War Walkers Final

I once worked with a scenic designer who told me, You know what your problem is? You like to work.” I answered, “No, I just like getting things done.”

Sixteen years ago I bought two Eldar War Walkers, they were metal and cheap then, now they are expensive and plastic. One was built and painted….and the other bounced around in a box waiting for paint. I like having these all finished now, it closes a small task loop that has been sitting open in my head all this time.

Next up is an Eldar Vyper, that has also been sitting in storage, built and primed, waiting for paint for far too long. Here’s the Vyper art;

Mine won’t be as cool as this, but I think it’ll still be pretty nifty.

Walkin’ Machines 2

Finally had a chance to do all of the little detail work on the War Walkers, models for Eldar machinery are usually crusted with little “soul-gems”, which have a long convoluted and ultimately irrelevant story justifying their existence. Mainly they look nice painted gold. Here’s the walkers with all of the basic painting done, just before they go in the dip.

I put a white coat on the Harlequin Dreadnought so his goofy grin would show up better. The next picture is of the walkers after the dip. I have a little pottery bowl of mineral spirits in the upper left and a scrap brush that I use to clean up drips and blobs that form under overhanging projections. I use a pottery bowl because mineral spirits dissolves plastic, found that out the hard way. I use the grips in the middle to dunk models into that big can of Polyshades.

I like to do my model dips at the end of the day so that when I get up in the morning they should be dry and ready to be matte sprayed.

Other Eldar 1

Not finished with the War Walkers yet, been too busy to paint unfortunately. I was able to finish this little Eldar Heavy weapons platform with a Shuriken Cannon (front and center) who has been parked in storage primed and ready for the past 16 years.

The Eldar are too dainty to carry heavy weapons around themselves so they mount them on little anti-grav platforms and have them follow along with the infantry. The ones in back are the newer style with a splinter shield for the operator. I also have some Wraithlords, they used to be called Eldar Dreadnoughts but about the time of 4th edition their story changed so their is no living operator in this war machine.

These are all models and paint jobs from 14-15 years ago. The one on the left, hard to see with only black primer, is a Harlequin mask mounted on a Dreadnought chassis. The center Dread needs to have his back poles straightened, don’t know why I made them all curvy. There are no rules for Harlequin Dreadnoughts anymore, but I’ll still paint him up when I dig out my Harlequins later this year. I have a pile of old metal Harlequins that I never painted from forever ago.

Walkin’ Machines 1

In the distant future an ancient race of Space Elves has perfected anti-grav flight and dimensional travel, but they still have to walk to work for some reason. This is an early drawing of a Games Workshop Eldar War Walker, and I thought they were pretty cool. Some people said, “Isn’t the pilot too exposed?” Nah, there’s a force-field thingy protecting him. The newer versions of these do have canopies, but I prefer the more exposed look of the older version. I built and painted one 20 years ago, and built another that sat in a box for two decades. I also recently picked up one of the newer models, with no canopy so it was marked way down, which is fine because I didn’t want the canopy.

The one in the center is the first one from 20 years ago, the left is also from twenty years ago, the right is more recent. I approach vehicle painting much the same way I do figures, but I get to use a bigger brush most of the time. The areas on the models that have had white dry-brushed over them will be painted red, the black areas are a reminder to me to paint them in metals. The one on the left has had a leg test-painted in “Khorne Red”, which I guess is supposed to look like blood? It looks to me like Rose colored lipstick, but I’m color blind so who knows? The tone seems okay though and the paint is thick enough that it only needs one coat for good coverage.

The next step is to paint things that are farthest away; with figures it’s usually skin, unless they have exposed bones or organs, in the case of the walkers it is the pilot’s chairs.

Since my brush has to reach past the pilot to get those areas it’s best to do them now so I don’t screw up the paint job on the pilot. Next I went through and hit all of the brass areas; joints, engines, guns, controls, etc. I really like the dirty gold look of the P3 brand “Dirty Brass”, it’s perfect for a lot of details.

Next up is to see how well the brass and red look next to each other.

