Tag: 40K

A dream of wolves in the snow…

OK, 1,000 extra internet cool points if you can guess the reference in the post title 🙂

I actually finished my Wolf Guard in TDA last night, and boy was I glad. I’m keen to get rolling on some other projects I have lined up. I’m guessing there is about 12 hours of work in this mini, give or take. I’m pleased with the results, although I have to say that the whole waterslide transfer thing on marine shoulder pads is very frustrating. 3 attempts at securing one on this shoulder guard (even with applying Microsol) proved fruitless and saw me wanting to take a hammer to the figure, as the Microsol actually started taking the paint off the mini.

After cooling my jets and repainting the shoulder guard, I though f*ck it, I’ll stick with what I know is a tried and tested method – hand painting the bastard on. So I did. I think it actually turned out pretty well.

I’m still going to have a shot at painting a Space Wolf in darker grey armor, to satisfy my curiosity, but it will have to wait for now.

In other news, my loyal Black Templars have been sorely neglected, but no longer! I bought a couple of torsos from Ebay from the ‘Masters of the Chapter’ set, with the intent of converting them into Castellans or Marshalls or something, to lead my zealous Templars into the fray.

My first selection was the Master of the Arsenal (not the football team!). I chose this basically because of the feet (nothing kinky). The feet look like they are from an old suit of armor, so that sold me straight away.  Over my lunch break yesterday I got to sketching a rough idea of what this chap will look like with some simple additions and converting. I’m still unsure on the power weapon, so that is subject to change. Here is what I have:

You can see my notes there too, as I would’ve probably forgotten which bits I needed.  My son saw this drawing when I took it home last night and wanted it, so I told him I would get a copy and he can color it for Daddy. I told him I’d post it on here before I stick it on the fridge too 🙂 Bless him!

OK, thats it for now. More to come shortly!

WIP update – Wolf Guard in TDA

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!

I decided to jump in and have a go at the December painting challenge over at Bolter & Chainsword to see if I could get this guy done. The deadline is 11.59 tonight, and I think I can do it. No prizes or anything, but I like doing these once in a while to get the firecracker up my arse that I need sometimes. I just need to finish up the gold/bronze areas and put the logo on his shoulder pad, oh and add some snow to the base. I may also add weathering but i’m not too sure i’m confident enough to do this yet.

I’m trying to up my skills, as I would like to submit an entry to Golden Demon when it returns to Chicago next year. I have a Wolf Lord that may well be the candidate for that…

In other news i’m hoping to finish up a couple of other projects so I can post up my epic Nurgle article that i’ve been planning. The end is definitley in sight! It’s actually such a big article, I may have to give it a page, instead of  just a post. We’ll see!

C+C welcome on wolfy up there, thanks for swinging by!

Paul

Some WIP updates – multi-tasking aint so bad.

Throwing caution to the wind, I have actually been working on several projects at once. I’ve actually found it somewhat liberating, as I can see progression on a number of different things at once, instead of painting one mini/unit and then thinking ‘wow, I still have a shit load of stuff to do’.

Did some more work on Evan’s Nurgle Rhino. I figured I should as I was running out of excuses lol! Weathered it a little, using the same technique I had used on my Chimera a little while back:

Next i’ll be adding the rusted metal colors on there, and figuring out what color to do all the gross bits. Painting this up prompted me to start another side project, which happened frighteningly quick, but I won’t go into detail here, as i’m writing a separate article about it. I’ll show you a teaser though:

I also started on a Wolf Guard Terminator as well. He’s painted using the recipe I used on the other shap I showed  y’all recently.  I’ll be redoing the flesh though, as I wasn’t happy with the way it turned out with this formula:

Arse shot!

There are some spots that need tidying up, but I want to add some weathering too, so I’ll wait till i’ve done that. I also have a Black Templar Rhino sitting on my worktop that keeps honking it’s horn impatiently at me. I suspect that little bugger will get worked on over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Thats it for today! i’ll be back shortly, enjoy!

Paul

From the mighty halls of Asaheim

‘Come my brothers, come walk with me
to the new worlds across the Great Sea
In Asaheim our destinies lie
as warriors at The Emperors side…’

I decided to take a step out of my current projects and do something completely different. I have some odds and sods that I picked up off Ebay, like Deamonettes, Chaos Warriors and whatnot, just odd minis, not whole units, so I could change things up once in a while. I Also thought it would be a good way to push myself in terms of techniques and strive to get me up to a higher standard. So, reaching into my drawers (hehe) I pulled out this chap and set to work.

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Space Wolves, being a frustrated viking myself, so I was pretty intrigued as to how he was going to turn out. I debated at first whether or not to go with dark grey armor, or the lighter ice blue/grey armor. I settled on the latter, as so much of my other stuff is supergrimdark so the change of pace was quite satisfying.

