Saturday, December 31, 2011

All your base are...

...not done yet. But that has a logical explanation (no, not laziness): I need to spray it with some purity seal matt varnish before gluing on the grassy patches. Other than that, I think I'm done. I could fiddle around a bit with the details and I can't say the lettering on the parchments are my finest work, but it's good enough™. And knowing when you are at good enough is a very important lesson to learn if a busy dad is ever going to get that army painted.
Finecasts are really fun to paint, but going back to regular resin models will be nice and easy. It will probably be a while until I do another finecast. That Librarian in terminator armor looks tempting though...
Next up: finishing my Rhino. Also, building some kind of lightbox for taking pictures of minis! A trip to IKEA is long overdue; baby stair protection gate thingy and better lighting for my hobby.

Cheers,
P Daddy

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Painting together

Strangely christmas did not equal lots of free time for painting or playing 40k. But now things are starting to look better, and I invited two other friends who play for a spot of evening painting. Having the rival Tyranid and Eldar armies at the same table kind of spurs my competitive vein.

Some progress was made on the Chaplain, as seen below. I added some reds and washed the gold, metal and parchment areas. The face also got some more definition. I really hope the next step is edge highlights, but now I am starting to regret that I didn't just drybrush the black areas with some grey as a first step.

I also got a lot done on my first tactical squad. There is one more waiting in my case, just sprayed with Chaos Black, but I want to get this one done before starting on the other one. It is kind of a study on how fast I can manage to paint with quality. The squad still needs washing, highlighting and details noone will ever notice.
And no, basing is not a priority in my house. ;-)

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Finecast finery

My very first finecast miniature is a Space Marine Chaplain, and I must say I am as impressed with the level of detail on these models as I am disappointed in the quality of the casting. It really looks stunning, but there are a LOT of casting artifacts and the bottom part was almost impossible to fit in the base. I emailed GW and they were very nice - apparently you can get a replacement by sending your bad miniature in to them.

After some serious scalpel action and superglue love I decided to keep it and start painting. The picture below shows my current progress. I use Chaos Black primer, and after that I basecoat with mixes of watered down foundation paints. Areas to be gold are basecoated with Graveyard Earth.



The next step is to add two coats of gold and then clean up the black areas to prepare for some grey edge highlighting. Then I will start layering the cloth/parchment stuff and purity seals. Fun stuff, but I really really need a working lamp and that Paint Station Plus I ordered to be able to work comfortably in the sofa next to the Mrs. Expect a review of that as well!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Basics

Basecoating a tactical squad and carving out terrain props from pink styrofoam. That poor squad looks so boring and flat right now, but soon some of them will stand out from the crowd.

Actually, sculpting terrain might just become something of a passion. I need to get some cheap black and white paint for that purpose though. Note to self: carving XPS styro eats carpet knife blades...

Friday, December 16, 2011

Blogs are all the rage

Apparently. At least in the miniatures painting community. The question "do you have a blog?" seems to pop up every now and then, which gives me an opportunity to use the subtitle "by popular demand" for this blog. :)

Being new to the 40k hobby I selected Ultramarines as my army of choice. Partly because of the AoBR box, and partly because I really like the aesthetics of the chapter. Which seems like a reason as good as any for choosing an army, especially if one aims to paint the entire thing.

So, look forward to some WIPs and step-by-steps as I move along and learn more!