Thursday WIP's

Well this is both a Thursday WIP and Part 2 of the Extreme Jack Commission!

Here is a brief write up of my adventures with the sweet and sexy Extreme-oth:

Been working on this commission for a buddy.

He did all of the converting and asked me to paint it for him.  Here is a pic of the starting point:



His instructions were pretty simple... "Don't care about the color scheme, I just want him to look filthy."  Simple enough, I thought.  Lots of room for artistic license always makes me happy :)








  You know you want to see more....

Orc Themed Mysterious Objectives

Skyfire Nexus markers for my Orkuisition army.These things were super fun to build, and more are on the way(targeting arrays and sabotaged markers are up first).  The machineguns/big shootas are based loosly on tutorial provided by Wazoo on DakkaDakka.

I still need to add a few fiddly bits to the first one so the foot pedels will look like they control the rotation of the platform.

More pics below of this fellow and a second skyfire nexus objective marker.

Skarre, Queen of the Broken Coast

Just finished up this commission piece for a local gamer. 

Nice miniature to paint up and the face is probably one of the best ones I've done so far.

More photos and video below.
Wildchevy

The Fast Five! Day 2

Alright Day one I was able to pump out a really big chunk of these dudes.  The fact that they are 85% flesh helps with that tremendously!

The next few steps aren't quite as detailed as my Five Step Flesh.  But I will walk you through a few of the recipes I used as I finished up... uhhh... Yeah, I finished them :P

Armor

So with the armor I started with a VMC Flat read, and laid down a heavy wash of Citadel Badab Black wash.

This gives a really dark base point to start with.  Really allowing me to get nice shading on the armor.

Changing Metas: Part 2

So I promised a followup on my first tourny experience in my new meta so here it is.  First off, I had some misconceptions about the tourny and had prepared 2/35 pt lists w/Reinforcements. This was not the case as it was a Foodmachine charity drive so it was 1 list no reinforcements and 2013 Steamroller Rules!

So I chose to use my Harbinger list as I have played it more and it wouldn't have the super hard counters that Silent Bob has.

The Fast Five! Day 1

So, my buddy over on Scotty'sworkshop.blogspot.com is currently doing a series of posts about painting up 5 Dwarven Miners in 5 days.  I loved the idea.  So much so that I grabbed 5 of my Rackham Warriors of Avaggdu (who count as Marauders of Chaos) and decided I'd try something similar.
Granted I thought trying to finish FIVE figs in five days was going to be near impossible... especially for me. :)  Anyhow I decided to give it a go.

Day 1

First things first I grabbed my figs... Luckily they were all primed... albeit not very well... but primed none the less.  (As you can see I laid a base coat down on one of these guys months ago... never got around to finishing him up though)
I started out with a thing I like to call "Five Step Flesh"

 

 

Mephs Orkuisition

The orkuisition rises!  I have always had a redemption type of them for my ork army(in my head anyway), but not much of it was modelled proppa like.  So, this blog is going to help keep me trukkin through this 6th edition upgrade for one of my favorite armies.  It started as a necroumda gang, but when that leage fell apart the idea got transferred to the army in 40k instead.
The basic premise behind the force is that a good ol ork army comes across some redemptionists on a necromunda like hive world.  Before said redemptionists are added to the toof pile, they blab enough to convert a warboss, and from there in true orky fasion it spirals out of control until there is a waaagh composed entirly of konverted ork clans that now think they are indeed working for the orkuisition.  They now meander the galaxy crushing efil wherever it be found(everywhere!).
 In the past redemptist red and orange flames were about the only physical representation of the theme.  This upgrade aims to change that in a big way, and allow me to convert enthusiasm for great and inspiring ork converters like Wazoo, and many many others into a project of my own that wil lresult in a kewl 100% unique army.
The themes:  Inquisition I's as icons throughout.  I had considered making an O with the lines throught it, but it just doesnt ring true to the theme.  I think it very fitting that orks use the I, yet never think that it doesnt match the orky name.
Flames, candels, braziers, anything that can put extra flames of rightousness on the models and vehicles.  Candles, particularly.
Robed bodies, and other monk/knight conventions, including carry large religous texts, chains, etc.  Church /temple/shrine themes on vehicles. 
Humor:  I want this to be orky and funny all the way.  Goblin cherubs, puns on imperial termss(orkus mechanics, emperork, etc)
scratchbuilds and conversons, I'm really trying to push myself for original and unique models, preferably ones that tell a story and build on the theme.
The army list is as yet uncertain, but ther eare a few things in the works or defintly planned:
3 battlewagons(two right away, one later on down the road)
at least two dakkajets, the second one probably a konversion built up from a valkrye or a storm talon
Burna mob
shoota mob
Nob Mob
Nob Biker Mob
Warbos and mek
some big guns(i have a 3 kannon battery already)
Anything else that takes my fancy.
I can be competitive, but this one is just for fun, so lots of friendly themed games in store for this army. 
Ok, enough with the blabbin, on with the pictures of the WIPs so far.


