Mannfred, Mortarch of Night completed

 Mannfred is finally done! Boy was he a challenge to paint. I attempted to recreate the red effect from the official art and tried Warhammer TV tutorial but I just couldn't make it work. So eventually I just gave up and did everything with the same ghost scheme as the rest of the army. The sword I freestyle on the spot and I am really happy with it. I took inspiration from the "Fiery Black" in the Warhammer Paint app but added some Flash Gitz Yellow and White Scar as final highlights.

And there he goes destroying some Freeguild/Empire. Fun fact, he took a bunch of cannon fire and the General on Griffon the turn after this photo and was reduced to 2 wounds. He then hit back and next turn I went first and he just wiped the General.

I also finished up my Black Knights which were an absolute joy to paint

I have already covered how to paint these but let me know of you have any questions.

Tyranid Rules Leak: Devourers are back

Picture taken from newest white dwarf. This will please some people.

Quick and easy Warhammer Skeletons

Hey everyone this is a quick-ish tutorial for painting Games Workshop skellies for AoS. I recommend pairing in blobs of 10, because if a problem happens, say with your spray or wash, less are affected, and because I did this with 20 at a time and I nearly went mad. Anyway, start by assembling your models without attaching the shields or shield arm. Also don't attach the banners to the banner bearers. Once you've done this its time to start painting.

1. Give the model a good white undercoat. Obviously don't flood your model, but make sure you get a nice thick basecoat. If its a bit thin the bone colour wont come through as well.

2. Paint all metal areas Leadbelcher.

3.Paint all the spear shafts. I alternated between Rhinox Hide and Eshin Grey for this. If you are using swords the same paints can be applied to the grips.

4. Paint all cloth Khorne Red. If you want to use the red more sparingly, use a different dark colour for the other cloth, I'd go Eshin Grey.

5. Paint all leather areas, like belts, Doombull Brown.

Wash the entire model with Agrax Earthshade. Make sure to go really heavy on the metal areas to bring out the detail and give it a dirty look.

I started basing them by painting the base with Mechanicus Standard Grey

I then used some Astroganite Debris to build some texture. While this dried I moved onto shields.

Now get all those shields you want and spray them with Leadbelcher. Paint wood Doombull Brown and some with Khorne Red (if you want) and wash it all with Agrax. Lightly Drybrush metal with Necron Compound. Do the little studs with Stormhost Silver, same goes for the studs on the spears and the rest of the models.

To quickly do the helmet horns paint them Zandri Dust, then wash them Agrax Earthshade, then use watered down Ushabti Bone to paint in streaks up to the tip, leaving the dark colours near the base.

I sprayed and washed the arms on sprue. Sure when you clip the off there will be a little bit of grey showing through but I'm a bit lazy.

Glue arms to shields

Now while the shields dry I went and washed the bases with Nuln Oil.

Finish the bases with a light drybrush of Dawnstone.

Glue on those shields.

I finished by painting the base edges with black and I use some quite watered down Baharoth Blue in the eye sockets to give a glow which helps tie the skellies with my sprits.

And that's it. Sorry if the photo quality is a bit average, but i think it gets the point across. The whole point of this tutorial is to quickly get your skeletons onto the board with a decent colour scheme and uniformity. It's way too much work to go to the effort of highlighting and detailing a horde of bones so all colours are picked because they can be washed with Agrax Earthshade. This means you don't have to be careful when washing and also means that none of the bits look older or dirtier than anything else. Don't go to the all the effort of making everything look fantastic because after doing so many of the same models it can drive you nuts and you want to prioritise centrepiece models for your attention because that's what everyone will be looking at, yourself included. If you have the time and skill (and fortitude) to spend hours on each individual model go right ahead, but painting shouldn't be a chore. 

More posts soon

Sorry about the lack of posts, last day of assessments is today and that will be me pretty much done for the year with the exception of a minor exam. Will be up and painting tomorrow with a bunch of tutorials to come. Look forward to seeing:
For 40k
- Blood Angels Stormraven tutorial
- Blood Angels Leviathan Siege Dreadnought tutorial (40k)
- A showcase of various other Blood Angels stuff if I get around to it
For Age of Sigmar
- Quick and easy skeletons tutorial
- Mannfred, Mortarch of Night tutorial
- Easy Black Knights tutorial (maybe)

That should keep me busy. Until then.

Warhammer Direwolves Conversion + Tutorial

So just completed my Direwolves conversion using Fenrisian wolves. I'm not a huge fan of the current direwolf models as they look a bit piggish in my opinion. Hopefully they get some new models soon. Since these wolves are a tad less decomposed I had to give them some sort of ethereal look and this was achieved with the glowing green eyes. I think I saw someone else do the same thing on the internet somewhere but couldn't for the life of me find it, so here's a tutorial for those of you who like it. Note, the eyes for these models can be a tad uneven at times which means you have to be quite precise or else your wolves will look a bit lopsided. Precise here is by the standards of the army, so it isn't too difficult, as this is supposed to be a high quality tabletop ready paint scheme, not winning any awards. 

