BoLS Article RE: Victor Hardy

I saw the following interview posted on Bell of Lost Souls where they had interviewed Victor Hardy.  Victor built and painted some simply beautifully evil pieces a number of years back.  His dark style has definitely been one of the influences on my style of painting miniatures over the years.  I highly recommend you read the interview.


http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2014/01/miniature-painting-masters-victor-hardy.html

FOR SALE: 40k Chaos Spacemarine BITS

Having built my latest Chaos Spacemarines which I recently sold on Ebay, I've essentially ran out of legs and such.  As a result of this, I've decided to thin out a bits box that I could use for something else.


So that said I have put up the following on Ebay, a sort of winter cleaning:


http://www.ebay.com/itm/331111141531?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

Approximately a 4 ounce bag worth.  Great for someone that does a bit of converting.  Some of the Items Included, this is not all of the items, there is more than what is listed in the following:

• 3-OOP Terminator Combo Weapon Arms - Metal
• 1-OOP Missile Launcher
• 1-OOP Terminator Power Fist - Metal, Black Primer
• 1-OOP Metal Plasma Pistol
• 2-Heavy Bolters
• 13-Khorne Berserker Chest Plates
• 39+ Heads
• 24+ Shoulder Pads
• 12-Back Plates
• 2-Backpacks
• 5-Bolt Pistol Arms
• 4-Chest Plates
• 2-Chainsword Arms
• 10+ Plasma Pistols (Don't roll a one)
• 8-Backpack Trophy Poles
• 15+ Battleroad Games Chaos Heads (great for conversions)
• Miscellaneous Icons
• And Much MORE   

And don't worry I have more Chaos Spacemarines.

For Sale: Warhammer Bretonian Knights, GB Berserkers, Warhammer Monthly Issues, Logan Grimnar

I've listed a number of items on Ebay for sale:


Some converted up Bretonnian Knights:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331108136680?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649


3-unpainted Gripping Beast Berserker models
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331108136626?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649


Warhammer Monthly Comic Issues #1-7, 9, 11-14.  They are used, not pristine.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331108940167?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649


40k Space Wolf Logan Grimnar model, unpainted in pieces:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/331108136691?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649

WIP On the Desk: How I Paint Red for my armies.....

Over the years, I have painted a lot of miniatures in a red paint scheme for my armies.  I have often been asked what colors I use and when I tell people they think: 

A.  Games Workshop is the only one that makes paints.  or

B.  They think its too many colors and too hard to do.

Above are the paints that I often use.  Now when I painted my 2008 GT Khorne Demon army, I used a lot of 50/50 in between blends.  When you paint just one off show piece models, you can get away with using just a couple of colors and wet palette.  Super time consuming for me if you are painting an army.  I prefer a formula that can be written down or remembered from sitting to sitting and works with an assembly line style of painting.

So the following is what I did today on a couple of Romans and couple of Normans in the next batch of minis that I am working on.  For my initial stage I block in the reds with a large No. 4 round brush, using Vallejo Model Color - Hull Red.  If you do not have that you can substitute Reaper Master Series Red Brick.  If you have just GW colors, I can't help you.

So next up I did a 50/50 blend of Hull Red with Reaper Master Series Deep Red.  If you don't have that you can substitute GW Scab Red or Vallejo Game Color Scarlet Red, pretty close to the same colors.

For these colors I want to put them on pretty fast, as we are army painting after all, so I'm using a worn out Round No. 1 that gives me a bit more control than the No. 4.

Below you can see the worn out brush, all splaying and beginning to curl, a Simply Simmons brush.

 Next up I paint on Vallejo Model Color Red.  A bit more controlled, painting like I'm building a contour map of highlights from dark to light.

 Following that step, I use a 50/50 VMC Red and VMC Carmine Red blend.  Now I know these are historical minis and often times the reds in real life fade to a sort of pinkish color, but I'm just not into pink.  I prefer a bold bright red.

For the final step I pull out a Red Sable for better, finer, brush control and pick out the sharper edges and high spots for highlights.  So there you have it, how I paint army reds.  I probably later go on and apply some dark red washes in the recessed areas to make the shadows and a bit more depth, but I will wait to do that when I address the armor and skin tones.

2013 Year Ending - My Hobby Review

And so 2013 is soon coming to an end. This will be my last post of this year. The year like last seems to have flown by. Maybe its just that I'm getting old or something.

