Work in Progress: painting the Chronos Pain Engine

Here we have the Pain Engine about 40% finished.  Lots more to do... glazing, shading, bloody stuff, freehand, etc.  But, you can see it starting to take shape!

You will also notice the similarities to the Grotesques.  I am using a lot of the same techniques and colors on this guy as I did on them.  The darker shades that are yet to come will make quite a difference in this piece, as will the glowing orange freehand that I have done on the other figures.

My hope was to have a marine with cracking energy pulsing through him to represent the Spirit Siphon, but I will be leaving that until later, if there is any time for it.  This will probably be the case for  most of these story elements.

Part of the reason I wanted that particular extra on this figure was to remind me of the gear this guy has, and what his purpose was intended to be.  He is supposed to be handing out paint tokens like candy at a parade.

I suppose if I were smarter, I would have loaded up on these, and not done the Razorwing, etc.  However, the Razor has some very crucial freehand on it in terms of army storytelling.

When this figure is completed, I will post the images... so stay tuned!

The other batch of jetbikes...

I see that I never posted the other set of jetbikes!  There are 16 in total.  Now both batches are primed and under way!

It's a little harder to see the differences in each one when they have been primed, which is why the previous batch was shot when it was all grey plastic and such :-)

More to come!  Stay tuned...

Another Sci-Fi Vestal from Raging Heroes

We have another member of the first Raging Heroes Sci-Fi Vestals squad.  I will be adding some freehand to the first two similar to this gal.

More on the way!

Nice doggie...

As those who have been following the Dark Eldar thread know, the theme of the army is racing teams! These teams are after a very cool Hippodrome on an Imperial world.

For a while, I tried to figure out what it is that the humans raced... until I looked at all the Cyberwolves from Raging Heroes which had been waiting for some love.  Then it hit me... dire wolves!  Not only could they feed heretics and witches to them, but they could watch them cruise around the track.

Bingo!  That gave me a reason to try out the cyberwolves, as the Marines defending this world have manipulated the dire wolves and augmented them with the cybernetics.

There are four different poses/miniatures.

This is one from the boxed set of three wolves.

They are very quick to prep and assemble!  You don't even have to soak them in cleaner to remove mould release.  Yea!

I took a random collection of bits and put together a few marines to ride on these cyberwolves.  There is more to sculpt on this guy, mainly lots of purity seals.

I chose this particular pose because it is part of an experiment... something I have never really tried before.

I didn't really care that I was combining different armor variations.  This particular batch of marines put their faith in their modified doggies than mere ceramite. :-)

One last view of the pose so far...

And here is what I am using it for.  I wanted to have this guy trying to take a shot at the Razorwing fighter.  The pose of the wolf rearing up on its hind legs fit much better on the base.

It is my hope that having this figure on the base helps to tell the story of these two armies a little better.  Plus, I have never really done a duel such as this.  Should be interesting!!!

I have been fiddling around with the base, trying to get this placed just right, but also allowing me to do some interesting designs on the base.

Lots more to go here!  Again, the wolves themselves are from Raging Heroes.

Getting there is half the fun?

Here are a few images of part of the Dark Eldar army that is emerging.  Here we have Ashara's venom, which carries her Incubus retinue.  I had put this one together at the same time that I was converting the jetbikes, hence the extra fins made of plasticard :-)

Gotta have those recent captives!

Here's another venom.  These are still in pieces right now for ease of painting.  That's why the banner is backwards :-)  The ventral splinter cannons have all been magnetized.

The last week, as I have been making bases for dozens of other minis, I worked in the bases for the vehicles.  Three venoms, a raider, the Razorwing jet fighter, the Chronos pain engine, etc...

I put the severed heads on the venoms to represent the grisly trophies.

Much more to come!

The building process is essentially over with these guys, with the exception of the objective markers.  Initial painting has been going on here and there where possible.  One of the squads of Wyches that travel in these venoms is almost painted... stay tuned!!!

More fun with bases!

Here's a few bases that I was working on for the Raging Heroes Kurgonavas.  I wanted to experiment with an old watercolor technique... one where you try to use the chemical content of the paint itself to create interesting effects.

The idea is to put down a layer of transparent glaze, and then toss in some opaque calthan brown.  These things don't want to mix naurally, so they 'resist' each other, almost like two magnets with the wrong polarity.  You can get some interesting swirls and strange patterns as a result.

I did this on a few other bases as well...

I let that dry...

...and did the rest of the normal work.

Some more views...

From above!

Close ups.

How the Uglies play Scrabble

The finished Nurgle base...

Here;s the images of the Nurgle base after completion.  I had some fun putting the cracks on the helmet.  Normally I have some kind of bullet holes there or mostly rust.

The view from above...

The impaled skulls on the chaos vehicle sprues really are fantastic.  I wish I could just get bags and bags of those :-)

So, that's it for this base.  I have some other ones for you tomorrow!