Neck Ache

I spent hours cranning my neck over some sisters of battle today. I'm painting them in bluey greys on black primer. They are coming along really nicely - as is my blending and layering! I've had to pack them away before I thought to take photos because I'm going to stay at my friends for a couple of weeks tomorrow morning.

When I stopped painting I actually couldn't use my hand properly it was all cramped and stiff, and my neck was killing me! But it was worth it - cloaks look awesome.

Primed some more sisters in white today. Looks like the halfords primer is outclassing the citadel one in everyway; cheaper, easier to spray, and a better, smoother result. I'm going to have to strip the sisters I sprayed with citadel skull white today because they just look awful. Patchy coverage and grainy where it has hit.

I still need to see if I can strip the halfords primer before I spray it on too many of them though.

Gonna do some more work on the blog tomorrow, and get some more pictures up.

Quickie

Just thought I'd post a few shots of my work space(s) before I take doggy for a walk. Spent the whole morning scribbling down ideas for diaramas and duels. Ideas I'll be good enough to use in about 5 years - woot!

Now to walk the beast.

Squeezy Bottles!

I went back to the hobby craft store and spent 20 minutes scouting out all the isles until I FINALLY found some stupid tiny squeezy bottles. Also ordered some off ebay but hey, having more of this stuff isn't a bad thing!


I mixed together my flow and retarder solutions and added sexy labels to my squidgy bottles using paint. I was far more excited about using this stuff than I think a normal person should be, but oh well.


I started on some elves - painting their cloaks bleach white. Basecoat colour went on amazingly with the flow added. About 3/4 coats in total, over black primer.

I love how creamy and smooth the colour looks. The paint was 50:50 flow solution and bleached bone paint.

When it was dry I threw on some layers of Grypphone Sepia wash;

But being impatient I proceeded to cock it up from there and not let things dry properly before I tried to highlight and blend. I think I tried to do too much in one evening and now my elves are sat on my desk looking embarassed about the state of their cloaks.

Tomorrow I'll try again, properly this time, and increase the concentration of the retarder as the paints still dried before I could get to blend them. Didn't stop me trying! And now they are lumpy lumpy models...

Let's get started!

I recently dug out all of my warhammer stuff after a couple of years creative haitus. With the summer off (3 month uni break - whoo!) I've decided I want to get back into everything. I've got quite a substantial army - Witch Hunters - with alot of it completely untouched. Thus far I've found;


Throne of Judgement
Penitent Engine
Exorcist
About 20 base coated sisters
About 30 Painted Sisters
2 St Celestine
2 Inquisitor Retinues
Various HQ models I can't remember the names of
C'tan the Deceiver
10 Seraphim
Box of Skeletons
Vampire's Carriage
Couple of Eldar Avatars
And some High Elf stuff I can't remember because I don't have it with me.
Random Lord of the Rings elves
Box of Galahad elves



In addition to that I discovered that even after 2 years of neglect in a box, my 100+ GW paints are all still usable. I have about 30 brushes, file sets, clippers, basing materials, glues, you name it.


My best mate went out the other day and bought himself the Space Marine and Orks big box set as well, so I've got some lovely ork stuff to paint up.


I started about a week ago by digging up some of the old elves I'd painted terribly and just spraying them over again. They are plastic so I couldn't be bothered to faff about stripping them. I just used them to get back into the swing of things a bit, and as can be expected from someone who hasn't painted for years they look awful!







Not bad for the first thing I've painted in ages I guess. I didn't go the whole hog because a) repainted managed to make lots of the details useless and b) my hands have the artistic control of a buffolo at the moment.

But it was great fun to get back into it. So much fun, in fact, that I went on a buying rampage at my local hobby craft store! I spent way too much money...

I picked up some flow improver and some fluid retarder (favourite name of the day) and some plastic glue;

Also grabbed some washed and paints I was missing (don't know why I forgot to bring black and white home with me)

And I got two Winsor and Newton brush sets. I have only just noticed that the mahogany set is polyester and not sable... urgh... I'll use them anyway - can never have enough brushes!

And I got myself a giant rainbow-gay chest of drawers to store all my nerdy secrets in;

There was also a sale in JJB next door but until I cover my clothes in paint I'll refrain from posting them here.

Annoyingly I couldnt find any dropper bottles to mix up my retarders/flows in. I'm withholding on painting until I can get those and properly thin my paints. I'm very neurotic about doing everything properly at the moment - I don't want to ruin anything expensive.

So yeah - from now on this blog is going to be my progress as I go from wtf end of this paintbrush do I hold to SUPER PAINTED GOLDEN DEMON extraordinare. With the occasional dog photo thrown in.