What I've been doing recently, a painting and modelling log...

[Raven Morpheus]

Here’s to a speedy recovery!

One can only hope. She hasn't really been doing what she's been advised by the health professionals, and her reablement care package has now ended (it was only temporary anyhow), although she was almost at the point where she didn't need carers at all first thing AM and last thing PM...

Getting a bit fed up with her to be honest, my uncle, albeit 10 years her junior, mid-50s, smoker, more overweight than my mother, had a valve or two replaced year before last and was back at work 3 months later. Chance'd be a fine thing if mother was back on her feet properly in that amount of time (it's already been over 6 weeks)...

Just glad I have some models to paint to take my mind off it, I would do video gaming as that's my other hobby but I seem to be a bit bored with that at the moment.


Anyhow, I'm going to take a short break from doing WHQ '95 stuff, yeah I know, didn't take long...


Remember this guy?

Space Hulk Deathwing/Genestealers painting log

Many years ago I bought a copy of Space Hulk 4th edition on evilBay with everything except the models. At a later date I bought a set of the Genestealers and also invested in 2 boxes of plastic Deathwing Terminators. You only get 10 in 2 boxes so I've also bought parts for Deathwing...

yaktribe.games

I started on him back in 2019 and never finished him, so, I've stripped him with a view to starting again on him, because I feel I can do better...

Paint has come off quite well, having been left in IPA 99% (might be 91%) for a number of hours, although a few small amounts still need stripping. I've also ordered and am waiting on a GW 32mm Necromunda base, because I like the style (it fits both in 40k and Space Hulk, and 32mm is about as big as I'd want to go for Space Hulk), and an axe head to go on the top of the staff to turn it into a force axe...

I have an idea for his blue armour "to make it pop", whether or not I execute it well is another matter...

His main armour will be a brighter blue, starting with Citadel Caledor Sky (current version of the old Enchanted Blue) as the base, because, although I can't find it, I'm sure back in the 90s/early 00s I saw an article/fluff in White Dwarf Magazine or a Codex or something, stating that Librarian armour should be a brighter blue than the usual Ultramarines blue, despite the Ultramarines' Librarians not being painted in a brighter blue. The original 'Eavy Metal studio paint of Ezeikiel of the Dark Angels certainly looked like he was done in Enchanted Blue or an equivalent as a base colour (and that's how/why I painted my Ezekiel the same way), his armour has been darkened down in the more recent 'Eavy Metal studio (re-)paint job though.

I will try the blue idea out on a paint mule first though as I'm not sure if I have the right blue for highlights, I have Citadel Lothern Blue, but feel I may want to use Citadel Hoeth Blue, which I don't currently have...


The rest will stay pretty much the same colours as before, with a few tweaks here and there, i.e. the skulls and wings will be bone rather than "gold", and the "gold" probably won't be the same, I'll use the Vallejo Metal Colors "gold" recipe I've been using recently.

I'm also toying with the idea of the hood and tabard/loin cloth/whatever on the front being green, like the Deathwing Knights. Not sure about the cloak/skirt/kilt/whatever round the back, I can't decide if I should also paint that green with bone on the inside, or it's usual bone on the outside with green inside.

Shoulder pads, or at least his right one, might be bone also, because, he's a member of the Deathwing...

The axe head when it arrives will have the blade painted dark green (possibly almost black), with a fade to light green on the outside edge to make it look like it's glowing, at leat that's the plan for that part.

Hmmm...


Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Friday night at the table...

Well tonight was a bit of a disaster!

I tried using a paint mule, 1 of 6 Deathwing terminators sent to me in 2019 by an unknown person and never claimed back, to try out a blue recipe and practice my highlight glazing/blending, in preparation for my Librarian, on various areas and it didn't start well...

I opened my pot of Citadel Caledor Sky and it was solid in the bottom! Not the first Citadel paint to do that, but I've not had it happen to me in recent years!

Long story short I eventually managed to get the solid acrylic remnants out of the pot, into plastic shot glases, and using Vallejo thinners and then IPA 99% eventually managed to get some blue liquid approaching something like a glaze consistency.

So, after several layers I just about had some Caledor Sky on my paint mule. I then tried glazing on Citadel Teclis and Lothern blues for "area highlights" (?). I was going to do some round the back and on top, to see how my glazing/blending of the highlights would look there, although the top would probably be solely Lothern blue (wouldn't it?), but I gave up as I couldn't be bothered faffing around with more Caledor Sky coloured blue crap liquid!

