright.
I have glued it all together, except the Grey Seer(who needs to be able to come off).
I think I've finished the bell, so will update on thursday with(hopefully) a finished Seer and Spear rat unit.
Is there any way to improve this?:

[sheep]

Looking good, a finished skaven army is a rare thing indeed due to the amount of models required, keep it up and you'll join a very exclusive club

Cheers

Sheep

[infernus31]

Il ike the look of the bell myself actually, I am lking in particular all the warpstone coloured tubes running into the bell and make it feel more 'crazy' then normal. I might not be the most experienced and dteailed critic but I likes what I see

[bert n ernie]

Ha ha, that's too true sheep. I'm having trouble already. I am goign to a tournament on the weekend and was hoping to have a good deal of the army finished, but its not happening.
I can't believe how many pages this thing went down after leavign it for one night. I was on the 5th page or something. Not that I mind, but doesn't it say:
"The perfect forum to keep track of projects away from the main forum. This means your long running project won't get lost within days."
Opsey.
On to the Update:
I'm going to have to re-work the plague bearers, and possibly the edges of the shields of the spear rat unit, as they are just a bit too golden/bronze.

I'll be able to spend more time on each model when this tourney is over. Then I won't make silly mistakes like what i did with the plague censers:



And the big guy(who I can use as either part of this unit, or seperately):


I've only done two layers on most areas so far, but am a little wary of finishing each part. I'm just not sure the grey cloaks(one layer so far) has come off correctly, so might change it before its too late. Possibly the same shade, but slightly browner?
I really don't want to have the typical green plague monk colours though.
Plus this is kind of a test scheme for my upcoming LATD/Guard/whatever army.

Finally the spear rats. They aren't based yet, so will have to do that, and possibly some other stuff after the tourney:


If anyoen has any suggestions on how to improve them I'd be more than happy to know.

[infernus31]

I'd personally get the banner painted and then see how the union looks as a whole

I like the plague censors, though, as you say a little browner would be better (is browner a word, i dunno)


Also B&E if I were to get one more thing painted before the tournament - get those heroes painted ! The Bell looks great but it needs the Grey Seer painted (the tournament being tommorow for those who don't know)

[bert n ernie]

Infernus, do you mean the banner on that spear unit?
I'm hoping to have time to do taht just before the tourney begins when other people are sorting out who plays who.
That is my banner time.
I partially agree with you about the heroes beign done first infernus, btu I have small units of poisoned wind globadiers which i find work very well, and since I own no models I'd rather have them converted up then a painte army, as otherwise I can not take them.
So today I hope to post the conversions.
There are three painting categories in the tournament.
Single unit.
Single character.
Army.
Obviously I can't go for army at this stage. What do people suggest I go for if I get time to finish anything?
I'll blitz a unit/character off as fast as I can while keeping it good(maybe using something I've already done and improving it).
If I get this and the globadiers done I'll be very happy. Winning not being important here, just a good show of it.

EDIT:
Yes! Post thirteen!

[bert n ernie]

I hope no-one minds, but I'm goign to have to double post to update.

But before I update: Three cheers for the warseer mods, who sorted all the project logs so quickly!
Hip hip - Horray!
Hip hip - Horray!
Hip hip - Horray!

Anyway, I have done most of the converting on the globadiers.
As I think I've mentioned this is a Skaven force based on experiments carried out by Dr. Franken-rat. Since this is frankenstein themed my globadiers are lightening conductors. It was tough finding everythign I needed, and sculpting 16 rubber shoes for them is far more tedious than i thought. All the same, here they are sans backpacks. The guns are conveted kroot rifles, and I may have to green stuff the arms.
Each back pack when its put on will have an antenna and two wires leading to the guns. The guns may have little wires sticking out at a later date, but I'm hitting deadline right now:



Any painting suggestions?
I am using parts from the cadian backpacks, the sentinel flamers, a witch hunter tank stormbolter(I think) and some Tau junk for the backpacks.
So, hopefully those will be up later tonight.

[polymphus]

I can't rate threads for some reason, but if I could I wouldn't give this a mere three stars! Some fantasic painting here, the giant rats especially.

[bert n ernie]

Thansk very much poly m, I really appreciate that.
I have to be honest, I think the giant rats are my favourite of what I've done so far. The old metal sculpts are the best for highlightign fur than any other skaven models I have.
Well, I've managed another update before going to the tourney(it starts in about 4 hours.
4 globadiers with backpacks(too tired to do the others). Not dinished obviously:



I quite like these. They are so simple to do. Get four cadian flamer back packs and four vox back packs. Cut em up a bit. Attach em together. Put one antenna from each on the flamers, bit of green stuff on the arms(cos I stupidly left kroot arms on) and bob's your uncle, its done!
My green stuffing skills aren't exactly what I wanted, but the backpacks mean people shouldn't notice too much.

And the warp lightenign cannon I'm working on. This guy has been on and off for a while now. I'm puttign him in the army, as its the easiest thing to get over 3 colours for the ammount of points.
I had hoped to finish it tonight, but alas, no painting competition for me



I will be more systematic with these smatterings of different units once the tourney is over.

[infernus31]

heh still it looks awesome B&E look forwards to seeing these 'in the flesh' as it were in a few hours time.

did you manage to get the grey seer and heroes done at all?

[spikedog]

Wow that Warp Lightning Cannon is crazy, should look great when you are done with it, what more work do you have left to do on it?

The rest of your Skaven are great too, I especially like the painting work you have done on the Giant Rats. I look forward to seeing more.

[bert n ernie]

Howdy people!

I've just gotten back from the tourney, and I'm totally knackered, but in pretty high spirits!
First off, Infernus, as you saw from the tourney I only got one character finished. It was the plague priest guy(I used a conversion for my 5th plague censer, so that I could take a priest) I finished that model in the 10 minutes spare between my final game and teh painting competition(peoplel were nice, and let me off)

Spikedog. Hmm, yes it is a bit mad. It isn't finished though. His name is popeye.
I'm going to convert the eye so that it is the cannon's eye attached by retina stalks to the gun sight. Which will probably be an oversized eye.
The stumped arm will probably get somethign on the end, even if its just a tentacle, or slime trailing down.
Then I also need one rear leg.
And a tail.
The tail will probably be picking up one of the pushers, and the other pusher will just be on normally.
I had wanted to keep the warlock for another conversion, but I'll probably have to leave him on. I dunno.

OK, right. Now, onto other stuff.
The tourney was really great for me. The dice gods were with me today, and I got some prizes! Also the painting gods were with me.
I'm a little in shock as to how well I did.
This is all the stuff I won:

Yeah. OMG.
Anyway, in painting I re-did the bases on two of my plague monks and put them with a unit of giant rats for the unit painting entry. There was a Lizardmen Sarus unit, which looked pretty good(infernus31's). An anvil unit, which was very good, but I think not many people voted for it cos of how badly it beat them in the games. And my personal favourite was a lime green skink unit. Really good colouration, but lost out due to unfinished bases I believe. No one else entered.
Then there was single minis. An empire musicial, a warlock, my plague priest and a sarus.
Plague priest:

I was fortunate enough to win both, but I think if more people had fully painted armies, and not have had to rush for the tourney I would not have done as well.
Bloody long post, no update. Hmm...
I'll update soon. I intend on finishing the seer on bell first now that the tourney is over. I'll hand it back to my friend then start on MY skaven.
Please keep me motivated or I'll forget!