PJ’s Boyz

As I’ve said elsewhere my son has been working on painting his own Space Orks. The method that I learned for painting minis, especially many minis, came from one of the studio artists who worked for Games Workshop. When you are painting a unit of troops that are all going to have similar colors in their uniforms and equipment paint all of one particular color onto each model. Also, start with what’s farthest away from you, such as the skin of the model. In the case of the Orks that means painting all of the units skins green. Then work on the next layer of clothing or armor up from their skin and do all of those, and so on outwards. I usually save eyes and teeth for last.

Here are step progress shots of some of my son’s troops;

Warbikes – finale!

I was finally able to finish off the ork warbikes with base flocking and final matte spraying, only seventeen years later. I’m pretty sure I purchased all of these two house moves ago and they’ve just been bouncing along in storage all this time. The good thing, sort of good, is that my rule (more of a temptational guideline) of not purchasing new models until I finish old models means I can finally purchase some new toys. 🙂 If I want to, I have to confer with my son as to future projects that would be mutually enjoyable. I still have tons of old projects that I’d like to complete or, in the case of the Tyranids, sell off. I believe I’ll knock out some of my old Eldar (space elves) projects next. Here’s the full mob;

Half a dozen were all the same hunched-over bald guy.

Here are the Nobz two-seater bikes with a Gretchin and a Mekaniak as passengers.

And here is a scale comparison between first and second edition warbikes. I know I will be working on third edition warbikes in the near future.

‘Nids Mr. Rico! Jillions of ’em!

Pay no attention to this post unless you are interested in looking at old, giant space bugs. I have a crate of Tyranids on my shelf that I know it is very unlikely I will ever paint them, so I’m prepping them for sale; inventory, photograph and bag. Here’s the lot, it’ll head for ebay soon unless one of my son’s friends purchases them.

For starters here is a first edition Biovore. Metal, unfortunately missing it’s left leg.

Next up is three second edition metal Biovore’s, all intact.

A first edition Carnifex; metal, painted nicely, and intact.

A second edition Carnifex with a metal body and plastic arms.

Another first edition Carnifex with a metal body but it’s original limbs are missing and I’ve had to substitute plastic ones.Gargoyles (4); metal, but not in the best of shape. The two on the ground have their flight poles broken off inside their bodies and will have to be drilled out. One is missing it’s wings and I only have the one flight pole.

Genestealers (24); First edition plastics, most have a washer weight under their bases for stability, all with all four limbs.

More Genestealers (34); Unfortunately only enough arms for sixteen of them, and only fifteen bases. Farther down I also have a ton of Termagant spare parts which could be used to finish and mod these bodies.

Version 1 Hive Tyant; Metal, intact, even an extra set of gun arms.

Hive Tyrant version 2; Metal, no arms to be found.

Homagaunts(9); Metal, intact, eight have bases, there is one more body (not pictured) that has no arms or base.

Hormagaunts (17); Plastic, eight with bases and washers for weights.

Lictor; 1st edition, metal and intact.

Armorcast Malefactor 28mm scale; One big chunk of resin, intact. Back when GW was making the game Space Marine and Titan Legions they were producing unique units in 6mm scale. Armorcast had the license to produce the units in 28mm scale, not many of them around anymore. I’m not sure but I believe the Malefactor was supposed to be a troop transport for bugs.

Ripper Swarms (5); Plastic, kinda cute.

Spore Mines (10); Metal.

Termagant parts; Many on sprues, some loose, the next three pictures show them all.

Termagants (17); Version 1 plastics.

Termagants (22); Version 2 multi-part plastics armed with pistol things.

Tyranid Warrior #1; 1st edition metal, painted and intact.

Tyranid warrior #2; 1st edition, metal, painted, and intact.

Tyranid Warrior parts; 2nd edition plastic, there is enough on the sprues to make two complete 2nd edition Warriors and quite a few extra bits for whatever, including a metal rifle arm. The extra bits could be very handy for the next entry.

