On the Workbench

I thought I would share a few piccies of work in progress on two commissions I'm currently working on. The first is the first half of a Thousand Sons unit. I almost always paint in batches, 5 for close work, 5-10 for day-to-day or easier schemes, 10-20 for bash it out game standard painting. I have been known to paint in batches of 60 but that was night goblins and it was on a very, very tight deadline. I thought with this unit I would experiment with taking WIP shots to show my painting methodology and allow anyone who feels like following it to have a visual reference. This has proved easier since my photographer father explained that the "food" setting on my camera was best for this kind of thing (no word of a lie, great contrast, great depth of field, macro set up properly - food!), thanks dad! So here they are, client constructed and primed the models, I'm just the painter.

Base coat of regal blue over necron abyss

First crude highlight of Regal Blue and Enchanted Blue (3:1)

Second Highlight of Regal Blue and Enchanted Blue (1:3)

Crude Edge Highlight of Enchanted Blue

Edge Highlight of Enchanted Blue and Space Wolves Grey (2:1)

Wash of Asurmen Blue

I'll continue with the step-by-step if people say they are interested! The yellow will also be a test bed for Blood Angel assault squad helmet colours. The second project is a commission for a role playing character. Calanthe is a half-elven bard with crossbow and sword. The client chose the Arwen model as her starting point, at this point the crude green stuff work is done, no warhammer scale crossbow would work with a LOTR scale model. As a result I have disguised the crossbow under her hair. The bolt quiver is all green stuff with empire quarrels cut from the plastic.

Her lute is being scratch built. The main body is from an empire crossbow (the same donor that gave the bow on her back) with the neck and head carved from the stock. The tuning pegs are the cogs of Empire handgun firing flints shaved off and attached to the head. The body started life as the reverse side of the repeater handgun muzle (it had an appropriate sized hole). I'm building up the sounding chamber from green stuff, the next stage is to smooth out the flat front and bulk out the rear. I'm contemplating using very fine strands of wire to represent strings but I don't know if that would be too much detail at this scale. I'll keep you informed.

Well, there it is with the Workbench post. Let me know what you think (it's always nice to know that your readers are, well, reading!). I've altered the comments field so that anyone can comment, regardless of Blogger membership. Please don't leave anonymous ones if you can, at least use an entertaining user nickname if you don't want your real name out there.

TTFN