CONTEMPTOR NEARS COMPLETION!

I'll let the pics speak for themselves for this one:

So that's the basic paint job done.  Still need to detail, weather and chip the armour.  But the end is in sight!

Work progresses on the Contemptor.

So work has progressed slowly on the Contemptor dreadnought.

After undercoating black, a bit more detail was added to the base to break up the flatness of it using some bits from the city scenery kits.

The metallic areas were then based with boltgun metal and washed with badab black.

The blue armour has been base coated with a mix of mordian blue darkened with a little chaos black.

Ultramarines Contemptor

Here's a quicky.

Got my hands on a Contemptor dreadnought and couldn't resist putting together the lovely kit!

Felt he needed to crushing something under is immensely poseable legs though.....

This poor fellow had to pay the ultimate price.

and in doing so became part of this:

Project: Grey Knights (Test mini)

Over many years I have gained a ridiculous amounts of minis - suitably aided by 7 years working for GW and their rather too tempting staff incentives......

My wife has finally decided there is far too much stuff in the loft and it needs to diminish.  She wanted rid of the lot, but let's be honest, it's never gonna happen!

So instead I have set about significantly downsizing by trading out a load of stuff I'm never going to use or paint (often in very favourable trades for the other party) and started acquiring a few bits and pieces for a combination of pet projects, stuff I've always wanted, or stuff that I can actually get painted reasonably well in a reasonable timescale.

When I say "a few bits", in the case of the Grey Knights it seems to have ended up as "a lot of bits" - in fact in the region of 25 Terminators, 25 Power Armour, 2 Dread Knights, a Dreadnought, a Land Raider and the remains of a Rhino.

The aim is to start with a 1000 points and add 500 point blocks (or there abouts) of fully painted Knights in shining armour.  Okay, not shining armour, as I always felt that Grey Knights should be rather greyer than bright silver, but at the same time I didn't fancy the idea of an actual grey army for two reasons.  Firstly, the colour grey is just plain uninspiring.  Secondly, I find it is actually very hard to pull off a very good grey finish - or at least a grey finish I'm happy with.  Too much of a perfectionist I guess.

Enough preamble....

To get going I thought I'd do a single Terminator from this bunch:

These came from Pig Of Sparta (check out his blog at The Pig's Sty) and as you can see they are already basecoated (with a chainmail spray) and had a light wash of badab and asurmen blue.

They're not quite my imagining of the darker knights, so i set about them with a liberal wash of badab to dull them down before rehighlighting with a heavy drybrush of boltgun metal, a lighter drybush of boltgun/mithril silver and then a final very light drybrush of mithril.  This was then washed with asurmen blue into some of the areas before being given a final line highlight on a few edges with mithril.

The areas for detailing were then picked out with a thin coat of chaos black.

The black areas (soft armour, halberd shaft) were then highlighted using a progressive mix of chaos black/enchanted blue/skull white, to a rich grey.

The red based in scab red with a small amount of chaos black mixed in and then highlighted through scab red to blood red.

The gold was based with a 1:1 mix of scorched brown and shining gold.  This was then highlighted with shining gold, then a mix of shining gold with a little mithril silver in it.  I then followed this up with a wash of devlan mud mixed with badab black.  It was then rehighlighted with a mix of shining gold with a little more mithril silver in it, before edging the shoulder pad/engraving seam with badab black.

This took me to here:

Next up was the small details: Heraldry, Icons, etc and the bit I was dreading was the blue glow/reflective look on the Nemesis Force Weapon.

Most of the details are pretty standard affairs.  The bones and pages were done using a mix of chaos black/snakebite leather/bleached bone/skull white.  The reds as before.  The eye lenses were based with dark angels green, highlight to the front with sunburst yellow, and shaded to the back with chaos black.  A small white dot is put towards the black to give the illusion of reflection.  I then has a couple of goes at the Force Weapon....... It didn't go well..... Or not in my view.  I was told be a friend that it looked really good, but I wasn't happy, so it got stripped back and left with a basecoat until I could have a rethink.

