Nekima, the Dark Sibling

This is the rough photo for my entry to wampforum's Wyrd Miniatures painting competition.  Nekima is a malifaux model from the neverborn faction.  she is a nephelim and is lilith's sister (hence dark sibling)

I have a few problems with this model, however.  I initially bought this model because I thought the pose was awesome and it was just a huge intimidating fig.  After struggling to assemble and to a lesser extent paint this model I can say I don't like it very much. 

Assembly had a few issues.   Firstly, her horns are separate pieces each.  They have very small contact points to her head, and therefore broke off at least a couple times before I finished painting her.  Her wings had the same issue; they are heavy pewter pieces that aren't all too thin and they only connect into her back at very small points.  These broke off even more times than the horns.  Her face wasn't cast very well; her right cheek and eye are somewhat higher than her left so looking at her face straight on is a little bit of an eye sore.  Her ass cheek had the same problem - it was a little lower than her leg and therefore looked odd but luckily this competition is an online competition and all angles of the model will not be available.  I'm not very talented in putty work so I just try to mask her flaws with awesome painting!  The wrists connecting to her sleeves were also horrible and had large gaps due to the nature of how her sword/hands were cast and didn't align properly with the rest of her arms.  The scenic base didn't fit perfectly into the plastic base but I don't think this was a huge issue.

Painting her wasn't as bad except for a couple things.  I was happy with the way her skin and tights and cloak turned out.  I don't usually paint purple things so I thought it was fun.  I also really liked her sword, it brought me back to painting 40k chaos weapons with old GW paints I never use like Scaly Green and Hawk Turquoise.  Later on after I take some good copy photos with my friend Sherry's help I'm considering whipping out the airbrush and trying some simple OSL on the eyes of the visage on the sword.  My problems were mainly based around painting the flesh of her wings.  The sculpt had very little details for the most part on the wings so I almost had to freehand fleshy designs onto it.  The vein-like parts were indeed sculpted, but most other parts were just fudged with some blending.  It turned out decent but not as smooth as I would've liked.  For some reason I was feeling a bit burnt out of this model at this point just because wet blending all the flesh on the wings took a while.  Luckily that was the last part I had to do.  I threw some snow on the base with a great snow recipe taught to me by my good old friend Paul.  He mixes PVA glue, water, and snow flock to get a chunky consistency then globs it on the base in various locations and finally sprinkles snow flock on top while the chunks of snow mix are still wet.  this makes a very fluffy snow texture when it dries. Awesome, thanks for the tips Paul!

Good photos will be coming in the next week or so I imagine, also will be taking Sherry out for dim sum with my wife for all the help with her camera!!!

Replacement Part Request

My Seige Animantarax was nicely casted and perfect except for the Makeda hat that the animantarax itself wears.  it looks like the left side of the crest is missing a ring and the sharp edge.   I'm sending a replacement parts request to privateer today, hopefully i get a good response.  I'm mostly posting this just because I'm too lazy to upload pictures off my phone, so i got my phone to send them to my google account and once i post this ill save the pictures onto my computer.  HAH!

Basilisk Krea

I'm one step closer to finishing my proposed mammoth list with the completion of this basilisk krea. 

i started by airbrushing the skin, doing a 2 toned bone/greenish grey.  i fixed it up with some shading and highlighting applied by hand brushing.  i then painted everything else as per my skorne color scheme and i have to say this model was done in less than a week thanks to my airbrush.  what a useful tool. 
this model is not one of my favorite sculpts, especially the mouth and teeth.  however, after painting her, i really have a fondness for it now.  i like the armor plates and the stubby tail and i think its just kinda cute!  the teeth are what really bug me.  it looks like the sculptor just stuck mini toothpicks on the model instead of making gums and teeth that wouldn't fall out of the creature's head.  but hey, guess i shouldnt talk because i cant sculpt any better!

