Batch Painted (Speed Painted) Plaguebearers

I'm on a roll these days getting back into the painting groove. I think it's because Daemons are so different from power armor and Nids. The multicolor scheme that I chose for Nurgle is not as cartoony as I thought, and I like the idea of allying CSM and Daemons...very fluffy.

So I had the presence of mind to document the batch painting of my plaguebearers. As usual, they aren't going to win a slayer sword, but they are definitely at least TT quality. Click any photo to enlarge.

Speed Painting Nurglings (+ a little ranting)

So much has happened in the last few weeks in terms of 40k, but the biggest personal impact has been the advent of Games Workshop's new codex release schedule and its digital/print disconnect. I am loose with WYSIWYG when it comes to an opponent. I'm not "THAT GUY" when it comes to playing against people with unpainted models. But I am a completist when it comes to core rules. I like to have all the rules handy.

Speed Painted Necron Night Scythe

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This is not a "how to", just a "how it turned out". As usual, I think my mistakes are much more informative and useful than the things I did right.

Necron Night Scythe. Paints used: Rustoleum 2X Black Primer, GW Chaos Black, GW Scorpion Green, GW Chainmail, GW Badab Black, Micron Red pen.

Total time spent, excluding drying times but including assembly, 2 hours. [READ MORE]

Review: Dragon Forge Designs Cargo Crates

A quick one for you guys today. About a week ago, I received a small envelope from Dragon Forge Designs containing and assortment of cargo crates. See them here. Jeff Wilhelm has really been expanding his inventory to provide a lot of variety lately, and all of his stuff is very usable, customizable, and most importantly, not gimmicky. His stuff really enhances models without overshadowing them. So let's take a quick look at these crates, both raw and painted up. [read more]

Speed Painting Necron Hieroglyphs

I'll just cut to the chase with no witty banter: I just cannot get the hang of doing that outlining that all of the 'Eavy Metal Necron vehicles have. The inconsistency of my lining is infuriating. But I do love the "canon" color scheme. So this is my solution, and I have to say that it works really well. [READ MORE]

Speed Painted Necron Warriors (and some advice, please)

Apologies for the quality...two bulbs are burned out in my little photo station.

Four hours over a two day period, and all 32 Warriors are finished, from sprue to plastic rods. They need basing, but I can't start on that until I decide on a theme. [read more]

Possible Speed Painting Discovery

Normally, I wouldn't tout a discovery until I was sure it was going to be viable, but this is one that requires some input from the community, so a serious caveat emptor on this one.

As you may know from reading this blog, I am a proponent of both tabletop quality painting and speed painting. It's not that I don't love CMON-style painting pyrotechnics, and I am a diligent and careful painter, but if you want to actually play with painted models, something's gotta give.

So I was looking at my latest bit of impulse insanity yesterday: 5 boxes and 3 blisters of Grey Knights. My Blood Angels are not done, my Tyranids need to be finished, and let's not even mention my CSMs. But hey, Grey Knights are a low model count army and [insert various justifications here].

I was out of spray primer, so I visited my local hardware store for black and white Krylon, when this caught my eye:

This is spray paint is intended to be applied DIRECTLY to chrome. The cap is as shiny as a mirror. My Blood Angels are painted to look gritty from battle...lots of Devlan Mud, if you know what I mean. I do like that look, but as I looked at this can, I thought of a small cadre of Grey Knights as shiny as the first picture. But if I sprayed this as a primer or even a basecoat, would I be able to paint over it with other colors? If not, this would take a hell of a lot of masking or filing, and PAGKs and GKTs have a LOT of fiddly details.

I was not brave enough to try this on a $10.00 model. This stuff is meant to last on car bumpers, so I bet stripping it away would be a bit of a chore. Instead, one of my CSMs volunteered for the task. I just gave him a quick once over, and he looked pretty good. I did a quick wash of Asurmen Blue and then Badab Black, and then I used some Chaos Black to pick out some details. The intent was to see how this stuff took washes and paint. 

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Again, I apologize for the picture quality. I'm simply too tired tonight to get out the photography rig. But even in this bad photo, you can see that the silver looks OK. As a comparison, his gloves are painted Chainmail, and the bolter is Boltgun Metal, both with a Badab wash. The Chaos Black seemed to adhere fine, but watering down the paint would probably not be advised in this application.

So, people, anyone try this? I find metallics extremely difficult to do properly...I invariably resort to a drybrushing technique for anything larger than a bolter, especially with gold. How do you guys and gals do it? And has anyone tried this paint before? 

And as for my brave volunteer I'm thinking about adding some yellow striped to his shoulder and starting an Iron Warriors Warband. This Legions Codex cannot come fast enough. 

