Sergeant Lorenzo

At long last, Sergeant Lorenzo is finished!
One of my favourite sculpts among the Space Hulk miniatures, with his characterful pose and facial expression, and the lovely detailed and unique armour. In the end, I'm very happy with how he's turned out, and I hope you like him too:

(Click to enlarge picture)

Painting this guy has been quite the battle, and several times I caught myself wondering wether this miniature wanted to be painted or not. Certain areas I've had to repaint over and over, 'cos I simply couldn't get it right, and certain parts I've had to remove the paint with sandpaper, before starting all over again with the brush. For example, the swordblade alone took me at least 6 tries, and more than 3 hours to get how it is now. For some reason I couldn't get the red right at his armour when I first started painting him, and I've completely lost the count of how many layers of diluted paint I've glazed most of it...

But finally, he's finished, and I can focus my entire attention on my upcoming exams in the last weeks of June. Until they're over and done with, I won't have time for painting nor modelling, and my blog will be more or less in hibernation. Come July I should be back though, laying my brush onto more Blood Angels or maybe some Genestealers... Only time will tell which shall be my target!

Brother Deino (bigger pictures)

Turns out the first images I posted of brother Deino were too small, so here is some larger ones.

(click image for even better view)

At the moment, the general opinion seems to be that I should only add battledamage to those models it's sculpted onto. Guess I'll follow that recipe, and then when they're all done, some with battledamage, some without, I'll make up my mind as to whether it looks good or incoherent with such differences in between the models.

The next model is advancing slowly but steadily, I havn't been able to do much painting yesterday nor today, but maybe later tonight.. I'll do my best not to keep you waiting!

Brother Deino

Well, as yesterday's sneakpeek might have given out, I'm currently working on some Space Marines, namely the Blood Angels off last years reissue of the Space Hulk game. And first of the gang to be completed this side of New Year, is Brother Deino - hope you like him!

(click on image for better view)

I don't think I've had these on the painting table since october or something, and now that I've picked them up again, I've made some changes in the way I paint them - hopefully for the better. Mainly, the mix of red I use now, is not as dark as earlier, and I've tried to define the edges more with some extra highlighting - much lighter than before. Also I've worked on my technique when it comes to my NMMs and the OSL from the Powerfist. On top of that I've made minor changes to the painting scheme: parts of the Stormbolters will be red, many teardrops/blooddrops will be done gold (those that look like gems will still be green emeralds, but many of the blooddrops don't have a gemcasing sculpted, and as such looks wierd painted green, in my eyes) and finally the thin wires will be done green. And for the cloth, I've settled for white - strictly speaking, this is not a change, as Brother Deino was the first of the Marines I've painted with any cloth on him, but I think I initially had planned to do it some other colour...

I'm still undecided as to how much battledamage I'll paint onto each model - the sculpts themselves varies a lot on that subject: some, like Brother Claudio and Sergeant Lorenzo, got large gaps and holes in their armour, while others, Brother Deino amongst them, look like they're coming directly from maintenance... Any thoughts on the matter? Should I dirty them up a bit, some scratches here and there; make it look like they've fought their way through a horde of Genestealers? Or should only the models with battledamage sculpted onto them, recieve such a treatment?

Either way, Brother Deino is not varnished yet, so if you have any suggestions or any critisism, don't be afraid to empty your mind!
And in case someone wonders, the thought I had when painting his Powerfist the way I did, was that he's just "turning it on", so to speak, and the powerfield giving the glow hasn't charged up yet, so the backside of the fist ain't enveloped in energy, just yet.
An alternative theory was given to me by a friend upon seeing the painted model, saying that "bitch-slapping" is the way to go, when fighting Genestealers...

Dragon Ogres - WIP (2)

First of all, sorry for the lack of updates and progress with my various projects. Short story is I've been busy: visitors, trip to Norway, concerts, schoolwork and work. As I've barely touched a brush, I'll have to "joker" this month of the Tale of Fantasy Painters, which means I use one out of two "free months", as in I don't paint anything. I'm slightly worried that I will have to pull out of the Tale, as I doubt I'll have less to do at the university in the coming months, and then there's my brother's christmas gift which will demand quite the bit of time. If I can get him to promise me he won't drop by this blog of mine to look, I'll make WIP shots as I go, but if not I'm afraid a lot of my painting results will go unpulished 'til after christmas... I'll do my best to convince him, 'cos feedback would be lovely!
Either way, I think I'll have to put my Space Hulk models on hold for the moment, and rather return to them as soon as the new year's in. Brother Claudio did place among the top 11 in Jawaballs' Painting Contest, which I am fairly happy with (picture number three from the top). Feel like I'm at the right track with my Terminators, was up against a lot of great minis!

