Paint it Pink (for charity)

Greetings all, seems like the muse is well and truly with me once more as output seems to be pretty constant! So what is on the table today?

 Now, I know what you are thinking... that's a bit different from my usual output. And you'd be correct, but it's for a very good cause:

The idea behind the Paint the City Pink campaign is nice and simple. A combination painting competition and charity auction. All the entries are auctioned to make money for cancer research and before they go they are judged and the winners get prizes donated by corporate sponser. In this case Pulp City are providing most of the prizes so most of the extra money they are getting from the theme is going right back in to the contest! The only real caveat is that the model must be a "superhero or supervillain" which has a fair degree of wriggle room and it must feature pink pretty heavily!

The model I chose is Pulp City's Foxxy Blade who has a nice Electra feel to her. You can imagine her being the martial arts vigilante rather than the "leap tall buildings" type of hero. I reasoned that the dark skin against the pink would look stunning. Speaking of the pink, as everything else on this model counts as details I'd better talk about how I did it huh?

Pink used to be one of those tricky colours, not anymore. From a white undercoat I basecoated her in a nice thin layer of Screamer Pink base paint. This was then followed up with a coat of Pink Horror that essentially covered everything but the very deepest recesses. I then highlighted up, first with a half and half mix of Pink Horror and Emperor's Children, then with pure Emperor's Children and finally with Emperor's Children with a dash of white thrown in. I then took a deep breath and glazed the whole thing down with Carroburg Crimson to return some depth to the colour. Rehighlighting with the same mixes left me just needing to add the catchlights. I wanted the catsuit to look PVC so after a bit of research on the internet - a hard job to be sure - I found a model in approximately the same pose and copied the hard white highlights onto the Foxxy Brown miniature. A dash of gloss varnish sealed the deal.

Adding the white heels, belt and alice band helped to break up the pink. The skin was simply a Dryad Bark basecoat highlighted by adding increasing amounts of Kislev Flesh and then washed with Agrax Earthshade to finish off. Simplicity itself, now if only more manufacturers would give us a little ethnic diversity in sculpting and get over the fear of having anyone non-caucasian on the "bad guys" side then we can all figure out nifty ways to paint different skin tones. Ahem, packing away my soap box now. To finish her off I attached her to one of Black Cat Bases urban pavement offerings as I felt the flat, desaturated tones would compliment her nicely. Well, she will be carefully packed and shipped off to Cornwall soon so that some lucky supporter can win her and support cancer research in the process. Until next time folks.

TTFN

Small Soldiers

Greetings all, I realised recently that I hadn't shared any of the progress on my Flames of War paratroopers. I certainly haven't forgotten/abandoned them, I only paint 15mm when the yen takes me. But, having made some recent progress on the army I figured time to share!

These guys are the command HQ of my Paras, they're always something of a sod to photograph but you should just be able to make out a bugler and an officer with an umbrella on the nearmost base. The officer's sculpt is based on Carlyle from A Bridge too Far which along with The Longest Day was a major inspiration in choosing to do a parachute company. Carlyle in turn was based on the real life Maj. Digby Tatham-Warter who unlike Carlyle* survived the war umbrella and all.

Just to remind everyone how small these lads are, this is an older shot of Ms. Funnymoney with 3 Platoon.

The other recent addition is this platoon of 6lb anti-tank guns. I've got another two 17lb'ers on the way to really put the wind up Jerry's panzers! The fact that these huge limbers were glider transported at all amazes me.

I really enjoyed painting these, the guns are simplicity itself to paint. A basecoat of Russian Uniform Green provides the correct wartime British hue and then a wash of Athonian Camoshade provided the shading. Athonian Camoshade is a great brown-green and is perfect for a lot of wartime uses,

The artillery crews make good use of the ability of Flames of War bases to create little vignettes. There is a real sense of motion stilled with these guys, one of the better sculpts of this range.

