Completed: Chimeras

The Cadian Guard regiment of the Black Jacks now have two new dust covered chimeras to ride around the battlefield. The first is of course the older chimera set and the second is the newer. Of course the older version comes with a great add-on kit that adds character to the transport. The new one is ok. Of course the tracks are much easier to assemble, but thats it.

One thing you my notice is that the right turret decal started to flake off. Strangely it did it on both tanks. At the moment, I am going to leave it there and let it fall off once it gets some game time. Then we can also go back and re-weather that section of the turret.

Again I heavily weathered these transports- and loved the heck out of it. First was oil washing techniques I've talked about before and then weathering pigments from Secret Weapon. This time I managed to seal the tank without blowing all the pigments off!

On the painting table is still a Manticor and a Psychic Battle Squad- full of conversions. 

All of Your Bases

... belong to me bitch!
Heh, I always wanted to say that, don't know why.
Anyway I have started on my way making custom resin bases, for my Cadian Imperial Guard.

This project resurfaced a couple of months ago when reading on the 40KHobbyBlog about making your own resin bases. Since then, I've been going strong to create some resin. Add to my hobby projects Adepticon 2011 Team Tournament and wanting to have unified bases for our team, this seemed like the perfect thing to do.  One of the best places to learn about this is Tap Plastics.  Their tutorial videos are excellent.  Until my tutorial is posted (probably a few weeks), look at the Tap videos over and over again!
First things first, a test on the Cadians. I picked up a kit from Alumiite (available at my local train store) for about $60 total. The Silicone is 'Quick Set' and the resin is 'Regular'. Though next time I will try to order from Tap Plastics directly.


Taking some bases created for the test run, I ran the kit and created a pretty nice silicone mold.
The result- some bases I love! My guard army is a bit of hack together of learning new techniques and playing around. These bases won't break that trend anytime soon.

After doing a couple of resin molds, here is what popped out. The bases held their shape very well and the detail that came out was great. As each cast was done, the sand and defects were 'removed' from the mold.
The paint scheme is supposed to represent a "Mars" theme planet that the Black Jacks have been fighting on for some time. I'm not so sure about the colors at the moment because the GW Baal Red seems to have too much yellow/orange color for my taste. We shall see after a few of the guard get plopped on the bases.

However, here are a few things I learned during the test process:

• Make sure you have read all the instructions and have all of your material well before hand. This didn't bother me during this run, but is good advise all the same.
• I used sand on the bases and gave them a copule of coats of 'white' glue and varnish- however, while the sand stuck to itself it didn't stick to the base. The result was when I pulled the bases from the mold, part of the base stayed behind.  It took awhile to clean he mold up and when I did, some of the detail was lost. 
• Make sure you add a filler to the bases before doing the mold or make sure you have them well glued to the casting surface. I had some of the mold sneak under the bases leaving a lot of trimming of the mold and eventually each base. It would be so much easter just to put some putty or green stuff and 'fill' the bottom of the bases. 
• Don't spread out the bases so much on the mold, and don't pour so much. Despite being as scientific as possible, I greatly overestimated how much mold I'd need- wasting about half a jar of the stuff (CYA $15!).  There is a better plan for next time!
• Be sure to 'scrape' the top of the mold before it sets so that that bottom of the bases don't 'bellow' out. It just adds time to the clean up process. 
• DO THIS!  This was fun, exciting, nerve racking, but still fun. You should try it. :)
• A full tutorial to follow....

Blood Angels: Dante

Dante is done. D-U-N .
Its a counts-as model that my friend assembled, but it works very well. Again, the gold is fun to paint, but I like how it turned out for the time that was spent.
I was asked to do the blue-white-lightening scheme as you see on the axe. It looks good, but not great. Any ideas on how to make that transition to great?  To be honest, I've not seen too many of the blue lightening power weapons that I love. Its probably just personal taste.

The bases will begin production this week... stay tuned!

I was informed this weekend that the models will be making their first tournament appearance in a couple of weeks. 15 Sanguinary Guard, Dante, and 3 Sanguinary Priest. Yikes 19 models with power weapons or better! Just sick, I say. Well its a good thing that I am going to be him team mate with Imperial Guard.  Hah!  Now, where did those pie plate templates go....

Its Good to be an Ultramarine Player!

Its never been a better time to be sporting Ultramarine Blue. The Ultramarine movie is ready to launch in a few weeks and collectors edition is up for pre-order. Also, GW has posted some very cool UM models painted be fellow blogger Stahly from Germany. I have been a big fan of his blog for a few months now.  His blog has been on my blog roll for some time now, and even though he is painting Eldar I stop by everyday to check out what this young man is producing.

Image: Stahly and GW.com

Games-Workshop has also been blessing us with lots of Ultramarine love in their daily blog last week, including these awesome Sternguard models. Gotta love the Sternguard!

From GW.com

And of course the picture that makes me melt with pride and joy, is the 20,000 point UM army below. Perhaps one day I can own such an awesome amount of models!

Another GW image

 Well that is more than enough blue for most of you today, any more and I run the risk of having everyone starting an Ultramarine Army. 

WIP: Blood Angel Death Company

The Death Company squad for the commission army that I am painting is nearly done. All that is left is a few detail pieces and another wash for the metal. These models are really nice- full of detail and capture the spirit of the Blood Angles very well. In fact, I like these models much more than the Sanguinary Guard, who lack a lot of detail on the those models. There is a lot of plain gold on those models, which is just a pain.

Here are the Sanguinary Guard that I have painted at the moment. There are another 4 that I have started on to bring the total up to 19! I thought I was done with painting gold, until I realized that there is an honor guard squad as well!  More gold!!  At least they don't have big white wings as well. :)  

Dark Eldar First Look, Part II

For the past week, we have all been watching the official release of the Dark Eldar on the games-workshop.com site. I think the internet community needs to give GW some props with the coverage the have been giving the Dark Eldar miniature release. Being able to hear what the miniature designers have to say about the design process and seeing the artwork and early tech designs is awesome. It really gets my nerd engines rev'ing!

Ok, enough of that. I was a bit bearish in the troop models, but that is because I knew there was some awesomeness coming with the vehicles. Lets start with the model I had the biggest hopes for, the raider. Now I know that people are worried about an AV 10 open topped vehicle, but damn these things are some looking. Jes and the boys kept the space pirate image from the prior edition and turned up the volume to 11. I love all of it: the big sails, the guys riding on the side ready to jump off at any moment, and the forward gunner... all great.

Next, the Reavers. I love the 'racing' helmets and gives these guys a good MadMax feel to them. These are sleek rides that according to the early rumors will be covering 40K tables in the next year. Just one thing about them, if you read the text these are based off the 'new' Eldar jetbikes. No wonder they look so similar to the rumored images from a couple of years ago. 

Lastly the Hellions. In their first edition, the models were a joke. All metal and looked dumb on the table. Sorry, but nothing looked realistic about them. The design team was understandably limited with the tech of the time, and now those limitations have been removed. These models have surprised me the most with the realistic motion poses and the dead 'ard pirate look to the riders. Seriously, these guys give me the creeps just looking at them. I think a lot of credit needs to go to Jes and his team for making the Dark Eldar look like Space Elf Pirates- close enough to the Eldar that you recognize their past, but with enough modern goth pieces to make them look distinct and know that evil is coming on the horizon. 

Its official, I can't wait for the DE to arrive!