Tuesday 29 September 2009

Not dead!

Hey guys, just wanted to give a brief update. I turned twenty-five on Monday, so the weekend was busy and so was my actual birthday. Been doing other things since then, such as Batman -Arkham Asylum, hanging out with house mates, uni/uni society stuff and even gamesday today. I intend to try and make time for painting each week, and have decided that depsite having space wolf stuff (picked up two boxes of wolves and one wolf guard today) I am going to get my dwarfs to 1000-1500pts before moving on to the wolves or another project. Its just going to be slow, due to this being my final year, having an 8-12,000 word essay to research and write for the end of my year and other uni based stuff, it's not going to be easy finding time for painting and such. But I'll try.

Oh yeah, and here's some stuff from Sunday.
Gamesday 2009

Wednesday 16 September 2009

The choices we make...

Or don't make, as it was in my case. I want to make this entry about remembering the beginning of my, and mayhaps your own, experience of the miniature hobby.

I actually forget how I got into the hobby, I know it involved "Heroquest". But from where I got it I am unaware of. I was then invited to a house of someone my dad worked with, and there I was thrown into the world of Warhammer. I loved it. It was brilliant good fun and after that my dad brought me a second hand dwarf army from one of the guys. So, my first ever army was not actually one of my choice. Seems odd now, and I'm not sure I'd have chosen them myself but I love the dwarf army.

Since then I have loved my dwarf army and they're always going to be my first love in the Warhammer world. I am looking forward to repainting my dwarfs and making them look all nice and great, I also want to expand them to include every unit and make it a great big army. I love their background and mostly their minis.

Tuesday 15 September 2009

Test Dwarf B

OK, so new test subject. It was suggested I do the turquoise and the grey slightly brighter. So, I had a fiddle about with a second dwarf and came up with the following scheme.



I quite like this one, its a bit better in that the grey doesn't look either unfinished or too much like the armour. I used shadow grey as my base and went from there.

Monday 14 September 2009

Back to my roots

Dwarfs were my first army ever, my first true exposure to the GW hobby and so always have a place in my heart. I have recently got the bearded bug and so I have decided to repaint and update my dwarf army.

OK. So, onto a new army project. The dwarfs. I mentioned before that I was trying to steer clear of the typical dwarf schemes (these being blue/khaki and red/white). I would still like to but not sure what scheme to use. Any suggestions are welcome. On my first test dwarf I have gone for a turquoise/grey scheme. I like it quite a bit. The turquoise (maybe a tad too blue) gives it a nice bright colour allowing it to pop a bit, the grey acts as a neutral colour - and both are more in the 'cool' group. But I'm not entirely sold just yet. Here he is;








I haven't used gold on purpose. I plan to use it only on characters, longbeards and hammerers to set them apart from the rest, who will be using bronze as their secondary metallic colour.

And now I want to grumble.

So, I was looking through the dwarf army book for ideas and I quickly came to the conclusion that its pathetic. GW in their wisdom decided to deny a cohesive looking army to the dwarfs, instead opting for multiple shades and colours in a solitary unit; making it look ratty and disparaging. I know my dwarf fluff well enough to know that dwarf armies are all drawn from different clans, most of which will adopt a different look when fighting alongside other dwarfs. Most know this and the method they use to represent this fluff aspect is to use a different method of applying the same scheme, usually to the shield. For example, you might have one unit with the scheme split horizontally and another who's goes vertically. Its not difficult and easy to explain, whilst keeping the army on the whole looking like one army.

The GW studio army looks horrendous, being a mass of different shades of a number of colours. It is a shame, because when it comes to a uniformed looking army, the dwarfs pull this look off very well. It suits their large deep blocks, banners and war machines. It bothers me, and seems like GW just didn't care at the time of production. For shame GW. The dwarfs need love as well, they are a staple of the Fantasy world.

LOBBA is a go!

So, on my home forum of Librarium-Online.com we have now begun an online Blood Bowl league. This is done via FUMBBL.com, a great site for playing an older edition of the game online using nothing but a java program. It has begun as of tonight and will run for about three months, so you may well end up hearing stuff about this on my blog now.

I am quite excited about this, for it will be another thing I have added to the forum and organised. Also, it adds another notch on my experience belt of the hobby. Not quite the same as a table-top version, I'm sure but its something.

So, for those interested here are two links. You should be able to keep up to date with things and view things. I hope so anyway. =)

LOBBA season I
Forum Thread

In other news, I am still trying to consider dwarf colour schemes. I want to steer away from the typical ones, like I said in my previous post but coming up with a suitable scheme seems more than hard at the moment. =/ And thanks for the comments about the fantasy blog hub. I dunno if it be a good idea, but its something to consider.

Saturday 12 September 2009

Update

So, I felt like I should update this blog. I have no photos this time, but I have some words instead. =P

I started working on an orc blood bowl team, got one player complete but to make the rest of the team I'd need more bits, and the bits sites I use are all sold out. And I realised I have stuff I have to paint anyway, and so changed over to my roots. Dwarfs. So, I built seven quarrellers, so far and need to take stock on what I have with me. I have planned a small list, or have ideas, so I'm pretty sure I have that. There is one problem I have at the moment, the paint scheme! I cannot decide just what scheme I want for them. I am trying to avoid the typical schemes, mainly those of red/white (or cream) and blue/khaki (or white/cream). I like the idea of using brown or green as the more neutral or earthy tones tend to suit the dwarfs quite well. So, my plan is to strip my army and repaint it. New bases, scheme and everything. So, watch out!