Definitely think now that I should be using Citadel Hoeth blue, not Lothern blue and I don't currently have a pot of Hoeth blue, and obviously I need a new pot of Caledor Sky - so, that somewhat ruins my weekend plans! I probably can't get to my local Citadel paint stockist until Monday, for reasons, even if he's even got the two blues, and ordering online will take longer (and cost more).

Grrrr!

Photos below, the knee could be better and the highlight on the hip armour is in the wrong direction, but this was only a test, there is a Citadel Fenrisian grey edge highlight but it's not very noticeable in these photos -

I'll have to see if anything else I have waiting for paint enthuses me this weekend I guess, and hope I haven't got any more dried out paints...



Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.

 

[Mr. M]

Despite the paint problems, you've really achieved a very nice and smooth color gradient. I think you can definitely call this glazing practice a success! I'm no expert, but you can supposedly create more of a "metallic" effect by continuing to highlight to some nearly-white color and perhaps achieve armor with more shine. Might be worth trying on these practice models!

 

[Punktaku]

I don’t know what you were going for, but i do like what you did.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Despite the paint problems, you've really achieved a very nice and smooth color gradient. I think you can definitely call this glazing practice a success! I'm no expert, but you can supposedly create more of a "metallic" effect by continuing to highlight to some nearly-white color and perhaps achieve armor with more shine. Might be worth trying on these practice models!

Thanks. The blends really don't look that good up close to the mk1 eyeball, although from a distance I guess they look OK. They are helped in the photos, because they may be a bit out of focus, and by the shine from my lights, it's obscuring much of my not so great blending. I don't think I want to go more towards the "metallic" effect with this though. But I'll bear that in mind, might come in useful for something in the future.

I don’t know what you were going for, but i do like what you did.

I was going for blended highlights on an area, instead of just edge highlights. Kind of like the old school way GW painted their Space Marines, i.e. blended shadow on the lower areas of armour sections and blended highlights on the upper areas of armour sections. Although I didn't bother with the lower shadows, because I gave up due to the Caledor Sky paint problem.


I have the start of an urge to make a start on Commissar Yarrick today, so that may happen later on, been on and off wanting to paint him for a while now...



Took delivery of an electric hedge trimmer today, going to see if I can cut back some of the jungle obscuring the front path, and a bit out in the back garden. Gardening was mother's hobby but she's let it go this past 3-4 years, for reasons only she really knows, and it's now getting overgrown to the point delivery people and other people coming to the front door are complaining. I would use manual clippers but due to arthritis in my knees (and feet) I can't get down on my knees properly so an electric hedge trimmer should be better...

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Here I am again, it's 4am again, and I'm on my own...

So, gardening was successful, I managed not to lose any limbs, the garden is still untidy and overgrown but the path can now be traversed without being attacked by plants...

I didn't make a start on Yarrick.

Saturday evening I sat down to watch The Two Jakes (film, 1990), had a large bottle of Heineken and consumed 2 packs of Oreos. Not sure which was the bigger mistake, but it resulted in not being able to sleep.

So, about 01:30 I went down stairs and decided to paint the 4 Chaos cruisers I have for Battlefleet Gothic. Whilst I was doing that I watched David Lynch's Dune. I've watched several versions of it, including an unofficial "directors cut", the theatrical release, extended DVD version and some TV version with a weird animated opening, and they're all largely incomprehensible. But I recently came across a "fan-edit" version called Alternative Edition Redux by someone called Spicediver. It's slightly less incomprehensible.

I prefer David Lynch's Dune over the new one. It just has a better aesthetic imo, despite, or perhaps because of, being "of it's time"...


Photo of the cruisers, not the best, I should have made my tripod higher and/or taken individual photos -

From left to right, we have a Styx heavy cruiser, a Murder cruiser and Carnage cruiser (or Carnage cruiser and Murder cruiser?) and a Slaughter cruiser. I think...

I didn't make much of an effort with them, they had an airbrush of Citadel Wazdakka red over the black undercoat that I put on them months ago, then a Citadel Nuln Oil wash all over, and then a drybrush over the top surfaces of Citadel Evil Sunz scarlet and Citadel Trollslayer orange, followed by a glaze of Citadel Bloodletter because they were a bit too orange. And the trim was done with Citadel Warplock Bronze mixed about 50:50 with Vallejo Game Color Polished Gold.

That's pretty much the paint recipe in the BFG rulebook, but using currently available paints (besides Bloodletter glaze), and I subbed the heavy drybrush of the main red (Wazdakka) with an airbrushed on layer and a shade wash...



Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

And on tonight's Blue Peter...

...more Battlefleet Gothic stuff.

I spent about 4 hours tonight making order dice and cutting out markers for Battlefleet Gothic.