Avatars of War 2013 painting contest

This is an online painting competition I'm entering for an Avatars of War 2013 contest held by wampforum.com.  I've previously entered their kingdom death competition and was pretty much blown out of the water with only 5% of people voting for me haha.  go me!

So hopefully this competition goes a little better!  The chances of me winning atleast something are slightly higher this time just due to the fact that there is a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize as opposed to only a 1st prize in the kingdom death competition. 

I had this model lying around have since sold the dark elf army i was intending on using her for, so handily, this competition rolls around and she now has a purpose!  I painted her up in 2 of my favorite colors to paint: p3 reds and p3 blue/greys.  While i would never paint an entire DE army like this, i thought it was cold and contrasting enough for the competition.  I painted and repainted her hair many times from red and blue to white to black and really couldnt decide on anything so just went with the latter.  her hair wasn't modeled too well in my opinion; it composed of small, individual strands that really only lend themselves to drybrushing which is sloppy in general and hard to control.  so i fudged it the best i could anyways.  the hair is really the only disappointment for me on this model, i was happy with the way the skin turned out as well as the seadragon cloak and baby dragon on her shoulder (although its hard to see where the baby's head is!)  i decided to not to non metallic metal on this model, just because i wanted to change things up a bit.  it reminded me how much i loathe using metallics.  they are just crap to work with.  they are thick, they are unforgiving when you paint out of the boundaries and they ruin your brush if you dont clean it really well.  just poo.  go NMM all the way.  on the contrary, i do realize it has potential to look just as cool and beautiful as NMM when done properly and eventually that is what i want to achieve. 

I have to give a shoutout to my awesome friend Sherry who helped me out with her bad ass camera in taking these shots!  she is quite the photographer!  I'll be buying her lunch in the near future I'm sure, and she says she will help me take more photos of my minis in the future!  go sherry! thanks!

Sherry in action:

And happy Chinese New Year!!

Paingiver Beasthandlers x6

I had to redo my beasthandlers for a couple reasons:
1. my old beasthandlers were the very first true skorne models i finished (about 5-6 years ago!) and it was during that time where i wasnt sure of what my final color scheme was going to look like.  i decided i didnt like what i had originally done which was a mix of purples whites and reds in random cloth areas...
2. i only had 4 before, and knew that if i was ever going to need 6 i would be really unmotivated to go back and paint 2 more beasthandlers for a special occasion.  ALWAYS finish an entire unit, even if you dont plan on using the whole thing right away.. this way you can ensure you'll probably never have to paint the same model again which keeps things fresh and motivates you to paint other things.  it keeps it FUN.

so here they are, they were relatively fast to do because it was mostly red cloth (which is really fun to paint) so naturally i painted it quicker.  the NMM for the steel was a little bit of a pain just because i have never really figured out a perfect transition from shadow grey to space wolves grey.  it usually is a mix of the two a couple coats over to get to the lighter colors but is really annoying to blend in between because it always seems like too much of a jump.  when i start getting into the lighter colors eventually it looks much better.  still unmotivating and a chore to do sometimes.  i could also have been a little antsy because 3 of the 6 paingivers were essentially holding 2 blades each which isn't common for most skorne i've painted already, so it may have given me an illusion that i was painting LOTS of NMM steel when really its just a couple small blades.

  i have run on sentences.  so what?

Mammoth incoming!

So with the Skorne Mammoth Gargantuan coming out in (supposedly) March, I HAD to make a list to test the waters with.  I decided on using epic Hexeris for a couple reasons.  Mainly, with Black Spot I can lower key opponent's DEF so the poor RAT 3 Mammoth could potentially hit with his gun, secondly, if I black spot infantry and get an additional Seige Battery shot... amazing!  A third reason that's no less important is E. Hexy's ability to heal his battlegroup when living enemy models are destroyed in his control range.  This gives the Mammoth staying power and really makes the enemy come up with a plan to get rid of the Mammoth in one round,  putting them on the back foot if they fail.

