Completed Desert Table Sees Some Action

So I never completed my 2012 challenge goals. As I am moving towards a new challenge to be unveiled on Sunday, I should really finish the previous ones off!

The desert table has been complete for awhile, but it has been a matter of getting some pictures together to log the completion here. Well that day has come, here are the completed board pictures, along with a few days of gaming on them. They are holding up well, though they don't always line up perfectly.

I still have some terrain pieces to finish for them, but they will be done more as a group project. Overall I am pretty happy with the boards. They were not difficult, nor that time consuming to make. I may make some additions in the future, like some pits or river features.

I've already posted my Cryx, Gators, and Dystopian wars, so I am almost done with the challenge. This leaves posting pics of my Shadow Crows, and the completion of my Descent miniatures as the last goals from the previous challenge. Only a few models to go!

Keeping the ball rolling..

Please excuse the long post, it has been awhile so I have quite a few projects to show progress on. I have not yet completed my terrain goal, but I'm slowly getting there. I've been concentrating on my Tau lately, and I'm finally putting some time into my Farsight piece which will hopefully be my first Golden Demon entry.

Terrain:

The river tiles were a nice learning experience with clear resin. I managed to mess up the edges by not really blocking them up properly during the resin setting. I've gotten a bit better about it in the second half (though still not perfect), and after some touchups the first batch are looking ok.



Objectives The objectives came out as well as I expected. They were a quick project for something that I had been dragging my feet on making.



My buildings have both seen some progress, though I'm nowhere near completion. I need a lot more casting to complete the bastion, and some detail work and sanding on the compound before the painting phase.




The Ethereal statue came out ok, and can be placed by itself, on top of the bastion, or on the Space Marine column. The rubble scene was formed from miscast and junk plaster. The guardsman scene was not planned, I just kinda shot from the hip.

TAU


I finished my last 6 Firewarriors, and then went back and added some squad markings to the others. I can now break them down into 6 man teams, or combine two groups for 12 man teams. I also put some more detail into squad leader markings, so they're a bit more obvious. After the firewarriors, I made a decision to change my brown earth color up to a tau ochre to match my board a bit better. It took the rest of the afternoon and a handfull of Xfiles episodes, but I powered through all my other Tau models to unify the army bases. I will take pictures of these all when I have the chance, as some of my earlier pictures are poor in quality.


As I began to work on my last devilfish, I came to the conclusion that I had to put some time into the others to make them a bit more coherent. In the end I airbrushed my original hammerhead into a gradient pattern and darker red, while trying to bring my pimped out hammerhead a bit more vibrant. I practiced using masking to spray on white panels, which was infinitely better than handpainting large areas of white (even despite a few errors in masking which left white overspray in a few places).

-Skyray/Devilfish-






-Veteran Hammerhead-






-LED Hammerhead/Devilfish-









With these pieces finished, my assembled pieces in my Tau army are complete. Granted, I have about the same amount of tau figures given to me which are sitting half assembled in a box. I haven't quite decided what to do with them yet, but maybe the Cadre will grow again in a few months..

My Farsight model will likely consume most of my hobby time for August. After that I have a rising queue of new projects to work on. Top of the list is my Raven Guard in the works for the PBL escalation league. After that, I may be painting Joe's orks for fun! Lastly I'm really looking forward to the Warhammer Fantasy box set, so I will have Skaven and High Elves to paint (as well as maybe a Fantasy themed table?)

May Painting Challenge Week 5 - Done!*

*I didn't quite finish the Lilith and Viktoria crews. Theyre definitely up to a tabletop quality, but I've neglected a bit of detailing to finish them off. Viktoria's crew in particular is rather unfinished in highlights and facial details. That being said, I'd rather just leave them at this point and return to finish them up at a later date.

I started this challenge on May 3rd, with the intent to finish on June 3rd. 31 models in 31 days turned into 33 models in 37 days. Not too far off from my mark, this was due more to missed days and subsequent sluggishness to restart painting when I could.

 

So whats next? 

I've had a steadily mounting pile of unfinished terrain, newest of which are some great Terranscapes resin river tiles which I can't wait to start working on. My objective markers are another set of things which should be fun, and probably pretty quick to boot.

Other pieces will be a bit more time consuming, such as the large Tau center which still needs puttywork, sanding, and some extra doodads before its even ready to paint. The bastion is also still getting its required blocks cast from Hirst Arts molds, and I'm kinda making up the pattern as I go along.. The two Tau towers have been primed for ages, but I still think they need a bit more work before they can be painted.

