April & May 2013 Hobby Challenges

The big event past month was the '40K mixer' (if I may borrow a term from The Overlords podcast) at Ørnulv's place, and several of us had been working on new units to take along.

Linus was first out the gate with his Heldrake. He was also the only one to get around to post pics before the event itself. (Several other pics, including detail shots, in Linus' blog post from a few weeks back.)
It's good to see you back in the saddle again, old chap!

I dug out half a dozen miniatures from my 40K 3rd/4th ed. Emperor's Children army, stripped and repainted them to be able to include a small squad of Noise Marines in my Word Bearers army. Time and the next few games will tell if I'll be expanding or shelving the squad.

Tom-Erik produced not just one, but two units for April. His list at Ørnulv's event included both a new Triarch Stalker and the unit of Deathmarks above. (Pics of the Stalker in the previous post.)

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Pledges for this month's projects in the comments, as usual.
Can't wait to see what May'll bring!!!

Tom-Erik`s April Hobby Challenge

This month I chose to get some new units done for the "hunker in the bunker" gaming event, the plan was to get a Monolith or Doomsday Ark for my 2000 point list, but I ended up with going for a second Stalker. I feel like i can get more from these spider things that can move around the table and stil get their deadly shoots off. Had some mixed experience with them so far, but they sure take a lot off heat from every one that has faced them, and the heavy gauss cannon give me some needed longe range fire power.

The second unite I have finished is the Deathmarks, and I love these robots! I all games when they have deep striked the right way, and not into close combat with a Defiler or 45 orks they have been great!

So need some more off these!

Their hit on 3+ and wound on 2+ against a marked unit is a killer, and they have rending...

That`s it for April, in May I think it might be a Necron break, and time to digg out some pointy ears stuff called the Void Dragons...

Word Bearers 'Noise Marines' II - Jørn's April Hobby Challenge (Architecture of Aggression XXXIV)

After a week of prodding old miniatures sitting around in the closest thing to Simple Green we've got and a week of too short evening painting sessions, I managed to finish a unit of Sonic Blaster wielding Noise Marines just in time for this past weekend's 'Hunker in the Bunker'. (More on that later, I'm sure.)

I was holding off on posting until after this weekend, but now that the cat's out of the bag anyway there's no point in putting it off any longer. I'll have to test them out in a few games before I decide if they're getting shelved (or 'foamed' rather) or if I'll be fleshing the unit out to ten - or even twelve, to be fluffy.

A drake

A heldrake finished. Well I had to say stop. Could have done more with both the model and base. Not everything here I am completely satisfied with, but overall I think it's ok, and fit the theme of my army. I actually think the Heldrake model is quite nice. Guess it has to do with the armour and machine, and not so much weight on an insectous and animalistic expression.

I used one of buypainted.coms paint schemes, but decided to go my own way. Maybe a little too much wash from Secret Weapon in the end, but at least the drake got a dirty, greasy look. I have used a lot of brown pigments both on the model and base, making a rusty effect that almost vanished when I varnished the model. But it was too much in the first place, so a good thing that much was blown away.

And that is how I paint in a nutshell: Not always having the end product in my mind. Finding the path as I walk. Planning is therefore something I will try to improve.

Used the ultra fine needle on the Krome a lot on this really nice model, in the end managing to spray quite fine lines. But I must admit, finding the right mix of paint thinning, air pressure and distance to model is difficult! I've experienced dots, spiderweb and everything that is wrong. Perhaps the most important lesson is to remember to not finish the airbrush shot with paint in the system. Always finish blowing out air. Then you will not start the next shot with uncontrollable paint dots all over the model!

I started out this model testing the Krome, and after a few seconds - the stupid neewbie disaster happened. The airbrushed clogged and I got paint everywhere in the spraygun. I had to disassemble the whole thing, tried to clean it up, and managed to go on. And learned a lot. Last weekend disaster number two occured when I dropped the Krome on the floor, and naturally the needle was bent. I e-mailed Ken Schlotfeldt at Badger and he directed me to a german retailer who sent me the parts I needed in three days! So now I am up and going again.

The Forgefiend is next. But probably not finished by the end of the month.

See you tomorrow!

(Edit: Added som pics on request)

Chaos Spawn - Jørn's March Hobby Challenge

A week into April, and I'm finally done with my pledges for March.

Playing a Chaos Space Marines army, you never know when the Gods turn their backs to your champions, and you're called upon to have a Spawn model ready. I've had the two models below lying around since... Since they were released probably. It's about time then that they finally received some paint.

I've been playing around with all sorts of new tool while painting these two. The base colours were airbrushed on, enabling me to experiment with colour gradients on their extremities and between the different parts of their bodies. A number of different oil washes was then applied, to tone down the most extreme colour variations and to bring out the texture. A bit of light dry-brushing here and there, followed by more wash... Back and forth a few times until they reached the stage you can see above.