Orkuisitor nob, once the leader of the redemptionist gang in necromunda.Really the flagship of the redesign, followed by some other nobs and a shoota boy.



Click Below to see pics of more figs including the scratchbuilt battlewagon!

New meta, new games!

Today will be my first tournament in my new meta! Always exciting to be sure, so I can't wait to see what things are prevalent here.

So first off are my lists!

Harbinger
-Reckoner X 2
-Hierophant
Nicia, Tear of Vengeance
The Covenant of Menoth
Vassal of Menoth X 2
Minimum Choir
Maximum Errants Exemplar + UA

Reinforcements
High Paladin Dartan Vilmon
Paladin of the Order of the Wall X 2

So I've run a similar list to this at 50 pts and feel very comfortable with it.  I believe it has lots of good matchups against Hordes and can easily assassinate with the Reconkers if opponents leave their Casters open. It can also attrition fairly well.

High Reclaimer
-Reckoner
-Vanquisher
-Hierophant
Maximum Exemplar Bastions
Maximum Holy Zealots + UA
Minimum Choir
Orin Midwinter
Vassal of Menoth
Wracks

Reinforcements
Mimium Choir
Repenter
Vassal Mechanic

I keep toying with the idea of playing Silent Bob competitively and have brought him to 2 casual events in the last 2-3 months and feel this would be a good chance to get him some more table time. Again this is a slimmed down version of one of my 50 pt lists but I feel it can still attrition well and can be super frustrating to players especially new ones. Obviously the hard counters to this is Legion of Everblight and Retribution of Scyrah, plus the various ways that some factions can get around the clouds but I hope to be able to take the fight to my opponents on my terms and believe careful play will enable me to do this.

Thursday WIPs!!

So this beast has been sitting on my paint desk for the last week or two.  He has been begging to be finished... (You may have seen him cameo in a few other shots on the blog)

Thanks to my happy Thursday's I have been able to add the finishing touches and move him from painting table to completed shelf.  Hooray!!

Enough yackin'  Here are the pics!

Keep lookin' lots more pics!!

Tutorial: Armored Greatcoat

Here is a quick tutorial on how I made the armored greatcoat. 

Materials needed:

Milliput (yellow grey)

Super Sculpey (Firm)

No hole glass glitter beads

And sculpting tools

IKRPG: Vasily

This past weekend we had our first encounter with the Iron Kingdoms campaign. This was very much a learning experience as my total amount of Warmachines equates to two games. The mechanics are very easy to learn and the play was very smooth. Here is who I brought to the fight:

Vasily
Human, Khador, Arcane Mechanik/Man-at-Arms

Thoughts on this character is that he is more of a supportive class. His primary role is helping with repairs to Steamjacks or creating new Mechanika items for the party. Being a Will Weaver allows him to run magic spells a little more forcefully than a Focus Caster (as long as he doesn't fail a Fatigue roll) and his Arcantik Bolt spell is useful for shutting down enemy Steamjacks. With his Polarity Shield spell any charges against his front arc are canceled and his Defense Line ability adds +1 to his ARM while in base-to-base with a friendly character. This lets him act as a nice decoy when in city terrain. 