Terrain usually goes pretty quick, so I am going to try to have this stuff done by the beginning of July. Have some terrain just begging to be drybrushed? Still using beer cans as objectives? Join in and get some terrain finished this month!

May Painting Challenge - Week 3

Ok, so to make up for no pics last time, here's extra pictutres with this update! First up, the completed 40k projects Eldar and Orks. Finished for the most part, except for a little bit of detail work.



 I've also completed the Perdita Ortega crew for Malifaux, and started on Lilith's bunch. I am really liking these models, the sculpts speak for themselves and don't need a whole lot of paint finesse to shine.

I'm happy with my progress so far, so happy that I added 2 more models to Lilith's crew! I felt that she could really use these additions game-wise. I plan to try out some NMM and light source techniques to keep these guys interesting. I still hope to finish them before leaving for vacation this thursday, leaving only Viktoria's crew.

I am starting to get annoyed dealing with all this metal however. The resin bases have no hollow bottoms, so I cant stick them to paint pot handles like I normally do. This means I'm handling the minis too much, which leads to wear and tear. Also, the amount of chips I've caused from dropping and transporting these guys is staggering. My last part of this challenge will definitely be clearcoating all of them.

I was distracted a bit from my painting this Sunday due to my Hirst Arts molds. I managed to finally make use of my new machinery molds to pump out a few neat looking objective counters. The medium base is still a little cramped for most of my ideas, but I managed to fit them down to size. This was a good primer to other things that I can make, so expect some larger pieces of terrain in the future: Zzap guns, power generators, interior computer terminals and the like.

So there you have it, results from the first three weeks. Almost there!

Hot off the Earth Caste productionlines!

It has been awhile since my last post, but I have been busy.

Crisis suits have filled out quite a bit. I revisited my original, and gave it a heavier detailing to match my newer versions. Here they are all displayed with magnetized weapons. Each suit has 4 magnet hardpoints available.

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The devilfish mimics the stealth drone "reeds" style camo pattern. I enjoyed painting the camo and feel it really helps to tie the fish in with its job ferrying the pathfinders around.

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I wanted my Piranha to look like its seen better days. Maybe its been overhauled more than once, or maybe the pilot just likes skimming over mudfields. Either way it could use a good power wash.

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My first Pathfinders are complete! Others are on the way, giving me two squads of 5. These were alot of fun to convert, pose, and paint. The use of a cooking scourer bristle as reeds has inspired me to try sprinkling these around the rest of my army a bit. They could probably use a wash or two to tone them down.

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A new Kroot tribe has arrived to support cadre Revenant Autumn. Ol shaper Grim Eye has no love of these blue kroot. He hopes to show that his boys are the superior choice for fieldcraft and melee. I'v converted him out of a shaper model I got from my ebay purchase of most of the army. He has been pretty substantially converted, and I like him so much that I might just run him as a shaper. For now hes just in there for looks, as I cant justify the points for it.

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My WIP Devilfish and Hammerhead.
I've put a lot of time into making this hammerhead as modular as possible. Magnetized doors, top hatch, back hatch, front turret. I even magnetized the rotatable engines, which has proven to be a good choice. Its normally a matter of time before I break that little plastic nubbin and have to superglue the engine to the hull. This way, its fully rotatable, and no worrying of breaks. I hope to LED the engines when I have the time. The other DF was already assembled, but ive worked on it so I can switch it to a skyray if needbe.

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My vat project was alot of fun. It sat in my mind for a long time, and to see it finally completed and so close to my original idea really makes me happy. I filled the full vat with plaster, painted it, and then covered it with a good amount of tinted green resin.

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These wrecks were an idea I tried from Terragenesis. Basically take a clay/dough, stick vehicle into clay to make a mold. Pull it out and fill the mold with plaster. voila, instant wrecked terrain. After these two I switch to cheapo playdoh and had much much better results with a little more cleanup. I'd take pictures but I gave them away as birthday presents.

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The column is a simple project where I took my girlfriend's unwanted swan candleholder, snapped off the 3 swans, and replaced them with old dark angels. I also dremel sanded down some flowery stuff, to be replaced with aquilla's. I also would like to hang a Tau banner from the top, with a newly installed ethereal topping the column, as part of a propaganda campaign to win over the human settlements.

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So thats the new stuff. Two vehicles, 4 crisis suits, and a bunch of pathfinders are still sitting around waiting for my new airbrush to come. Expect a post when I complete the next wave!
Here are some more pictures for those interested. A few more can be found on my photobucket account.