Brother Claudio - Finished

Finished painting Brother Claudio today, my first completed NMM ever! 10 Terminators and one Librarian to go - owh and then comes the Genestealers, but they got no metal to speak of on them, so should go fast. I think the rest of the Space Marines will go much faster than Brother Claudio aswell, after all I should be done with the trial and error-part of these models, which always takes a lot of time when a new colour scheme is to be used or a new kind of unit is getting a paint job.
But, pictures:As you can see, I went for the green gems - noone seemed to like the idea of blue ones and I must say the green looks very good with the red and gold after all. Turns out my initial scepticism was uncalled for.
I tried to paint the base as if it was part of the Space Hulk floor or something, but I think the details pretty much too dark to make out. Must admit I'm not too happy about how it turned out, and if I find a better way of painting metal plates and such on the other models, I might return to this Claudio and fix it up. We'll see.

But wait a moment! This is not a finished model! I've not painted any of the battledamage yet!
Well yes, that's true, or it's partly true. I took some pictures of Claudio before I did the battle damage, just to mark the difference. I thought it might be interesting to see. Especially since Claudio not only is my first NMM model, he's also the first one to recieve any weathering/battle damage, so double the milestone!
Hope you like it as much as I do, and if there's any critisism or feedback you'd like to offer, please do!

Red or green? Or maybe blue?

Now that my first regiment of Horsemen are finished, I have returned to Brother Claudio.
I've come to the point where the gems which adorn his armour need some loving from my brush, but I'm not sure in what colours I should paint them. As they're shaped like blood drops, I'd normally paint them red, but as most of the model's already painted red, I fear that gems might get lost, if painted red. Green was suggested earlier, as it is a complimentary colour to red, and thus makes for some nice contrasting work, but at the same time don't make the model look too "busy", if I've understood the theories of colour correctly. For that reason I finally buckled under pressure and made his eyelenses green instead of the blue colours I had planned. His eyes are quite small, though, so I've been deliberating whether or not I should paint them lighter, as they sort of disappear a bit, no? Take a look for yourself, and help me decide!Right, back to the gems. They're all encased in gold, and so I gave the red variant a chance, as I hope it'll set them apart from the rest of the armour. I did also paint one green gem, for comparison, but still I can't make up my mind, so I'll leave the choice up to you who might be reading this. One on each hand, if they're hard to spot. I'm not too happy with the green gem, think the red one looks more gem-like, and seems to be reflecting the light better, but might be related to the whole "painting green too dark"-issue I feel I have with the eyelenses. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is, don't pay heed to the fact that the red one might be a more successful attempt at painting gemstones, it's all about picking the colour.

Edit:
After painting his claws power-weapon-blue tonight, I've been thinking, maybe the model will become too busy with red, gold, blue and green; and while I think that red gems won't be visible enough, and therefore can be discounted as an option (unless someone manages to convince me otherwise), maybe blue gems would give the needed contrast to the red and gold, and at the same time fit in with the blue claws?
Any views/thoughts on this?

Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh - Finished

I've finished painting my first regiment of Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh; plan to do the second one sometime after christmas, painted very much the same. Right now, I'm not too keen on doing more white horses, hehe. A break is due!Compared to my other Slaaneshi units, this one hasn't been converted very much. The musican did recieve a swordarm from the plastic Marauders on foot, and I "shaved" off the beards of two of the Horseman-heads before gluing them on... But that was about it, I think.
Speaking of the musican's sword, in a way of keeping the unit in theme with what I did with my Warhounds' eyes, I tried to replicate the glow-effect to the runes of the sword, which I'm quite happy with.Earlier I asked for advice regarding where to put the Mark of Slaanesh on them, and while I liked the suggestion of branding the horses with it, I didn't feel confident in my own abilities to paint it. Idle Scholar on Warseer gave me another suggestion, namely painting it onto the shulderpads of the riders, and after giving it a try on the musican, I was so happy with it, that I gave it to all five.I've been debating whether or not my bases are good enough: my initial plan was to create some sort of a stony wasteland, barren of life, just stones and dust, very similar to a desert, but in a colder enviorment and without the richly and warm-coloured sand of a typical desert. But now that I've completed three units with these bases, I was thinking maybe it gets a bit monotonous and boring? I've added some skulls here and there, but maybe I should get some of that burned static grass from GW, or something? To keep the lifeless wasteland-feel going..? Or are they good as it is? Any thoughts?
Also, any critisism or other suggestions regarding my Horsemen are very much welcome!

Brother Claudio - WIP

So, I decided to do Brother Claudio first - not yet sure whether he'll be my submission to the painting competition, though: I think I got time to finnish the Librarian and the Broodlord before the 10th of October. I havn't gotten very far yet, but I'd like some feedback to what I've done so far, and would also like some opinions on a couple of issues I'm having with him.

