December/January Commitments

We're already a week into December so I think it's about time I made some hobby choices...

I'm still working on the Vendetta this weekend but hopefully it will be totally finished very soon - in any case, I consider it complete from a hobby progress perspective.

For December (and January if the IC Podcast Hobby Progress Challenge doesn't kick in before then), I'll be working on various secondary 'characters'. This motley crew are introduced below:

• Inquisitor

I picked this Inquisitor model up years ago on a trip to Germany, well before there even were allies rules... Now, with the new Inquisition mini-Codex, I'm finally going to get her painted up! I'm due a very large number of female troopers from a certain kickstarter at some point in the future, so she'll fit right in! I don't have the Codex yet but as soon as it's available in a hard-copy I'll grab it (or I'll get the digital version if that doesn't happen/takes too long).

Now... where are my Servo-Skulls...

• Primaris Psyker

This handsome (and totally loyal and not at all Xenos...) fellow is going to be my Psyker. Those of you with long memories will recognize the miniature. I promise that I'm not secretly planning to use him in the inevitable Genestealer Cult army list when it's finally released... I swear I don't also have a Tyranid army with dozens of Genestealers...

The mandatory force weapon is... uhhh... concealed...

• Krieg Commissar

Commissar Krieg, as I like to call him, is likely to remain the only one that I own unless I happen upon a Gaunt mini somewhere. I don't like the normal GW commissar models much - if I wanted more for my army I would probably go with either other DKoK models or something third party. I've put the very first base coat layers on but not made a real start on anything. He will be an experiment in painting black - I usually only paint very, very, very dark grey...

Apparently he'll be shooting cowards with his sword.

• Priest / Officer

This awesome limited edition mini comes from the Forge World open day. Since I don't play WFB I thought I would re-purpose him with some simple conversion work to fit into a more grim-dark setting. With the basic laspistol/ccw loadout I'll be able to field him as either a naked officer or a Ministorum Priest, depending on what is needed. The model is ridiculously detailed so it should be fun to paint anyway.

Can I have some shoes?

• Krieg Officer

The other FW open day miniature, the quartermaster, will serve as yet another naked officer. I thought about making him a commissar but really, I would never use him and I wanted a unique model (with bargain basement wargear!) to lead my army. My 'other' army commander has a terrible combination of plasma pistol and powerfist, so he is both very expensive and will surely die lots... hence this chap is likely to be my go-to commander. He is after all only there to issue orders and provide moral support to his squad of plasma gunners.

Don't worry sir, a plasma pistol would only have made you die faster.

I will also be undertaking a sizable Christmas project for which I will be enlisting my girlfriend to assist. This is going to be the focus of my hobby efforts during the actual Christmas holidays. It's also actually the continuation of last years Christmas project which, true to form, I never completed...

Last year, as an awesome present, I received the large limited-run Wall of Martyrs box. I managed to get it all assembled (including some modifications...) and primed but painting didn't proceed beyond a few test pieces. Now, with the release of Stronghold Assault, it's the perfect time to get the set painted up and available for use with my army! I'll post later in the month with a before shot to show the changes that I made.

November Commitment "Complete"

Okay, that's a lie - it's not 100% finished... but it's damn close!

I was more or less finished but then decided to go all-out on the decals and use the Forge World 'wings'. This has turned out to be a pretty lengthy, painstaking process and, because I'm away now until December 1st, I will technically fail this months commitment...

However, I think it's looking pretty damn good so far and with all the time I've been spending playing XCOM this month... it is not a bad achievement.

PEWPEWPEWZOOOOOOOOOM

Remaining to-do items are:

1. Apply wing decals to left side.
2. Smooth out some dodgy decal work and seal them all with varnish.
3. Finishing touches on the various lenses.
4. Glue the crew in (plots and door gunners were painted separately).
5. Add some scorching around the weapon barrels and exhausts.
6. Matte varnish the whole thing.

Probably a couple of evenings work in there plus some daylight for the spray varnishing!

For December, since unfortunately there will be no 'Nidsmas, I'm going to be a bit non-committal. What I end up spending time on will totally depend on what I pick up over the holidays. I was thinking that I would get some of the new Tyranids and commit to painting them up but alas... that will have to be a side-project for the new year.

Most likely I will start working through my various 'minor' character models over the course of December. If I can get a HQ choice or two done, I will be only one troops choice away from a fully painted legal army.

November Update

Since it would appear that the Chaos gods have something other than painting in mind for me tonight (a broken dishwasher is surely the work of Tzeentch)... I thought I'd post a quick update.

I've gotten one LRBT turret pretty much finished, with some very basic weathering:

Not sure how well the effects show in those pictures but basically I added soot around the gun barrel, 'distressed' the larger decals a bit and sponged some metallics around the sharp edges and protrusions like handles etc. I've yet to do much with the powders - looks like I'm just going to paint everything to this stage and play around with more advanced techniques some day in the future. My goal here is to get a painted army, need to focus on that. It wasn't a total waste of time but really the main thing I've learned is that it's a whole other exercise learning to do this properly.

Also got the flyer base pretty much done, apart from grass:

Apparently I suck at painting concrete.

The crew are also taking shape - I'll do a few more details on them but they're essentially done (the pilots will be almost invisible anyway so not spending too much time on them...):

And the colour white.

