Wardancers are done. I learned a lot about painting skin with these guys. I felt that I got much better from painting the first to the last. I bought a dropper and am watering paint down now, then I go back and highlight. Also, you can see my pink chair in the background.

Dryads are done.

Karl Franz

Karl Franz and Deathclaw the Griffon came in my Empire Army that I aquired. They were both broken up, so I put them back together, and created a little rocky outcropping for them to go on. I don't know if I want to keep this or try to sell it. It looks pretty decent, but I don't think I would ever bring it in battle. The griffon is just too easy to kill.

Kind of poor lighting on the pictures... but oh well. I aquired an Empire army through Seth Richter a few years ago. In my opinion, its paint job was pretty nasty. When Anderson took it to the two tournaments last year, I had repainted some of the models. This year, I plan on taking it and I have recommitted to the new paintjobs. It is going well so far.

Empire

I put together a bunch of scraps to make an Empire War Altar. I did some decent conversion on the guy. The magic item that I gave him in the game is called the Mace of Helstrom, which is super powerful, so I wanted to try to paint it up like the hammer in the Mark of Chaos video, where the guy prays and the hammer gets charged with the energy from heaven. Didn't do too bad

Snow Day Production

I finished painting my unit of Eternal Guard today. I love not going to work because of the weather. Oops - its snowing out - Jesse doesn't have to go to work. So anyway, I just have to put the snow on the bases and this unit is done. How sweet is the magnetic base? This way d-bags that splash the pot with huge casino dice won't piss me off. Well, they will still piss me off, but at least they won't send my models flying. For the main base, I put down a layer of that magnet tape, and then each guy has a little 'rare-earth' magnet on his base. It's a pretty tight hold - any tighter and it would be difficult to remove the model.

Recent Production

This weekend, I didn't have anything going on - so I got back into painting and modeling. I got all 12 of my Dryads painted to this level - not sure if i will do more highlighting or not. I need to pick up another box somewhere to complete my list. Also, I started doing the detail work on my High Elves (used as Eternal Guard Unit.)

It gets easy to lose the desire to sit around and paint this shit. Today's distractions included some decent movies on Starz - Captain Ron, The Rock, followed by American Gladiators Finale, and Knight Rider season opener. Its amazing I got anything done at all. I hope to play some WH in March - and then May starts the summer tournament routine.

Treekin underway

My idea of making treekin look like creatures of the forest was lambasted by Nietzel. I still like the idea, and have continued modeling them - the sad thing is, he was right and they look kind of gay. So I am making a bunch more tree looking dudes from dowels and greenstuff. The top models are almost complete and the bottom ones, in the beginning stage. These bastards take a long time to make, but still better than paying 15 bucks a pop for them i suppose.

Noble on Great Eagle

I pieced together this female Noble from the Battalion box leftovers. I bought this Great Eagle on eBay about a year ago. I don't have this in my initial list, but it may be an effective unit in future variant lists.

More horseys

Awhile ago, I got some more horses painted to the point where they are almost done. Also, I constructed 12 Glade Guard and 12 Glade Guard Scouts (not pictured). I put together the other ten or so Glade Riders (horsey guys). I have all of these models based and primed.

Special Slot Construction

These "treekin" models are in the process of being sweet. I used sculpey clay to form a body, which i will cover in green stuff and texture it like bark. I am not sure how well the stick models will mix with the new sculpey models. I guess I will wait and see - I can always add more of one or the other types of models I suppose. The deer will be modeled after the dear that kicks the guys ass in "When Animals Attack". The squirrel will look pretty pissed and possibly funny with the short arms. I wanted the bear to not be attacking, but just growling with a huge mouth. I think i might have gone over the top - but again, we are talking about demonic trees that partly resemble animals, so who knows what that would look like. The stick figure guy to the right was inspired by the Transormer (Bonecrusher - Decepticon [I am gay]) that goes after Optimus Prime with the Scorpion thing.

Rare slots

for the rare slots I am using the albion list truthsayer and two fenbeasts. I am using the 'hengus' model for the truthsayer and making my own fenbeasts, which i will think of as Snow Elementals. I am making the snow elementals out of 'sculpey' which is a putty that you form up and then bake to make it tough. It worked pretty well in the trial run - a keeper I think. For the second fenbeast/snow elemental, I am just going to make the other hand.

Testing, 1-2, testing...

Here are some pictures of my initial painting and basing schemes. I am pretty pleased. It isn't perfect, but whatever. The horse is my favorite. When Nietzel was trying to talk me into starting Warhammer years ago, I remember thinking that if I were to paint horses, I would want to try to paint spotted horses, because that is what we had on our farm, and they are sweet. I couldn't believe how well my first attempt turned out.

I couldn't resist trying out a piece of wintery terrain. I made a rocky outcropping. I am using something called 'snow-tex' for the snow. It is super easy. It is what old ladies use for giving pinecones and wreaths the snow effect for christmas. It looks like fine-grade cottage cheese. It pastes on and dries in about an hour. It is very easy to work with, and much less messy than the powder stuff that I started with. Anyone want to buy a big-ass jar of fake snowy powder stuff?

Wintery Wood Elves

After years of piecing together an Orcs and Goblins army, I learned some things about my painting abilities and preferences.

1. I am sick of painting everything green.
2. I want to switch it up and do a winter theme.
3. most importantly - I learned to paint from above the table, or what I
think of as "painting from a distance".

I would spend hours painting the O&G and tediously. I tried to paint every detail, and would paint the model right in front of my face. Then I played with the models and couldn't see any of my detailing during the actual game. I realized that contrast matters more than detail from a distance. Painting for contrast also doesn't require tons of layering highlights, inking, and dry brushing. You can do it, but instead of 12-15 steps, I hope to paint most of my new models in 3 or 4 steps. I think I am learning to be a more efficient painter. Pictured above: general on dragon. Just getting started on him.

modeling

I really like making conversions on models. For this project, I decided that I want to model most of the stuff that is in my army that is non-core. I plan on making my treekin from scratch. I don't care for the GW models very much, and plan on making mine look guys as well as animals in the forest. I modeled a spider out of greenstuff, and have a deer in the making. A little "before" and "after" for you on the first of the scratch built models. It turned out above my expectations.

Begin Production

I am now starting a wood elf army. I bought some High Elf spearmen to use as eternal guard a long time ago. Then on ebay the other day, I bought a small war party of six glade riders and five glade scouts. I figured that I would use these just to practice my color scheme on, which I did. I am now pretty pleased with the idea and yesterday a called up the Wood Elves battalion on ebay for 75 (usually 90).