The Eagle has Landed!!! First set of pictures

Yea!!!  It is finally done!!!  And Photobucket is working again!!!  Yea!!!

This is just the first set of images.  I took 41 photos, so there is a long way to go.  It will take a few more posts to get through them all.















Here are some pictures of the underside, which you have not seen at all!!






Stay tuned for the rest of the painted images, including the flying base!

The Champ rides again: Tomb Kings Armies on Parade

Well, it looks like Photobucket is still down, so I am stuck with this format.  If you click on an image, you will get the full size version.

Today we have another horse archer, but this time it is the unit champion.  I will shoot some photos of the whole command group later!

I have been having lots of fun painting these converted skeleton horses.  They are edging out the ushabti as my favorite Tomb Kings minis!

Weathering the Storm: The final weathering of the Storm Eagle

OK, bear with me on this post.  Something is wrong with photobucket, as it won't let me upload anything.  It is not the first time, but the timing is very bad, since I promised you all this post tonight!

We'll see how this works.

So , at this stage in the painting, I had set up everything for my weathering powders.  They can be very tricky to use.  They are also very messy and toxic, as they are essentially pastel dust.  As a pastel painter, I know only too well how transient they can be, and nasty on the eyes and lungs!

I have learned that you have to do the application in stages.  And keep lots of rags and paper towels on hand!

A few images showing the initial layers, applied with a bigger brush...

You can also see that I added the imagery on those two sections towards the front of the hull.
I had three shades of powder... a rust color, brown and soot black.  I love to mix them together.  The black and brown go very well in a mixture.

I made sure to get some rust on the landing gear, as well as the exposed engine cowlings in the back.  My primary goal was to make as many streaks as I could on various surfaces, primarily any kind of wing.

Having the darker streaks go in front of painted icons and designs really lends a sense of realism, making them not look like something pasted on...

It was also important to add scorch marks on areas like the missile launchers and engines.  You can see some of that on the vertical thrusters as well near the front of the hull.

This images really emphasises that concept.  I have the usual streak marks on the wings, but some lascannon scorching as well.

This top view should really show all the streak marks on the ventral surfaces.  You can also see some rust added near the glowing conduits.  This warm color addition was meant to enhance the glow of the conduits.

A De-facto step by step Storm Eagle: the later stages

Well, loyal Wappellians, this was not supposed to be a step by step or a tutorial or anything of the sort.  However, it seems to have become just that!

So without further delays, we have another set of WIP images.

This picks up wher we left off from the first set of images.  I have now placed the pilot in the cockpit:


And I decided to do some glowing conduits, which would match the glowing colors I did on the Land raider for this same army...


I also did some work on the engines, pulling out the copper pipes on the exposed cowlings...


The following series of images shows how I lightened each plane gradually, making sure that the uppemost surfaces would end up the brightest...






I also did some work on the door icons, as well as defining a bit more of the paint chips...


The lightening continues:


You can't see it, but the lower hull has also bee worked over during this stage.  I continue to work lighter, no trying to establish a dark down to light shading pattern on the vertical sides of the hull.




At this point, I have gotten the sky facing surfaces light enough that I can begin to work on the highlights.


This shows the highlighting proceeding.


Stay tuned tonight for the weathering powder batch of images!

Fire Away! Screaming skull catapults for Armies on Parade

Here's a few images of my screaming skull catapults.  I will be finishing up my scratch built version tommorrow!!

This is an "official" version:





And one that I scratch built in October of last year,  You can see how I tried to establish the sphinx motif that is on the display board!





I will be posting pictures of the painted version tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Step by Step Skellietones...

Today we have a rough step by step on how I have been painting the skeletons.  I don't have any earlier shots than the brownish state of the first image, but I think this gets the point across. :-)

Everything is a bit uniform right now with the colors.  The idea is to create a whole range of colors on each figure...


Here I am finishing off the bases, and really starting to determine where the reddish, yellowish or greenish colors will play out on the bone sections:


Now I start to work on the armor and bows:


By now I have really settled in on what kinds of colors I am building.  I get lighter and lighter with each of the colors.  To keep things from getting too disjointed, I use the same yellowish white to lighten the greens, reds, and yellows.


By now I have the bows completed enough to do the freehand on them:


I now enhance the darks, and complete the armor.  I also will use a complimentary color in my darks... for instance, I will used a dark green to darken an area where the light colors are more of a red shade.


Here are some views of this group painted:






I hope this proves to be helpful!