OOO a painting update!!

OK Well I have been quite busy painting this week. Finally made a decent start on my Howling Banshees. They are progressing on quite nicely. Using foundation paint undercoats with a wash on top and then filling with Vallejo game range.

I have also stripped down all of my Dark Angel tac squads and transports to convert them to a blood angels list. I found I was only using my Dark Angel Deathwing and Ravenwing so wanted something to make use of the rest of them. The Rhino has been undercoated white then several thinned coats of Vallejo Bloody Red. The edges where then sort of blend highlighted with Vallejo Hot Orange followed by a liberal wash of Baal Red. Then a fine edge highlight of Vallejo Orange Fire. I will use the same technique (big thanks to Jawaballs YouTube vids where I got this technique) for painting the tac squads up

Month 4 update

OK well after last months stumble at the finishing line there are 500 points to paint this month to bring us up to 1500 points. At the moment my 1,000 list is roughly

Farseer + toys

5 Man seer council

2 x 6 Jetbike Squads

6 Fire Dragons mounted in Wave Serpent.

For 1,500 points I want something that should be competitive in tournaments so some careful thinking has been had and I have made a decision to drop the harlequins I was originally thinking about. In a mech list I just cannot find a way of making them work. The test games I have played with them they have been mown down before really having a chance to do anything even with a shadowseer. So after a rethink and some list bashing for my last 500 points I have come up with

10x Dire Avengers mounted in Wave serpent

8x Banshees mounted in wave serpent.

The Dire avengers give me that much needed 3rd troop choice and the banshees give me some nice close assault options. I ummed and ahhed between banshees and scorpions and settled on the banshees on the basis that I am playing necrons so combined with Doom hopefully they will go through those undead metal fiends like the proverbial hot knife through butter but we shall see.

In the mean time outside of my 1,500 point list I have started to paint my Eldrad model to fit the theme of my (as yet unnamed) craftworld.

Month 3 Update - No 4

OK well the wave serpent saw a bit of action last night. The main hull is assembled and base coated with the gems picked out in Mechrite Red for the moment. The first two pictures are of my fire prism that I have been working sporadically on for the last couple of months. The second two are the wave serpent as she currently stands. Tonight hopefully I will get the panel seam highlighting done on her and hopefully the gems. 

At this point I think I have to concede that I will be unlikely to make this months point deadline as tonight is my last available night of painting before I am away until Monday which will be the 1st. Never say never but I think it will take a painting miracle to get what I need to get done on the wave serpent tonight.

Month 3 update - some painting has been done!

OK I have pretty much decided on the Fire Dragons in a Wave Serpent as my points for the month. Here is the WiP shoot of the Fire Dragons.

Month 2 update

OK after not a lot of activity recently here are some updates on this months work. Thankfully I only have 7 models to paint this month. 3 more jetbikes are done except for the gems. The yellow and blue jetbikes at the back of shot are going to be for my warlocks. Again the bikes are pretty much done except the gems, hopefully I will start the warlocks tonight.

Month 2 update

Errr as some of you who follow this (all 4 of you!)  might have noticed I have been somewhat slack on the updates this month. I would love to tell you that I am almost finished on this months quota of models and have merely forgot to take any progress photos but it would be a massive shamefaced lie!! 

My girlfriend (should really get the hang of using the word fiancee) has had her Easter break (she is a teacher) so I have had some holiday and a chance to spend some time with her. Still back on the job now. I have the models for this month assembled except warlock conversions. I have started another 3 jetbikes to take me up to two six man squads and then I will get the seer council done. I have 4 jetbikes I have started conversions on with 10 days to finish them. This one is going to go right down to the wire.......again!

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 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 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!

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.