Imperial Knights painted with the aid of an airbrush - kind of

Dave or better known as Dwez from 40kaddicts sent me a text saying take a look at this on Twitter and you should put your stuff on; the twit said "Hear ye, hear ye! A grand galactic knightly tournament declared in ye old Emperor’s name. Share your loyal and heretic Knights with us!"
So I put my Chaos Knights on and I got some nice positive re-twittes and comments.  Then I realised I hadn't photographed or blogged about my new loyalist Knights, so hear goes.

Following on from the strange and mixed response from my post on my "Project: Custodes Castellan Knight" I had decided to paint my Imperial knights using my airbrush.  I still consider myself to be a novice at airbrushing but I felt confident enough after painting my Castellan.  I had already painted the blue armour on them all, and I had finished my warlord, but I wasn't happy with the gold trim which was hand painted. as you can see below, the airbrush gold on the Castellan looks better, in my opinion.

I stripped the armour off him and dug out all the other armoured bits from my other Knights and started to mask up.

This is a long and laborious process, and adding cleaning the airbrush every blink of an eye, it can put people off airbrushing.  But the results speak for them selves, it's not quicker, it's just an alternative method of painting.   

Then following my technique I used on the Castellan I began to airbrush away with no idea how hey would turn out as it is all masked off.

I revealed one first to see if I liked the effect, and I did, phew.

It all looks a little too clean and tidy so it needs a lot of weathering.

OK so far so good, but now they needed basing and I wanted a theme base for all five but I didn't want the bases for my three un-based ones to over shadow the first two.  I decided to use the same Aquila and add some building wall sections and rubble, hoping it would work together.

You can also see I have some 10cm bases in the shot too, they are from my Armiger Helverins which I still haven't finished oops.  I airbrushed the bases just in the same style as  my Warlord and Castellan and here is the results of many months of work.

And as a passing shot this is my full collection of Knights and stuff I hope you enjoy :)

Painting Space Hulk Genestealers the quick and easy way

Since lockdown and spending all my time in isolation I have been relying on, and teaching my son how to play 40K, but 7 hours is way to long of a game.  So I cracked open my Space Hulk boxset and OMG I had forgotten what a great game it is.  I still have the original in the loft but the figures in the new one are amazing.  After we had a few games with my son, who has a very small "Genestealer cuts army" turned round to me and said "wouldn't it be great if these figures where painted" and secretly he wanted them for his army, he thinks I'm daft.  But... yes he is right it would be good if they where painted.   

Before we started to paint the figures I decided to buy some of GW's "Sector Mechanicus Industrial Bases" and start trimming the Genestealers to fit on their new bases.  

Last year when my son started painting (before contrast paints came out) he found normal GW paints too thick to use and didn't like painting.   I mixed up some washes for hes Genestealer Cults army.  He painted all hes figures and he was happy with them, so I started to paint the Patriarch in these washes, but I wanted them to look like the ones on the box and also simple and achievable for my son to do. 

I decided to delve into the realms of contrast paint as I think these paints are aimed at my sons level and age bracket and I would be able to get the effect and tone of what I want.  I chose Akhelian Green with a Druchii Violet wash for the carapace and Magos Purple for the skin.  I was happy with the effect with just these three quick coats of paints.  I painted his other Patriarch and showed him how easy it would be.  

He liked the effect so much that we based the original Space Hulk Genestealers and he wanted to paint them and I would paint the Genestealers from the new Space Hulk.

They don't look bad all together 

The new ones all painted.

And the old ones my son painted

Lord of the Rings Battle companies pt1 and 2

A while back our gaming buddy Otty wanted to try Battle Companies and after many discussions on you only need a few figures and it wont take long to paint, I purchased some "Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs" thinking one day maybe in 15 years time I will get around to it.  Afterwards I started thinking how did that happen? I have so much stuff to paint why did I buy more? then it struck me "I had been Gríma worm tongued", bugger! 

To continue with the ethos of what to do in lockdown while disheartened with 40K, I started to put the figures together and create rocky bases, using up some white milliput  The arms are a little small then what I am normally used too, but they are a only 20mm, but  I really like the Wargs though.  So I thought I would look at getting another pack then I spotted this on ebay:-

11 Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs and 15 Wargs, GW sell the Hunter Orcs on Fell Wargs for £25 for 6 and 6 Fell Wargs for £20 to buy new would almost cost me £110.  So you could appreciate this caught my interest.  Sometimes I love ebay but I do feel very sorry for the person who sold these because I bought them for a steal, only £30...... wow that was lucky.  Not only do I have a Battle company, but I have almost enough for a full army.   

My idea was to do a step by step guide to speed batch painting, I thought I had emailed all the images off my phone before I deleted them unfortunatley I was wrong so I lost all the images so here are the finished Wargs, bugger!

These are the original 6 with milliput bases, I added some shields before I started painting them

And this is the full army, and base coated, ink wash with Agrax Earthshade and finally a dry brush highlight.  Very quick and fairly effective on mass.... :)

Making an Alternative Vampire Blood Bowl Team pt2 - Wolves and Werewolves

 

Now I have my Vampires I thought I would use up models I have collected over the years as Thralls.  I found 6 Skin Wolves (I think that was what they where called) that where half painted which just needed re-basesing and 10 Fenrisian Wolves.  I know it is a bit of an over kill with the amount but it could be fun to do and look cool.  Then it struck me.... it is a bit Twilighlty. 

I used sculpted bases from easy fit AoS figures I had collected over the past few months.

I don't use dry brushing method any more but I wanted to do this as fast as possible because I have many projects to get through.  So I re-introduced myself to the technique and I forgot how fast you can paint units. 

Unfortunatly I used all my moulded bases on the Skin Wolves so I started create my own from the Garden of Morr set.

So there we have it my Blood Bowl team is complete with enough replacements to keep me going for ages, :)

Making an Alternative Vampire Blood Bowl Team pt1 - Vampires

Many, many years ago I use to play Dungeon Bowl which in my opinion was a better game than Blood Bowl, but unfortunately there is no release for it, so I will have to stick with Blood Bowl as I am abstaining from 40K.  I also wanted a conversion / kit bashing project, so I decided on a team based around the Brides of Dracula and I think I found the perfect candidates as the basic form; Myrmourn Banshees.

As the heads of the Myrmourn Banshees are ghost like visages with vials, I decided to cut them off and create my own female Vampire heads. I used spare heads from the Dark Eldar sorry Drukhari Wyches and attached the hair from Daughters of Khaine Doomfire Warlocks.

Now I just needed to blend the hair to the head and create breasts to fill the gap in the metal chest armour/basque.

I included this one for a laugh, I accidentally selected a Dark Elder Male head (I wasn't wearing my glasses) and I only noticed the next day when he/she was finished oops 

I was originally goinf to paint all different colours of hair but I just like the red as in contrast against the blue green of the clothing and the green vines on the base.  To be honest I got carried away.

OK they are finished very easy to paint and fairly easy to convert, to create a unique looking vampire team.  I know it's not a traditional style of Blood Bowl team but who wants to be traditional :)

What do you do during lock down - Blog and Paint baby

Well once again I have been away from my blogging responsibilities due to my lack of enthusiasm for 40K.  Do not despair I have been keeping myself busy with 5 different ways to play games with my friends and an excuse to paint figures. 

Here is a snap shot projects undertaken and posts to come over the next few weeks and months:-

Blackstone Fortress

Bloodbowl Vampire and Werewolf team

Lord of the Rings Battle companies

Adeptus Titanicus

SpaceHulk