Bonus Post!

Alrighty, gonna spoil ya guys and gals this week with a bonus post. I finished working on my solo dude mans for the Rhulic Mercs. 

This here be Thor Steinhammer. He is a Rhulic solo and is allowed in the "tiers" for Durgen and the best thing is he is only 2 points for a butt load of cool abilities. He has a solid shooting attack (SP6 PW12) and a pretty good RAT, but I really didn't take him for those. I really took him for his Jack support abilities. The two in particular are Repair and Tune Up, both of which I can see coming in pretty handy.

Repair allows him to repair d6 damage points to any Jack that he is in B2B with. That just seems very nice to me. With the toughness of most of my Jacks in this list already, this could really be a thorn in my opponents side.

 Tune up is pretty nice as well. It is a special action with a range fo 5" that allows me to boost either the attack or damage of target Jack. While that doesn't seem to be AMAZING in of itself I think it will come in fairly handy when used in conjunction with some of the other abilities of the army.

Okay, lets talk painting. First, again, I will apologize for the fat fingers in the pics. No that is out of the way.... I had a lot of fun painting this model. More so then the warcaster. This particular sculpt had a LOT of detail. Fun little things to pick out and such.

Staying with the purple/bleached bone quartered theme  I worked up the armor. I elected to do the knee pads as well to add more "punch" to the color scheme. I worked up those patches the same way I did on Durgen, going for more of a "natural" highlight on the model as opposed to hard highlighting methods.

 Also trying to keep the look consistent over the entirety of the army I did the metals the same way on this piece. I don't want there to be any crazy jumps in style and look when the army is sitting on the table together. It takes a little more time to do my metals the way I am, but I definitely think its worth it. I started with a black washed silver (in this case it was GW Leadblecher) and then worked my way up into an almost 80/20 Chainmail/Leadblecher mix making sure to leave the edges darker then the center parts. I think it gives a worn appearance to the metal. The bronze is actually a 5 step process. It starts with Tin Bitz, moves into dwarf bronze. After that I hit it with a coat of Sepia wash, just to darken. Then I paint it similar to the silver working up with Dwarf Bronze and Shining gold mix making sure to leave those edges darker.

 One of the things that I am particularly please with was the way the leather turned out on Thor. With so much on the model I felt like I really needed to make an effort to have it pop a bit. It is very easy to just go "Oh, its leather. Fuck it. Foundation wash done." Which a lot of times is a very valid technique to take when there is very little of it.  BUT, I couldn't do it. I based all the leather with Calthan Brown, and gave it a brown wash. Once it was dry I came back with a Snakebite Leather and Bubonic Brown mix (50/50) and blended up some highlights. Again I made sure to leave the outer edges darker.

Finally the flame. Again, I don't really do anything normal if I can help it. So I thought to myself, why the hell start now. I decided to go with a green flame. Give it kind of a chemical fire look. It was fairly simple process. I based with Dark Angels green, did a coat of Snot Green. Washed with green. Once it was dry I began a series of over brushes with Scorpion Green and White mix, and then the just slightest just White.

So that is it for now. I am currently hard at on a couple Grundback Blaster Light Warjacks. I hope to finish them up early next week and get them up on here. So till then, push your hobby limits, enjoy the company of good friends.......

AND PLAY LIKE YOU GOT  A PAIR.

BLAM! WEEK2

So its week two of my Rhulic Merc project and I must say things are comming along nicely. Last week I posted a picture of Durgen Madhammer (my warcaster) work. I know all of you have been waiting with bated breath to see the finished project. So here ya go:

 I apologize for the fingers and the paper towel. I am working on a photo box, but have not finished it yet. But I digress. I can not really call him finished at this point though, as I still need to rock out some snow on his base. I love snow, for the record, and you will probably see it on just about everything I do.

Also the flash on my camera really popped out the blending I did on the armor. It is way more subtle in person. Hence the reason I have stopped taking pictures with the flash on.

