A touch of rust...

A dab here, a streak there, here some rust, there some rust, a little bit of staining.  All that helps to make the 'quickie' terrain look a little more normal.

There was nothing fancy here.  I just mixed some reddish brown together with orange and other browns.  As always, time was counting down, so it had to be done very rapidly!

The one nice thing about mixing in those metallics with the craft paints was the textural difference between the rust colors and the metals.  That's great in a lower light environment.

When I get some more time, I want to paint in cracks on the ground sections, and try to put some insignias and numbers on the tanks...

Here's the storage tank glued in place...

I was hoping that I had left enough open space on these pieces so that minis could get up on them and fight!

We shall see, as players use them on the Tuesday Warmachine nights at the Wondering Dragon!

Now for some shots of the terrain by the end of the day/evening...

This terrain is meant to be used, so feel free to use it for your games of Warmahordes!!

Taking flight once again...

OK folks, look what we have here.  This is the second Imperial Fists Storm Eagle.  It had all the torment of the other ones, and then some :-)

I am just glad that it's done!  I will have many more images from various angles over the next few days.

I had forgotten just how monstrous this vehicle is.  It makes the Darke Eldar Razorwing look like a Venom by comparison.

It also weighs a ton.  Huge chunks of solid resin.

I did a few things differently with the second Storm Eagle, so that they would be somewhat distinct from each other.

The top views will show even more of the streaks and scortch marks, and so on.

You can look through the blog posts on the previous Storm Eagle, and how the pieces were painted.

Stay tuned for more!!

Heavy Metal at the Wandering Dragon...

Painting up this terrain would see some very rare use of metallic paints by me.  Since I was starting to run a little low on my black craft paint, I thought adding metallic paints could help extend the life of the painting session.

I was still painting the black brown mix on everything, with more brown on the rock outcroppings.  At the same time, I was using some of the ivory color mixed in to create more of a stone hue for the bases of the steampunk terrain.  I will be doing more on those later when there's time.

Once that was completed, I started to mix the metallic and craft paints together to paint the storage tanks, pipes and smokestacks.

I added some of the brown craft paint, and even some gold and copper metallics into the mixture as I worked lighter.

Another furnace ready for metallic paints...

Moving along, I added lighter and lighter mixes...

It was certainly odd working with the metallic paints.  By combining them with the non metallic paints, however, it was less of a shock to the system :-)

Each terrain piece was worked to the lightest set of colors one by one...

I tried to leave my darker, sooty areas as intact as possible to save time.

In the next episode, we will see all the rust and additional soot that was added.  Stay tuned!

Something really stinks...

Here is something from a while back that has gotten lost in all the frenzy of the last 9-12 months.

This particular FW item had an interesting quality to it, or lack thereof.  I had to resculpt at least 30% of this... from scratch.  The 'tail' section was gone... non existent.  Knowing that other instances led to either getting the wrong replacement part, or the same of something that I didn't need (you will hear more on that this week), I just went ahead and sculpted the part that was missing.

The trend in FW has grown more and more disturbing.  I don't know if demand is stretching them even thinner, which might be the case, but they won't get any more demand from me.  I heard many similar horror stories at Adepticon.

When it takes me less time to make something from scratch than it does to assemble the actual kit, that might be a signal that something is amiss in the production process.  We already have a Finecast ban in place.  That is why we have been moving further and further away from GW stuff in general.

I am sorry that this post is a somewhat petulant affair, but this morning's FW extravaganza has me wanting to toss that poo all over the room...

By the way, it was also much easier to paint the section that I sculpted.  These views show that back 30% quite well.  It starts from the rotors backwards.

A bit of "Punky" terrain at the Wandering Dragon

Now it's time for a little painting session at the Wandering Dragon Shoppe.  Most of you will recognize this terrain I put together for them right before we got nailed by the Norovirus.  It has been waiting for some paint, and that's what I did the other day.

This was going to be a very basic paint job here, since there was not a lot of time.  I used the same craft paints that I work with on the Dark Eldar army board.  The only difference was that I tossed in a few metallic paints here and there :-)

You can look through the older Terrain posts to see how I made these.  It was fairly basic.  Some pink foam  and empty pill containers.  I made the rivets with some plasticard and a hole punch.

I worked quickly with a big brush to make the various pieces have a coat of brownish black...

I have a few shots here of each terrain piece as I did this.  The main use for this terrain would be on Tuesdays for the Privateer Press game night.  That means Warmachine and Hordes!

While most terrain pieces look a little odd before they are painted, these guys were nothing less than bizarre!

However, one has to have faith in the Plan. :-)  Be confident that something silly looking like this...

Transforms itself quickly by just doing this...

It was really neat to see these turn into somethings else before your eyes!

At this point, I started to add in some metallic paint to that black and brown mix.

While I was painting the steampunk terrain, I slapped some colors on a few regular rocky outcroppings

More to come!!!

Metal and resin everywhere!

OK, taking a break from filing and prepping dozens of Painting Pyramid miniatures.  There is a pile of metal shavings that is at least a half an inch high.  I have washed my hands 3 times, and they are that wonderful shade of blueish grey once again!

Lots of Reaper minis, but also a healthy dose of Raging Heroes.  Many more of those are on the way, including some very special figures that will be used for the gold/copper/brass videos.

I have also been prepping some of the CMON big cirtters as well.  Speaking of washing, I have lots of resin to clean off later this weekend. :-)

Phil is here next to me prepping a bunch of his Blood Bowl figs.  He'll have at least 2 full teams ready to go.

Tomorrow we will see some images of terrain painting at the Wandering Dragon!  Stay Tuned!

Pondering the future...

I will be wrapping up some of the Dark Eldar coverage in the next week or two with more images of the finished vehicles that I did not have time to shoot prior to Adepticon, as well as some images of the army on the board.

Looking ahead towards future Adepticon, I am trying to lay out a framework for the next army.  It would definitely involve the Raging Heroes female Imperial Guard.  Depending on what is available, it might either be all IG, or a mixture of IG and Sisters of Battle.

I already have a ton of SOB that are prepped, based, and even partially painted.  It would be a blast to scratch build Exorcist tanks and such. :-)  This would dramatically reduce the amount of time it would take to make the army ready for Adepticon as well.

I also have a story and an army board idea to go with it.  The board would be a 'cutaway' of a hive city, where the poor districts are "down below", and the convent of the Sisters is in the clouds.  Essentially, they recruit among the members of this all female IG army, taking only the ones which they feel are most worthy of serving.

There are a few practical elements here.  Judging by what happened in the tourney this year, I need more minis (preferably those with 3+ saves) and armies that can benefit from bringing their own terrain along with them.  And tanks.

The vehicles provide lots of scratch building opportunities, which makes any army a lot more fun, and customizable.