Showcase - Belisarius Cawl

Evening all

Sorry I’ve been somewhat lax with my blog updates of late, trying to write blogs on the IPad isn’t conducive to great writing I’m afraid! 

Anyway, I thought it best to catch you up with my latest finished piece.

Belisarius Cawl......

Oh my - What a model. 

99% of the time I’m a HUGE advocate for painting minis fully built, I like to see them complete so I can get a feel for what I’m trying to do with the colours but a with Cawl I felt I might have erred on this choice. 

Frankly he is a complete and utter pain in the back to paint as a complete unit. 

Anyway, seeing as I’d already glued him together there was little I could do about it so just set about him with the brush, attacking the metal work with the airbrush to get a base of lead beltcher down before painting the robes. 

Something I have noticed with my painting of late is that whilst previously I would often block out all the base colours of a model before going back to add washes and highlights at a later time, I’m more often focusing on one section until completion before moving to the next. So as the pic above shows I started and finished the robes before going to do the metalwork with a brush. After the silver of the bodywork I went to the copper edge work and so on and so forth, trying to complete bits - looking for the ‘wins’, those bits where your happy with a part and can call it done. 

Cawl seriously tested my patience, I must have somewhere in the region of 30 hours or more in him? He was daunting by his sheer level of detail. Moreover, the fact that I could (and did) spend 5 hours painting him one Saturday and couldn’t really see where the time had gone was infuriating, it was simply swallowed in the lower level of the model. But I feel the ground work payed off and as the final few hours started I was able to see parts coming together quickly.

Here’s some pics of him in his final form :) 

Anyway, there you have him. Personally I’m pretty chuffed with him, I think he’s one of my personal best and I learnt a lot from him. 

I hope you like him as well :) 

Thanks all for reading, until next time. 

DB

Using the Interwebs for Hobby Purposes - Mechanicum

 

Hi All,

Doc here with the start of a semi regular series called 'using the interwebs'.  Whats that all about I hope you ask?  Well like most hobby modelers I use the internet to pick up tips, see great paint jobs, understand battle tactics, watch video bat reps and video tutorials.  In honesty just about anything. Over the years of doing this I have bookmarked, followed  and linked to a number of quality sites which I go back to time and time again.

This series aim is to create a mini resource for a theme of my choosing providing you guys the reader with a ton of links which will be helpful to the chosen topic area.  I hope by doing this I can direct people to some of the internet's hidden gems.

For the first theme I have deliberately chosen something I have no personal involvement in but have just watched from afar the Mechanicum.

Mechanicum - Thanatar Siege Automata Showcase

Mechanicum - Thanatar Siege Automata

After building the first of my Mechanicum force I thought it was about time I worked out a paint scheme. The Thanatar Siege Automata is an absolutely cracking miniature to paint. I really enjoyed this guy, especially some of the techniques. I'd not painted yellow armour before so I quite fancied giving it a go to see how difficult it was. To be honest its not the easiest and isn't very forgiving if you make any slips but it does let you get some great contrast of colours.

Thanatar Siege Automata

I've kept the colours really simple to try and give it a specific style. I airbrushed a Vallejo Black primer to start and then working up in gradual light coats from Charred Brown to Heavy Brown and finally with Golden Yellow. The Black Primer results in a muted flat yellow which is what I was after. Shading was done with Charred Brown airbrushed from underneath and I Pin washed all the cracks with Sepia Wash. I added some weathering/chipping to the armour which I was pleased with, it seems to show up nicely on yellow armour. I added the edge highlights with Lemon yellow. The only thing I'm a tad disappointed with was the metal parts which I found difficult to bring out more, other than drybrushing various steel/silver shades and washing with Nuln Oil, there wasn't much more I could think to do. I didn't want a heavily weathered metal look so kind of kept it simple. Having done Blue OSL before I fancied a change and thought the purple/pink plasma would compliment the yellow fairly well. I'm reasonably pleased with the outcome. All I need to do now is decide on a house for my mechanicum and get some transfers which I think would finish it off properly.

Anyway, hope you like, Any questions or C&C always welcome 

Luko Dakka

Everyone's at it! First Video Blog

Hey guys and Girls, Tom here with a quick post 

Watching the work of some of the other Code guys got me inspired so I decided to have a little mess about with some apps on the IPad and managed to pop a small video together. Have a watch if your so inclined, I apologise it's a little rough around the edges but it's a learning curve and feed back is greatly appreciated :) 

Cheers all 

Tom

The Great British Build off - Heresy Arms Race - The Mechanicum

The Mechanicum

So heres my initial offering to the Code40k's group effort to try to get into 30k in a big way. I've plumped for a double helping of Heresy goodness. Since the 1st Heresy Book dropped I've been adding to a slow and steady Sons of Horus army but for this project I am concentrating on The Mechanicum.

Theres nothing more awesome than Big Robots kicking ass and since these dropped from Forgeworld I've been looking to get some. I am a big fan of the whole grimdark, almost steampunk aesthetic these guys have and I'm looking forward to getting them all built up so I can get some paint on them & get some games in. Heres a few I've built up recently: -

 Thanatar Siege Automata

 Myrmidon Destructors (3 more to build)

Thallax Cohort (13 more to build)

I'll post up as I add to the army and touch on potential army lists as I work to be game ready.

Still no idea on colour schemes but once I've decided i'll probably dive right in on the big fella, stramngely I find the bigger models easier to work on!

Until next time

LukoDakka out

Forgemas - Completed Sevrin Loth

Well at last I have time to post a blog update.

Christmas and January have been a particularly hectic timer in my household. I have had relatives over from Canada, relatives down from "Up-North" and once Christmas was complete we got this new addition to the clan (chapter)

As I write this she is over twice the size she was in these photos!

As you can see my time for the hobby has been seriously reduced. thus the late posting of a completed Loth.

here he is with his honour guard

I still need to complete a bit more of the details but they are solid enough for the moment. I will go back at some point in the future and do more detailing.

I have also got back some masters of the chapter I received for a birthday in 2013. My brothered had painted one of them so I thought it only fair for him to paint the other 3

and finally here they are with the first one

Here are all 10 of my chapter masters

I was in Manchester the other day and popped by the Arndale GW. Wow they really have put the effort in that shop. how many points for this?

And finally what am i working on next? I have just tidied up and under-coated another tactical squad (10th..). i used my FW free postage voucher to buy Ashmantle the Salamander Dread. and i also picked up this fella as a bodyguard for one of my Inquisitors

Hopefully puppy will calm down a bit so i can get on with some solid painting.

My 2015 aim is to clear the back log of unpainted models before I buy "too much" new stuff....we'll have to see how that goes