WIP: Sanguinary Guard

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! I am sincerely thankful for many things this year. My family, my employer, and my friends are the top three "items" that receive my gratitude without condition. But I'd like to share the thing that I am absolutely the MOST grateful for at this time. I am most thankful that in about 30 minutes, I will actually be finished painting these nightmares:

Are you diggin' the old school Vindi?

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BA Assault Squad Sergeant

I had to take a breather from my Death Company (which I was trying to speed paint...bad idea) to strip them and re-prime, so I opened an assault squad box and cracked open the codex. After looking at the options, I decided to make a squad of 5. 3 with bolt pistols, 1 plasma, and a sergeant with a storm shield and power weapon. I assembled them and primed them with Army Painter Dragon Red. At that point, I decided to speed paint the sergeant to see what happened.

More after the jump (click)

Speed Painting Objective Markers

This weekend was very, very busy for my two young daughters, so consequently, it was very, very busy for me. This, combined with my Armory Primer debacle, left me no time to work on my Blood Angels, but I wanted to take advantage of my small bit of momentum somehow. I looked around my office and found a set of these:

They are objective markers made by Secret Weapon Miniatures in their "Alien Infestation" scheme. I found them six to a bag at a local game store. I don't see them being sold on the Secret Weapon site, but I will update this post if I find them there.

They are, in a word, beautiful. I thought they'd make a great set of objectives for my Nids, but I'd forgotten about them until this week. Since the time I purchased them, I've had a bit of philosophical redirection. For objective markers, I don't feel the need to make them too "realistic"...they need to be markers, for heaven's sake.

So here's where the speed painting comes in. I washed the pieces in warm soapy water, and then I sprayed them with Army Painter bone-color primer. Total time, 5 minutes.

Then for each of the three pairs, I washed them with Asurmen Blue, Leviathan Purple, and Thraka Green, respectively. Then, for each open-petaled pod, I based that area in Vallejo Squid Pink. Then, before the pink could dry, I dropped Baal Red wash in each pod. Total time, 10 minutes.

That's right, 15 minutes for all six of them. And how do they look? See for yourself. Click on any image to enlarge.

I really dig how these turned out. Do you?

Captain, My Captain

My attempt to finish my Blood Angels to a table top standard is coming along slowly but steadily. Next up is my converted AOBR Captain. I thought I had written about this model before, but I can't find it right now. He is the normal Black Reach Captain but with one little change: I Dremeled off the bare head and replace with with a Corvus pattern helmet.

Army Painter Dragon Red Spray Primer, Mechrite Red, Shining Gold, Chaos Black, Red Gore, Blood Red, Bleached Bone, Boltgun Metal, Mithril Silver, Devlan Mud, Asurmen Blue, Baal Red, Iyaden Darksun, Sunburst Yellow

His position is a bit static, but hey, he's from the AoBR set, so what can you do? The only painting I have left to do is a bit of detail when the red primer shows through. In addition to my helmet "conversion", I added one extra little touch:

Do you see the purity seal on the back of the banner. That's made of greenstuff and Instant Mold. I did a review of Instant Mold here.

Square One...Yet Again

So let's talk about back-to-basics. It's a common turn of phrase that implies that something has gone a bit awry and that simplification would render more successful outcomes.

Well, this lonely tactical marine with a flamer is my initial attempt to do just that: simplify my attempts to field a fully painted, 2000-2250 pt BA Army by April 1st, 2012.  If you recall, I was on my way to creating an Angels Sanguine army instead, but very quickly it became clear to me that it was not going to happen. The longitudinally asymmetrical color scheme was, amazingly enough, not an issue; it was the sheer number of steps it took to create this scheme combined with a very poor choice in black paint on my part. I had very little faith that I would be able to keep up my interest long enough to do more than a squad or two.

So I tossed all of my AS army into Simple Green and started on this little guy. I was trying to find the least amount of steps possible to create a good, table-top standard army. And I think I've done it. It's certainly not original; there are variations of this process all over the place. I freely admit that I stole from all of them. Although the colored primer got a little grainy (click the image to see it), I think this will work for me.

Army Painter Dragon Red Spray Primer

Wash with Devlan

Shining Gold on trim. 

Wash again with Devlan Mud.

Boltgun Metal and Chaos Black where appropriate.

Dry brush Chaos Black for the flamer tip.

Ultramarine Blue for the flame.

Micro pen the eye lenses.

I'm going to do the iconography in one fell swoop at the end, along with the basing. This figure took me 30 minutes from dried primer to photography.

What do you think?