More Kans!

Now we're cooking on gas - two posts in two days! What is it, Christmas or something?:

Opted for a bit of missile launcher action on this one and a nice red cylon-style eye...

Dusty bin...

Where's Ted Rogers?  3...2...1...

Killa Kans for addition to the ork force:

Love these - they're hilarious models (and big too), and great fun to paint. I thought it was high time I started shifting these off the painting table because I'm hoping that Santa will be kind this year (unless I'm on the naughty list, you never know...).

More to follow soon.

Landspeeder storm!

Phew, what a complicated little model! - Way more work than a tank, but enjoyable. I found out to my cost that painting every little bit before you assemble is a good idea, particularly on something with so many fiddly little nooks and crannies. This model isn't some clever addition to my Eagle Warriors' arsenal with a purpose - I just bought it because I think it looks SO COOL.

Anyway, this weekend I also managed to have a go with the posh DSLR camera that I have borrowed, so here's a first attempt at some better (ish) photography... Basically this the camera used straight out of the box without any special settings applied or any post-processing, but certainly better than the little low-res point-and-shoot:

...and here's another shot trying to focus on the front and blurring out the back which I think worked out quite well:

One thing I noticed from doing the shot above is that if you have the camera really close to the subject you get this slective focus effect, but if you pull back and take the shot from a distance then you get a more open "everything in focus" look. I'm a complete novice at photography so any pointers you might have would be very helpful - please leave a comment if you've got any tips for me - ta.

Here's a couple more pics:

...and finally, our old friend the black reach dreadnought again, some slightly better pics than the previous ones:

Next time I'll have a crack at some infantry.

Armies at the end of my wristies...

OK so it looks like Squats don't exist any more (remember them? I used to love those bikes), so where to begin was the order of the day...
Well, back when I was a wee lad, my best mate Damian and I played orks and marines respectively, so that seemed like a nice nostalgic place to start. For a starter pack aimed at someone interested in both Orks and Marines, I guess that the Assault on Black Reach box set can't really be beaten. The core of a force for both races, plus templates and a rulebook - yay! So that was purchase number 1. I should have stopped there for a while but oh no... more about that later. Anyway, to kick things off here's a fairly crummy photo of the marine dreadnought from the AoBR box - very minimal simple sandy base and no markings yet. I've gone for the "Eagle Warriors" chapter for my marines - for gaming purposes I figured you could play it just as a generic marine force or perhaps include some converted characters from the Ultramarines, which is where this second founding chapter apparently came from. Not standard smurf-marines then, and an attractive sharp colour scheme, but at the same time they do have the advantage of having some shoulder pads available from GW with the iconography already moulded in.


The photography leaves at lot to be desired at the moment I'm afraid - waiting on a decent camera, but at least you get the idea of the "clean and shiny" look that I'm going for with this chapter - no battle-damage, no weathering just yet although I might add this later - at the moment I'm keeping it clean and simple. The blue is Mordian blue foundation paint, shaded with a leviathan purple wash, and highlighted with lightened mixtures of Mordian blue. The white is a mixture of blue and black ink wash applied over Skull white, then pale blue up to flat white highlights. Scrolls and skulls etc are a mixture of scorched brown and bleached bone tones. Hope you like...