Monday, November 17, 2014

Chop chop chop..

 Not much to report, this weekend was pretty full and as Christmas quickly approaches my time will be spread even thinner so I expect posts will be a little sporadic. I have some construction I'll be working on and I also have some laser cutting I'll be working on so that will be taking precedence over painting time..  Not to mention family time.. Christmas is one of my Favorite times of the year and with kids the calendar is almost full!

But,...  This Black Templar has been sitting on my table for awhile so I'll be trying to finish him up. I went through and started to get all the base colors on him. I'm going to paint up his Ax with the airbrush and give it some energy looks but wanted to get the base colors on there. The skin and cloak is blended a bit but that is really it ..

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Ancient Treads ..

 Last night I got the Death Company Rhino wrapped up. I've been slowly working on it and I mean slowly haha.. Other projects kept jumping in front of it but I've finally knocked it out.
 I added some wrapped up chain to the ram prowl on the front to give it a little more character and rusted it all up. I pretty much tried to make all the other parts of the tank other then the armor look like it's been rusting for quite a while and has kicked up or blended down onto the tank it'self.
 I finished up the design on the top hatch and lettered it with Penance.. I figure they would think it would be such for falling to the thirst.
I blended grey in on the tank but didn't want to go overboard with it and also blended in some rust colors.
 The black background really makes the rust colors stand out .. a little too much in some of the areas but I wanted some of the ares to stand. out.

It's nice to have this bad boy finished up and off the table. Now I'll move on to getting the Venoms done some of the Malifaux peeps have been sitting and waiting. I want to knock out some more Blood Angel stuff as well but I do have a bunch more Eldar stuff calling my name. I need to get cracking on the Wave Serpent repaints so I think I'll be starting on at least on of them soon. So many things to paint .. so little time to get them painted..

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Constructed Undead..

 I finished up the D-Scythe Wraithguard last night, they have been moved onto the finished shelf. So the first five of the twenty are done..
 I cleaned up the gems and wraithbone.. blending them out and what not. I added a little more color to the guns and added a little energy bleed over .. I didn't want then to be too out there as the rest of the model has a lot of colors already added in..
 Finished up the bases with the leaves and a little highlighting..
 Added a blue energy to the back vents..
I think they look pretty solid and now I just have to get the rest of them together and started. I want the Wraithblades to be more fluid so I'll be working on them next and they will take a little longer to get together. I'm going to play around with an ax design next.. well next when talking about Wraithguard.

Monday, November 10, 2014

The Dead Guard the Living..

 I worked on the rest of the Guard over the weekend.. the purple blend takes a hell of a lot of time.. It took awhile when I was just working on the one so I knew it was going to be time consuming.
 I still have a little more to do on the purple but it's almost completely done. I'll have to clean up the bone on the back and shoulders..
 Next will be the stones and guns.. I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do on the guns but I want to add a little bit of something. Some energy on the barrel and work on a little highlights on the body of the guns I suppose.

 I took a pic of the start of the blend. I'll start by painting on the highlight color on all the areas I'll be working on and then start to go back into the blend working with the paint wet blending each. It works well for me when I'm starting dark and then going lighter. I'll be happy when I have these five knocked out but sheesh... I have 15 more to go haha..

Friday, November 7, 2014

It's a trick... get an Ax.

 I haven't worked on a conversion in awhile and while this isn't crazy by any stretch he does have a much more animated pose. I want my Wraithblades to look more fluid since they should be running up into the mix and chopping people apart.
 I thought the dual Ax look made him look pretty BA.. and when I got the Secret Weapon bases I knew I wanted to have one of them moving up but look like he heard something behind him and was turning back around to crush whatever was fool enough to walk up on him.
 So far no greenstuff on him and he's not even all the way together. I'm going to paint some of the bits separately to make it easier.I cut a sword hand to have him duel wield and had to chop his leg/knee a bit to make the pose work correctly.
The blends take awhile on the Wraithguard (guys chilling in back) so I need to finished them up then start moving onto the other Wraith units..

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Marking your territory..