Part 1 of 2 Extreme Jack Commission

Alright, I was finally able to finish off ol' Extreme Torch for my buddy Trevy.  Handed him off last night...  One part of the Massive Extreme Jack Commission Complete.  Now on to the second (and most intimidating) part of the commission.

First up some pics of Torchy:

More pics and angles... Plus a sneak peak at Part 2!!  Keep reading!

Thursday WIPs!

Man oh Man!  It has certainly been a hectic couple of weeks for this guy.  Trying to squeeze hobby time in has become increasingly more difficult.  Thank Goodness for Thursdays!!

I was finally able to slap a little dab or two of paint on my IKRPG figure.

Here is what I have got so far.  Hoping to finish him up tomorrow night so he will be all ready to take his first adventure in the Iron Kingdoms.

Here ya go  GRIM ULTHAS:

 More pics

IKRPG: Grim Ulthas

As a group we have decided that we were going to jump into and start playing the new IKRPG.  Our lovely Happy Panda has issued a challenge to the members of the GG.

I gladly accept your challenge sir!  En Garde!!

I started with character creation.

In the new IKRPG the first step to character creation is to choose your race.  My choice: Dwarf! (anyone suprised by my choice?) Step Two is to choose an archetype: I picked MIGHTY... I mean he's a Dwarf for crying out loud, didn't think there was another choice. :)

Next you choose your careers:  Decided on a Military Officer/Bounty Hunter.

Then you name your character and start picking up equipment and the like:

Name- Grim Ulthas
Tailored Plate armor
Mace
Warhammer
Knuckledusters

So with the character creation out of the way I went about picturing in my head how I wanted my character to look on the table top.  I began by scribbling out some concept art:



The Ulthas brothers are ex-Rhulic military that have fled to North Eastern Khador to start up a Mechanik's shop.

As they are located in the cold north, I figured it only fitting to make my dwarf look a tid bit like a Rooskie.

So here is my concept.

Now on to figure selection: As a military officer I thought that the best base for a Dwarven military officer would have to be the new General Ossrum fig. I picked him up and began looking for options to match my characters load out.

So starting with Ossrums body I grabbed the right arm off of my recently acquired Gorten Grundback fig... (going to be ordering another right arm from the PP bits order to replace it :) ) clipped the head off his axe and added a mace head, filed his warcaster back pack down to look like a normal back pack and clipped off his pipe... end result:

Iron Kingdoms RPG Challenge!

The second Geek Garage Challenge is upon us! Several of us have expressed interest in the newly revamped Iron Kingdoms Role Playing Game. To go with that, as a personal challenge we are converting and painting up some custom figs for our in game characters!

This inaugural article will give a brief overview of our characters and what their background is.  After this each of us will post up our progress as we go along.

Thursday WIPs

Alright, it's been a rough few weeks for me.  Fortunately after a couple of exams I am free again this wonderful Thursday to throw up some of what I have been working on.

These are the two models on my painting desk receiving my painting love.  The troll is part of the fully painted challenge thrown up here by Happy Panda... think once I finish this guy I have 25 pts fully painted!  Yes!!

The big guy is an Extreme Torch conversion I am painting up for a buddy.

I also decided to branch out from the norm and do a little bit of converting.  Here we have a gnarly Dwarven Gryphon rider... This guy may eventually end up as part of my all Rackham Kragmarr Dwarf army from Warlord... Until then... it's just a cool lookin' Dwarf on a Gryphon :)

For more angles and pics... click read more. :)

The Herd Gathers!

So the Geek Garage Gor Herd Challenge has finally come to an end.  This was a super fun experience.  We all got together at one of our LGS's and snapped a few pics.

First here is a pic of the Gor's and their creators:

Left to Right: John "Freaking" Salmond, Al "Wild Chevy", Randon "Grimwolf", Brett "Happy Panda", Scotty "Scotty Kahn"
Not Pictured: Will "Journeyman", and Mikey "Mephistoles"

The little Gor that could....or couldn't?

Yes folks, Tis I, the final slacker of the bunch. Just really couldn't seem to find time to finish this guy or even really get started for that matter.
Even if I am extraordinarily late, it was still cool to see everybody's individual projects coming together and all the different ideas for color choice and basing. 

