Infinity: Morat Agression Force!

Finally had time to finish up the original starter for my Combined army, and also busted out the Zerat Hacker at about the same time! Had the Zerat sitting on my desk, just bare white primer for a long time. I was really struggling with color placement on her, and since Infinity figs are so clean, you really have to think about that before you start slingin the paint.

Scarab helped me immensely with the color choices and placement, otherwise I don't think she'd be even close to finished yet. The Vanguards were pretty easy as I had already finished one a while back when I first got the box set.

 

More pics when you click!

 

Here is a pic of the entire force to this point. Soon to be joined by  kurgat assault engineer with Autocannon!

Miniatures Showcase

Here is a showcase of the recently painted commission pieces for our local Pressganger. These were painted by Grimwolf and Scottykhan of Geek Garage. Miniatures featured are from the game Warmachine and faction is Khador.

Soundtrack:

Space 1990 by Kevin MacLeod
(incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By
Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

An Apology and Some WIPs

Alright, the Holidays have come and gone, and it has been nearly a month since I have posted anything up here on the GG...

I have to apologize... I always seem to think that during the holidays I will have more time for hobbies, yet every year it seems I have a whole lot less free time than I imagined.  So again, I am sorry for my slacking.

Now, here are a few WIPs I have been working on over the holidays.

First Up....

Tir Na Bor Standard Bearer:












Now, I know you want to see what else Im working on right? :) :P
Click it!! Come on!  Please? Click it!!

The next guy I have been working on is another one of my favorites from Rackham...

Magnus the Mystical:

Ill show you this guy from the very beginning.  Cleaned up and primed white.

Added some basecoats... You may have noticed something is missing...

I dare you to comment and point it out.  I double dog dare you!!

At this point I couldn't figure out what to do with his gloves.  I chatted with my buddy Scotty and he suggested doing some crazy red and blue transitions.

This is how it turned out...
Thoughts? Comments?...
Verbal Abuse?

I decided to move the transitions over to his sword as well.  Like this Mystical magician was doing some crazy magic voodoo on his sword.

Not sure if the effect came out exactly as I had pictured... but I think I like it.



















I did a little bit of work on his face at this point.  I love for the face of all my little Dwarves to be the focal point of the mini.  I worried that the sword may draw too much away form the face.

Here are the quick first few steps done on his face.
















And the finished face shown below.  I took the picture so as to ensure you all saw how grumpy and mean this old dwarf is!  The lesson of the day:

DONT MESS WITH MAGNUS!

I have yet to finish this guy.  When I finish him I will be sure to throw up a pic so you all can tell me what you think.

Thanks for Watching!!

-Grim

Thursday WIP's

Well this is both a Thursday WIP and Part 2 of the Extreme Jack Commission!

Here is a brief write up of my adventures with the sweet and sexy Extreme-oth:

Been working on this commission for a buddy.

He did all of the converting and asked me to paint it for him.  Here is a pic of the starting point:



His instructions were pretty simple... "Don't care about the color scheme, I just want him to look filthy."  Simple enough, I thought.  Lots of room for artistic license always makes me happy :)








  You know you want to see more....


With this guy I decided to try a new technique, kind of my own take on a salt weathering technique that is a three layered primer effect... let me explain:
1) I began by spraying the model with a rust colored automotive primer (sorry I didn't snap pics of the priming stages... kind of did it on a whim real quick like :) ) 
2.) After allowing the rust colored primer to dry, about an hour or so, ( I would probably suggest you wait longer, but I happen to be extremely impatient) I applied the salt.   Here is how I went about my salt application:  I grabbed some of my wife's hair spray and sprayed into an open Privateer Press blister to get a nice pool of liquid hair spray.  At this point I grabbed a gnarly old brush and began slopping hairspray on the areas I wanted to show the chipped weathering.  I then sprinkled Kosher salt (big ol' salt grains) on the hairspray. 
3.) After allowing that to dry a bit, I waited a half hour... I again primed the model, this time with black primer.  I did this because I knew I would have some areas that were red in color, rust chips wouldn't show as well with the red paint. 
4.) I allowed the black primer to dry and repeated step 2.
5.) After allowing that to dry I came back with a white primer, spraying from the top mainly. 
Here is a picture of the model after the three primer salting technique:

I sat and let this sit and dry for a bit and went and had a game/paint night with some buddies, and talked with them a bit about the salt weathering techniques etc...  I was informed that letting the salt sit for too long may eat through the hairspray and possibly the pewter...  Getting a bit shaken by that as soon as I returned home from paint night I promptly began brushing the salt away... at first with a toothbrush (it wasn't working as well as I had hoped) then with my fingers and finally I started using a hobby knife as some of the salt was just being stubborn!  Here is what it looked like when I finished.

