Old Timer

Here we have an old timey Dark Eldar figure, rescued from the abyss and included in the Adepticon 2013 army.

As some of you already know, I combined a number of the old sprues with some of the new bitz, particularly weapon arms and a few heads.

I discovered that they all fit together nicely, and it allowed me to make may more Kabal Warriors, since I could use the special weapons on the new sprues too.

This classic old head, however, had to be included once or twice!  You can see the rest of the Dark Eldar army, including the massive display board, in the Dark Eldar section of the blog.  Be sure to check it out!

The Green Knight

This was an interesting project, one that combined a number of different elements.

The base was the first piece, which you can see in this facebook live video:

https://www.facebook.com/james.wappel/videos/vb.1056181987/10210396618125888/?type=2&theater

The flags were created by taking sticky printer labels and wrapping them around the poles.  This made them very flexible but sturdy, since there were now 2 layers of that printer paper, stuck together!

These views show a little more of the waterfall base, made of bark and branch.

As far as the color scheme goes, it was pretty traditional Green Knight fare, but with a twist of the fluorescent green sword.

Guardian of the Fjords

Norway's finest from Gorgon Studios, part of the Narvik campaign series.

Along with the French Foreign Legion troops, these will be employed with the British forces in the desperate attempt to hang onto Norway, and keep the iron ore reserves from German hands.

Here's a link to the Gorgon Studios site, where you can see the entire line of early World War 2 figures, including the newest set of Norwegians with backpacks:

https://gorgon-studios.myshopify.com/collections/new-releases/products/norwegian-riflemen-with-bergan-pack

Mr. Walrus

It's been a while since I have shown any more of the unusual Mierce Miniatures monstrous infantry, and this guy is a pretty hilarious version to see.  This is part of the massive winter theme force that has been under way for quite some time.

The base is 60mm, so that gives you an idea of how big he is.

The 'regular' infnatry is usually created in batches of ten, while the Monstrous infantry has 5 different poses, with one banner bearer and a champion.

That one is coming up next, so stay tuned!

Monster Mash

There were many fun and different things that happened while we were at World Expo Chicago, like painting in the Badger airbrush booth, getting to see the Reaper folks, and meeting some of the other dealers.  

Directly across from the Badger booth were some very interesting movie monster busts, made by Black Heart Models.  George asked me if we painted many busts, and I told him that I hadn't had a chance to paint one yet.

Lo and behold, there were suddenly a few of his fantastic busts on the table, and I was hitting them with the airbrush for various demos.

This is the bust that I painted during the seminar, showing how the airbrush could be used for my normal "Shaded Basecoat" phase.  Once those early layers and colors have been applied, it's time to glaze and tint over the top of them.

That's what I did to finish off this Frankenstien bust.  These are the smaller busts, a new range that is expanding.  The original busts were life sized, which are really amazing to see!  Who knows... perhaps one day I might get to paint one of those colossal heads!!

Here's a link to the website:

http://www.blackheartmodels.com/

For now, we have Frankenstien.

Fun Times in Chi Town

Now that we are back from World Expo, it's time for a few images!

I was doing my usual painting exercises in the Badger booth, using all the new primer colors.

I had a collection of painted and partially painted Bolt Action figures and vehicles to show how I go about using the airbush and those nifty primers!

I also had a few of the BONES 3 kickstarter dragons with me, because I was itching to get some primer on those beasties as well.

You can see some model aircraft, and even a Gates of Antares skimmer.

Ken in the booth getting ready to make a splash...

I tried to bring as wide a variety of subject matter as possible, and I think I managed to do just that.  On the right hand side you can see my first use of the metallic primer on the aircraft, imitating the underlying layer of airplane aluminum that would be revealed by the chipping medium later.

The Bersagleri are the next big Bolt Action airbrush project, so a few examples of that force were on the table.  In a complete surprise, I ended up with a few busts of Universal Monsters too!

Those are from Black Heart Models, who happened to be right across the isle from us.

Wolfman and the BONES dragon get their initial layers of primer.  I focused on those new colors, as I mentioned earlier.  I used the new Ebony, pink and tan colors in combination with black and green.

I especially had fun with the giant wings.  Until now, this is something that I would have to do with my large brushes.  While that does not take a very long time, it is certainly not as efficient as using the airbrush.

At the same time, I hit the busts with the same primer colors... even the Italian Bolt Action figures.

I experimented with more combinations of primer on the dragon and the busts, trying out the new blue primer color.

I took a few of the ghost tints and a few other regular colors to do some glazes on the dragon's head.  I wanted to demonstrate how you can work from the Shaded Basecoat established by the use of primer and airbrush.

Another interesting part of the weekend was conducting a seminar.  I had to combine airbrushing with Mig AMMO products, which was a tricky task to pull off in just 90 minutes!!

Somehow I was able to do airbushing, weathering and oil painting on 3 different genres of figures in that time span.

I wanted to thank Ken for letting me corrupt his booth all weekend, and to Dave for running the event.  Thanks also to George and the folks at Reaper Miniatures.

It was great to see everyone there too!

While we were away, more 1/48 scale kits arrived.  These are primarily going to serve as objective markers, scenery and the like.  I think these will really add to our Bolt Action games!

They have incredible detail, and they are quite inexpensive on Amazon.  You will see more of these in the coming months, along with the 1/48 scale planes.

Stay Tuned!

Reaping the Harvest

The Alastriel figure from Reaper Miniatures has been a favorite of mine for a while.  I have been able to paint it a number of different ways, and I still look forward to trying more!

I used a number of this figure to create the Painting Pyramid video for Object Source Lighting.  Here's a link to the preview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXqIo-UMSr8

I had a lot of fun using one of the left over figures to create a very different flavor, with this fall theme.  The broken column is part of a resin set from Secret Weapon Miniatures.

I made this base prior to the Green Stuff World leaf punches, so I used the Vallejo Mica Flakes to create the fallen leaf effect.  I really love the Mica flakes, but the contents have a tendency to dry out, no matter how tightly you secure the top.  The best option is to get a small jar, but you have to hope that one has not been on a shelf for too long!