Realising that I simply couldn't use the urban rubble bases on the artillery I just picked out the larger chunks of sand with brick red and grey and to my delight they work quite well alongside the moulded plastic bases. A relief as the urban bases, as mentioned before, are not all they could be and are overpriced for such soft, out of scale castings. I won't be using any more after I've run out of the current crop (which I will in the next platoon) as the simple sand basing looks ace with these guys.

And so here is the whole company so far, essentially it is just the Company HQ, 3 and 4 Platoons and the 6lb'er sections. I've got 5 Platoon on their painting sticks and have ordered the rest of the army. The workometer stands as follows:

So I'm well over half way on this project. I'll have to decide whether I want to expand the army or just sit at 1500 points and do another force, possibly some German forces as an opposing force at Arnham. Possibly carrying on the Canadian XXX corps to relieve them! Anyhow, there will doubtless be more 15mm shenanigans in my future. Might even get a game one of these days!

TTFN

*Oh and Spoiler Alert, but frankly the film was out in 1977, really should have seen it by now!

Interrogator Chaplain Seraphicus

Greetings all, you wait for ages for a post then three come at once right? Today it is a drying time project in the form of the limited edition Dark Vengeance Interrogator Chaplain Seraphicus.

Who's a pretty boy then? You like? Then you can have him! I'm putting this expertly painted, limited edition model up on ebay with a reserve of just a tenner. Hopefully it'll make more than that! Why am I doing this? Well, two reasons really, one, there are already one too many characters in the Dark Angels force to make it a legal allied army and that's what I'm using the Dark Vengeance lads as. Two, I really was a bit naughty in buying the Dark Vengeance set and justified it to myself that I would sell the limited edition model to offset the cost!

But enough sales pitch, let's talk painting! First, I would like to introduce you to one of my new favourite paints: Thunderhawk Blue. Adding this to black creates a lovely, lovely black highlight tone. Simply overhighlight to a nice blue grey than apply a couple of coats of Nuln Oil. Luvverly. I also used Thunderhawk Blue on the incense from the burners on the backpack, as a result it subtly matched to the armour highlights and reduced its impact.

Sometimes I hate our background writers, fitting Seraphicus onto a scroll that small was not easy, took three tries.

The cloak, weirdly, is my least favourite part. I really don't like sculpted details on flowing cloth. Looks like either clumsy applique or some odd solid thing hanging from the fabric. The small bits aren't so bad and the script on the inside is nice enough but that hugenormous Dark Angels icon is just a bit daft.

I do, however, love that skull icon on the shoulder pad. Brilliant sculpt. I didn't pay much attention to how I painted the bone and green I'm afraid so I can't give you a blow by blow. I'll look into doing tutorials on the Dark Angels tactical marines and the Deathwing Terminators when I get around to them!

If you want my Seraphicus then follow this link:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280973232963

And good luck with the bidding. Until next time folks.

TTFN

Knight Paladin Datasheet

Hi folks, in response to a comment on yesterdays post from Mordian7th I had a look around for Knight datasheets. Frankly I was underwhelmed by the offerings that I found immediately so I resolved to create my own! So here it is:

If you prefer a printable pdf you can find it here. Feel free to distribute this as you will but credit the author ok? :)

I've tried to make the datasheet feel right with the backstory. The Knight Paladin was the most obvious candidate for the design of the model hence its designation. The knights didn't have fancy voids so the Ork power fields are being used and the model has that hugenormous shield that I figured was for a purpose! Let me know what you think. I totally guestimated the points so if through playtesting people find the number is wrong let me know and I'll consider adjusting the datasheet. Until then, good hunting, knights!

TTFN

Legio Astorum Knight

Greetings to you all! First, sorry for the long absence but circumstances have not been favourable as I have mentioned before. The up side however is that the one model I have gotten (totally a word) finished is huge.