Grims Trolls... CHAMPS!!

Well, this last Friday we had a little summer rampage event.  I brought my small force of Trolls and this bad boy unit of Champs doled out some major pain.  I was so impressed with what they were able to do I had to jump up and get the finished up real quick like!

Anyhow here they are:

And now for the Individual shots:

Thursday WIPs

This week was a bit more hectic than weeks past.  The little one just doesn't want to nap anymore.  That combined with my need to study for my Business Ethics course have combined for a pretty lack luster Thursday WIPs post.  Ill apologize for that in advance.

I was able to get a bit of paint on some of my Trolls however.  Slapped some basecoats and washes on a Min unit of Trollkin Champs and a Trollkin Champ Hero.

on a side note... Im ecstatic for the release of the Trollkin Warders!  The concepts look soooooo freaking cool!

.... Sorry, on with the pics.... errrr... the pic. :)

This is a whopping 9 pts toward my fully painted Trollbloods force....

Let me count what I have painted in Trolls so far

eDoomy +6
Dire Troll Mauler 9
Pyre Troll 5
Skaldi Bonehammer 3

Once I finish these guys I am one Axer away from a 25...errr 26pt fully painted force... I guess I could grab a Storm Troll and make it a nice an even 25, or perhaps another Pyre Troll, I have a bouncer, and an Impaler as well....

Any help?


Thanks for watching!

-Grim

Answering the challenge of the Panda

When the Happy Panda roars, the quaking can be felt through the forest and no stalk of bamboo is safe.

In response to the challenge set down by aforementioned member of Geek Garage I have this set as my target army to be fully painted. 

As you can see I'm off to a good start with majority assembled, cleaned, and primed. 

This is a 250 (3.5SWC) Haqqislam list for the game Infinity. 

Wildchevy

Quest for Fully Painted: Panda Part 1

Recently I posted that I had won best painted army at a large local tournament. I'm a little ashamed to say that I did not have a fully painted force. There were only 2 fully painted armies out of 35 contestants so the judges decided to open this up to armies that were mostly painted. I won and got a Collosals release event poster signed by the Privateer Press Staff. Now to convince the wife it deserves to hang on the wall!

Now to the purpose of this post, since I was not fully painted and have usually had 1-2 things not painted while playing in tournaments, I've decided to lay down a goal to have at least 1 of my Warmachine/Hordes tournament armies fully painted, to include any Mercenaries or Minions I would take with them.

Thursday WIPs

Another Thursday and another morning of relaxation with a brush!  Not sure if I mentioned this yet, but I do so love having Thursdays off :D :P

Anyhow, I've had this commission sitting on my painting desk for a few weeks now, this morning I was finally able to finish him up.

IN THE LAND OF THE BLIND....

Molik Karn will whoop your ass!!

Cygnar Storm Striders

Finished these up for a local commission. The crew are still on the painting table and should be finished shortly.

Panda's IMC Journey

Yesterday was the second Intermountain Cup held for the Utah/Idaho meta! Here is a rundown of my games and my opponents.  This is as accurate as I can remember but I'm pretty sure I missed a few things.

First up as promised in my last post are my lists.

Intermountain Cup Prep!

The second Intermountain Cup is a upon us! What is the Intermountain Cup? It's just the biggest Warmachine/Hordes tournament in the Utah/Idaho meta! The inaugural Cup gathered 28 individuals from the represent themselves and their stores in gaming and glory! Essentially there is a tournament winner like most tournaments but also individuals play for their stores and the store who ends up with the most points at the end gets to keep the roving trophy at their store!

Thursday WIPs

Another Thursday... another morning of painting!

Worked on my Khador Drakhun today.

Not a lot of yackin from me. He's nearly finished.  Need to finish his base and do a bit more work on his Halberd.

 Here are the pics:

 

What's the Storey Morning Gorey?

So once again a great challenge has been issued out by the garage and the Panda has failed to deliver on time! I think I've bit off more than I can chew with my commission schedule. I feel bad and promise I've got a few ideas to improve my posting rep soon but I won't let the cat out of the bag just yet.