I spent 10 hours (roughly) on this chap, but I’m very pleased with the results. I have to pick up some of this adhesive stuff to apply the decal to the shoulder pad. I’d forgotten how much I hated water slide decals, especially for shoulder pads. Trying to apply a flat surface to a rounded one will ineveitably lead to frustrating creases. I remember Dethtron telling me about this stuff you paint over the decal which basically fuses the membrane to the surface of the mini.

This was the recipe I used for my Space Wolf:

Armor:

Basecoat with a 1:2:1 mix of Space Wolf Grey, Shadow Grey and Codex Grey. Wash with Devlan Mud in the armor recesses. Don’t worry about being tidy! The add progressivley more Space Wolf Grey to the base mix and paint the armor plates, concentrating more on the outer edges to get that defined edging.

Bones: 

Base coat of snakebite leather. Devlan mud wash over the basecoat. Re-apply snakebite leather on the higher parts to begin your highlights. Add bleached bone to this for your highlights. Take this all the way up to bleached bone, or even skull white, depending on how ‘bright’ you want it. 

Yellow areas: 

Base coat of Tausept Ochre, add some skull white to this and paint a layer on. Wash with devlan mud and gryphonne sepia (concentrate more on the edges). Add skull white for highlights. 

Eagle/helm trim: 

Base coat is a 1:1 mix of shining gold and scorched brown. Wash with devlan mud. Add layer of shining gold on the high points. Add mithril silver to this for highlights. 

Jewels: 

Scab red base coat, followed by blood red, add vomit brown to the blood red for highlights finished with a dot of skull white. 

Shoulder pad rims: 

Base coat of Bolt Gun Metal, washed with devlan mud. Mithril silver to give worn look to the very edges.

As always, comments and criticisms are always welcomed!

When Cannons Fade is rapidly approaching its 2nd birthday (seriously, where has the time gone?) and there may be a few changes going on around here. I’ll reveal more on or around November 7th, along with some self indulgent ‘looking back’ at WCF since it’s inception.

Cheers!

Paul

Games Workshop and customer service…

I like the idea behind St. Celestine. I bought the model, many moons ago. I couldn’t ever make up my mind if I like the idea of what looked like a curtain being held up by two Cherubim behind her. I like the Cherubim, but decided the cloak/drape/rug/curtain/shower curtain just looked limp, so I decided not to use it. I was strenghthened in my decision by the illustration in the Codex, which shows her as an angelic being with majestic wings. Why, then, not do that with the mini?

Anyway, confusion aside, I’d thought about converting her and giving her some feathery wings in homage to the illustrated version. Finding a set that actually seemed in scale was a bit of a task, and over time she got forgotten about. That is until I found some sweet ‘steampunk’ wings at my FLGS. They are reminiscent of the Imperial Aquila, so I thought these would be even better. I stuck them on with some poster-tac to give you an idea of the vision:

Pretty neat, huh?

I also managed to lose the hand holding her sword (but not after I had already stabbed myself in the thumb while trying to drill and pin the impossibly small join), which brings me nicely to the point of my post. I ramble, I know, but it’s my blog, geddit?

As many of you know, back in ‘the day’, Games Workshop used to sell individual bits. So, every seperate bit of any multi-part mini had a serial number, and could be ordered seperately, for converting, or even missing pieces. Wonderful! Brilliant! Genius even!

Well, they stopped doing that.

I found that out this morning when I called their customer service to inquire about buying a replacement arm for Celestine. The chap I spoke to said they no longer offered that service. Bummer. I figured at that point i’d have to jury-rig something to replace said part. I had an inkling they didn’t do that anymore, but it doesn’t hurt to ask, and it didn’t hurt to ask today, as a few minutes of just shooting the shit with Madison (the CS rep) he asked if I had an account with GW. I said yes, and confirmed my email address, and my mailing address before telling me that he would ship me a whole Celestine mini to me, at no charge! There was much rejoicing. I thanked him a number of times, and tried to get a scoop on SoB stuff (no luck, lol!) and came away from the experience very happy.

So, GW may seem like some tyrannical oppressive multinational corporation, apparently vehemently hated by the gaming community (although they keep buying their products…) and are an easy target for the whiners and nay-sayers out there, but you know what, they’re a business. (gasp!). While they may have some odd marketing ideas, and may be on the higher end of the pricing spectrum, they still know how to take care of their customers.

Today is a WIN + FTW for GW.