So as you may have noticed on the Menoth Jack... (the torn up jack that is part of his base) I decided to test the theory and base-coated the jack before I removed the salt.  Still up in the air on weather or not you should pluck the salt before you paint or not. (Side note: If I owned an airbrush, I would have airbrushed the colors before I removed the salt)











Moving on.... As I began to paint this guy tragedy struck! While trying to paint the underside of some of his armor I heard a *CRACK*, I had zero time to react and... well... Behold the pitfalls of Zip-Kicker:

This model was sooooo top heavy, and my buddy is super fond of the zip kicker... he even has a tendency to gob super glue and zap it to get things assembled.  If you look closely at the model you will notice this in a few places.

After apologizing profusely to my wife and children for the tirade of profanity that boomed from my painting table, I picked up the pieces and reassembled this guy a bit... to be honest it actually helped me to get some harder to reach spots.  Here is another quick update of the painting after the tragedy.

Just the base coats for the armor colors have been laid... mainly so I could see if the color scheme was going to work.

 OK, now here we are, added some highlights did the metallics, and began slathering this guy with washes. Black washes on the behemoth himself, Devlan Mud washes all over the Jack for the base. Here's a pic:

Added some finishing touches and at this point he is nearly finished... Need to add a little bit of pigment and apply the finishing touches to his base.

So what do you think?

Working on this guy has been a blast, while there were a few times I was ready to rip my hair out all in all a great experience.

I will finish the base up real quick and then throw a final round of pics up here in the next few days.

But until then

Thanks for Watching!!

-Grim

IKRPG... Sort of

Well I am making a fig for the IKRPG but I will not be playing. Not comment from either of you Grim or Scotty!! I mean it!!! I did want to jump in and give it a try anyway. This will give me a chance to practice my skills at sculpting that are less than par. I plan on throwing some blades on her but just not sure what kind and how big. I need to really be in the mood to create them. I did get some ideas for her that I hope I can pull off. They look good in my head but executing them is another thing. I would also like to give her a pistol but I would like one that has a look of Clint Eastwoods in the movie Outlaw Jose Wells. Have a holster with a barrel sticking out of it. I am not that good to pull off something like that though. Anyway... enough blabbing. Here is a picture of where I am at.

If you would like to see more....

If you have any question or comments feel free. 

Cheers,

John....

The Fast Five! Day 2

Alright Day one I was able to pump out a really big chunk of these dudes.  The fact that they are 85% flesh helps with that tremendously!

The next few steps aren't quite as detailed as my Five Step Flesh.  But I will walk you through a few of the recipes I used as I finished up... uhhh... Yeah, I finished them :P

Armor

So with the armor I started with a VMC Flat read, and laid down a heavy wash of Citadel Badab Black wash.

This gives a really dark base point to start with.  Really allowing me to get nice shading on the armor.

Next I highlighted the armor with VMC Vermillion. Really trying to hit the higher flatter portions of the armor, being sure to leave a nice dark shadow showing.

I then added some Rackham Lahn Yellow to the VMC Vermillion... not sure on the ratio's... just got a brush full of the yellow and mixed it into the red on my pallet, until I got a nice reddish orange color... kinda like the color of trout meat, or salmon... then I added that layer of highlight to the armor.

At this point I start hitting the metallics... VMC Gunmetal for all the silver and then VMC Old Gold for the gold portions.  (Ill note that when ever painting metallics over a white base coat I will always lay down a dark grey or black base coat for anything I paint silver, and a yellow or brown basecoat for anything I paint gold).  Also in this pic I have used P3 Menoth White on all of the wrappings, and washed them with a heavy Citadel Devlan Mud wash.

After getting the metallic base coats taken care of I hit all of the silvers with a Citadel Badab Black Wash.  Then I hit all of the gold with a Citadel Gryphonne Sepia wash.

The next step I hit some of the smaller details.  All of the leathers were hit with a Citadel Foundation Calthan Brown basecoat, followed by a Citadel Devlan Mud Wash. The stone portions were hit with a Citadel Astronomicon Grey base coat followed by a wash created by heavily diluting Delta Ceramcoat Black paint.  The loin cloths were hit with varying shades of Greys, blue greys, and green greys.  All of them had a base of Citadel Foundation Astronomicon grey, the blue greys had Citadel Fenris Blue mixed in, the Green greys added VMC US Olive Drab.  They were all washed with a Citadel Badab Black at this point as well.  Then we came to the war paint... I looked at a bunch of images Pict Warriors, Native Americans, and a bit of Braveheart to boot.  I grabbed some Citadel Hawk Turquoise and began slapping on the war paint designs.  I also hit some of the stone work with the Hawk Turquoise as well.