Here's the list: 50 points

Lord Arbiter Hexeris +6
Mammoth -20
Cyclops Raider -5
Titan Gladiator -8
Cyclops Brute -5
Basilisk Krea -4
Nihilators (max) -8
Paingiver Beasthandlers (min) -2
Mortitheurge Willbreaker -2
Agonizer -2

With this list in mind, I'm seriously working on finishing every model I can before the Mammoth comes out.  Here's what I got going on so far...

Here's E. Hexy.  not too much done so far, just his skin and base colors really.  I think he'll be an easy model to finish within a week or so most likely.. but what I'm really distracted by right now is..

This little cute lady!!! This is the first time I tried using my Iwata Custom Micron C-Plus airbrush.  It is bloody ridiculous how fine you can make the stream of airflow.  it has a separate valve for air control directly to the nozzle, so even though your trigger can pull back the entire allowance, you can still manage how thin your paint stream is directly at the nozzle.  I started with the Krea by coating the belly with Vallejo Model Air "sand" and then around the outskirts of the belly painted a light brownish VMA color (can't remember the name).  I think used a dark grey/green for her back and tops of her arms and legs.  It was so fast and so fun. One thing that helped speed up the process was using a hair dryer in between colors.  This is really the only way to do multiple colors on such a small area without making a big mess of your colors.  I probably have spent no more than 2 hours on the Krea so far, and it's already looking like this!!! woohoo!!! 

Until next time..

Warhammer Fantasy Empire Army Project

This is my goal for July 20 and 21st.  I'll be attending a Warhammer fantasy tournament that requires fully painted armies for entry.  My theme is Nordland, with Knights Panther knightly orders and Knights Griffon demigryph knights.
My list is:
General: Arch Lector
Celestial Wizard Level 4 w/ Earthing Rod
Bright Wizard Level 1 w/ Dispel Scroll
Captain Standard Bearer w/ Standard of Discipline
Master Engineer
Master Engineer
Halberdiers x39 w/ full command
Detachment Archers x5
Detachment Halberdiers x17
Knightly Orders x5 w/ musician
Knightly Orders x5 w/ musician
Great Cannon
Great Cannon
Demigryph Knights x4 w/ musician
Demigryph Knights x4 w/ musician
Helblaster Volleygun
Helblaster Volleygun
Steam Tank

Total is 2500 on the button I believe.

the characters have nothing but mundane weaponry, such is life.  they are empire human heroes with poor offensive/defensive stats in the first place so they will cower in the back in a halberdier bunker while the guns and knights take the brunt of things. 

the celestial wizard is great with helblasters and 1+ saves.   having 4 levels means i have a really good chance of getting the spells i want, these are mostly Harmonic Convergence and Comet of Casandora.   Harmonic Convergence means i can target a friendly unit and have that unit re roll all results of 1 for armor saves, wounds, and to hit.  If i choose to do the more powerful version of this spell it can affect all friendly units within 12".  this is ideal.  i want both my helblasters, cannons, and demigryph knights re rolling 1s.  helblasters that reroll 1s and use the master engineer's ballistic skill of 4 is absolutely obnoxious as is rerolling failed armor saves on all my 1+ heavy hitters.  just such a deadly spell in this list.
the comet of casandora is great because it forces my opponents to come towards me or get hit by a meteor shower.  once they come towards me..they will be in the 24" range of my helblasters.

cannons are there to take out the big stuff, and damn they are efficient at it.

the demigryph knights follow up and take out whatever is left of units that have been shot.

 

First game vs a Gargantuan!

Had an awesome game today vs Martin at connections today.  it really adds to the feel of this game when two fully painted armies play.  this is one of the reasons i want to face martin, i know his models are painted beautifully and hes a fun well mannered opponent.  thanks for the game martin! love your army

1st Blog, Dominar Rasheth

So here is my first post.  Dominar Rasheth.  What a great model, I love this sculpt, well done PP. 

I'm starting this blog to motivate myself to keep track of my painting as well as motivate myself to paint more in general... So here goes!