Legion of Everblight: Zuriel

I've had this model painted for months now but just now getting around to getting the pics posted up. I love this model and I'm really happy with the end result. I did a little work on the jaw to make his mouth open a bit more as placed his legs slightly further apart.

Vampire Counts: Crypt Horrors

Started this counts as conversion almost a year ago now. Finally getting around to finishing them. I think the Legion Ogrun models are fantastic and make for great counts as Crypt Horrors. I plan on getting 5 more of these guys to fill out a unit.

Vampire Counts: More Skeleton Warriors

Trying to get as many models painted before the year is out. These 23 models went pretty quick. More models to come in the following days before the new year.

Dwarf Thane Battle Standard Bearer

This Thane Battle Standard Bearer represents the last model to be painted in my dwarf army. All done! Time to move on to something else. The banner was done like most of my banners by printing out a design on paper, painting it, and affixing it in place. Next up to get some paint will probably be on a few Cryx models before delving into finishing up my Vampire Counts army.

Below you can see some WIP shots of the banner for my thane and quarrelers.

Dwarf Quarrelers

Just about finished up with my Dwarf army. Wrapping up with 20 Quarrelers and a Thane battle standard bearer to follow. Feels good to be completing an army.

Cryx: Nightwretch and dock basing

In a couple recent posts, (1, 2) I was testing out some ideas for a paint scheme and a basing scheme for my upcoming Cryx army. The first model I've painted up as a sort of test for the ideas is the Nightwretch. Most everything turned out the way I wanted it to so I'm liking the way it's looking and I think I can do a lot with the dock basing for future models.

Halloween "1945": The Kiss

Another Halloween and another fun year of costuming with my amazing wife. She did a great job putting together our costumes. We had a lot of fun with these two characters.

Cryx Paint Scheme: Rusted Armor

Been thinking for awhile on what kind of paint scheme I want to paint my cryx army in. I still haven't settle on everything but I've known for awhile that I wanted to do a beat up rusty cryx. So, I've never done a chipped paint/rusty effect before and I always like to practice new techniques on test models. So this is the color scheme and my first attempt for how I'm looking at painting my jack's armor. Disregard the dragon head bits, just the center bluish/gray part. Thoughts?

Cryx: Dock Basing Test

I purchased the Cryx all in one box when it first hit over the summer. With a Journeyman League starting up at my LGS next week, I'm getting around to planning my scheme. This will be my third Warmachine/Hordes army and I'm trying to incorporate a new theme into each army. For this army I wanted to come up with a dock/harbor basing scheme. I've never done this kind of basing so I'll be experimenting a lot to see what works.
For the wooden dock I'm going to try using stamped putty pieces that I made using the happy seppuku base stamps I have. This is my first test base that will be used for my nightwretch and will be filled in with the water effect that I end up settling on.

I did a fair bit of research into different water effects and decided to try 2 part epoxy glue as my water effect first since I already had some for other applications. I'm trying to go for a muddy, murky water. Here are a couple examples of what I've come up with so far.
The first test has the base painted a greenish brown and a little bit of chestnut ink mixed into the epoxy.

My next two tests has a similar under paint but this time I mixed a little nuln oil wash into the epoxy for one half of the base and agrax earthshade wash onto the other. The difference is subtle and the camera has a little bit of a hard time picking it up.

I'm kind of thinking somewhere in between the first test and this last one is what I'm shooting for. Let me know what you guys think or if you have any suggestions.

Dwarf War Machines and Crews

Some more speed painted Dwarves here. This time I've got a couple grudge throwers, an organ gun, and a cannon. The organ gun and cannon tops can be swapped out to be either a second organ gun or a second cannon. All that's left now for my dwarves are 20 Quarrelers and a Thane BSB.

Dwarf Thunderers

Had a little bit of time to do some painting this past weekend. With most of the base coats already down from the airbrush, the brush work goes pretty fast. A lot of people don't like the Mantic Dwarves miniatures and the short beards are a big reason why. I don't really mind the beards but I must admit that this sculpt for the Thunderer/Quarreler sculpt is not that great with a lot of the detail around the head, gun/bow, and arms kind of just blending into each other without any clear definition between them. I've tried my best to try and alleviate that as much as possible with clean defined paint lines, heavy shadow, and of course carefully chosen photography angles. There is another sculpt for this model but for these 10 Thunderers, there is just the one among them. Next up in the painting queue will be some dwarf war machines and crews.

Dwarf Hammerers

It's been tough to find much time to paint lately. Life happens and miniature painting goes to the wayside. I'm still holding out hope to finish painting my collection before year's end but that is looking less likely. We'll see. If I can get a few days where all I do is paint, I can bang out a lot of work. Anyways, here's the latest finished models, 30 Dwarf Hammerers. Again, just a tabletop quality here. Went with a golden/brass armor so that between the hammers and the armor they'd be more distinguishable from the warrior models.

Hordes Devastation Event Custom Objective

I recently attended the Hordes Devastation Release Event. One way to earn extra points for the event prior to it was to create a custom objective for your army. Doing so netted you 4 points so I thought it'd be a pretty easy way to get some extra points. The event used a one time scenario just for the event utilizing 120 mm objectives. I came up with the idea to make an objective to match my ice themed army. The idea was to make a snowy objective that looked like there was ice sunk down into the snow in the shape of the Legion of Everblight symbol.
I started with 2 CDs glued together to make the proper size base. For those that don't know a CD or DVD is exactly 120 mm. I then took some thin white craft foam cut it to fit the CD. I then printed off the Legion symbol the size I wanted, carefully cut it out to form a stencil, and sprayed the symbol onto the white foam disc.

