Back at uni!

I'm back at uni house for a week and a half while boy does his resits. (Was very poorly first time round and then a dr gave him rohypnol.) I dug out my toolbox straight away to have a shuffle through what warhammer stuff I'd left behind. I found a huge amount of basing materials;

and bases to practice on.

I also went through my box of miscellaneous warhammer and 40k stuff. Found loads of blisters and unopened things including an immolator and a throne of judgement. Been sorting through to sell off a bunch of the sisters of battle to sell off. There's a few models I want to keep to paint but so many I just don't enjoy anymore. I have loads at home as well that I'm going to dig up, strip off and sell like a bunch of ringwraiths and Arwen.

List and pictures to follow;

Box of awesome

C'tan the Deceiver

Male and Female Inquisitor

Penitent Engine

Immolator - unopened

Exorcist

Vampire Counts Coach

Elf Prince on noble steed

Throne of Judgement

And about 12 blister packs with everything from inquisitorial henchmen in to St Celestine, to Eldar Avatars.

I also went through my cupboards to see what food we had left and... well, I don't know if you've played Dead Space, but finding it in your cupboards isn't fun.

As a disclaimer these weren't ours and were in fact left behind by a former housemate, who is former because they used to leave this kindof things around >: |

 

I'm going to settle down and do some painting and basing now, should be a good evening. This week I may finally actually get some articles finished and up on here!

Sisters of blergh

I've been trying to paint something other than orks for a bit. I have a substantial sisters of battle army stripped and prepped so have been through a few of those recently. I was painting in sets of three and tried two different paint schemes so far - red cloaks and white armour, and red armour and white cloaks. I much prefer the latter but the 6 models I tested in all got to a point where I wanted to gouge my eyes out trying to paint them anymore. I just didn't think it through as I went and have only been fixing things constantly rather than actually progressing with the painting. Offending models below;

Now I'm painting five up in the white cloaks and red armour much more carefully.

I started on a white base with two layers of 2:1 water:astronomicon grey. Then I have done a single layer of 1:1 water:scab red on the armour.

Annoyingly all of the primed sisters have loads of flash left on that I somehow just did not catch when I prepped them. I managed to get all of the mold lines though.

Made another piece of scenery though - the Ork Outhouse!

Can't remember if I wrote up the progress while I was doing it. I'll check and if not I will pop that up on this post. Bought a load of new stuff too - need to take photos. 

Wedding time!

My mother is finally getting married tomorrow so after this weekend I should go back to painting and posting fanatically! I half started one of the guide the other day but its awful rambling. Should get a load of those done this week when I finally ship mum and dad off on holiday!

Also sent out my headshots and info to a few casting thingies so quite excited about that!

Have a good day you guys

Lethemonster :)

Quickie

Just a quick update since I haven't been about much. I've been... trying to kick start an acting career. Yeah, so back to painting. Done some tester sisters of battle models that came out horribly - I was trying white armour and red cloth but mauled it horribly. Trying red armour with white cloth now - looking quite alot nicer. I also made an ork outhouse. Will post something useful later!

Ork outhouse Part1

After the success of my box earlier in the week we decided to make an ork outhouse for our ork camp! It has been fun and surprisingly easy and simple to make. Not entirely accurate, but I thought I'd have to make quite a few of these things before any of them started to actually look good anyway.

All you need to make a basic wooden building is some form of wooden sticks, pva glue, and a cutting implement and cutting surface. These are just craft things I picked up from hobbycraft for a pound or so for a bag each. Much cheaper than balsa wood and just as good for things like this. Any pva is glue is good - and trust me, pva glue is far better than you think! I can't believe how strong it sets. A scalpel isn't bad but something designed to go through wood would be preferable, and any cutting mat or board will do but the grided ones do come in handy.

I started by making the door and door frame. I cut the sticks to be just higher than my chaos space marine horns / just taller than orcs. This actually ended up being each stick cut in half with the rounded ends taken off. I used the big ~1cm wide sticks for the door, and the smaller ~.6cm ones for the frame.

I wanted a rickety shack type of look, and I wanted it to be extra strong to I glued the door pieces together using matchsticks layed across perpendicular, with a thick-ish layer of pva along them. Further down I show how I glue these on for sturdiness.

