New Eldar toys

While visiting parents in Eastern Washington I picked up some old Eldar models off of Craigslist.  The highlight was an old Scorpion Super Heavy Grav Tank.  This is not the current model, but it still looks good.  I also got 2 more Falcons and a bunch of jet bikes. There are a bunch of old infantry as well that I need to inventory and sort.
They will be off to a nice bath of simple green and get painted soon.

Mymeara color scheme test

 

 

 

I couldn't sleep last night after getting a nasty cold, so I pulled out the airbrush and paints and did an experiment to see what colors to redo my Eldar in.  I like the result so-far, though I went a little too heavy with the blue on the airbrush and in future models will have more green.  Also the white is a little too stark.  I will try and get a warmer white for the base and use the brighter just on the highlights.  I also had some trouble with the airbrush clogging up on the paint, so I need to mix my base colors up with a lot more thinner in a separate dropper bottle ready to go for when I crank the army out.  I also need to figure out what I'm going to do for bases.  I want to make ice-field bases.  I'm thinking maybe I could use some water-effects on top of painted-broken tiles.  Should be a fun experiment.

Colors used:

White Pimer

Vallejo GC Jade Green base

Vallejo GC Turquoise

Vallejo MC Black

P3 Menoth White Highlight

Gems were done with Citadel Liche Purple and Warlock Purple.

Vanguard Veterans WIP

After a late meeting this evening I finally had some time for some hobby work.  I got a box of Death Company for my birthday and picked some jump packs from Chapter House Studio.  I combined the two to make some VV to go with the army.  I armed all with power weapons and the Sargent with a thunder hammer.  I figure with their ability to assault out if deep strike I can use them to really mess a unit up.

I plan on basing them tomorrow and if weather permits, get them primed as well.

Birthday Presents

For my Birthday I got a little cash in addition to the other wonderful presents.  With the price increases coming I decided to pick up another Storm Raven and Land Raider before they become prohibitively expensive. The Land Raider will be build as normal, but I would like to do something special with the Storm Raven.  I'm not sure exactly what yet, maybe try and convert it to a Storm Eagle or just a simple weapon swap.

Also ordered some conversion bits from Chapter House Studios though they have not arrived yet.  I am most excited about the jump packs which I am going to use with a Death Company kit to make some Vanguard Veterans.  At this point I'm winding down the purchases for the army.  I still would like to expand a few more options out, getting a couple Land Speeders, some shooty terminators,  and getting up to 40 assault marines.  Another Baal Predator and Vindicator wouldn't be bad, but I have enough to keep me busy for a while and for some crazy reason I'm thinking about stripping and repainting my Eldar force as I'm really not very happy with the paint job or color scheme.

Storm Raven Finished

So I have finished up the Storm Raven for now.  I'm really pleased how it came out.  I of course found a few areas I need to touch up after taking the pictures, but overall it's done and ready for action.  I tried some new stuff with this, using my new airbrush for the first time for a vehicle (absolutely wonderful compared to hand painting the large flat areas).  I also did the blacklining on the model with and oil paint wash after gloss varnishing the model, that let me wipe off the paint from where I didn't want it, which is huge when working with yellow.  I also magentized all the option on the kit so I could change out the various weapons and side sponsons.  

Storm Raven w/ assault cannon and hurricane bolters

Plasma cannons

  

Side view with lascannons

Magnetized Lascannon and armor plating.

Magnetized hurricane bolters.

Vindicator WIP

So tonight after the little man went to sleep, I had some time to do a little hobby work.  I had assembled and primed this Vindicator a week or two ago, and managed to get a base coat down with the airbrush a few days ago.  I spent some time blacking out all the area that would be metallic, getting the metals down (though not washed yet) and getting the checks laid out.  Really happy with how it's looking and it shouldn't take too much longer to finish up.  I'm going to use the black oil paint to black line it after I've finished with the details.

I did managed to play a game with it yesterday, and it performed admirably in that it never got to shoot with my opponent being nervous about it.  Probably need to take at least 2 of them if they are going to be effective, or maybe hold it in reserve and bring it out later since it can move and shoot being a fast vehicle.

Lamenters Paint Scheme Part 1 - Assault Marine

Just wanted to document the process I am currently using to paint my Lamenters.  First up, yellow is hard.  It's a major pain to get right.  I have gone for a browner/darker yellow rather than a bright yellow.  Second, I'm not the greatest painter as I haven't been doing this for very long, but you might find something useful. My goal is to get a nice looking army on the tabletop and nothing more.

A few things on assembly and preparation. I would definitely magnetize the jump packs, or at least paint them separately.  They make the shoulder pads really tricky to get right and doing seperate would make this a lot easier.  My first 20 or so models were all glued on before hand they take a lot longer to paint.  as a bonus for Blood Angels codex armies, you can run them on foot (though personally the reason I chose to run a BA codex army is the jump infantry.

Step 1:  Prime the models.  I do a two part prime, first with black to get into the shadows and then white from above.  I would definately recommend a white primer when painting yellow.  It takes just too many coats to get a decent coverage over black, though the new GW base colors might work if you want to go that way.

Step 2: Base Coat yellow.  I used my airbrush to put down the base coat using Vallejo GC Heavy Ochre.  You really need to water these down to put them through an airbrush as they are similar to the foundation line of paints from GW.

Step 3:  Paint the base with Charadon Granite.

Step 4: Base coat everything that will be metallic with black.  No need to be very neat here as we will be fixing all the messy brushing later in the process.

Step 5:  Base coat white.  I'm using the new GW base paint Ceramite White.  It only takes 2-3 coats rather than 4-5 that most whites took.  I had good luck in the past with using Vallejo off-white and then bringing it up to white, but this seems to work fairly well.

Step 6:  Eyes.  I do mine green starting with P3 Gnarls Green and then highlighting that with GW Scorpian Green.  A wash of Thraka green wash brings it together nicely (not pictured here).  Also note that I'm still being messy as this will get cleaned up later.

Step 7:  Paint purity seals, aquila, etc with P3 Menoth White Base.

Step 8:  Wash armor and aquila with Gryphonne Sepia wash.  I apply this liberally, but you want to make sure you get a good coat in the cracks and recesses.  Pictured here still wet.  I generally would do this step last in a painting session to let dry overnight.  You can do some of the later steps pictured here before this wash is done.

Step 9:  Paint metallic areas with Boltgun Metal followed with a wash of Badab Black.  Again not being too careful here, we can clean up still.

Step 10:  Checks!  This is where things get difficult.  I use a 0.3mm drafting pencil to draw my lines in and then go in with black first.  This will be tricky and I am still not super neat and tidy about it.  Follow up with the Ceramite White to cleanup as best you can.

I will continue this later with part 2 where I go and finish up with highlights and cleanup the mess made so far.