Thursday 22 May 2014

58. Monochromatic! The Mustering of Titan. Battlefleet Gothic - Grey Knights part 1.

Yup.

Another project.
Don't worry guys. This one is a bit of a sleeper project in the same vein as my Bloodbowl and Necromunda projects.

I've always wanted to play Battlefleet Gothic.
Like the moron I obviously am I didn't start it when I work at Games Workshop.
Now the models are out of production and crazy expensive.

But you know what? I don't care! I'm doing it anyway!

My BFG fleet is going to be Space Marines, based on the Grey knights.
They'll fit into my Grey Knight army's back story/theme.

So when I finally get round to doing those, they'll updated side by side with these guys.


So here is my 1,500 point list.

Battle Barge + Master of the Fleet = 525

3 x Strike Cruiser = 435

4 Nova Class Frigates + 2 Gladius Class Frigates = 290

5 Sword Class Escorts = 200

6 Cobras Class Escorts = 205


That is it.

I already have two of the Strike cruisers and all six of the Cobra escorts.
I am awaiting the delivery of my Battle Barge.

So it is just a case of getting my hands on the rest. This could take a while/be crazy expensive.
Oh well

Pictures will surface when I have stuff to take photo's of.

Until then, PEACE!

-DH-


Monday 19 May 2014

57. Unto the Anvil of war...but not that *smash*. 40K Urban Terrain - Crashed Landspeeder part 4.

More painting is to be had, yo'!

But first; excuses and shameless plug!

I've been busy trying to buy battle fleet Gothic stuff (so, so hard these days!)
I also posted a new board game review on The science of selling yourself short -  http://darkhazzl3.blogspot.com/
To top it all off my mouse is playing up.


Anyway!
This Landspeer is in your underhive, smashing up your buildings.


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Just layers and some highlighting done.
Also some weathering.

I'm really pleased with how the mud effect came off on, especially on the destroyed wing in the bottom of picture three.
I did overdo the highlighting on the intact wing though...

The photo quality does wash out the clarity of the highlights.
That said I don't want to go over the top. It isn't meant to be the brightest of places...


Next steps for this are;
Adding the gold and brass trim to the destroyed floor tile and Landspdeer respectively.
Adding some Salamander Iconography to the hull of the Landspdeer,
Painting the interior and the engine.
I'll finish it all off with some battle damage on the speeder, water effects for the mud and gloss varnish for the marble floor tile.


So yeah. That is all for now.

Feedback welcome, as always.

You can hit me up here, or @DarKHaZZl3 on twitter.

Thanks for reading!

-DH-

Thursday 8 May 2014

56. It Came From Urban Space. 40K Urabnd Terrain - Crashed Aquila part 1.

Ah, yet another visit to the Underhive!

 A little foreshadowing here.

Back in 2009 I started working for Games Workshop. It was awesome (most of the time).
When I first started 40K was running in 4th edition, and the starter set was The Battle for Macragge.
I didn't get a copy, because I was already building up a crazy amount of Space Marines.

The summer I joined saw the introduction of 5th edition, and the Assault on Black Reach est.

Now I don't know if you've ever been to a Games Workshops tore (you totally should), but they have an 'open copy' of the current starter set so you can see what is inside, which is really usefull for new gamers.

I digress...
The old 4th edition open copy was thrown in the stores Bitz box. This is exactly as awesome as it sounds, and will undoubtedly make an appearance in a future story.

I asked my then manager if I could nab some stuff from the set that I'd missed... namely the terrain.
So I did... and I've done nothing with it for all this time... 5 YEARS!


I've finally got round to painting it!
So here is the wip;

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The model is already lightly textured, but I did add some extra rubble to tie in with my Urban ruin theme.

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The metals are done in a rough fashion to help give an aged and beaten feel.

There are many ways to do this, but I thought I'd do it in homage to one of my former co-workers.

This is the Sam Mouzer method of painting metal

First off, undercoat the model black,
Then follow that with an extremely heavy drybrush of tin bitz,
Then a lighter coat boltgun metal,

And that'd usually do it....
But I added an even lighter coat of chainmail,
and finally very lightly with mithril silver.

Finish it off with a wash of a desired colour to shade it where necessary.



This was done on all the ship parts.
Those parts that have colour were painted on top this...

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The red is just a base of foundation red, and then progressive layers of red; from scad to blood.

For those wondering I used the Forgeworld colours as the inspiration for my colour scheme.
You'll have to either check out this link HERE or Google it as,

A) I don't own one (painted or otherwise),
B) Forgeworld have discontinued the complete model,
and
C) The best Google image is far too large for this blog and I cba to scale it down/ don't own the rights to it...




So that's another project added to my huge list of things to do....
Yay!