As you can see on the right, rather than glueing the pieces of the frame to each other I fixed them togethed using matchsticks across the joins. I did this for two reasons; I won't get glue spilling between the pieces and showing at the front, and it will result in a stronger structure.

I measured up the sticks for the walls by eye. To add strength to some of the joins in this I put a little dollop of PVA gue either side of the matchstick as well.

I made the walls out of horizontal slats cut from the larger sticks. I stuck them together as you can see with multiple matchsticks and kept the slats uneven. I was also careful to be imprecise when finishing cutting the individual pieces out of each of the sticks so that it wouldn't be neat and tidy. Much more orky this way!

You want quite a bit of glue when putting support sticks in these things. PVA will bond strongly and set quite hard.

It can be a bit fiddly using tiny sticks covered in glue. Here's how I get them on easily; layer of glue, hold close over destination, drop, gently push down. Don't push too hard - pva will just smoosh everywhere until it's cured. That's it's main downside, because it can take a while for PVA to cure enough that it won't shift about with the slightest nudge.

Checked to see if the door looked ok- just had to trim one of the sticks a bit.

Trimmed, glued and plopped into place. Made it wonky to distinguish it as a door a bit more from the rest of the woody structure. Also glued a side panel on so the front was a bit more than just a door.

I made the roof out of the smaller slats. Roughed the edges and made them uneven for a more worn and damaged look.

Finally for today; a 1:1 mix of VMC chocolate brown and water was slathered on the inside of the walls. Because it's not all perfectly fit together you'll be able to catch glimpses of the inside when viewing the hut. Painting the inside means you won't see bits of glue and lolly stick - ruining the painting and weather on the outside!

I'm going to put it all together and finish it in a couple of days when we're back at boyfriends house.

I made a thing!

I wanted a break from painting today so I made a little piece of scenery for my orks. A scalpel, some lolly sticks and pva glue were all I used to make it. Cutting up lolly sticks with a scalpel is... interesting and no good for precise work, but for something an ork made it's perfect. I don't have my tiny hacksaw with me so I'll be making all ork stuff this week!

Lucky Butt Stitches Munition Boks!

It was pretty simple to make, but involved a degree of trial and error to start with. And loads of making shit up all the way through and constant fixing things. Making things for orks is actually a fun way to get into this for me - because I can end up with anything at the end and no matter how messy it is it will still look orky.

I'm going to try and make better crates/boxes/outhouses when I have my little saw and metal square. Here's how I made this one, in the meantime.

I started out by marking the sticks into sections. The box is roughly 3.5cm wide by who knows what! I cut them into sections using my scalpel on a cutting matt. If you use steady, careful strokes at an angle you could use the scalpel to create very neat pieces, but it's much easier to do with a saw and I was making this for orks so I started off each section with a few neat strokes to guide and then just hacked it apart.

Then I glued three of the pieces lengthways side by side, with a tiny gap between each, together using a matchstick type stick. I used PVA glue. When I had 2 I glued them together as close to a right angle as I could.

PVA glue is good for this kindof thing if you have a little patience or think ahead. It's ridiculously cheap and when it does set it sets nice and hard. It can take a little while to get to the point where it can hold itself in place though, so I spent a lot of time trying to prop this all up and hold it together without squishing things about.

I found putting a stick on the inside would help alot if I could bear to hold it in place for a bit. Additionally I started squirting glue everywhere I could on the inside.

I added the other side in the same way (badly)

From left to right here I have; added the 'front', then stuck sticks to it on the outside to act as support, then made the top panel with a broken strut going across. When all the PVA is fully cured this thing became as stable as a rock. I could put quite a bit of weight on it before it felt like it would move at all.

I primed it with my Citadel White Primer - because I need to use it up and I'm saving my Halfords primer for my models! It feels really runny and gives bad coverage compared to the halfords... oh well, it did a good enough job for my ork box.

Basecoat was khemri brown 1:2 paint to water. Only needed one coat - it was at this stage it started to look properly cratey. Until now I was feeling a bit wound up having spent so long trying to work something so simple out and holding bits together, breaking things, regluing etc and thinking it just looked... a bit crap, really.

Devlan mud wash went on, then when that was dry I drybrushed scorched brown on selectively to pick out details. I went heavy near supports and ends of planks and very light in the middle. I topped this up with a light application of badab black wash in the same way, but not going as far out.