Painting Black Templar marines

I just finished up a couple of articles (over there, in the ‘pages’ section ==>) on painting Black Templars. There is also a separate page for painting the robes, as I have had numerous requests as to how to do it. Hopefully  it will give you all a helping hand to get your loyalist zealots on the field quicker! I may add a couple more pictures up in the article, but my camera seems to be acting up, so I want to get that sorted out. Grrr!

You can clicky on this linky right here to get to the article.

Let me know what you think!

Cheers

Paul

Witchhunters/Demonhunters codexes officially gone from the shelves?

It would appear so, along with the disappearance of the box sets from the shelves of both GW outlets and independent stockists. I’m still busting to know what this means, and if it means an overhaul from these forces, when its going to happen.

I noticed in the latest edition of White Dwarf that the WH and DH ‘dexes will be available free of charge in a downloadable PDF format through the GW website in either May or June, although you do have to sign up on there. (it’s still free though!)

So whats the dealio, Games Workshop? there are legions of us out here slavering at the bit for some Inquisition news!

Lastly, what was this piece of art commissioned for???

Did anyone else notice the figure on top of the Titan? St Celestine???

New 40K short story finished

It actually started out (in my mind) as a couple of paragraph snapshot that I wanted to scribble up to be able to give an impression of what it would be like to witness the Legion of the Damned turning up to lend a hand. Well, six and a half pages later and it was finished. I guess I got a little carried away, but it was a lot of fun putting myself into the story and trying to picture the scene. I could have gone into waaaay more detail than I did, but I didn’t want to get too bogged down with specifics. I’m not a writer really, and just wanted it to be a bit of fun. I hope you all enjoy it. Here is the link: https://whencannonsfade.wordpress.com/dark-brotherhood-a-40k-short-story/

C+C are welcome!

Cheers

Paul

Sisters ‘Angels of Deliverance’ Seraphim.

Well, I finally finished my Seraphim squad for my Sisters army.  I had one casualty while I was painting these, one of them fell over and the backpack pinged off. After an outburst of cursing it was taken care of, but this goes to show how unbalanced these minis are. Very top heavy. Take into account this was also on a flat surface. As anyone who has played against my sisters at Colins place will attest, they fall about all over the place as though the were drunk off their asses.  I have noticed, since taking these pictures last night and uploading them this morning, that there are a couple of touch ups I need to do, but anyway, here they are:

And there we have it. As I had mentioned in previous posts, I hope that we SoB players won’t have to wait too much longer for some updates, and new minis. With the recent Blood Angels release, with the fast attack squad having some pretty sweet ‘feathered’ wings, could this be a pointer for what else is in store…? Plastics are definitely the way forward, its just unfortunate that some of us are being held back.

C+C welcome!

Paul

Updating ‘Aut Pax Aut Bellum’

Yes, it is true… I actually have started listing some of my Sisters force under their banner which I created aaaages ago.  It’s WIP for the most part, but I wanted a central reference point for my ongoing work on the girls. I’m sorta beginning to regret my choice of colors, simply for the amount of work that has to go into it, and free time is something I don’t get a lot of. I’m currently working on my squad of Seraphim. I am working on five of them, although I have another four, but to be honest, these figures are ass-paralyzingly boring to work on. With the exception of one in particular, the poses for the most part are boring and unimaginative, and lack any ‘movement’ it actually looks like they are in a cheerleading squad, doing some jumps. Maybe I should switch out the bolt pistols for pom poms…

I’ve been lurking on numerous forums, trying to glean any further information about any imminent Sisters updates or releases, as the GW stores have been yoinking their stock from the shelves, and they have been gradually disappearing from the online store as well. GW employees are usually full of information (when you ask) and obviously most of it is hearsay (heresy? lol!) or blatant wishlisting.  I just hope that whatever the ‘great plan’ that GW has for us legions of loyal Sisters, or =][= players that they do us proud and release a fine selection of minis to accompany a new Codex. If the recent releases are anything to go by, then I may just have to permanently carry around a box of tissues.  The recent pictures of the advance order Blood Angel stuff are incredible, and make me hope (read: wish) that we =][= players have something in the pipeline soon. Can you imagine, an army of Battle Sisters that aren’t all in the same pose? Glory to The Emperor! Beloved by all!

Thinking about what we currently have in our ‘dex, I don’t really think we’ll actually lose anything. Maybe some tweaks here and there, and obviously adjust some points costs (50 pts for Rhinos? HELLO?????). I am rather hoping that we get some new heavy stuff, or maybe some =][= specific transports. One big thing I am hoping we DO NOT lose, are the inducted or allied options.

Time will tell I guess. In the meantime I will paint my one pose army and dream of glories yet to come…

oh, and the updated page can be found here lol!

https://whencannonsfade.wordpress.com/aut-pax-aut-bellumeither-peace-or-war/

Paul