Tyranid Warriors (6-ish); Plastic, 1st edition, all missing arms, only two bases, one missing leg and one missing head. Could easily be finished up using the 2nd edition Warrior parts above.

Tyranid Warriors (3); 2nd edition plastics, complete, washers under the bases for weight.

Tyrant Guards (2); Metal, one with an extra washer under it’s base for weight.

Zoanthrope; 2nd edition, metal, extra washer under base for weight.

Zoanthrope; 1st edition, metal, intact.

That’s everybody! I wish I hadn’t misplaced a few limbs over the years that I’ve had these and I’m certain it will make a good army core for somebody else.

Imperial Assault

No, it’s not another Executive Order, it’s a miniatures skirmish boardgame from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG). Here’s there advert blurb; “Imperial Assault is a strategy board game of tactical combat and missions for two to five players, offering two distinct games of battle and adventure in the Star Wars™ universe!”

FFG has made the rules and a few other resources free here; Imperial Assault

It’s a pretty decent game with quality miniatures and tiles to play with. It does require custom FFG Star Wars dice to play and the rules layout is a little clunky. It took me a while to get the rhythm of a turn, that could just be me though. It is fun though and I’ve painted the few minis that I own as my friend Dave has the main game and all the other minis.

The minis come in a nice hard plastic grey with really crisp detail, the Rebel scum are molded in a tan colored plastic. These two Imperial special agents just need a bit of highlighting to keep their whites tidy but I’m not going to do anything else to their bases.

I’ve run out of matte spray to finish up the warbikes so they have to wait a day until I can get to the shop.

Warbikes 4

Finally finished all of the bike rider, and a few extra passengers. They used a really small palette as they are intended to be a unit and I decided not to diversify their color schemes. I realize that uniformity is not a very Orky aesthetic, but I like the look of all the yellow.

Since they are bikers I used Abaddon Black for their gloves and boots as it is a semi-gloss and I liked the shine in this instance. Waagh flesh for the green skin, Flaming orange for the occasional decoration (hair, wristbands), Pig iron metallic dry-brushed onto weapons, goggles and gear, Big Top red for scarves and eye sockets, white for teeth, Mournfang brown (nice reddy brown) for belts and suspenders, and nice bright Flash Gitz yellow for their pajamas. Odd names I know, each company makes their own designer paints and unfortunately Games Workshop did a big makeover of their paint line a few years ago and changed all of the names. I have a mix of old and new paint names in my paint box and I’ve found this conversion guide very helpful to find the new names of the colors that I used to work with. Citadel Paint Conversion

This was very handy when I needed to replace my old Bleached Bone, an off-white color that I use for a canvas base, which is now called Ushabti Bone. At least it still has ‘bone’ in the title. Here are the riders being glued onto their vehicles;

This is pre-dip, and there are several Imperial Assault characters that are also almost done. Two of the bikes were actually two-seater Nobz bikes, that’s why that mek with a big gun is looking over that fella on the left’s shoulder. The guy in the lower right is a version two plastic rider, the other riders are all lead, I’ll glue his arms on after I have him seated. Those rolled up tarps on the front of the bikes were all done with bleached bone, the dip should darken and shade them nicely. Here’s everybody post-dip drying;

My son also finished four more of his boyz and they were able to join the queue in time for tonight’s dip. The Imperial troops will get a little white highlight work after they get their first coat of matte spray, can’t really paint directly on top of the dried polyurethane; too slippery. These should all be done by tomorrow night.

Warbikes 3

Finally have all of the basic colors neatly applied and the bases painted brown. Why paint the bases brown when I’m going to texture and flock them later anyways? In case there are any thin spots in the texturing  no one will notice a brown patch but a black patch will be fairly obvious. I also prefer the look of the base edges in brown as I feel it blends into the tabletop better than a harsh black edge. Next step is the dip;

I also added a 60mm base to my 2nd generation Ork Dredd, he looked naked without a base, and redid the bases for some old GorkaMorka boyz that had really tiny bases;

I also consider this Mantic Grot cannon complete;

Tonight the bikes get dipped and tomorrow I start on all 11 of the riders.