Anyways, although I havn't gotten much done, I've at least finished the green stuff work on my first Dragon Ogre - the back is all done, added some more armour plates on his back, and I think I've solved the issue with his head being slightly too small, by adding that extra set of horns; you'll be the judges of that! Hope you like him - I certainly do, and I look forward to giving him some paint to wear!
Also found some nice trees near a hospital I frequently work at, which I could scavenge for barch-bits for my bases. I have yet to try adding dead or burned grass to them, but got a tip from one of the regular gamers down at the local GW, who said my bases and models would pop a lot more, if I painted the rims black instead of grey. I'll do some testing when I find the time!

GW painting competition, thoughts on White Dwarf

In my first Space Hulk post (start of september), I wrote about a painting competition at the local GW here in Copenhagen, and the date set for entries and judging was today. So I went down there with Brother Claudio safely wrapped in foam.

Turned out that due to bad promotion, I was the only one with an entry - at least at that time of the day! Hehe, actually one might be inclined to believe that the manager had forgotten all about the competition himself: he looked quite shocked at first when I said I had come for the Space Hulk competition - but let's give him the benefit of the doubt! He recovered quickly at any rate, and seemed to love the model, which meant a lot to me, 'cos I know he's a very talented painter - great freehands on banners etc. Anyways, he gave me the newest White Dwarf magazine for free for showing him the model. Very nice, considering it wasn't supposed to be a reward for the competition in the first place.

This just happens to be my very first White Dwarf, unlucky for me it was heavily themed by 40k's Space Wolves. Unlucky, how? Well, first of all I don't play Warhammer 40 000, and secondly I just don't like Space Wolves! In my eyes, GW has tried to merge two excellent themes - ancient norse culture with science fiction - but with a disastrous result void of substance or logic. What's the deal with Space Wolf Terminator trying desperately to get drunk on ale, when their altered genes and armour system keeps them close to immune to toxification? The Space Wolf-concept feels like putting turkey and chocolate ice cream in a mixmaster for the dinner at New Year's eve, hoping it'll taste as good as the two seperate dishes...
Anyways, there were a couple of nice articles in between the "space vikings", and in particular I liked the War of the Ring campaign the studio team had put together - some interesting scenarios, mixing large scale battles with light skirmishes between scouting parties and vanguards. Inspirational!
I also liked the kit-bashing section for Space Wolves was rather nice, I think, as well was the 'Eavy Metal Masterclass-article, some nice tips but mostly good colour choices for desired effects. I did find the section about Battle Damage poor though, it seemed a very backwards and difficult method to me. Myself I prefer to paint "inwards", i.e. I paint a large spot to mark the extent of the battle damage, then highlight towards the centre in the metal-colour. The EM-team on the other hand seem to highlight in layers around a small spot of damage: very strange in my eyes...
There were also an article about Special Characters in the Warhammer game, and how you can build themed and very interesting armies around them, but while I at first was really intrigued by the idea, I think it was very poorly executed. They brought up the issue with certain characters story-wise having a connection to certain units; for example Korhil of the White Lions should have a retinue of warriors from Chrace with him. So they had a Lion Chariot and some Spearmen with lions on their shields. And uhm, that was it.. No tips as to how one can get a Chracian look on your models, nothing about what makes a model look like it comes from the Principality of Chrace - if they'd just explained a bit more, maybe taken the liberty to provide some extra fluff or some explanation as to why certain special character has certain rules, it'd be so much better. Why do High Queen Khalida Neferher of the Tomb Kings favour ranged units in her army? Why do Scar-Leader Kroq-Gar ride with a huge retinue of Cold One Riders? Not just "they do": we know that already by reading the rules! After reading the article, I was left with the feeling that I'd just read an advert squeeking "buy special characters, 'cos they're cool!" without offering any arguements as to why they are that. So much potential, wasted..

Pfeh, wasn't supposed to be a review of the newest White Dwarf, but guess that's how it is, sometimes one can't stop writing. If I'm to draw a conclusion, I have to say I won't subscribe to White Dwarf - at least not if this issue was representative for the magazine. There's too little focus on modelling, painting and battle-/scenario-variants or ideas to spice up the game, while there's too much focus on advertisement. And by advertisement, I do not mean all the pages listing products or showing pictures of new releases etc - even if it constitutes roughly 25 % of the magazine (I did count pages, yes..) - I simply skip reading those pages, so it doesn't really bother me. The problem seems to be that they try to sell something with every article, and if not for that they could've made a great, informative and very inspirational magazine. Too bad.