At this stage I am nearly finished with the crew.  Here I have added highlights to the Warpaint, by adding a small amount of Andrea White Color Series number 4 to the Hawk Turquoise.  I highlighted the stone, and the loin clothes by going back with the corresponding basecoat.  I also added the hair at this stage, I used Rackham Black with an Astronomicon grey highlight followed by a Badab black wash to do the black hair.  The reddish hair was Reaper Master Series Red Brown, followed by a Citadel Ogryn Flesh wash.

I then began basing, Elmers White glue was slathered onto the bases and the figures were dipped into a bucket of sand.  After allowing them to dry for 4 hours I grabbed some MIG Track Brown Pigment and began caking the base and the feet and the loin cloths of these guys.  It was very messy.  After applying the pigment I sprayed each figure with a Krylon Matte Finish, to lock the pigment in place and give some protection to the paint job.  Finishing touches were to paint the base edges with Rackham Black, and add an Army Painter Battlefields Wilderness Tuft to the base.

And here you are, a few shots of the finished project.

I hope this write up was cohesive and understandable.  These two posts are kind of a first for me as far as really trying to explain step by step how my brain works as I paint.  Please let me know what you think.  If you like this, then I would be willing to do other similar types of tutorials.  If it is not understandable.. PLEASE LET ME KNOW.  Im really lookin for some good critiques on this.  I'd like to be able to produce helpful tutorials, so feedback is very much wanted.

Five figs in five.....errrrr two days!  Completely possible, I had my doubts, but with some really killer sculpts and a plan of attack you could be staring at a fully painted unit in just a few short days.

Thanks for watching!!

-Grim

The Fast Five! Day 1

So, my buddy over on Scotty'sworkshop.blogspot.com is currently doing a series of posts about painting up 5 Dwarven Miners in 5 days.  I loved the idea.  So much so that I grabbed 5 of my Rackham Warriors of Avaggdu (who count as Marauders of Chaos) and decided I'd try something similar.
Granted I thought trying to finish FIVE figs in five days was going to be near impossible... especially for me. :)  Anyhow I decided to give it a go.

Day 1

First things first I grabbed my figs... Luckily they were all primed... albeit not very well... but primed none the less.  (As you can see I laid a base coat down on one of these guys months ago... never got around to finishing him up though)
I started out with a thing I like to call "Five Step Flesh"

 

 

 "Five Step Flesh"

Step 1: Begin with a Citadel Foundation Tallarn Flesh base coat. (My favorite flesh base... sadly they don't make it anymore... anyone know what the new equivalent is... throw me a hint in the comments :) )













Step 2: Citadal Ogryn Flesh Wash.  Heavily apply the wash allover the flesh of the figure. 

















Step 3: Highlight with Citadel Foundation Tallarn Flesh.
Here you want to cover most of the flesh, especially any raised portions, muscles etc...

Step 4: Wash with Citadel Wash Asurmen Blue/Tallarn Flesh.  Here I grabbed a blue wash and mixed it with the base coat.  I wanted to add a bit more depth to the flesh and more of a cool tone to the figures.  Again I heavily apply this wash in order for the shadows to really darken.

Final Step 5: I come back and highlight again with Tallarn flesh.  And there you have it a simple 5 step flesh recipe that will produce a pretty nice result.  Perfect for making that unit of Marauders or Doomreavers really pop! 

 

 

Stay tuned for the next installment... (I'll give you a hint... I was really motivated to finish these guys and well... Day 2 may be the final installment :) )
Any questions, comments, critiques, anything, please feel free to drop me a line in the comments.
Thanks for Watching!!

-Grim

Thursday WIPs!!

So this beast has been sitting on my paint desk for the last week or two.  He has been begging to be finished... (You may have seen him cameo in a few other shots on the blog)

Thanks to my happy Thursday's I have been able to add the finishing touches and move him from painting table to completed shelf.  Hooray!!

Enough yackin'  Here are the pics!

Keep lookin' lots more pics!!

This will also finally put me into the 25pt fully painted army category from ol' Happy Panda's fully painted challenge.

Any comments or critiques are always appreciated!

Thanks for watching!

-Grim

Tutorial: Armored Greatcoat

Here is a quick tutorial on how I made the armored greatcoat. 

Materials needed:

Milliput (yellow grey)

Super Sculpey (Firm)

No hole glass glitter beads

And sculpting tools

First I mixed equal parts of the milliput mix together with Sculpey. This creates a nice compound that is easy to work with and hardens well.
After that was all mixed I pressed the putty flat in between some parchment paper and cut into a nice long strip with my blade and ruler. Carefully I set the strip on the mini and tap it down into place with sculpting tools, being watchful not to cause and dings.
For each panel I simply make a small knife line and used the sculpting tools to fix the shape I wanted.
Now the hard part, placing the beads into place. Since these are so very small and have a static cling to them, the simplest way I found is to use a moistened toothpick to pick each on up and set them into place.

Once the putty is cured you can go back and glue any beads that have slipped off. 

Wildchevy