 I am extremely happy with the results on this model. Especially the metal work. I really wanted to get away from using washes as a crutch as I had really become reliant on them for painting models. Don't get me wrong, washes are AMAZING, fucking magic in a bottle, but felt like I was loosing some techniques by using that as much as I had. Generally I felt like the were making me a lazy painter!

SO, I won't lie. I did use the tiniest amount of wash on the silvers, but that was on the original base coat to darken it up. I really wanted a "worn" look on the metals so I wanted to work my way up from a very darkened metallic to a shinier center. I think I got it there. 

On the armor I was going for more a "natural" highlight as opposed to the hard edge look. Something about it is very appealing to me. The armor itself was blended up to give it the worn look as well. I am still undecided on whether or not to do battle damage. I know it looks great, but there is always a small part of my soul that cries out (think of Obi-wan when Alderran Sploded) when I go back and mar up a pretty paint job. So we shall see. 

As much as I enjoyed this model, when I was done I realized that there wasn't actually a lot to him and that I had to go looking for ways to bring texture and tone differences into the mix. That's not to say that I didn't like the figure, cause I think he is awesome. Just I was little surprised is all. Anyway, think that will jsut about cover things for now. As always, leave comments and/or questions! 

OH, and of course:

HOBBY AND THROW DICE LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR!

Alrighty, time to start my first series of hobby posts. So, as I have stated previously, I have been getting into Warmahordes pretty heavily. I was once a die hard GW follower, but have since fallen out of interest with them. I may or may not get into that at a much later date. For now I want to focus on stuff that is making me very happy and excited to hobby again:

WARMAHORDES!!!

My local group and I had all kinda decided the same thing about GW and wanted to do something else. A few of them already had some Warmachine stuff so as a group we all decide to do this. We made plans to build some tables and unanimously decided to jsut start at the beginner point total of 15. Easy and relatively easy to do on a budget.

Now my first foray into the Iron Kingdoms was 

It was an extremely easy choice for me. I loved the look of the models and the story of their history and exploits. Now, keep in mind, when I build paint and play armies these days I usually base my decisions on what looks cool to me and what I want to paint. I do not instantly go after the "power" armies and/or units.

I knew exactly zero about the game, how it worked and played, or how the units built synergy with one another. I literally just flipped through the Trollbloods book and said, 

"Ah snap, Madrak is a badass looking mother fucker. I am using him!"

Besides, he is called "The World Ender". Why wouldn't I use him.

I selected a few other units to add to the mix to give me my 15 points of beat down (with a few options). Alas, my first few games did not go well for me. I adjusted my tactics and added some different models to the mix. I started winning a few games and definitely had a better grasp of the tactics of the game.

BUT, as with most people that I hobby with, my gamer ADD kicked in and I was soon looking for a new army to add to my collection. This time I really took my time pouring over the different books and reading about all sorts of different factions. Soon though, I found them!

I fell in love with some Seaforge Mercenaries. I have opted for using Durgen Madhammer for my caster. I have not yet set down a solid 15 points yet, cause the have so much COOL stuff to play with, but I have a list that I am working from. 

Which brings this long winded post to its true meaning. I am going to start showcasing my work on my Mercs for everyone to see. Here is the start to my Madhammer:

I have decided to go with a purple and cream (bone) quartered them for the entire army. Cause lets face it, I cant do ANYTHING easy.  I will try and post at least once a week with updates and some staged photos. This is just the base coats so far. 

Hope you all enjoy. And trust me, these will get better with practice. Tell next time....

HOBBY LIKE YOU GOT A PAIR!

Okay, here it is folks. Finally getting into the blog biz. Not sure how this is going to work completely yet but the idea is to share my hobby, what I am working on and occasionally just the random crap swirling around in my head.

You will see quite a bit of Warmahordes here for the time being. 

 It is what I am playing and enjoying at the moment. I do however take commission work from time to time so that will pop up here too.

For now this is just a quick post to just say hi and get the ball rolling. Look forward to hearing from everyone and feel free to ask questions and leave comments.