This guy is one of Dreamforge miniature's 15mm scale Leviathan Crusaders. Now considering this thing is meant to be in scale to blokes only a centimetre and a half tall it is enormous! Allow me to bring in all 28mm of Miss Funnymoney to demonstrate:

Dayum that's large. In our case he is standing in for a 28mm scale Imperial Knight. The poor old knights have been rather forgotten in the modern Imperium. They are smaller, one man titans attached to the Legio Titanicus maniples as scouts and trailblazers working with the Warhound scout titans. I've always thought they were nifty and so was delighted when one of my clients wanted a pair of them painting! There are also a brace of Warhounds to go with these two, god alone knows how I'll photograph those, this bad boy barely fit in my light box!

All the Legio forces that I am painting are from the same Titan Legion, the Legio Astorum or Warp Runners to use their vernacular title. As a result a nice deep blue was the order of the day. I first started by drybrushing the whole darned thing steel. Frankly there was so much metal on display it would have made sense to almost undercoat in metallics! Next a couple of coats of Kantor Blue were applied over all of the knight's armour plates. Kantor Blue is a bit of a disapointment - base paint wise - as it's coverage is really not all it could be. Ho hum. Alaitoc Blue and Hoeth Blue drybrushes followed to give the overall shade and highlight tones on the model. Now the detailing could begin.

First up was heraldry, the Legio Astorum use a black hole/star motief. Now I do possess an airbrush that is ideal for this sort of fading out work but quite frankly I am still very much a beginner with it and wouldn't dare go near client models with something that I am comparatively unskilled with! As a result I figured out a means of getting that fading glow by drybrushing white in ever increasing circles and ever decreasing pressure. Adding the starburst lines - making damn sure to make it a 12 point star so as not to wind up unwittingly converting the poor thing to chaos - in white and a black disc finished it off. The white is cleaner in reality, the strong blue tones showed through under the harsh light. Really must get some diffusers made. A bunch of transfers were cribbed from various sheets and added across the model to give some character.

Next came adding brass and oil to the pistons, my usual oil mix of brown ink and gloss varnish coming through like a good un. The yellow and white heraldry was marked out with masking tape and painted and the flames were just freehand.

I thought some kill markings on the main gun would help the tough look, figure these are notable machine kills rather than the run-of-the-mill infantry support. Finally I broke out the weathering powders and sponge and chipped, dinged and dirtied up the knight. I'm finally getting the measure of powders, might have to do a tutorial in the near future.

Anyhow, that's it for this post. Around me the chaos of packing up Chez Mulder continues. PVP will be one of the last things that I box up so there should be some more updates before October's move. Until then folks.

TTFN

So then that happened...

Hiya folks, well, the last 10 days have been something of a whirlwind and not a lot of work/hobby has been achieved!

Lets see, 10 days ago I noticed that a curtain tie back thing had fallen out and pushed it back into the wall, cue huge orange flash and all the power goes dead. Turns out I had pushed a solid metal item into a mains cable that some numpty had drilled into when fitting the tie back. The only thing that stopped me being rather crisply electrocuted was a modern RCD fitted to the fuse box. So in a state of some agitation I phone my landlady and while on the phone learn that the lease on the flat we have been living in for all of 12 weeks will not be extended past November. She has to sell it. So as you can imagine the wheels really came off for a few days!

So we were back into house hunting mode and to our astonishment the perfect place turns up the very same week. We've got the initial proceedures started and will be moving in a month or so. Again. So what does this mean for PVP? Well, I won't be taking ANY new commissions until further notice. I'll be trying to work on what I currently have in stock but I have to box up a flaming house having only just unpacked it. I therefore can't make any promises regarding progress in the next 4-6 weeks. However, when we are moved I will have even more space and light in my studio and will be even closer to the coffee maker so rapid progress is assured (or I'll become a hummingbird after a gallon or so of java juice).

I'll try to keep a flow of updates to the site but they'll mostly be single figures would be my guess. I'll thank you all in advance for your continued support and patience through this second house move in a quarter! Until next time folks.

TTFN