At this point the mini was left sitting like this for a few days:

I finally solved the problem by picking up two of the new blues (Kantor blue and Lothern blue) and using them in the mix.  After another half dozen attempts I got something that I think is reasonable, but could still be improved.... The fact that there are another 40-odd Knights to get through should give me plenty of practice.....

Any way here's the finished product, hope you enjoy!

Blood Angel Completed

This is the completed Blood Angel demo piece.

First stage after the previous pics was to highlight up from the mechrite red base, through scab red and up to blood red.  After this the marine was give a wash of Baal Red.

Next stage was to re-highlight with blood red, then add a few spot edge highlights with a little orange in the mix.  This was followed by going over the detail areas in black before painting up the details.  Some thinned badab black was also added to some of the armour lines to give a little more definition.

Finally the model was given a l;ittle bit of battle damage and chipping around the lower legs and then based up using the good old scorched brown/bleached bone/grass top and calthan brown edge.

SO that's him all done and ready to head off to his new home.  He looks rather shiny in this pic, but I blame the halogen spots in the room.  Sooner that light box get sorted the better!!

The challenge progresses.

It seems Pig of Sparta has finally roused himself from his Sty and has put up his beginnings for the Eversor Assassin challenge!

Go check it out over at the THE PIG'S STY blog.

Eversor Challenge

Pig of Sparta, a fellow member of the International Brotherhood of Hobbyists and poster on the Bolter and Chainsword forum, and myself came up with the outline plan of a little challenge way back in the mists of time (well, over a year ago at any rate...).

This challenge was to paint up an Eversor assassin to show what we could both achieve with similar base models.

Finally this is beginning to take form...

First up, here is the base assassin I am using:

He'd been lying around in suspended animation in my bits box since he was first released, so he's a little eager to get out the blocks now!

I pictured a diorama in my head, but needed a victim.  The obvious choice was to use a Dark Eldar Wych of which I have a good few lying around - but the head in no way shape or form is Dark Eldar.  So there was only one solution:

1) Started with a Dark Eldar Wych head that had a pony tail and removed the pony tail.  This would give me something for the assassin to appear to be holding as there is hair already in his hand.

2) This is the original head in the hands of the assassin.  It needed removing.

3) Head removed, along with a few strands from behind it.

4) Wych head glued into place.  You can see in the second photo where a few extra bits of carving away hair were needed to make it fit under the arm of the assassin.  This was then filled and new hair sculpted with green stuff.

5) A head requires a body.  After raiding the Dark Eldar bits, I mainly used parts from the riders of the Venom.  The bent knees were ideal for a dropped body.  The two legs are not a matched pair, and meant to have a raised thigh, so as you see there was a gap at the front and back.  This was then filled and sculpted over with green stuff, with more detail, such as a sash or similar, to be added on later.

6)  The rough mock up for the diorama.  The GW ruins are ideal for this kind of thing and with a little thought, raising the floor provided the perfect height for the assassin to have struck his victims head from her neck......

Much more to go on this, but its a start.

BLOOD ANGEL DEMO PIECE

So thought it was time to start getting some min's on a mini painting and conversion blog....

First up, is the start of a simple demo piece.  A standard tactical marine to be done in blood angels colours. This, as all squad level models, will be finished up to a high table top standard.

So far this little guy has had a black undercoat, touch up, base of mechrite red and then 2 washes down with devlan mud to give a rich red-brown starting colour to work up from.

And so it begins........

Thought it was about time the old commission mill started work again.  Been a while since i've done private work though, having 3 kids put a bit of a dampener on time!!

The advances since the Dark Age of Technology mean I can now attempt something like this.....

I'm generally very modest when it comes to painting standards - i'd describe my work as high gaming standard, although i've been told it's better than that and have won several local GW painting competitions in the past.  While a GW employee many a while ago, much of the individual miniatures in the Aberdeen store were my work.

Miniature wise, I'll paint anything you need done - though I will confess to an immense displeasure in doing Imperial Fists... but don't we all!!

As for my portfolio... Unfortunately most of my old pics were lost when our old laptop got milk poured over it by one of the kids, so it's going to be a long process building that up again.
For that reason, I may be looking for a couple of volunteers in the near future...

DMM