Brother Noctis - Finished

... or as finished as he can get. I can't say I'm completely happy with the OSL (Object Source Lighting), but I frankly don't know what to do to improve it. If anyone got any tips, they'd be more than welcome.

The pictures are a bit grainy, took them early this morning before heading off to the university, and the morning sun didn't agree completely with my camera, or the other way around.. Anyways, hope you can make out most of him - lovely sculpt, really fond of his pose!

Brother Claudio - Finished

Finished painting Brother Claudio today, my first completed NMM ever! 10 Terminators and one Librarian to go - owh and then comes the Genestealers, but they got no metal to speak of on them, so should go fast. I think the rest of the Space Marines will go much faster than Brother Claudio aswell, after all I should be done with the trial and error-part of these models, which always takes a lot of time when a new colour scheme is to be used or a new kind of unit is getting a paint job.
But, pictures:As you can see, I went for the green gems - noone seemed to like the idea of blue ones and I must say the green looks very good with the red and gold after all. Turns out my initial scepticism was uncalled for.
I tried to paint the base as if it was part of the Space Hulk floor or something, but I think the details pretty much too dark to make out. Must admit I'm not too happy about how it turned out, and if I find a better way of painting metal plates and such on the other models, I might return to this Claudio and fix it up. We'll see.

But wait a moment! This is not a finished model! I've not painted any of the battledamage yet!
Well yes, that's true, or it's partly true. I took some pictures of Claudio before I did the battle damage, just to mark the difference. I thought it might be interesting to see. Especially since Claudio not only is my first NMM model, he's also the first one to recieve any weathering/battle damage, so double the milestone!
Hope you like it as much as I do, and if there's any critisism or feedback you'd like to offer, please do!

Red or green? Or maybe blue?

Now that my first regiment of Horsemen are finished, I have returned to Brother Claudio.
I've come to the point where the gems which adorn his armour need some loving from my brush, but I'm not sure in what colours I should paint them. As they're shaped like blood drops, I'd normally paint them red, but as most of the model's already painted red, I fear that gems might get lost, if painted red. Green was suggested earlier, as it is a complimentary colour to red, and thus makes for some nice contrasting work, but at the same time don't make the model look too "busy", if I've understood the theories of colour correctly. For that reason I finally buckled under pressure and made his eyelenses green instead of the blue colours I had planned. His eyes are quite small, though, so I've been deliberating whether or not I should paint them lighter, as they sort of disappear a bit, no? Take a look for yourself, and help me decide!Right, back to the gems. They're all encased in gold, and so I gave the red variant a chance, as I hope it'll set them apart from the rest of the armour. I did also paint one green gem, for comparison, but still I can't make up my mind, so I'll leave the choice up to you who might be reading this. One on each hand, if they're hard to spot. I'm not too happy with the green gem, think the red one looks more gem-like, and seems to be reflecting the light better, but might be related to the whole "painting green too dark"-issue I feel I have with the eyelenses. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, don't pay heed to the fact that the red one might be a more successful attempt at painting gemstones, it's all about picking the colour.

Edit:
After painting his claws power-weapon-blue tonight, I've been thinking, maybe the model will become too busy with red, gold, blue and green; and while I think that red gems won't be visible enough, and therefore can be discounted as an option (unless someone manages to convince me otherwise), maybe blue gems would give the needed contrast to the red and gold, and at the same time fit in with the blue claws?
Any views/thoughts on this?

Brother Claudio - WIP

So, I decided to do Brother Claudio first - not yet sure whether he'll be my submission to the painting competition, though: I think I got time to finnish the Librarian and the Broodlord before the 10th of October. I havn't gotten very far yet, but I'd like some feedback to what I've done so far, and would also like some opinions on a couple of issues I'm having with him.