While cutting this weekend I wanted to cut some bases for my Wraithguard .. I think they came out looking very cool but I think they are a bit too busy for bases so I think they will be used as objective markers instead. I'll probably cut them in Acrylic too and see how those look but with these being in Birch it makes them stand out and also makes them easier to paint or maybe even stain. I was thinking they might look cool being stained and sealed.

Last night when I got home I had a few minutes to get a little painting done.. like 30mins so figured I'd spray the gunmetal on the Venoms I've been working on but sadly I realized I was completely out of Gunmetal paint .. that sucked..  I also realized I had left paint in my Badger Airbrush..  double suck..  So I spent my time cleaning my brushes and then sat down to paint some of the Wraithguard. Well .. I painted three lines and then the kids arrived home haha.. so no painting. Been pretty tied lately so crashed early but hopefully tonight I'll get some stuff done. I'll probably stop by a LGS to pick up the paint I need to so I can knock out the Venoms.

When I was cutting I also made a few water troughs for Malifaux scatter terrain.. I'm going to increase the notches so it takes up the whole side section.. right now there is a little extra left and I think it stands out.. So I'll change that up..  So many things that need doing haha..

Monday, November 3, 2014

Rack Um!

 Mo Lasercutness .. This weekend I finally got to cut the first few paint rack prototypes I've been working on. I was originally going to make two different types but after cutting I think it turned into four different types because they all fit different needs and have different styles. The first is about 20" long by 10" Deep and Tall. It holds a ton of paint but it doesn't display them in rows for display. Personally I don't really care, for me I know where my paint is and always just reach for where it sits. The paint can also be sorted into color ranges.. reds in a row, greens in a row. The bottom tray holds 91 Vallejo bottles.. That's a pretty good amount! Plus how many paints do you usually use on a regular basis? For me it's typically the same colors with an odd color mixed in.I put all the ones I use the most on top for quick easy access.
 When I started making it I wasn't sure how much sag I'd have and you can see it a little in the pictures. The inserts are supported in the back and the sides but the middle front will droop a little if a lot of paint is on it. So I wanted to see it before I moved forward with the supports for it. And I have an idea how I will handle it.
 Right now on the sides I have two small supports but I'm going make another outer plate that will glue on covering the slots so you can have a larger image cut into the side if that is wanted. I should have blown the cut dust out of the picture on the side but I forgot haha.. it's a paint splatter with sincain cut into it. There will then be horizontal supports made that will lock into the outer plate and support the front of the shelf.
 The part that makes this a little tougher then normal is that I want this tray to be completely modular. You stop using a type of paint and want to switch out trays no problem.. you get another Rack and want to change up the trays you have and how you organize them? Easy.. I cut a bunch of trays yesterday. One that holds a ton of Vallejo, one that holds less but they are more spread out, one for GW paints, one mix of a bunch and one that is just cut into three sections to place what you want ( I didn't cut them but I also have one for all Golden paints and P3 paints). I can pull the rack apart right now and put a completely different setup in it. But that does make you think more on how you are going to make something when it has to be modular. The front support for instance, I think what I have purposed will work well. But I guess I won't know for sure until I cut some more 8)..
 The next set of racks I made are just one level trays. I started thinking about this when I was airbrushing and getting annoyed that the paint was all over the place and could easily be knocked off the shelf. I wasn't sure if I wanted to mount the bottom flush your make it raised up so there is a gap to the surface it's sitting on. I actually like both and they will both be useful so I set them up and I'm super happy with them.

 The Com Art all in order..
 I setup the Dr PH Martin as well and it works well with the bottom being a little higher. I think I might make it out of clear acrylic and see if the viability works better. I can see all the color tops but as it's higher then eye level it might be nice to see through it. The tops of these are modular as well so I can just swap the top for something else.
A nice and neat airbrush station setup! ..

I'm going to make the modifications to the large rack.
I'm going to start working on a tiered one so you can have them in rows. I know a lot of people want to see them and I understand.
I'm also going to work on making something that can store the single racks. A larger rack that the single trays slide into.

Now I don't know if I really need to make all these but they are something I want to use myself haha.