I thought my pilots should have brightly coloured helmets, like in Top Gun... I might add some decals as I think that's actually the effect I had in my head :/

I really like the Pig Iron heads on the gunners. There was a time when the whole army would have been these heads on normal GW Cadian bodies... then I discovered Forge World and my fate was sealed... curse you Elysians!

November Commitment Decision

So, I've decided to go ahead with the Vendetta as my hobby commitment for this month. It's a much bigger task than a squad of dudes but it's (roughly) 50% done already so it should be achievable.

Next step: Err... paint things.

The crew aren't glued so they'll be pulled and painted separately, along with the door gunners.

Painting giant vehicles is hard... at least there's a nice interesting (and easy) base to paint.

I'll also be progressing work on my weathering experiments, seen in their 'pre' state below:

Extra armor and random bits - that's what building tanks is all about!

While I work on these, I'm going to get the flight stand and the crew of the Vendetta done (in that order). The weapons are already finished painting and are magnetized, though I won't be painting any of the other weapon options right now. At some point I'll devote a months commitment to magnetizing and painting all of the extra weapon options that I want for all three of my flyers...

At the very least I plan to have the Vendetta painted, with decals and a coat of matte varnish applied by the end of the month - any weathering will possibly have to wait until I've gained a bit of confidence on the various techniques (I don't want to ruin such a large model...).

October Commitment Finished

Today I finally managed to get the last two things that I needed to finish off the squad: stable weather for spraying varnish and PVA glue for basing!

Final results below:

1st Squad, 7th Platoon taking aim!

In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only pointing.

All of my officers and veterans use Maxmini head swaps, so expect to see many more.

Some standard troopers on the firing line.

For November I'll be trying to get through either a vendetta gunship (roughly half painted already) or a few characters that I doubt will ever see much use on the field (Commissar, Priest etc.). I haven't decided which yet. I've been making slow progress on my 'teach myself weathering techniques' side-project this month and I'd like to get it finished before I tackle any other vehicles. So, finishing that little project will be first priority - once that's done I'll see what I have time left for in November!

October Update

Just a quick progress update - this months commitment has gone well, the squad is fully painted now and the next step is decals.

So this is what a painted squad looks like...

In the past I've always just used water when working with decals but having seen some examples online, I'm going to try to find a proper decal solvent/setting solution today. Even in my amateur hands it should allow me to eliminate the transparent film that water alone leaves visible. I'm not sure where to find this but I'm going to take a trip to Dark Sphere for some other bits and pieces anyway, so hopefully they have something. If not, there are bound to be a few scale model shops in London! Assuming I find something, I'll have these guys totally finished by next weekend which will be right on track.

I finally got around to building some Ikea display cabinets too, so everything is now deployed in my sitting room... here's how much stuff I have to paint:

Tyranids not pictured...

Sigh. At least I'm on the right track now! One squad almost done... only another 60 dudes to go, give or take. I can't help myself really, I'm also building another two tanks - after that I still have another Tauros and a Salamander Scout to build... then I'm done... until that infantry platoon I bought via a Kickstarter arrives D:

Let's start again, for reals this time... October painting commitment!

Right, forget that last post because I finally did manage to get my gear moved over to my new home, which means...

Hobby commitment for October!

So, my overall plan is to participate in a year-long hobby progress challenge for 2014, which will be for 1850 points, I think.

In order to prepare for that, I'm going to paint a unit each month for the remainder of 2013. This is also good because it will allow me to finish off the units that are already in progress and start (more or less) with a totally unpainted 1850 for the challenge.

This month, my goal will be to complete an infantry squad:

These poor guys have been 'uniform gray' for far too long...

And when I say complete, I mean totally finished... fully painted, decals done, bases decorated and varnished - ready to hit the table. This is almost unheard of for me, having even one squad totally finished would be a big win... all the more so if it gets me into the swing of things so I can complete the challenge! A fully painted army would be a big achievement, I don't think I've had one in about... oh, when did the Tau first come out? 2001 or something like that? Yeah... then. Given that I now have thousands of points of IG and almost as many Tyranids... I really need to paint some dudes.

You may notice that a couple of these guys are actually already painted - I did these several months ago as the test pieces for the whole army... I then proceeded to not paint the rest of the army, but that ends this month!

Behold! The entirety of my painted infantry!

Overall the scheme is quite drab and a bit grim-dark but fairly realistic, I think. I have the Forge World Elysian decals ready to go, which should liven them up just a little. My original idea had them with gold visors but it didn't really work. I can thank Starship Troopers for the core colour scheme concept. I should maybe have gone with desert bases for contrast but I wanted to maintain a kind of ruined urban wasteland feel to the army - a few tufts of grass will be added and some models have green crystals sprouting from the base, which is pretty cool. As I proceed with painting the other seventy million dudes I'm sure I'll come up with new ideas and hopefully learn how to paint human skin...

Each more gray than the last.

I've already proceeded beyond the image above and will probably post the next update once the full 10 man squad is painted to the same stage as the three sample dudes. I better learn to paint stuff quickly because in November I have to do a Vendetta...

Despite my terrible record when it comes to painting, I have actually finished a few things for the army - these guys for example, have a painted Chimera to ride around in:

I have yet to learn the ways of weathering stuff so this is not "finished"... but it is painted.

Finally, and also painted but not weathered properly, a trio of drop sentinels and some cool battlesuits, aka my 'ogryns':

You know, I might even learn how to take photos of stuff as I proceed through this challenge...