One Beast Warband

Woot!  My first "blog" post ever!  Thanks to the great folks in charge for inviting me in, and at the same time apologies for taking so long to get my rump in gear.


This was a fun challenge to work on from start to finish.  Taking a box set and breaking it up amongst painters of different styles and backgrounds was a great idea.  Seeing every ones take on a fig from the same box is really neat, and a reminder that there is no one right way to paint or model.  It's the variety of styles and technique that make this so interesting.

Gor Challenge "Take your best shot"

Finished this Friday but the holiday weekend postponed my posting slightly.
I wanted him to tell a story and I hope that is what I achieved.

Any questions or comments leave them down below.

For the Glory of the Herd! Final

So, I was able to finish this guy up last night.  Oh, how I love holidays :)

Not sure what to think of the finished product.  I tried a few experiments with gore and the like.  Not really sure how I like the result.  However, I wanted to be true to the story of this guy.

As was mentioned in the initial For the Glory of the Herd! post.  This guy has just defeated a challenger in the ranks to retain his title as Champion of the Herd.  I wanted to make it look like he had been in a battle.  He lost his eye in the battle, so I figured there had to be a lot of blood.  Plus he slaughtered his challenger... so that meant even more blood.  Figuring there really wasn't any place for this dude to shower, I preceded to splash blood (red and brown paints mixed up with gloss varnish) all over the dude and his weapons. 

I think my favorite part is the base.  I used a baking soda, white glue, water mixture to produce the snow effect. After applying the snow mixture I dusted the still wet mixture with straight baking soda.  (A trick from my buddies basing tutorial... you can find that tutorial a few posts below this one ) After applying the dusting I took some of my blood mixture and watered it down quite a bit, then I barely tapped the snow with the brush.  Coolest little effect happened.  I was quite impressed. 

Anyhow, here is what it looks like. 

The March of the Trolls!!

I finished up my eDoomy the other day and decided I'd put up a group shot of my crew.  I also included a single close up of each model in the small group. 

Hopefully this small group continues to get bigger and bigger. 

Now for the pics:

Better group shot:

 

Click to see the individual close ups and angles :)

Glory to the Herd!! Part 4

Alright, I had a bit of time last night to sling a bit more paint.  Sadly I didn't slow down enough to take note of exactly what I was doing.  After reading my last paint write up... it may not matter any how... Definitely need to work on preparing a more understandable write up of what I do.

Anyway, enough with the blabbin'  Here is my progress thus far, still need to do quite a bit of work on the swords and armor, then some finishing touches to the face and base.

Here you are:

Ahh.... Thursdays off... I think I Love it!!

So, with school starting up I have the good fortune of taking Thursdays off wooty woot!  This mainly because I will need to be dropping off and picking up from Kindergarten and 3rd Grade, as well as take care of my 13 month little princess.

Nap time is a wonderful time to sit down and crank out some painting!

I did a bunch of work on my Epic Doomshaper.  Love the rules... hated the goofy looking pose of his fig.  So I took some liberties and repositioned his arms... now the goofy looking fig looks freakin rad!  Looks like he's ready to go all Bruce Lee on some ones A---errrr... Butt! ;-)

Anyhow I am probably 95% finished with this guy, just thought I'd throw him up here for ya'll to look at.

Oh, and don't worry I got plenty done on my Beastman as well... I'll be finishing him up and posting my final on him tomorrow.

Anywho, enough with the talk...

 

Glory to the Herd... Part 3

Alright, had a bit of time to do some more work on this crazy dude.  I have completed the flesh and started on the fur and the hair, slapped a basecoat on his axe haft as well.

