Waylord & Warland games

Apparently Wayland has a huge pile of sprues from Warlord Games that they are giving out for FREE to anyone that signs up for the Warlord Games newsletter over at their site. Totally random, you might end up with a bunch of Imperial Romans or stuff for Bolt Action.

Head over there & sign up (I did) and let me know what you got once you get the sprue. :)

Review: Metallics shootout

Top: Vallejo Liquid Gold Gold(!), Old gold, Rich gold, White gold, Silver & Copper
Middle: Citadel Tin Bitz, Boltgun Metal, Chainmail, Mithril Silver, Dwarven Bronze, Shining Gold & Burnished Gold
Bottom: Vallejo Model Color Old Gold, Brass, Bronze, Gunmetal Grey & Silver.

While assembling and painting the Warhound I noticed that my assortment of metallics was pretty small and dried out so I had to order some. And while browsing around Maelstrom I noticed that they had the alchohol-based Vallejo metallics. Paints I've always been interested in but I haven't found a proper review on them so I've always been kinda hesitant.

Now it might've been the beer, the pills or both. No matter what I ended up with six alcohol-based paint pots in my parcel two weeks later…

Intrigued I opened them up and decided that even if they contain alcohol, there will be no brush-sucking when painting with these colors… for sure! They smell bad and I figure they taste just as bad if not worse.

The quality of the paint is far better than the smell. Being alcohol based the paint goes on really smooth and shiny compared to the acrylic metals I'm used to. And even though they dry quick thanks to the alcohol I had a hard time trying to get some visible brush-strokes. 

One of the downsides is that you cannot be as fast as you are with acrylics. If the alcohol doesn't evaporate before you put on the next layer you will rub off the layer of paint underneath.  A small price to pay for some really shiny metallics in my opinion. 

As you can see from the, far from scientific, comparison the liquid gold is way shinier and less bold than the Citadel equivalents. Even the Vallejo Model Color feels cartoony in comparison. The mica-flakes (the stuff that makes it sparkle like Edward) is actually some kind of metal in the Liquid Gold range which I suppose helps. It also makes for a smoother appearance and somewhat easier handling. Although you cannot introduce any moisture to the paint or it will rust! Pretty cool if you ask me! ;)

It's not a paint range you'd use daily. Or at least I won't since I'm a brush-sucker and most likely will mix up the brushes and get sick. The smell of alcohol is also somewhat disturbing, even though you get pretty funny after a while. But the upside is that on larger projects, like the Warhound, you can get that real smooth eye-popping metallic color without messing around with acrylics that needs thinning and a really careful hand not to look messy. 

So all in all, if it wasn't for the need of alcohol to clean the brush, and proper ventilation I would give the range four grots out of five possible. The final verdict is:


Three grots and a snotling! 

Buzz 'bout Buzzgob...

Working with Objective Source Lightning is something I've dabbled in, but never really got the hang of. Mostly since I paint a lot of tabletop troops and it's just not feasible to try and do it with 100 orks. It is also one of those techniques you have to try over and over again to really make it look good and proper.

So that was one of the things to try and do with Buzzgob. He has this green lamp on the right side of his head. That one sure had to be able to throw out some light I thought. Which would be good to emphasize his mek-y-ness.

After a while I got pretty pleased with it. From some angles OSL looks weird. But when looking from the right angles it's pretty convincing for being paint.

This I did with a ton of really transparent layers of green emaniaiting from the bulb and a little bit of thinking of what would be hit. The mechanical claw-arm furthest away from him got a few hits of the darker green, while the arm and metal bits closer to the lamp got the entire deal with both opaque and green glazes.

It's looking pretty convincing I think, and solved at least 20% of my metal worries posted in last days post.

Win! :)

Buzzgob WIP#3 & painting it black...

Painting stuff black is kinda a hassle. Fortunately I stumbled up this little gem over at Giovannis Modeling Corner that gives you (and me) a few handy tips on painting black.



One other thing mentioned in the video is to always unload the brush. Something I sometimes forget to do, ensuring that the rather transparent layering I try to achieve instead turns into a slow drying opaque mess.

This week is deadline week so I wasn't hoping on getting anything done, but I managed to get some time today to paint the skin on Mek Buzzgob.

Buzzgob and Simon(?) from Malifaux primed and ready.

Now, I really like Forgeworld. But the amount of weird stuff on Buzzgob is staggering once you start painting it and asking yourself "Why is this bump / hole / thing here?". There's just way too many things and resin-casting-artefacts that you just can't see or for that matter reach. Which results in it being a pretty frustrating figure to paint.

Apart from that I think it's going pretty good. Still debating in my head on how to make all the metal parts come alive. A ton of weathering and/or rust I guess. And washes galore to make it look like different kinds of metal. Some of it has to be in another color too I think. It's just too much "metal". \m/ >_<

Hardfoam, save on 2+

I kinda got bored of waiting for the GW water effects to fully cure so I finished up the Micro Art hardfoam fortification thingie.

Stalwart Ultramarines daftly avoiding getting their feet wet!