I glued the foam onto the disc and cut the symbol out once again this time out of the foam.

Almost there. Finally I painted in a bluish color to fill the symbol area.

And lastly I added white snow flock and clear crackle paint for the icy symbol. Went to the event and ended up bringing home the event champion coin!

Here's one last close up shot of the ice

Finishing the Dwarves

I've switched over to Dwarves now in an attempt to get that army completely finished. I did finish a unit of Warriors/Longbeards back in March and I'm looking to finish the rest of the army. I spent a few hours on the airbrush blocking in a few of the large area base colors. This really saves on brush time later on. Here's 53 WIP dwarf models after airbrush work including 15 Hammerers, 20 Quarrelers, 10 Thunderers, 2 Organ Guns/Cannons w/ crews, and 2 Grudge Throwers with crews. Should be able to knock out these in a relatively quick manner.

Vampire Counts: Dire Wolves

Taking a break from finishing all my Space Marine models. Decided to get my dire wolves painted. Going to posting a fair bit of speed painted models for awhile as I'm trying to get my two Warhammer armies done as well as get all the models I own painted by year's end. Did this unit up in about 7 hours. Painting all the bone bits really slowed me down. They were fun to paint though. I love painting gory models.

2015: A Resolution Update

Figured it was time for an update to my 2015 model painting resolution. Well, it's going....... not as great as I wanted. Below you can see a breakdown of what's been painted (black) and what's left (red). Models with an asterisk next to them have been models that were added or purchased since the first resolution post, http://makinglittleboynoises.blogspot.com/2015/01/2015-resolution.html

There's been a few changes with some subtractions and some additions. Net models, I've only created 7 more models to paint then I started the year off with. Many of these models came from raffles or prize support from leagues and tournaments.

Painting has been a bit slow but I'm also knocking out all my Warmachine/Hordes models first and those models take more time as I paint them to a pretty high standard. I also speed painted 17 models from the Shadows of Brimstone board game which I don't count towards my miniature collection. Now, I've just started back in on the Warhammer Fantasy and 40K stuff again. Things will progress much faster as I tend to not spend as much time per model on big units of models.

So, will finish all my models before year's end? Probably not but maybe. Either way I'm going to continue painting with very very minimal purchasing.

Warmachine: Menoth 29 models

*Anson Durst 1 model

Exemplar Errants w/ UA 12 models

Temple Flameguard 10 models

Choir of Menoth 2 models

Attendant Priest 1 model

pFeora 1 model

Order of the Fist 1 model
*eSeverius 1 model

Warmachine: Cryx 26 models

*eDeneghra 1 model

*Goreshade 3 1 model

*Crabjack Kit 1 model

*Nightwretch x2 2 models

*Warwitch Siren x2 2 models

*Skarlock Thrall 1 model

*Bane Thralls w/ UA 12 models

*Bane Riders 5 models
*Aikos 1 model

Warmachine: Mercenaries 4 models

Forge Guard 4 models

Hordes: Legion 30 models

pLylyth 1 model

*pVayl 1 model

*Succubus 1 model

*Zuriel 1 model

*Seraph/Neraph Kit 1 model

*Heavy Beast Kit 1 model

Warspear Chieftain 1 model

Shepherd 1 model

Stinger 1 model

4 lesser warbeasts 4 models

Legionnaires 10 models

Spawning Vessel 7 models

Warhammer: Vampire Counts 62 models

Zombie Dragon/Terrorgheist 1 model

Vampire Lord 1 model

Strigoi Ghoul King 1 model

Dire Wolves 10 models

Crypt Horrors 5 models

Varghulf 1 model

Skeletons 23 models

Grave Guard 20 models

Warhammer: Dwarves 133 models

Thane BSB 1 model

Warriors 26 models

Warriors 12 models

Hammerers 30 models

Quarellers 30 models

Thunderers 10 models

2 Organ Guns w/ Crews 8 models

2 Cannons w/ Crews 8 models

2 Grudge Throwers w/ Crews 8 models

Warhammer 40K: Dark Angels 31 models

Belial 1 model

Chapter Master 1 model

Librarian 1 model

Captain 1 model

Dreadnoughts 2 models

Terminators 5 models
Terminators 14 models

Ravenwing Attack Squad 6 models

Malifaux: Guild 2 models

Lady Justice 1 model

Judge 1 model

Total: 317 models 

Finished models: 103

Unfinished models: 214

Space Marine Terminators: Speed Painted

Painting continues daily, slowly but surely making progress towards completing my entire collection of miniatures before year's end. This post is a nice boost. 14 Terminators finished in a pretty small window of time. I didn't keep exact time but if I had to guess I'd say about 30 min per model. For me that's as fast as it gets. I airbrush on the red armor color, brush in the rest of the base coats, and finally heavily coat the whole with a home made black wash. Nothing fancy by any means  but for the time spent I think they look pretty good.

Temple Flameguard: Second Unit

I've had a min unit of TFG sitting around for a long while that I painted quickly to a basic table top standard for league points. Not too long ago I picked up 2 blisters of TFG (now out of print due to knew plastic unit) to bring the unit up to max. Finally revisiting this and getting the entire unit painted to a better standard. This is my second unit of TFG and I want to try out a couple theme forces that utilize multiple units of TFG including Feora 1 and Severius 1.

Allegiant of the Order of the Fist

Well, not a model I expect to use much but I received the model as a gift and I'm trying to get ALL my models painted so........... here's Menoth's "Kicky Monk".

Feora Priestess of the Flame

Work continues on finishing all my Protectorate models. Here is Feora 1. This is the old classic version of the model. There's a reason it was resculpted but I must say this sculpt looks way better in black than the studio scheme. 

Studio Scheme