Legion of the Damned all done!

Yay! - all finished. The last one was a bit harder to paint with the banner and all.

Side view of the shoulder:

...and finally, the whole squad together:

Really enjoyed painting these guys, they're corking models. I gather there are new ones too (heavy weapons and the like) so they might go on the shopping list at some point.

...and then there were four...

Almost there with the Legion of the Damned now - here's Torchy McFlamerson:

Which means the squad now looks like this:

Just one more to go!

Legion of the Damned continues...

Here's another one:

Ha - bit of static grass stuck to his leg there... Anyway - here's the side view:

...and here's how they all look together now - just 2 more to go!:

Legion of the Damned - continued

These have been on the to-do list for far too long now, so it's time to get our ghostly, menacing, skulls-and-fire chaps finished. Here's the latest one:

...and a side view to show the shoulder pad - lettering done with a pigment pen:

...and here's the two currently completed minis, pictured together:

That's two down, three to go.

A quick note on the painting of these chaps - I want the black to be muted and subtle, so I've kept the highlighting very low-key. It's actually zenithal highlighting done with the airbrush, with dark greys, and without any extra edge-highlights added.

Wave Serpent WIP

Not finished, and I'm not quite happy with this yet, but you get the idea:

Guardians complete!

Wow, this having-time-off-work thing is a hoot - miniatures disappearing from the to-do list with alarming speed. Here's the rest of the Altansar guardian squad all done and dusted. I've also a made a start on a Wave Serpent to carry them, but not quite happy enough with that yet for a picture...

Altansar Eldar

These have been languishing in the box for far too long now, so I thought I'd start off by finishing what I started with the guardians. The weapon platform has been posted before, but I've updated the basing to match my marines:

Looks a bit better I think.

Followed this up with a helmet-less squad leader:

I'm quite pleased with the way this guy turned out. Compared with the marines, this is a lighter flesh tone (done with Elf Flesh, washed with ogryn flesh, then highlighted back up with more Elf Flesh, then mixtures of Elf Flesh and Bleached Bone). I actually managed to grow a little patience this time and paint the head and arms separately before assembly. This makes life a lot easier and the paintwork look cleaner.

Blood red used to be my least favourite colour, because it seemed a little thin / transparent. Nowadays it's my favourite colour, precisely because it's a little thin. I'm learning the lesson that in the past I was not diluting my paints enough, and getting a blobby finish. Much better to have thinner paint and use several layers of it to build up to a smoother finish. The Blood Red on the squad leader here is washed with Devlan Mud, then slowly highlighted back up with more Blood Red - just the two colours but it gives a nice smooth burnished look.

These Eldar Guardians are really easy to paint up (I'm really enjoying these - should do more Eldar) so I should get the rest of the squad posted here soon.

More 2nd Ed marines

Finished the squad then...

Here are the heavy weapons guys - missile launcher and flamer:

...and here's the squad all together:

More Legion of the damned next I think. Have a nice Wednesday folks.

Rescued marines

I'm back! - been to Vegas, which was excellent, then in hospital, somewhat less than excellent... I doubt you want to see my holiday snaps or my scars though, so here goes with some new minis. I've mentioned before that GW now rather helpfully do metal shoulder pads for the Eagle Warriors. While I'm off work recovering, I thought I'd hack up some old 2nd Ed (thanks Tim) marines and give them the Eagle Warriors treatment to swell the ranks a little. Here's an example with his shoulder cut out (with a combination of sawing where possible, then carving away with a craft knife):

Had to pull the backpack off to seat the new shoulder pad properly.

So after dismembering the poor dear, I then popped and small ball of green stuff into one of the EW shoulder pads, pushed it firmly into place, and trimmed off the residual green stuff with a wetted knife - smoothed it out as much as possible and painted up as usual:

...and here you can see the 'before and after' shot showing the new shoulder in place:

Note the improved basing with static grass - I think this will be my default plain base from now on.

Same treatment on a couple more:

And a sergeant to whip them into shape:

These minis aren't quite as good as the Black Reach ones (all the same pose for a start) but add new shoulders and a quick paint job, and we're well on the way to an extra Tac squad to add to the army, for not much cash as I had these lying around. More to follow here as I'm at home and bored stiff - great opportunity to get some steady painting done. Back in a day or two... (makes up for the recent lack of posting anyway!)