Hippos and Beyond

So I found bags of glowing rocks which of necessitated the painting of my Yu-Jing Infinity...

And as a bonus the drakon horde is finished for the elves!

How to: Swamp Bases

Project ADD has set in and its time to start a new army.  As such it's a perfectly good time for a basing tutorial.  This time we are making some boggy quagmire for the undead legions to rise from.

You will need:

Vallejo water texture (or some other water effect)
Paints
Cork
Plasticard (I'm using a 2mm thick piece)
Glue
Sand
suitably marshy flock (I used gale force 9 but there are plenty of options for this type of base)

To start off with I've taken broken up cork and glued it onto the plasticard.  These will be the little spots of land between the swampy bog so be ready to leave room for miniatures to stand on both land and swamp.  The stone monument came from somewhere in a bits box and was just added for fun.

After our usual priming of black I've gone back and painted all the land parts dark blue.

Next mix some blue in with grey and dry brush all the land.  This should give you slightly weird and unnatural blue tint to your land.  Hang on it's about to make sense...

Next we finish off the land parts with a sepia wash.  This will leave the land looking suitably dingy and disgusting.  On top of that the sepia over blue makes a fun weird color that's a little hard to pin down and thus may lead to further madness.

Next I have taken my finest cheap paint (walmart acrylics even!) and painted all the water purple.

Without waiting for it to dry mix a little black and purple and start blending it in to begin making the deeper portions of the bog.  Remember it will get deeper as we move away from the land masses and thus darker.

Again without waiting for it to dry start mixing more and more black in until you are happy with the overall coloring.  The transition won't have to be super smooth as our water effects will mask imperfections later.

Speaking of water....

It's easiest to put your miniatures that will be partially submerged in the swamp down first before we do water effects.  Once their glue is dry apply a thick coat of water texture all over the water areas.  If you are using vallejo water texture it will go on white and (trust me) eventually dry clear.  Thicker areas may take upwards of 24 hours to fully dry.

Once the water is dry (and only after it is dry) add some flock to the land areas for a little variety and done!

Yet More Dwarves

This is now the project that never ends: The Abyssal Dwarf Army....

But progress has been made, slowly.

Since I had an odd man(thing) out I decided to do a small conversion to make an Abyssal Halfbreed Champion out of the Mantic halfbreeds.   The flag is just plasticard bent under a heat gun and the hashut symbol on top was a butchered khorne symbol (surprised GW never resolved that thread when they blew up the world).

I hope all abyssal dwarf/chaos dwarf players are thanking Russian Alternative because they have done a fantastic job providing amazing looking evil dwarves at a more than fair price!  They of course make up my  blacksouls.

I decided I needed an ode to a 'friends' army in this horde so I made a prisoner that's being dragged rather unwillingly into battle.  He's done up in his armies colors and looks rather pathetic next to these strapping and battle worthy dwarves.  

Finally I finished up a new troop of half breeds.  The painted portion of the army finally outnumbers the unpainted part!

Goodbye to the Knights

Well we all know that once in a while its time to clean the closets and get rid of things that just aren't useful anymore.  I have not been a fan of 40k for some time (especially after KoW 1st edition came out).  It just never was a very well balanced game between factions but even more than that as the editions kept coming it relied more and more on just having a better list than your opponent.

This just seemed to come to a head with the latest rendition of 8th edition.  Admittedly I tried it only once but watched many games and it seems to be down to whoever made the better list and whether or not they go first.  For me this just isn't a game worth playing since it is decided on the first die roll but generally takes 2-4 hours to finish fully.  Thus I decided to sell the only fully finished 40k army I have:

Plenty of good times and bad with these buggers but I just can't hold on for 9th edition to possibly 'save' my interest in the game.  More pics on the completed army page:

http://bobthebobish.blogspot.com/p/grey-knights.html

How To: Elfy Bases

Time for another basing tutorial!  This will take a lot less painting than the lava bases and can serve as a nice 'basing for beginners' type of how to.  For this you will need glue (super glue and PVA or elmers), paint, two different colors of flock and some flowers or clump flock.

For the elves I've been starting with the super easy to use mantic bases.  These are for a horde of tallspears but I want to be able to take them down to regiment and or troop level so I've split it in half and then in half one more time.  Next take some super glue and glue down bits of cork to make a more varied surface.

To add a little more variety to the bases I've used super glue (although PVA or elmers will work) to glue down some more coarse rocks around the cork.

