Month one pretty much done

OK there hasn't been an update for a while. Anyway here is my farseer done. Just needs a base done for him and he is ready to rock. If I had had time then I was hoping to freehand something onto the hull but that will have to wait for a bit. He still counts for painting points (well once his base is done). Apologies for the bad photos. My point and click seems to have done a runner so this is a camera phone effort. Will re post once I have better pics.

Vyper, done!

Latest update, the vyper is pretty much done. Some frantic gem painting late last night and finishing the starcannon. I still need to do the electronics panels on the chassis but they are 5 min jobs. I would also like to go back and paint a yellow stripe over the front in the same fashion as the guardian bikes but he counts (once his base is done!) for painting points so I am happy!

Vyper 75% done, Farseer started

OK well with 11 days left to go now I thought I would share how the vyper is looking, I have been painting it unassembled for ease of access. I thought I hadn't made much progress on it but once I put together everything I had done I was surprised how much is done. The weapon is still only undercoated (I am going to paint up the starcannon and scatter laser for it) and the rear gunner just needs the yellow done for his helmet and the gems highlighting. I will prob add a yellow go faster stripe to is as well so it matches the bikes

Have finally started on the farseer conversion. At the moment it just stands as the Autarch from the Windrider host box I bought to start this off. He has been beheaded and I am trying to green stuff a farseer head out of a warhammer fantasy high elf mage head but it isn't going so well. I think I will end up buying a farseer and hacking him up for bits. Still time is of the essence so whatever I do I need to do it fast. I have started on his bike however. I wanted him to really stand out so have gone for about the hardest colour there is to paint....yellow. So far I have highlighted up in stages the bike so it is nearly done. I am then prob going to freehand some sort of design or detail onto the front but I need to sit down and do some sketches first. Anyway wip below of the highlighted yellow (again big shout out to all Imperial Fist players....yellow is not fun!)

Bikers done!

1st squad of bikers done and dusted. Bases finished this morning. I will at some stage work out magnetising the bases for easy transport and less likely hood of breaking them but in terms of the challenge they are my 1st completed squad. The vyper is coming along nicely although no pics up for it yet. I am about to start my farseer conversion. With 12 days left for month one's painting points I am leaving him a little late!

Bikers nearly there

OK, last night saw some frantic painting of gems. Each bike has 8 gems, 9 bikes = 73 gems!! God I am bored of painting them! Not very happy with the way they look either so I may have to go back and do them again....not looking forward to that! Also started the go faster stripes on the front body of the bike. I marked off a 4mm wide line with masking tape and used foundation Iyanden Darksun as a base coat because of its opacity over the blue. I have then put a couple of thinned down layers of Vallejo Sunblast Yellow. Tonight I will start highlighting up the top of the band with Vallejo Model Colour Deep Yellow and Light Yellow.

1st game - draw

Well first game with my Eldar yesterday. A 500 pointer with the guy running nids for our TOTGer's. 

My list

Farseer - jetbike, fortune, doom, sprit stones, runes of witnessing

9 guardian jetbikes - 3 shuriken cannons

1 vyper - star engines, scatter laster

His list

1 flex (can't remember the spec but not too tooled up iirc)

12 stealers

3 CC warriors

12 shooty gaunty

Won't post an in depth report as the details are a little vague from yesterday and my early morning. The result was an entertaining draw. Lots to learn about jetbike tactics but essentially I jumped forward shot and then jumped back in the assault phase. Memorable highlights include his flex with 2 wounds remaining charging my jetbikes and farseer who scored two wounds....his saving rolls...snake eyes. I had to chuckle a little bit. 

Points I like. Fast move saves are very nice! As are 6's to hit in CC. Helped my Vyper stay alive contesting one if his objectives. 

Points I don't like. Nids are scary! Lots of units to face, lots of them with fleet means you have to be very careful about where you leave yourself.

Bikers are nearly complete

Well yellow is a horrible colour to paint! My instant and undivided respect to all you Imperial Fist generals out there! Here is an example of the bikers which are now pretty much finished. I am rather happy with the way they have turned out! The yellow was a complete nightmare. I used a tip from one of Jawaballs YouTube videos for the yellow. There is about 7-8 coats of yellow on there. I don't like the grills at the front. The sepia wash shading doesn't work for me so I will need to decide what I am going to do with that. Otherwise it is just the holsters and the eyes to go and they are finished.....then onto the Vyper. Nearly halfway through the month and I have yet to start my farseer conversion. I am not confident I will get full painting points this month!