I've gone for what I believe must be a traditional Blood Angel theme: Armour's red, blood-drop gems will be red when I get to them, and chains and jewelry will be painted golden or brass (will save that discussion for further down). The battle damage will be something new for me to make, but I got some ideas as to how I'm to pull it off, and I'll probably add slightly more than what's sculpted into the model already. I was thinking of using the sword from Space Hulk's cover as inspiration for how I'm to paint the Lightning Claws; and with that in mind, I think that his eyes/goggles should be blue aswell. But how am I to paint the cables which protrude and connects arms and body? They're painted green on the box, but so's the eyes, and first of all I don't like the green colour they've used and secondly I don't think it'll fit my red and golden theme. So, any suggestions are very much welcome!Painting him red has taken some time though: I lost count of the number of layers I've given him, but I'm super happy with the results - hope you are too! I've gone from a Scab Red darkened with Chaos Black, adding more and more Scab Red for each layer, until I reached pure Scab Red, then it was Red Gore's turn to be mixed into it, then I slipped in more and more drops of Blood Red until finally I got to a final highlight on the edges with pure Blood Red. A lengthy process, but so much better than painting white, hehe! It's as if the red paint is more alive, and it's more easy to predict the outcome of each layer... On the other hand, maybe I'll slip in some of the painting-red-technique the next time I do a white horse, or some other part of my rather light Slaaneshi warband. One can always hope!Anyways, in a fit of madness, I've decided that I'm going to give the NMM-thingy a new chance. I must admit I was soundly defeated by the Stegadon earlier this year, but this time I got more time, and I've given it a shot on one of the skulls on Brother Claudio so far. I'm not perfectly happy with it yet, but it's better than what I ever managed on the Stegadon's gold. It doesn't shine enough yet, though...
I've been thinking, maybe I should try to make it more contrastful; darker shadow areas, and even a slightly lighter yellow for the areas of reflection? I also think it'd look better with a slightly warmer gold, but I don't know if adding some red paint into the browns and yellows I use, will give me what I want, or just mess it all up.Any tips are most welcome.

As a alternative though, if my NMM-plans goes to shit again, I do have some of that wonderful old Brazen Brass paint from GW, and I know from experience that it makes quite a good fit with red (Iiiiiih! Who'd thought Khorne would manage to infiltrate my Slaanesh-sacred blod?). So that'll be my back up plan *grins*

- - -
[Edit 16th of September]

I took some new pictures of Brother Claudio, and these pictures got a much better lighting than the ones I took prior to posting. I think these show the red colour more like it is, but I'll probaly add some extra highlights to the edges and such, when I find the time.

The reason behind the little note with my name on and a date, is that I've decided to enter Jawaballs Blood Angels painting competition, just to prove it's my model, sort of.

Anyways, hope you like these extra pictures!

Space Hulk (2)

I recieved my Space Hulk box yesterday, and boy was it a heavy box! If I could do it all over again, I would've saved myself the 45 minute trip on foot, and taken the bus instead. What was I thinking? Something about saving money, and getting some fresh air, no doubt.. Aw well!
It is looking wonderful, though, and all in all, it was worth the trip, without doubt.

Due to swiftly shifting weather, mostly rain and otherwise high humidity, I've not dared to undercoat the models, although my fingers are itching to lay some paint unto them. Hopefully the dark clouds outside my window will clear away through the evening, so I can get them undercoated in a few hours.
I've not yet decided on which model I'll pick as mine for the painting competition the local GW's running, but I've narrowed it down to three "finalists", so to say:

The Librarian
The Broodlord
The Terminator with those fancy claws

I think it'd look nice with a cloak on either of those marines, at least if I'd be able to make it seperate from the body, and not clinging to it. Then again, the models by themself are so wonderful, that it might be shame to tamper with them..?

Anyways, any opinions as to which of the three I should go for in the competition (I will paint all of them eventually), would be most welcome!

Space Hulk

After deliberating the matter for some time, quite a bit of persuasion from the local GW-staff, and some words of praise of this game by Elazar amongst others, I've decided to pre-order the third and very limited edition of Space Hulk.
For those who doesn't know, it's after what I've understood, a boardgame set in the Warhammer 40.000 universe, where a team of humans have made their way into a flaoting mass of starship wreckage, in search of ... something. The Space Hulk, as this piece of space debris is called, is however inhabitated by some aliens, and so the humans find themself under attack, fighting a desperate battle for survival against the bloodthirsty and hostile aliens, but also against the clock; sooner or later, the Space Hulk will be sucked off into "the Warp"...

My knowledge of the 40k universe is very limited, and it wouldn't surprise me if I've gotten it all wrong, but anyways, it's supposed to be a very intensive and funny game to play - and the models, despite not being Fantasy, are really looking great! So I'll have something fun to paint in the near future aswell (the game's released the 5th of September).
Speaking of painting, the local GW-store's having a painting competition for this occation, Single Miniature from the Space Hulk, another good reason for buying it. It's not like there's any prize or anything, except the honour, but I find it always adds a bit more motivation and also tends to force oneself to keep pushing one's own abilities as a painter, if the model's to be judged by someone else.
Owh, and lastly, something fun happened at GW after I preordered; I stayed a bit for a chat and the like, and I think it was only 15 minutes or so after I had had my name written down in their book, the store got a call: "The online preorders are sold out.."
I think the store got a couple of copies left, but for anyone in Copenhagen who missed the online preorders - head over to GW as soon as possible, they don't have many left.