New Stuff Day (?)

Apparently it's 'old stuff day' today for bloggers.  I.e. blog necromancy/nostalgia trip.  Bringing some posts that didn't receive as much attention as the should have (with lower follower numbers in the past and all).

Unfortunately, my blog is not exactly 'old', not being even a year old yet, and the number of posts I have put out is also rather small.  So... I'm just gonna show you what I've been working on lately.

First off, my current project - Shinobu Kitsune WIP.

A special character ninja.  Now, my struggle to find a suitable palette choice for the colours of this model led to the first time I actually went on the forums, begging bowl in hand, to ask for advice.  I was told by someone regarding one of my other ninja that black highlighted with grey was too dull and I should use a subtle highlight of the complementing colour. 

Long story short, I tried to make blue with black subtly highlighted red and came out with blue and black unsubtly highlighted orange.  I'm generally quite happy with this, as it does accentuate the cyberpunk anime feel of Infinity, though it does mean that she won't quite fit in with the rest of the ninja, as they are simply *bright colour* and grey-shaded black.

Oh well, she's a named character, she gets perks.

And then some Dark Elf updates:

First, me trying to remember how to paint Black Guard.  The one on the left is a heavily damaged and chipped model I painted about two years ago - the one on the right is one I began painting about a week ago.  I'm keeping the old one close for reference as I try to remember the combination of washes and highlights I used to paint them.

Then some Witch Elves:

Mostly stretching my legs as regards to the skin tone and the hair, which are the two new factors that these models posses in comparison to my existing army.  That and working out where each colour will go and so forth.  These three will accompany the Cauldron, so it's a good place to work out the colour scheme in preparation for when/if I get some proper Witch Elves.

That's pretty much it for today then, au revoir.

Dark Elf Spearmen

It may come as a surprise, but yes, I still do collect my Dark Elves.  They are still the only actual army I own, now excepting the Infinity Yu-Jing bunch, but I count them as more of a strike team than an army...

This is a unit that I actually built almost a year ago now, but only to 66% completion.  I finished the highlights for the blue armour and the skin, the highlights and insignia on the shields as well as the gold-ish pieces of bling and the bases in the last couple of days.  My next port of call with the Druchii would be to either finish off some characters that need finishing, or to begin the labourious task of repairing my badly chipped Black Guard regiment.  I'm either going to need a battlefoam-esque contraption to carry them or I need to varnish them thoroughly, the first's expensive and the second's undesirable.  Unless I bother tracking down the good matt varnish I saw promoted on some forums...

There's an Infinity hacker ninja in the works too, but there are still a lot of hard-to-reach pockets of metal visible on the model, so it's gonna need a bit of touching up before it gets uploaded.

That's it for naow.  Happy dice-rolling!

Upcoming Hiatus and Greg.

This will be the last post from me for a few weeks you'll be glad/sorry (delete as appropriate) to hear, as I shall be going to France on holidays.  This is mostly for my parents, who have been stressed out with work and Grandma having psychiatric-related problems, and me and my brother are going with them because they're paying.  So, I won't be back until the second week of August, when I will begin searching for employment in earnest.


For now though, I'll give you a few pictures of how my Black Dragon, Greg (yes, I'm sticking with that name) is getting along.

 
 Slow going, I admit, but only because I haven't painted flesh in yonks.  I'm too used to painting sharp, angular models, like armour-clad elves and marines, give me something with organic limbs and I get lost.

  I also had a change of heart with the colour scheme.  The scheme for my Druchii is to have dark blue as the main colour, with red and gold to balance it.  Essentially, the Night Lords colour scheme.  First, I thought of making it a darker-hued version of my Hydra:

 But me being weak to the lures of adhering to army backgrounds, couldn't quite face the idea of painting a Black Dragon any colour other than black (I know, I'm pathetic) so in the end, I've decided to paint it properly black, with the spines and the wing membranes red, and then the blue will be provided by the Dreadlord and some warpaint/tattoos/markings on the dragon itself.  The gold bits are essentially the same on both Hydra and Dragon of course.

  I was also going to mount him on a grey sand/snow base like the rest of my merry killers, but my brother mentioned that it would be cool if it was 'a rock in the sea' kind of thing, and I was so mindblown by the image that popped into my head that I immediately sculpted the sand I had already laid down with a lot of PVA glue into something resembling cresting waves.

Ta-dah...

I then laid down several coats of PVA to smooth it out, bombarded the base (strategically) with paints and washes, beginning with Dark Angels Green, moving to blues and Space Wolf Grey, and occasionally drenching it in Thraka Green and Asurmen Blue washes, and then I put the white on.  Then, 'Ardcoat Gloss Varnish.  I put it on the rock as well, to show that the rock would also be drenched in water.  Logically, part of the tail and the dead tree should be drenched as well, but I'm not sure how far up I should go.
      I'm also a little concerned about the base out-doing the model with its shininess.  Almost considering glossing the dragon completely, to achieve a shiny black scale look, but I'd logically have to gloss the Dreadlord as well then, and I think that might be a little bit too much. 

      But those problems are problems for tomorrow.  Hope you all have a fantastic summer wherever you are, happy gaming, painting and modelling.