Now orks really don't like having this stuff stolen - I thought I'd help them out by painting on some suitably orky faces so no one could possibly get confused about who it belonged too. Regal blue base with enchanted blue on top. 2:1 paint to water.

Very happy with how it turned out. I'm exhausted now so nighty night!

Cowboys vs Orkliens

I've nearly finished! I actually went for a couple of walks today, and Hobbycraft, and did painting and work. Hopefully I should be feeling much better tomorrow. Apart from a few details (Some glaringly obvious) this batch of 5 are almost finished. I just need to go over them tomorrow and touch everything up - add bits of shading and washing here and there.

Here they are in their current state, complete with mood lighting!



Yeah uhh.. I think I forgot something




Hmm... Didn't forget anything here



Or here! :D

This one looks fine too

Yup, didn't forget anything for these guys ¬_¬

I focused mainly on skin, leather and the red tops this time. I was stupid and kept painting past when I wanted to so I rushed all the bone and messed up quite a few of the blue bits. It's annoying but I have to learn to stop and move on to the next set!

Then I thought I'd whip out the lolly sticks and uhh... random bits of wood and make myself some fancy bases. Don't cut wood with pliers - you'll just shoot bits into your boyfriends eye. Bits pinging everywhere! Not sure what I am going to use to cut them tomorrow, unless I buy the world's tiniest saw...

I've given them a wash of devlan and bits of badab black and they actually look really good. I'm gonna pick up some ink from hobbycraft tomorrow to make my own washes with and use as is, because if I'm making scenery too the wash pots definitely do not hold enough.

Very sleepy, I shall hopefully get some more of the blog done tomorrow now that I'm feeling less like the undead.

Super Ork

I actually got some painting done today! Whoo! I also went to see Super 8 which was bloody amazing. Still ill though so crappy short update today. Have got picks and stuff that I will hopefully be conscious enough to get up tomorrow in a proper thingy.

Also playing Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal has sucked away all my free time. I feel so bad for not getting any work or painting done :<

At Ork's Door

No updates. So tired. So ill. Stupid ears. Will have lots up soon though. Can't even put food in my massive mouth let alone tiny brush to tiny ork mouth.

Do have film of trying to teach the dog to roll over and dog getting confused and howling. Will post.

You're an ork Harry!

Managed to do some more orky skin and red tops today. Tried out some shading with washes too, seeing which colours had what kindof effect on green. I can't remember what stage I left them at yesterday, and I'm too lazy to check.

This is roughly the stage I left them all at

With my space orks looking more shiney, as you'll see in this step as I applied a liberal amount of watered orange paint . I carried on by applying a broad highlight of snot green (1:3 Paint:10%F). I was careful to leave a very fine band of the dark green and let most of the colour build up on the bulging parts of the muscles. I can't get my photos off of the camera for this stage at the moment - annoyingly.

Next step I highlighted the uppermost and bulgiest parts with 1:1:2 Snot green : Scorpion Green : 10%F. I found this to be a bit vivid for my liking so I decided to give everything a wash to hopefully bring down the colour and unify it where I'd been a bit rushed dolloping paint on.

And some useless pictures after washing;

Thraka Green Wash

Asurmen Blue - I really liked this combo

Asurmen Blue, Thraka Green, and Bhaal Red

Thraka green or asurmen blue - I didn't write it down :S

I really like the blend of asurmen blue over the greens of the skin. It helps blend the colours together very well, and adds greater depth to the shadows than just a darker green. With a thraka green selectively on top I think I have a keeper for doing skins.

Then I did a final highlight of 1:1:1 goblin green : scorpion green : sunburst yellow with an equal amount of 10%F in there. I dotted it on the most raised and highest areas of the muscles. Then I finished with a light shading of the lowermost parts with very delicately dotted asuremen blue.

I am very happy with the result

On top of all this I tried shading a couple of the orks pants with snakebit leather and then scorched brown but it just looked awful. In the pots I thought the snakebite would work nicely with the iyanden sun but it went on much more orangey than I expected and I couldnt salvage it at all with the scorched brown. So I got angry and washed it loads with devlan mud >: |

I have lost one of my orks, on which I tried out my new iridescent medium. The update was very close to being called Dude, Where's My Ork?