Hobby Update: Tyranid Monstrous Creatures

I recently completed both Carnifex units and the Hive Tyrant. Pictures and unit details will follow soon.

All that is left for the Tyranids are the Spore Mines and the Genestealers. For now though I have shifted my focus to completing the Space Marine Command Squad so that I can start on the Marine Vehicles.

Scenery: Space Marine Hero

Here's a quick scenery piece I knocked together from a couple of plastic stoppers from some roller blind packaging and a spare snap-fit Terminator Marine that was free on the front of White Dwarf a few years ago.

Stick together with some Gorilla Super Glue, embellish with some spare icons from the Space Marine Drop Pod kit that were lying in the bitz box, attack with craft knife and clippers; prime black and drybrush various shades of Foundation Paint greys, pick out detail with Dwarf Bronze and then wash with Thrakka Green for corrosion effects; and hey-presto, one battle-scarred Space Marine Hero statue!

Hobby Update: Tales of a Farseer

I've been meaning to do this post for a while but have been struggling to find the time. Finally, here is the step-by-step progress of my friends Ulthwe Farseer that I painted up for him over 2 weeks.

Here's the model after he primed it using Undercoat Black.

The first job was to block out the base colours.


I went with a deep blue instead of a black for the robes and armour plates, as I didn't fancy trying to do such a large area of black cloth with the shading and highlighting issues it presents. This was blocked out in Necron Abyss I think. For the interior of the robe I chose a purple colour; Hormagaunt Purple. The gold areas were done in Tin Bitz, and the secondary cloth areas and face plate were done in Denheb Stone for the typical Ulthwe bone colour. The stone ruins on the base were done in Commando Khaki to start with.

Next up was the first layer of shading and highlights. The blue areas were highlighted in a blue colour but I can't remember what I used it might have been Mordian Blue, the purples were washed with Leviathan Purple and highlighted with the base colour. Gold was layered with Burnished Gold. Dehneb Stone was washed with Gryphonne Sepia wash, then highlighted with the base colour again. The stone ruins were washed with Gryphonne Seipa also.

At this point I decided the bone coloured cloth wasn't good enough, so I re-did it.

Finally, I put some final highlights on the cloth with Shadow Grey, the gold was highlighted with Shining Gold, black was edge highlighted with Fortress Grey. I did all the gems the standard Mechrite Red base, with Scab Red shade and Blood Red highlight, with a dot of white applied very carefully and sparingly.

Hobby Update: Army Painter Sprays

My birthday has come and gone, and as a present to myself I ordered a couple of The Army Painter system spray primers.

After some thought I settled on Skeleton Bone for my Space Marine vehicles and remaining units, and Army Green for the Tyranids as it was the best match that they had for my existing colour scheme.

The sprays arrived half way through my week off, and so the next day I spent several hours outdoors with both cans spraying most of the stuff that hasn't been base-coated yet.

All in all I used most of the 400ml can of Skeleton Bone while spraying the two Commanders, Command Squad, both Rhino chassis, the parts for the Whirlwind, Razorback and Predator tanks, and the Drop Pod!

Once these were done I started on the Tyranids, and sprayed the last of the two Gaunt broods, the Hive Tyrant, both Carnifexes, and a Broodlord. There's still plenty left for the Genestealers, and oddments that I have left.

   

The Army Green colour is an exact match for Games Workshop's Knarloc Green Foundation Paint colour. Originally my Tyranids were base-coated in Gretchin Green which is lighter, but I think I can get round the shade difference with a good drybrush of Gretchin Green after all the shading is done. Here is the first completed Gaunt from the Army Painter primed batch:

Overall I have to say that I was very impressed with the Army Painter primers. They were easy enough to spray (as long as you shake them for about 3 minutes before you start) and the finish is really smooth and even. I highly recommend these products to anyone who is thinking about trying them.

Next time I need a spray can I 'll be getting it from Army Painter!

Hobby Update: Things happening again!

I now have a regular gaming day scheduled in every two weeks at my place with Nick from work. This has given me an incentive to actually get stuff done. Nick's a former Eldar player, who I have snagged back into the hobby and he's now in the process of rebuilding his Eldar from scratch.

So now I've finally picked up my brushes again and started finishing off the stuff that was marooned on my painting desk, quietly whispering "paint us, paint us.." each time I walked past them.

"So what's on the painting table", I hear you ask. Well, currently there's the following:

Random Update: Old Website Spotted...

Look what I found:

http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~bek/

I cannot believe that this is still live. I've not been with the ISP since before 2001 when I moved out of my parent's house!

A true relic of a pre-broadband dial-up internet age, as you can tell from the design, page counter, "Site last updated on", and the mirror site link!

I still have copies of all this stuff on my hard drive.

Random Update: Hobby Hiatus

All quiet on the Western Front...

Not done much in the way of hobby output for 3 months. I find I always seem to slow down over the Winter period with it's dark nights and bad weather (not good for spray painting in!).

Starting to get the urge to pick up a brush and crack on with cranking out the last of the Marines, Tau and Tyranids now though, so watch this space... maybe in a month or so I'll start putting more stuff up.