I've gone for what I believe must be a traditional Blood Angel theme: Armour's red, blood-drop gems will be red when I get to them, and chains and jewelry will be painted golden or brass (will save that discussion for further down). The battle damage will be something new for me to make, but I got some ideas as to how I'm to pull it off, and I'll probably add slightly more than what's sculpted into the model already. I was thinking of using the sword from Space Hulk's cover as inspiration for how I'm to paint the Lightning Claws; and with that in mind, I think that his eyes/goggles should be blue aswell. But how am I to paint the cables which protrude and connects arms and body? They're painted green on the box, but so's the eyes, and first of all I don't like the green colour they've used and secondly I don't think it'll fit my red and golden theme. So, any suggestions are very much welcome!Painting him red has taken some time though: I lost count of the number of layers I've given him, but I'm super happy with the results - hope you are too! I've gone from a Scab Red darkened with Chaos Black, adding more and more Scab Red for each layer, until I reached pure Scab Red, then it was Red Gore's turn to be mixed into it, then I slipped in more and more drops of Blood Red until finally I got to a final highlight on the edges with pure Blood Red. A lengthy process, but so much better than painting white, hehe! It's as if the red paint is more alive, and it's more easy to predict the outcome of each layer... On the other hand, maybe I'll slip in some of the painting-red-technique the next time I do a white horse, or some other part of my rather light Slaaneshi warband. One can always hope!Anyways, in a fit of madness, I've decided that I'm going to give the NMM-thingy a new chance. I must admit I was soundly defeated by the Stegadon earlier this year, but this time I got more time, and I've given it a shot on one of the skulls on Brother Claudio so far. I'm not perfectly happy with it yet, but it's better than what I ever managed on the Stegadon's gold. It doesn't shine enough yet, though...
I've been thinking, maybe I should try to make it more contrastful; darker shadow areas, and even a slightly lighter yellow for the areas of reflection? I also think it'd look better with a slightly warmer gold, but I don't know if adding some red paint into the browns and yellows I use, will give me what I want, or just mess it all up.Any tips are most welcome.

As a alternative though, if my NMM-plans goes to shit again, I do have some of that wonderful old Brazen Brass paint from GW, and I know from experience that it makes quite a good fit with red (Iiiiiih! Who'd thought Khorne would manage to infiltrate my Slaanesh-sacred blod?). So that'll be my back up plan *grins*

- - -
[Edit 16th of September]

I took some new pictures of Brother Claudio, and these pictures got a much better lighting than the ones I took prior to posting. I think these show the red colour more like it is, but I'll probaly add some extra highlights to the edges and such, when I find the time.

The reason behind the little note with my name on and a date, is that I've decided to enter Jawaballs Blood Angels painting competition, just to prove it's my model, sort of.

Anyways, hope you like these extra pictures!

Space Hulk (2)

I recieved my Space Hulk box yesterday, and boy was it a heavy box! If I could do it all over again, I would've saved myself the 45 minute trip on foot, and taken the bus instead. What was I thinking? Something about saving money, and getting some fresh air, no doubt.. Aw well!
It is looking wonderful, though, and all in all, it was worth the trip, without doubt.

Due to swiftly shifting weather, mostly rain and otherwise high humidity, I've not dared to undercoat the models, although my fingers are itching to lay some paint unto them. Hopefully the dark clouds outside my window will clear away through the evening, so I can get them undercoated in a few hours.
I've not yet decided on which model I'll pick as mine for the painting competition the local GW's running, but I've narrowed it down to three "finalists", so to say:

The Librarian
The Broodlord
The Terminator with those fancy claws

I think it'd look nice with a cloak on either of those marines, at least if I'd be able to make it seperate from the body, and not clinging to it. Then again, the models by themself are so wonderful, that it might be shame to tamper with them..?

Anyways, any opinions as to which of the three I should go for in the competition (I will paint all of them eventually), would be most welcome!

Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh - WIP

The progress on my army has been slightly halted by the start of a new semester at the university, but I've gotten a bit done; two of my Marauder Horsemen of Slaanesh are done - with the exception of arms.
To keep them in line with the white and black colour scheme I've choosen for my army, I painted the horses white, and I've finally found a recipe which gives results I'm happy with.
All my models are undercoated with black, and after that I give the areas to-be-white two thin coats of watered Astronomican Grey, to get a lighter background to work with, but not ruin any details. Then I "sort of" drybrush with watered down Skull White; I have more paint on the brush than I'd normally have when drybrushing, and I keep the brush strokes going in one direction, horizontally. I try to only pick out the raised areas, like the different muscles, and keeps the Astronomican Grey base-colour alone in the recesses, or other areas I want to keep dark / in shadow.
The first brush strokes of Skull White will not be very white, however, so I repeat the dry-brushing technique until I'm satisfied, then I water down Skull White to a glaze, and simply brush it over all the grey-white areas of the model. That way, I get the borders between grey and white smudged out a bit. After that, I highlight every raised area with Skull White.
It's a lenghty process, but at least I get a result I'm happy with.
The metal armour is painted black with white highlights (I found that mixing Skull white and Astronomican Grey, gives a very light, almost white grey, which covers black much better than Skull White alone - probably due to the abilities of the foundation paint), while leather have been painted Scorched Brown with Vermin Brown highlights, then washed with Badab Black.
One thing I feel is missing, however, is something to tie them to their mark; there won't be no banner for the unit, and no shields neither to paint the rune of Slaanesh upon, so I'm kind of at a loss...
Any suggestions as to how I could withdraw any doubt as to which of the four gods, my Horsemen ride to war for, would be most welcome, along with any other suggestions and/or critisism.

Space Hulk

After deliberating the matter for some time, quite a bit of persuasion from the local GW-staff, and some words of praise of this game by Elazar amongst others, I've decided to pre-order the third and very limited edition of Space Hulk.
For those who doesn't know, it's after what I've understood, a boardgame set in the Warhammer 40.000 universe, where a team of humans have made their way into a flaoting mass of starship wreckage, in search of ... something. The Space Hulk, as this piece of space debris is called, is however inhabitated by some aliens, and so the humans find themself under attack, fighting a desperate battle for survival against the bloodthirsty and hostile aliens, but also against the clock; sooner or later, the Space Hulk will be sucked off into "the Warp"...

My knowledge of the 40k universe is very limited, and it wouldn't surprise me if I've gotten it all wrong, but anyways, it's supposed to be a very intensive and funny game to play - and the models, despite not being Fantasy, are really looking great! So I'll have something fun to paint in the near future aswell (the game's released the 5th of September).
Speaking of painting, the local GW-store's having a painting competition for this occation, Single Miniature from the Space Hulk, another good reason for buying it. It's not like there's any prize or anything, except the honour, but I find it always adds a bit more motivation and also tends to force oneself to keep pushing one's own abilities as a painter, if the model's to be judged by someone else.
Owh, and lastly, something fun happened at GW after I preordered; I stayed a bit for a chat and the like, and I think it was only 15 minutes or so after I had had my name written down in their book, the store got a call: "The online preorders are sold out.."
I think the store got a couple of copies left, but for anyone in Copenhagen who missed the online preorders - head over to GW as soon as possible, they don't have many left.

ToFP - August

Right, it's the 1st of September, and about time I published last month's work in a post of its own, I think.

For the first month of the Tale of Fantasy Painters 2009-2010, I've painted:
- 10 Marauders of Slaanesh (Light Armour, Hand Weapon, Shield, MoS & Full Command) - 90 pts
- 5 Warhounds of Chaos - 30 pts

I've taken new pictures of the Marauders of Slaanesh, with both better lighting and showing them from some new angles. I've also taken a picture with them and the Warhounds together, so you can judge if my paintschemes for the two troops fit together.

Hope you'll enjoy them!

Warhounds - Finished

At long last, I'm done with the first regiment of Warhounds.
I must say, I was really disapointed by the sculpts, lots of mold lines, terrible horns and tails, and I'm really not much of a fan of all those sores and tenteacles and scales, which cover most of their skins.
So, with a sharp knife and some greenstuff, I removed what I didn't like - or in the case of tails and horns, didn't glue it on - and then I simply covered it up in greenstuff, sculpted fur where the horns should have been, and made new furry tails for them aswell.
Especially with all the other new Chaos stuff being so well made, the disapointment in the dogs became double up, so to say.
When it came to painting, I wanted to stick to the black and white paint scheme I used on my Marauders, and I relearned how painfully it is to paint large areas of white, and I'm not sure if I'm happy with the way it got shaded, so any feedback and/or tips as to how I can improve it, wouldbe most welcome, as I've got as many dogs left to paint, and also got ten horses for my Marauder Horsemen, which will be painted white aswell.
Speaking of Marauder Horsemen, I couldn't help myself, and opened one of the boxes while I was painting the dogs, and before I knew it, I was cutting them out of their sprues, cleaning off mold lines and assembling them. The first 5 were undercoated and has been sitting idly waiting to be painted for the last two days, heh.
Really wonderful sculpts, so lifelike and easy to assemble and with few mold lines to speak of. I'm really looking forward to get started with them!