I have 5 original BFG/Epic order dice (bought on ebay a year or two ago), however I wanted more and buying them is not a cost effective idea...

...I'm sure there are many fancy ways to make dice with your own symbols on them, and normally I would have used waterslide decal paper, however a couple of months ago I discovered that you can buy clear labels for use in an inkjet printer - so I just copied the symbols from the rulebook and printed onto said labels (an A4 sheet) enough to make 10 dice. That was much easier as it took 0 time to dry and was just a matter of cutting round the symbols and sticking them on the dice (which I didn't make much effort with). The labels are a bit thick, but they'll do.

For the markers I used images of the actual card sheets (that I found on an ebay listing), not the scans/images floating around the interweb, just because I wanted to print the sheets as they were, not how someone has arranged the markers after the fact, due to wanting to sandwich them together to make them double sided (instead I ended up only making some markers double sided).

I printed the images onto 300gsm card (or thick paper if you want to call it that) sometime last year, I just hadn't got around to the tedious job of cutting it all out...

I left some markers single sided, such as the asteroids and blast markers, and the two planets. Others, like the moon, and the two bearing compass markers, the fighter/bomber markers and those triangular markers (it's been a while since I read the rules so I forget what they're for?) were made double sided like the originals - they were printed on their respective sheets and then joined together.


Photos below -

The dice. Weirdly in this photo you can't quite see the edges of the cutout labels on the faces of some of the dice, they're quite obvious to the mk1 eyeball. On the far right of the photo there's an original GW order dice, mine are slightly bigger -

I should have turned a bearing compass over to show the blast marker on the back, I can't cut circles to save my life! -

Fighters/bombers -

Torpedoes -

Asteroids and blast markers -

Those triangular number/radar/sonar like markers -

The two planets -

I'm not sure how the markers will do in terms of longevity/staying in place on the table, and the 300gsm card is quite thin (which may or may not be an advantage in terms of how flexible they are), I'm sure GW's originals were thicker, and much more nicely cut, but I don't know how thick they were so I just went with what I can use. For the moment though these will do for a game.

Just need to print reference sheets (on 300gsm card again, waiting on an order though) and I'll be ready for a game. Although I want to paint the 3 Sword class frigates I bought last year, obtain 6 Chaos equivalent ships, and obtain a game mat, at some point...



Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.

 

[Chaos Moomin]

Nice work with the dice.

For BFG, a game mat can be as simple as a black tablecloth. It won't have any fancy stars or nebulae, but it's a quick and cost effective way to get up and running.

 

[Raven Morpheus]

With mother in hospital (still, nearly a week later), having her water infection treated, I seem to have lots of time free (not that I'm using it well). As I'm currently meant to be her "daytime carer" it's not like I have anything else to do!

Anyhow, it was delivery day today...

...so I put my tablet on, navigated to totalrock.com, loaded up Sunday's edition of The Rock & Roll Ponderosa (some songs and the DJ may be NSFW, may contain baaanjo!, other stations are available), and proceeded to do stuff...

New pot of Citadel Caledor Sky popped through the door, along with Citadel Hoeth blue -

Along with the two paints came a Green Stuff World Flagstone rolling pin, sadly the inch-ish of Green Stuff that I had left has gone unusable, moreso than the last time I tried using it, I couldn't even get it to knead, it was practically rock hard, luckily I'm waiting on some new Green Stuff. When it arrives I'm going to try making my own dungeon bases -

The axe head for the Librarian's force axe came the other day, so I cut it off it's donor part (a Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard Glaive), modified it a little, tidied up mould lines and stuff, and attached it to the Librarian's staff. I need to do another pass with the Deluxe Materials Perfect Plastic Putty as I've got a couple of pin holes in the fill. Storm Bolter barrels need drilling again, hopefully this time I get them right (they were filled with "gloop" the other day). His Necromunda 32mm base came yesterday. His arms are just white-tacked on, as are his feet to the base -

Seconds out, round two! I had another go at the highlighting test on the paint mule, looks better, I'm sure Citadel Lothern blue would make the Librarian seriously "pop" but I wanted the slightly more subtle Hoeth blue look. Reasonably satisfied with this quick 45 minute or so effort, I even went the whole hog and shaded the lower surfaces/opposite ends of the armour plates as well as shading the recesses where I could on the areas I had painted Caledor Sky -

I think some areas could have benefited with a few more Hoeth blue glaze layers to make it a more solid/smooth colour, and my edge highlights were rough and quick (and erroneous in places) however I'm satisfied that I know what I'm doing now and can proceed with doing it on the Librarian...



Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.