Overall a pretty OK piece of terrain. There was a bit of warping – which I guess is from the cooling process and unavoidable – that I solved by glueing it all on a thin sheet of MDF. Since it's foam there are some pores on the piece, especially noticeable on the concrete walls. Nothing that will be noticed from three yards away and if painting with brush (I used an airbrush) it'll most likely fill up those pores making it look super-solid even when up close.

Pores, look closely.

Watching out & watching out for the puddle in the corner.

Sideview

Oh, and I painted up some zenital stuff on even more marines... I sure don't regret spending a month learning the airbrush and wanting to throw the airbrush into the wall. Batch-painting stuff like marines get's so much easier when you can basecoat 30 marines in an hour.

Oh so blue!

Its slowly taking shape

Fitted together with spit, chewing gum, pins and a ton of superglue.

So I finally found a pose I liked and started to glue the legs together. I'm kinda envisioning the 'Hound shooting up a bunch of "Charlie" and is no standing there asking for more / displaying power. I was originally trying to get it to be in a more walking pose. But my skills were lacking in the model department. And it also felt so much nice if it was standing firmly on both of it's feet!

Colourwise... meh. It's time to think about that now. Boomo called me a coward when I said "Blue n Gold?" but I think I'd stick to that. Making a really elaborate paintjob on the first model this big that I've ever painted feels like it'll just end in disaster. I rather have a cowardly painted titan than a halfway painted titan. : )

Here's the mockup I did to test the colours, of course you don't see the grey/gunmetal back-side of it. But it's pretty boring so we'll skip that view of the armor. Scratches looks fine on it (right part) and even thouht they will take ages to paint I think I'll stick to that instead of salt+hairspray.

I have to check up on some gold painting tutorials though. I'm not too confident in my teqhnique [Old Gold > washes > old gold > burnished gold > VMA Gold] so please drop any links to any gold painting tips you might have!

Slight Warhound update...

The feet went together without a hitch, some minor filing and sanding to make the fiddly little pistons fit, but that was about it.

For now the feet are just attached with some florists wire (for legs and positioning). With the massive amount of weight of the upper body it sure needs some solid pinning though. It'll be a job best done with power tools once the 'hound is together.

(It feels a little like a cop-out using a prefab base. The battlescape is pretty nice though. And with a prefab base I can concentrate on getting the Warhound together. I know that once it's assembled I'd be itching to paint the titan instead of modelling an epic base for it.)

Three kilogram of resin F*CK YEAH!!!

Finally dryfitted and glued together... not even close to done with the upper body though.

Today I recieved a parcel from Wayland Games (one of the few, if not the only, stores that actually ship in reasonable time…) with a new razor saw and one of those Filla-Glu kits. Which meant that I was able to start assembling the Warhound.

Now let me tell you this... it's a b*tch! The details and everything is wonderful. But putting it together is a royal pain in the backside. It really doesn't help that the "instructions" is three double sided photocopied papers in low resolution black & white. One could've thought that for £300+ they at least could've included a CD with a piece-by-piece, step-by-step instructions.

On the table... shoddy instructions

Not to mention that it's resin. So everything is slightly warped, which means that you have to spend 30 minutes dryfitting -everything- before gluing it all together. And even then you f*ck up a little. Thank God for slow curing cyanoacrylate!

I did get some time to paint a little more on Buzzgob yesterday… it's a ton of metal parts on him... I'll have to spend a day just washing them in different colors in order for the figure not to look like some weird kind of tin-man.

Buzzgob after washes... 

Oi you gitz!

I had to get me some flash gitz – yes I know they kinda suck – in order to fill the last slot in my "swedish comp tourney list". So after looking through a ton of posts on the internetz regarding flash gitz I kinda settled on just making them look different compared to the nobz and boyz.

OI!

At first I wanted to go with the Badrukk/pirate look. But when browsing Micro Art for their new(-ish) hardfoam terrain I decided that I could just as well go for the German WW1 ork bodies and heads. Not as true to the fluff as pirates but I've always wanted to own a bunch of them. :)

The bodies aren't really plug-n-play with regular ork boyz arms. So I had to do a bunch of filing and dry fitting. And unfortunately all that also meant that I have to prime and paint them with arms and guns on.

Git' em!

The hard foam fortification was kinda nice (and not really expensive). Since it's made out of some foam it's really light. But still sturdy. The foam is kinda hard but not brittle like regular styrofoam. I will be putting mine on a thin sheet of MDF though. Just to protect the edges of it. There are some air bubbles and other irregularities from the casting. Although nothing that really should matter unless you're using it for your Golden Demon entry or something. (And then there's a resin one which I suppose is of better quality).

Some bubbles

Aaaand... as you suspect. It's into the cupboard with the gitz and hardfoam until I've gotten round to finish Mek Buzzgob that will act as a stand in Big Mek with powerklaw in my tourney army. Click the "read more" if you want to check the list out. If not I leave you with a very-very WIP-ish Buzzgob!

Big Mek Buzzgob