I have an idea about something. I'm not sure I've seen many fantasy based blogs about on the blogsphere, plenty of 40k based ones. Why is this? I know the From the Warp doesn't discriminate against fantasy based blogs, but its a shame to see less of them. I was wondering if it would be worth it for a blog roll as such - or something - for the fantasy based ones. I'm just curious and enjoy doing these sort of things. *shrug*

Monday 7 September 2009

Complete Dwarf Lord

Here he is, on his base and all done.






Blonde Hair

Being a dwarf player, blonde is often a colour I want interspersing my units and characters but it can be hard to paint a convincing blonde. I have come up with a method that works rather well.

You will need
Mini
Brushes
Paints; Calthan Brown, Snakebite Leather, Golden Yellow, Kommando Khaki, Dheneb Stone, Skull White and Gryphonne Sepia


Each layer should be quite thin, as not to obscure the hair strands. Also multiple layers will most likely be required for each step. Bear that in mind.

For this tutorial I have used a random dwarf body and painted only the beard. I am not being careful of the other parts of the mini as this is just for practice, on the actual mini you will want to be careful of other parts - especially existing painted parts. I also started with a black undercoat.

Step One



The basecoat is Calthan Brown. Paint it all over the hair (from here on in, the beard) until you have a nice solid colour.

Step Two



The next layer is snakebite leather. Paint this all over the beard, but try to leave the basecoat in the deepest recesses of the beard and next to facial features or body parts.

Step Three



Add a small amount of golden yellow to the snakebite and reapply to the previous layer. This will give it a more yellow tone, something blonde has.

Step Four



Add a small amount of kommando khaki to the snakebite mix. The khaki is a neutral colour and has a way of lightening without it gaining colour - it sort of mutes the colour.

Step Five



Now add some dheneb stone to the mix. This does a similar job to the khaki but is lighter in tone. The more you add the lighter the blonde will be at the end. It is also worthwhile to start picking out individual hair strands at this point.

Step Six



Here I have added some more dheneb stone to highlight the beard more.

Step Seven


Add some skull white to the mix. Again, how much determines how bright it'll turn out. Again picking out individual strands makes the beard stand out and look more than just a flat tone.

Step Eight



Wash the beard with gryphonne sepia. Don't just slap the wash on, try to add thin layers of the wash, allow to dry and repeat until happy.

Step Nine


Reapply the highlight from step seven, again looking at highlighting individual strands.

Step Ten



The final layer is to add more skull white into the mix. This is used to pick out the most prominent strands. Such as the moustache and parts of the central braid.


That is it then done. A nice blonde beard.

Snow Bases

If you're anything like me, you'll hate the GW style "snow flock". Or, white static grass. It never looks like snow, so I use a different method. Its a bit longer winded but works much better in my experience.

What you need
A base
Sand
Paints; Chaos Black, Charadon Granite, Adeptus Battlegrey, Astronomicon Grey
Flock - not needed, but adds to the base
PVA glue
Bicarbonate of Soda
Water


Step One
No pictures here. Basically make your base how you wish and undercoat it. Here I've just done sand and painted it black. Makes for nice contrasts.

Step Two



The first layer is to drybrush Charadon Granite all over the base. Be as heavy as you like.

Step Three



Next layer you drybrush Adeptus Battlegrey

Step Four


A final light drybrush of Astronomicon Grey

Step Five - Optional



You can add flock to the base at this point, or you can leave it off. The choice is yours. I usually leave it off - but only if I'm doing the whole base snowy.

Step Six





Take some PVA glue, and some Bicarbonate of Soda, mix with water until you get something that looks akin to the below;





It should be thick enough that it sticks to the brush, and doesn't run off it. (Note; It be best if you do this stage with an old brush you don't care about, as this stuff could ruin a good brush).

Step Seven



You want to apply the mixture quite heavily. It often shrinks as it dries. Cover as much as the base as you like. Then, again an optional step is to sprinkle pure Bicarbonate over the snow, to resemble fresh snow. Then leave to dry. Base complete.

Sunday 6 September 2009

Dwarf lord (Pt III)

And so... he's done. Overall I am very happy with him. For once my gold turned out decent,
followed Minus_t's recipe along with a bit of my own addition. The axe head is OK, but the silver is a bit rough for some reason. The runes aren't perfect either, I think grey was too different, or too dark for the job. No worries. I have his base to do tomorrow and sorted.




Saturday 5 September 2009

Dwarf lord (Pt II)

OK, so I'm back from my week away with the missus. Flamingo Land was great fun. :D Now, I sat down and done some more work to my dwarf. He looks pretty much like this, though I was play about with some picture settings.

I am much happier with the back of the cloak, not amazing, but much better than what I had originally planned. I am also quite happy with the axe handle. But less so with the cloak inside, the cream I didn't blend well and there is little shading on it. I am thinking of adding some runes as an inside boarder. I attempted some wood effect on the barrel on the keg, but too small to get it right really. The feathers are just undercoated.




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