Fore these bases I've primed the whole thing white though if you want a darker base you can prime black and drybrush your colors over it rather than the wash we will do on the next step.  

Now its time to take our least expensive paint (ie craft paint) and water it down.  I've used a basic brown paint and water it down to a 25% water 75% paint.  This will create a little variance and help to cover the cracks in the cork as well.  Slop all that paint on so that it covers up the primer.

Let it dry completely before this next step.  Next up we will take the brown we used earlier and add a good bit of white into the mix.  This will be drybrushed all over the place (no picture sadly).  After that dries take a nice bright green static grass or flock and glue it onto the base in spots.

I like to use super glue because it keeps it from falling off later during play.  Just make spots of glue at random all over the place and sprinkle your flock on. If you are using super glue instead of PVA make sure to do it in sections so that the glue doesn't dry before the flock hits it.

Next I do the same thing with a slightly darker flock.  This time it is in small spots and with much less flock covering everything.  Again this is to provide some more variance and color.

Next I've taken some 'flowers' (ie clump flock) and placed them sporadically around the area.

After painting the edges of the base (make sure to wait for the glue to dry before this!) we can finally put a set of demon elf models onto the base!  Yay for being done!

A Sewer Runs Through Them

On my sudden need to complete 1000 point demo armies the Ratkin finally hit the table again!

Never do want to assemble and paint another one these they are way too packed with detail though the model does look great on the table.

Spearmen have been rebased to fit the theme and given a magnetic movement tray.

The blight were taken from warhammer quest and re based to fit the theme.  Since I only had 14 a unit filler was totally nescessary and breaks it up a bit too.

Want to get at least a one horde of brutes eventually but these are enough for the demo.

and finally a group shot.  You can see the rest of the army on the completed projects page right here

How To: Curled Beards

Someone had requested this little tutorial on my abyssal dwarf beards so here it is.  Sadly the tutorial I used to learn this has since been lost to that great 404 in the sky or this would just be a link...

To start out make sure you have the following supplies:

Blue Yellow epoxy (aka Green Stuff), Water spray bottle, Hobby Knife (preferably a little dull but not too dull), Scultping tool for pushing the green stuff around into place, and finally a dentists pick.   I won't be detailing where to use the water but overall keep your tools and your greenstuff wet in order to stave off the sticky mess it can become.

Oh yeah and you probably want a miniature of some kind to put a suitably awesome beard on.  I have picked out one of the few abyssal dwarves left without a majestic curled beard.  Mantics beards are not bad at all but I want that old school chaos dwarf beard with the funny hats and all!  Sadly this will cover up most of the frontal details so be aware of that before you start. 

Speaking of which we start by saying an apology to all dwarven gods of all creeds and mythos. Why?  Because we will be chopping of a dwarf beard: a true sacrilegious act.    You don't have to be super clean about it because we will be sculpting over the whole beard area.

Next mix up a little bit of green stuff into a vaguely beard like shape.

Stick that weird chin tumor on right under the chopped beard area.

Take your sculpting tool and manipulate that blob so that it melds with the face parts a little.  It won't have to be super smooth all around.  Heck I even still had paint on my fingers so little bits flaked off all over!

 Seriously though don't paint and sculpt. It's your dwarves that pay the price.  Won't somebody think of the dwarves?

After the chin tumor is in place it's time to begin the beardening.  Take your dental pick and use the side of it to make indendations in the green stuff creating little lines going from the top of the beard to the bottom.  Make sure to do the same to the bottom of the beard underneath your lines to separate the strands later on as the beard takes shape.

Put on your chainmail gloves next (or just be careful) and take up your mighty hobby knife.  You will start on one side of each beard strand and just press little slits into the beard as you see above.

Next do the same to the other side of each strand.

Pause to curse and apply bandages should mistakes happen to your hand.

Then do the same to the middle of each strand.

Finally (because no one will ever notice but it will put your mind at ease and please the dwarf gods)  take the pokey end of your dental pick and make holes in the bottom of each strand of the beard to finish it out!

You now have a fully bearded dwarf and may have even made amends for the chopping off of a dwarf beard.  Should the sky's begin to turn red be sure to paint up the miniature as soon as soon as the green stuff dries fully (wait 24 hours) in order to appease the dwarf gods fully.

Hope this was helpful to all you stunties out there!  If there's something you see on the blog and want to know how its done feel free to let me know!