With the flesh I started with Rackham Tanned Flesh, I diluted it down with water and some VMC thinner medium. It was diluted almost to wash consistency... just a smidge thicker, this only tinted the model.  I followed up with a GW Gryphonne sepia wash.  I came back and highlighted with some GW Tallarn Flesh mixed with the Rackham Tanned flesh... I really don't know the exact mixture... I just kind of plop a drop or two of each color on my wet pallette then I mix 'em together till I get about what I think I need.  (Sorry for the vagueness here :( )  I applied the highlight mix to the top portions of the muscles.  After this application I washed with a bit of GW Asurmen Blue.  After the Asurmen Blue wash dried I mixed some Rackham Ephren Blue with the highlight mixture, watered it down a bit and highlighted again with this mixture.  I then washed again with GW Gryphonne sepia.  After which I introduced some Rackham Red into the initial highlight mix.  ( A tangent here, I use a drop of this Rackham Red in every flesh tone I create in order to get the redish tint to the the faces of all of my models... very useful pot that one :) ) I applied the redish mix to the cheekbones the nose and mouth area of the figure.  Followed up with a thinned down wash of Rackham Ephren Blue, GW Tallarn Flesh, and Rackham Red, essentially a purple wash.  After which I highlighted again with the tallarn flesh mixture and a little bit of Andrea Color White Paint set pot number 2.
I really hope you understand what is going on here... I may have to do a step by step tutorial of this sometime if there is enough interest.

Here are the pics:

 

Thanks for watching and stay tuned for more!!

-Grim

Glory to the Herd! ... Part 2

Looks like its down to the wire!  One week left on the challenge... so who is going to finish.

Ill tell you, this summer has been a lot busier than I ever thought.  Finding time has been extremely difficult.  However I finally got this bad boy all primed up and ready to go.

Now for some pics:

I should be slingin' some paint on this dude during the week.  I will be posting up WIPs a la our friend Journeyman over the next few days.

Thanks for watching!

-Grim

Of Beast and Man Pt 5 (Finale)

Early spring. The Gor have just come out of a skirmish with raiders. Standing near a rock formation stands one beastman, one few survivors. He looks out upon the devastation of his caravan, bloody axe in hand, and proclaims, "I am Sir Goat."

Ladies and Gent's,  I present to you, Sir Goat:

Of Beast and Man Pt 4

Let's play a game. If you can guess one of the colors that I used in this update, then you win the satisfaction of getting the answer right! I'll give you a hint: I put the color on a pretty high pedestal a few posts back.

On to Sir Goat!

The next step that I decided to do was his horns and hoofs. Not really knowing how to make the color of actual goat horns, I decided to go with a mix that I'm more familiar with and that I enjoy using. Shown here is PG's Bone Mix, outlined in the Forces: Cryx book. I didn't follow every step (skipping a shade), but I think it looks just fine.

• Colors Used:
• Base: Jack Bone
• Shade: Wash of Cryx Bane Highlight
• Highlight: Jack Bone + Menoth White Highlight

Gor unleashed!

So small steps before a big trip.
Did a respose on the Gor's arms with miliput, added some chains, and ankle iron. Next on the list will be building up the base and adding arrows.
I'll be out of town at GenCon so the paint will fly next week.

Wildchevy

Jumping into the fray!

Got the pose for my Gor all hammered out. I'm not big on the conversions and modeling, so I'm just sticking with basically a stock pose.
Have some gap filling to do, as well as a bunch of base work before the paint can start. Hopefully that doesn't take too terribly long and I can get crackin.

Glory to the herd!

Alright I finally was able to nab a bit of time to assemble my entry into the Gor Herd!  I imagine this guy has just finished fighting for his right to lead the herd.  He has just clambered to the top of the hill presenting himself as the new Champion of the herd.

A bit of putty work and he will be ready for priming.  More to come!!!

Thanks for watching.

-Grim

Of Beast and Man Pt 3

In this edition of Beast and Man, I'm going to show you guys how I did the fur. I decided to try something different and what I hope will be unique. In the Forces of Warmachine: Retrubution of Scyrah book, there's a guide for painting platinum blonde hair. While I didn't quite get it to look like the book, I think I punched out a unique look.

Of Beast and Man Pt 2

The first part of my beastman (who henceforth shall be known as Sir Goat), was the flesh, which I would imagine would be the first step for a lot of models. For me, I've found that it's easiest to start with the flesh because often times it's the most difficult to reach, and could easily ruin some good work on clothing and whatnot. The first set of pictures here is the basecoat and the first layers of shading.

• Colors used: 
• Base: Midlund Flesh + Gun Corp Brown 
• First Shade: Base + Skorne red 
• Final Shade: Previous Mix + Thornwood Green + Battledress Green