Bike Highlights

OK not updated for a couple of days so here is the latest. Not a great deal of movement overall although I have finished the first stages of edge highlighting on each of my first squad of riders. I am going to give them a second minimal extreme highlight probably over the weekend. Last night I had a crack at highlighting the jetbike bodies. Well that was a challenge. I had played around on my tested with highlighting up from the bottom but it didn't really look right. Then after taking a photo which was posted in an earlier entry it was clear that it didn't really look right as that is not where light would naturally fall on a domed surface. Therefore I decided to highlight up through the middle of the bike itself. This required several shades of highlights with a rough attempt at blending them into each other. I am not entirely happy with the results but I have not really looked at them in proper light yet so I might change my mind. Anyway...photos here to see my efforts. You can hopefully pick out the colour transition up the middle of the front engine dome.

Highlights stage 1

Started on the 1st stage of highlights in the bikers last night. Got a couple of them done. For the bike squads I am just going to do simple edge highlighting rather than any blending which I am hoping to have the time to do on the farseer when I get round to starting him! 

Here he is mounted. This photo has actually turned out to be useful research. I needed to know how light falls on the domed areas of the bike frame for highlighting and this serves as a pretty useful illustration of the areas I need to highlight. I am not looking forward to it though as it promises to be a lot of work blending up layers for each bike. I might just chicken out and go for edge highlights.

At this point I want to let you know the address of a great blog on the web for painting tips. It is run by a guy in America who goes by the alt Jawaballs. His blog can be found here http://warhammer40kbloodangels.blogspot.com/ 

It's full of great painting tips and he does "how to paint.." videos that are available for purchase for most of the major armies which he is updating all the time. Def worth checking out. Both him and Fritz who I have mentioned below I have found a great help in better understanding 40K tactics and painting.

Latest update

Well progress is being made in measurably small doses. The base coat of Citadel Foundation range Iyanden Darksun and a sepia wash has been done on the rider heads. This will need to be bought up to yellow with a series of highlights

The main bulk of base colour is now done on the bike frames and I have gone over all the jewels in white (not shown in this photo) in preparation for painting them. I still have to decide on a good complimentary colour. I drybrushed the blue mettalics with mithril silver and am happier with the way they look now.

Last nights updates. OK the bikers themselves have been undercoated then basecoated with Vallejo Game Colour Electric Blue. Once dried they have been washed with Citadeal Asurmen Blue wash. Once that has dried I have gone back over and picked out all the raised detail in Electric Blue once again in preperation for the 1st level of highlighting to go on.

The bikes have had an basecoat of Citadel Chainmail in the engine parts and controls area and then a wash in Citadel Asurmen Blue and lef tto dry. This has come out slightly blue-er than I wanted so I am going to give it a light drybrush with Citadal Mithril to tone down the bluey-ness. The saddles have just had a basecoat of Citadel SnakeBite leather. I am going to tone down the leather several steps.

And they're off......err again!

OK well I have finally made some progress and by progress I mean I have finally started! 10jetbikes assembled and a Vyper mostly almost half fully assembled.....ish.

I bought a tester jetbike to experiment with colour schemes before the challenge started and have settled on the Vallejo Game Colour Electric Blue as the main colour for my army. I'll try and list the colours I have used where I remember.

So I now have 9 bikes undercoated Army Builder spray can white and a Vyper half sort of fully sprayed white.

This morning whilst waiting for the electrician to arrive I finally managed to start getting some colour down. I have elected to keep the hulls to the jetbikes separate for the time being to allow easier painting of the bike frame and engine. 

And they're off!!

Well the challenge has well and truly started. Sunday the 1st of March I was allowed to open my shiny Eldar Windrider host and start assembling. So I can keenly report that the total number of models assembled so far is....drum roll please.......zero.

Oops, I like to think I have a reasonable excuse though. I got engaged yesterday and as such I think if I had attempted to do any modelling, a) quantity of champagne drunk would result in loss of fingers b) I would set a new world record for shortest engagement ever :)>