Fur:

Step 1: Basecoat model black (I used Chaos Black Spray)

Step 2: heavy drybrush of Eshin Grey

Step 3: Light drybrush of Dawnstone

Mouth:

Step 1: paint gums and tongue and fleshy bits Screamer Pink

Step 2: Paint teeth Ushabti Bone

Step 3: wash all with Carroburg Crimson

Step 4: Highlight teeth with Kislev Flesh (I use Kislev instead of a more bone or tooth colour because the crimson gives the teeth a nice dirty/just ate sort of look and the Kislev highlights this well. You also shouldn't go too bright for your teeth as it will take attention away from the eyes)

Eyes:

Step 1: use watered down Warpstone Glow on the entire eye socket area (you want it to run into the recess around the raised eye, where the rest of the colours should also run to pick out the eye)

Step 2: use watered down Moot Green on the inner eye socket (I did this step twice for best results)

Step 3: Use a small amount of watered down Yriel Yellow (do not go crazy with this, but don't be too sparing, it will dull as it dries and it will be toned down in a later step)

Step 4: Dot the raised eye bit with White Scar

Step 5: Glaze the yellow and white with Waywatcher Green to bring them back to green a bit

Step 6: Do one final dot of white in the centre of the eye to finish

Any mistakes should be quite easily removed with a bit of watered down Warpstone Glow

This should be enough for some as it creates a nice subtle glow, but if  you want it to be a bit brighter you can do a small lighting effect with some drybrushing

Eye Glow:

Step 1: Drybrush around the eye socket with Warpstone glow

Step 2: Drybrush again with Moot Green, but more centered on the eye socket

Step 3: a very light drybrushing of Yriel Yellow very focused on the Eye socket just to brighten up the green

And done

Another thing to note is that the yellow should never really look yellow, it should just look from a distance like a really bright green. Green is fantastic for glow effects for this reason, because you have a whole other colour to work up to before white which really makes it pop. 

Tuesday Game

For my fourth game of Age of Sigmar I played against Shane's mixed chaos nonsense again. 1000 points each.
My list:
Hq: Tomb Banshee (General), Cairn Wraith
Battleline: Spirit Hosts (9), Hexwraiths (10)
Other: Mortis Engine (I know the mortis isn't legal in nighthaunt army but it was a friendly)
Exactly 1000 points
Traits and Artifacts were -1 bravery (to synergize with the Banshee howl), and the artifact that grants an additional 3" to movement for nearby units.

Shane had... stuff? I don't know. His armies are typically a mess of unpainted and not fully assembled models, so yeah. He had some allied ogres. and some khorne-y chaos warriors.

The game wasn't spectacular. Our first turns was just moving and then I got off a lucky charge and rather stupidly charged my spirit hosts into some blood crushers and chaos warriors leading to all 9 spirit hosts being killed by turn 4, but they did at least kill the crushers. This came as a surprise as the spirit hosts are usually man of the match, deleting units and taking few casualties. What was the man of the match was the mortis engine. I stole first phase, turn 2 and the mortis engine used its ranged attack and opened its reliquary and did about 4-5 mortal to 5 different units, really neutering the army. From there the Hexwraiths hit and at this stage there was nothing that could really take the massed rending attacks, and I slowly destroyed the rest of the force. Lost about 50% of my army during the game, but annihilated his. Was a close first round, but that mortis engine just crippled the army. If Shane had taken first turn on round 2, things could have gone very differently. Hopefully next game is against someone who is a bit more together with their tactics.

Mortis Engine Complete

Just this past week was my birthday and one of my friends who also plays Warhammer picked me up the Start Collecting Malignants box. Whilst you can't legally use the Mortis Engine as allies for Nighthaunt, I will, because it just should be able to be used. I will be playing mostly friendly games though, so who cares. Anyway, was good fun to paint and is a very big boy. Spirits were done as per usual, whilst the structure was painted the Mechanicus Standard Grey, then washed with Nuln Oil and drybrushed with Dawnstone.

Will be completing the Spirit Hosts and Hexwraiths tomorrow ready for a game on Tuesday. 

A good weekends work

I have been eyeing up Age of Sigmar for a while now, specifically death as I get some good old Heroes 3 vibes from it and recently decided to make the plunge. What pushed me was the release of the small allies boxes, specifically Nighthaunt Tormented Spirits. I've been wanting to do Nighthaunt since I built my Mourngul earlier this year and using a paint scheme I found over at Mengel Miniatures (http://www.mengelminiatures.com/2017/02/showcase-vanguard-nighthaunts-army.html) I quickly whipped up an army and the results are fantastic.

 Whilst I wont be winning any awards for painting, I really love how visually striking this army is. Not only that but this army was a breeze to paint taking me about roughly 5 hours to paint all the models and another 2-3 to do the bases and details. I slightly altered the paints used so my method is as follows:
- Spray white but dont try too hard to get the deepest recesses, a bit of grey helps for definition.
- paint with 50/50 Lahmian Medium/Nihilakh Oxide
- Lightly drybrush with Praxeti White on raised areas
- done
The Mourngul was shaded with Coelia Greenshade on his hands and mouth before the drybrushing.

I based with Astroganite Debris/Nuln Oil/Dawnstone Dry like I usually do because I like the idea they are walking through ruined tombs and such.
I am currently waiting on a second Cairn Wraith in the mail which gets me to exactly 1000 points (and is completely coincidentally the same army Mengel Miniatures use. I wasnt planning on getting the Tomb Banshee but it was just there on display looking oh so buyable.)
Now when I have some more money I have my eye of the Start Collecting: Malignant Box. Any reason is a good reason to buff up my spirit hosts and hexwraiths after how they played in my last game. And the Mortis Engine looks amazing (even though you cant legally take it as an ally, like seriously?)
 I have a game coming up on Thursday and I will try and take some photos.

Blood Angels Librarian Finished

Over the last 2 days I have painted up a Terminator Librarian that I've had for a while now and I though would be a good guinea pig for some cool weapon effects I've been wanting to try. The end result came up far better than I expected. I also had a shot a doing gems again, which also worked out really well. And then Using my recent explorations into lighting effects I tried to use those to make a sorta psychicy looking effect on his hand and I'm happy about that too. Probably one of my new favourite models that I have painted and will definitely be trying more of these effects in the future.