-DH-

Monday 5 May 2014

55. Urban: Dense population? Where are the buildings?! 40K Urban Terrain - Imperial building part 1.

HERETICS!
SET YOUR GAZE UPON THIS CREATION OF THE EMPERORS DIVINE MAJESTY AND WEEP!

Or in other words, I've been doing some more terrain stuff; this time an Imperial Building.

On my post of the WiP of the crashed land speeder I mentioned the tiles would be painted in a similar fashion to one of my other terrain WiP's; this is the WiP

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Yep, it is your bog standard Imperial building from some of GW's cities of death terrain.

The tiles were my first attempt at simple marble effect paintjob.

The tiles start off brown (I undecorated the building brown for some reason...),
Painted over in Dheneb stone,
Then a light dry brush of Dheneb and Skull white,
Finally I washed with Army Painter Soft Tone.

I repeated the process a few times until I was relatively happy with the stained effect.
I finished up with a coat of gloss varnished (which you can't see in the pictures).

The tiles look okay, but too simple for a realistic marble effect.
I'm going to leave these ones as they are. but in future I'll be trying to throw different colours into the mix to give it a more layer effect.
Also, I'll be making it more bright by adding layers of very light bone.

If that doesn't go well I'll try black marble...



That is all for now.
I might post another update later on/ or in the next few days, which will again, be something unrelated...

TOO MANY PROJECTS!!

In the meantime, feel free to comment, suggest things and leave feedback!
Especially if you have experience painting marble that you'd like to pass on to me.

Peace out!

-DH-


PS. I thought I'd give a shout out to some of the guys over at The Bolter and Chainsword for constantly supporting my hobbying, and giving me feedback and suggestions along the road.

The biggest shout goes to deathspectersgt7 and Jaspcat who have followed my progress pretty much constantly for the last couple of years, which is awesome!
They also float around the B&C making it a nicer place to lurk and post. Check out there stuff (click on their names)
I'd also like to thank all the other guys who pop up now and again. I really appreciate the input. Even those who just 'like' the content I put out; it is nice to know someone is reading.



 

Thursday 1 May 2014

54. Bad Casting. 40K Urban Terrain - Pavement Side Crater part1.

In one of my posts on the Underhives bulletin board (I don't know what I'm talkign about), I was talking about casting some stuff for making terrain.

The basic story is, on what once was a fairly nice bi-weekly trip to a local town, I picked up a plaster cast kit at a charity shop (which was pretty random, I'll admit).
I bought it because
A) It was from the British Heart foundation (Y)
B) It was cheap
C) Why not? If I could make something usfull with it, then we we're onto a winner.

A while back (when I got the hobby bug again) I thought I'd try it out.
So I grabbed a couple of the Rhinos from my 'car pool,' and...



What?!



THE BUBBLES!!



Needless to say, it did not go well at all.
I know when casting you're meant to tap/vibrate the mould/surface to aid in releasing the air bubbles, but it just didn't seem to work.
I've cast many smaller pieces before using a two part liquid silicone.
This stuff was a 1 part powder and 1 part water mixture.
It just... NO!


The good thing about plaster of Paris is that it is fairly malleable, so it was fairly easy to get rid of those crazy air bubbles.





Looking a'ight for ruined vehicles?
That is what I thought! So I continued on, but it wasn't long until I found another problem.

I'll get to that in a moment.



With these new found trashed vehicles, I thought I'd do some more themed terrain.

Enter the crater;






This terrain piece, like all my others, tells a a little story about what has been happening on this battlefield (in relation to my armies).
In this piece the Space Marine (Probably a Marines Malevolent captain) lies dead in the crater left behind by an explosion.

The cause of the explosion? The destruction of his command Rhino;




I love the concept.

I was going to add large chunks of shrapnel to make it look like it had one of its flanks and part of the under carriage blown out by a mine or something.
This would visual explain why it is in the position it is in.
The Marine would be one of the casualties thrown clear from the wreckage.


All going well? WELL FUCK YOU DARKHAZZL3!

Here is where we return to the aforementioned problem.

PLASTER OF PARIS WONT GLUE TO ANYTHING FOR LOVE NOR MONEY!

Seriously!
I tried Super glue, Plaster of Paris, Polly filler, green stuff, milliput., PVA...
You can't pin it either, or it just crumbles.


So this terrain piece will likely be the last to be finished (if ever!), as I figure out a way to fix the rhino to the base, or just re- model the crater a bit to make it look like one created by an artillery shell (maybe from the entrenched gun position).

Either way. I promised a post about this experiment.
So unto you; The Underhivers, I deliver.


If you have any experience with Plaster casting then feel free to drop me a comment.
Weather it is words of advice, words of frustration or examples of casts done by you.
You can do it below this post, or at my WiP on the Bolter&Chainsword!
Failing that you can tweet me @Twitter - @DarKHaZZl3

Until next time.
-DH-