 

[Mr. M]

Those Green Stuff World texture rollers are really nice tools! If you haven't used one before, you're in for a treat! The transitions on the hip armor look really nice - I think you nailed the placement of the highlights. The one on the model's right in particular looks absolutely spot on. I think the lighting in the photo makes the color gradient hard to see on the shoulder pad and back, but you can definitely see some shadows (just not sure if they're painted or from the lighting).

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Thanks @Mr. M

The shadows are painted on but probably complimented by some shadow from my lighting. The gradient on the shoulder pad/back is there, it's just very subtle - intentionally. Although on the back it could have been a better gradient. Also, the top has no gradient (I wasn't sure about that area so I just glazed all over with Hoeth blue). There's very little lighting shine on the back (except on the gloss black undercoat this and the other 5 terminators came to me with), specifically in the photo directly from the back. My lighting isn't the best though, it doesn't always help matters...

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Wednesday weirdness...

So, Tuesday night I made a start on the Librarian and very early this morning (Thursday) I sat down at the table and carried on with him.

I don't think my mobile's camera and my lighting are doing me any favours, however I suspect that GW changed the shade of Caledor Sky, Macragge and Hoeth blue in the last few years, or I'm not doing something right...

...because the blue is supposed to look more like this -

https://taleofpainters.com/2015/12/tutorial-how-to-paint-ultramarines-as/

Or this, from White Dwarf October 2013 -

I will plough on though, my Librarian looks OK to the mk1 eyeball, it just doesn't quite "pop" like I had hoped. I get the feeling that Vallejo Game Color blues, starting with Magic blue instead of Caledor sky, and Electric blue instead of Hoeth blue. would have yielded a closer looking result...



Thanks as always for looking, C&C welcome.

 

[Ben_S]

There may have been a change, since that WD is from 2013. Macragge Blue is now a base paint, rather than a layer paint, and has a 2019 date in the URL (https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Base-Macragge-Blue-2019).

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Yes, I definitely think there's been a change to the paints. I think, besides using Vallejo paints, I could have achieved something approaching the look I wanted, by using Teclis blue as the main blue...

Oh well, it's all a learning exercise.

 

[Punktaku]

He’s definitely a deeper, richer blue. But the result is still a lovely model.

 

[Stoof]

GW paints have definitely wandered over the years. Much of it when they made the names more IP-able and split them into bases, layers, shades yadda yadda yadda.

Your model is looking good though, and the shading on the cloak is lovely. A little more edge highlighting would take it a step closer to your target and increase the POP factor. The finished ancilliary details will also help - I am often disheartened by a half-finished model that ends up looking great when it's done.

 

[Greenthumb]

You wont regret the rolling pin. They are truly amazing.

 

[Greenthumb]

If you are using green stuff wet the roller before you go over. Gives a smoother finish and doesnt try to stick to it. When using putty on bases I mix green stuff and miliput. Reduces stickiness and also makes it a bit harder when set

 

[Mr. M]

The blues might have given you trouble, but it looks like you really nailed the greens! The power weapon looks great, as does the cloak!

 

[Raven Morpheus]

Thanks guys.

GW paints have definitely wandered over the years. Much of it when they made the names more IP-able and split them into bases, layers, shades yadda yadda yadda.

Your model is looking good though, and the shading on the cloak is lovely. A little more edge highlighting would take it a step closer to your target and increase the POP factor. The finished ancilliary details will also help - I am often disheartened by a half-finished model that ends up looking great when it's done.

Yes I think I need a few more edge highlights, or at least reinforce some of them in places where I'm sure I've put them but they aren't showing up well (like on the edge of the arch above his head), I'll see if adding white to the Fenrisian grey doesn't help.

I'm also going to try darkening down the Kantor blue I put in the crevices for shading, with a bit of Drakenhof Nightshade.

You wont regret the rolling pin. They are truly amazing.

Yes they are great tools. I already had their cobblestones rolling pin and have used it on two projects already - the base of my WFB tavern and the sidewalks on the Mordheim river sections.

The blues might have given you trouble, but it looks like you really nailed the greens! The power weapon looks great, as does the cloak!

I'm almost tempted to try out Vallejo Magic blue and Citadel Teclis blue on a paint mule to see if they are the right colours for the blue, or at least closer than Caledor Sky. Just out of curiosity. I'd also need to work out which paint to replace Hoeth blue and Macragge blue with also because they're not right either (Macragge looks to have too much purple in it now, Hoeth looks more pastel now, where it looked like it was more like, but not exactly like, Lothern blue).

But then if either are closer I'll be tempted to redo the blue on the Librarian...

I thought when I was testing the other day that Caledor Sky didn't quite look as bright as I wanted!