Much like I did last year, I have decided to do a sort of summary and a comparison of sorts. So I pulled up that post and took a look at it. Numbers are fascinating sometimes, must be the engineer in me, I continued the Hobby Activity Log you can see on the right. The final tally:

                                        2013     2012     2011

Models Built/Converted: 258       258         225

Models Painted:               161        46           74

Models Purchased:           225      181         191

Tournaments Played:          3          5              4

Go-Kart Races Entered:     59       72             11

I don't know how I did that Models Built/Converted. I stepped up the painting a bit, with the help of a lot of Vikings, that I have yet to get a good camera to take pictures of and post on the blog. I somehow purchased more models, and the majority this year were not Games Workshop models, but were Gripping Beast once again. I played less, due mostly in part to the closing of our local game place and openning of one that I really cannot afford to be seen in. I somehow raced fewer races but attended more racing events. I most have lost count somewhere, but I did injure my back and busted up a hand pretty bad over the summer.

Now as I have said before, this was not intended to stroke my ego, but was more intended as a motivator and budget type of thing for myself. I have learned a lot by intentionally doing this. I started the blog back in April of 2009 and prior to that spent tons of time posting on forums. I believe it has capped some of my spending. My gameplay has dropped considerably, because of not going anywhere to play and then I'm racing during the best time of the year to be outside. I converted less minis, but built a ton of models mainly because of my work on Historical armies and the large size of them. My painting is lagging behind again.

Last year I raced the full season locally on the oval in the modern left turn only (LTO) racing go-kart, and won the track championship. This year I missed a 6 races on the oval and finished 5th in the points, with a few 2nd place finishes in the Feature races, but no win on the oval. That did not surprise me as I was more focused on the sprint tracks and vintage karting, and it took probably a month on the oval just get our new chassis figured out. I jumped into the vintage kart for some sprint track (similar to roading racing but a smaller scale) and won the at Springfield, which was extremely cool. My dad and I were pretty successful in the Vintage karts win 4 out of the 5 events this season and finishing 1-2 at our home state track. I also raced in my first grand prix street race, something that I will never forget.

Two tournaments played at Adepticon last spring in Warhammer Ancient Battles. I played the singles with my Vikings played pretty well. Then I teamed Mike Butcher, my Vikings with his Saxons, and we played well. That was good fun.

As for the blog, today we are at 278 followers compared to 254 followers last year at this time, and the blog had 181 followers in 2011, that has increased gradually, as I suspected it would. My blog list is growing, and my forum activity has decreased drastically and probably will continue to decrease even more.

I continued to develop my Youtube Channel which the videos are all about my racing. I added a helmet camera which turned out to be a great thing for my family and friends and I. Much of my family and friends cannot attend the races, especially the out of state ones and this has given them a cool experience. Its also helped me as a driver. So I purchased another camera that should have a bit better video, but I have yet to use it on track. I also started up a Facebook page for my race team, that will help with separating the miniature hobby from the racing hobby. Which I'm sure many of you are in favor of. But please take the time to "Like" our Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Welte-Racing/505442252871148?ref=tn_tnmn
It helps with us attracting sponsors and such.

　

TOP TEN POST LIST:

2012 had the top ten viewed posts as:
#1 - FireForge Games - Teutonic Knights Review: 5,224

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2012/03/fireforge-games-teutonic-knights-kit.html

#2 - Nurgle infested Chaos Space Marine: 4,063

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/nurgle-infested-chaos-space-marine.html

#3 - Chaos Warriors to Chaos Space Marine: 3,518

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/07/chaos-warrior-to-chaos-space-marine.html

#4 - Gripping Beast Plastic Viking Hirdmem Review: 3,332

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/12/gripping-beast-plastic-viking-hirdmen.html

#5 - Something Different....Skaven War Litter: 3,058

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/something-differentskaven-war-litter.html

#6 - My Chaos Warrior Unit Beginning to take shape: 2,548

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-chaos-warrior-unit-beginning-to-take.html

#7 - Boba Fett Space Marine Conversion: 2,495

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/boba-fett-space-marine-conversion.html

#8 - Old Stuff Wednesday - July - Pre-Heresy Iron Warrior: 2,210

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/07/old-stuff-wednesday-julypre-heresy-iron.html

#9 - Space Wolf Scout Conversions: 2,105

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/09/space-wolf-scout-conversionsusing-chaos.html

#10 - Khorne Chaos Space Marine Conversion: 1,590

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/07/khorne-chaos-space-marine.html



So 2013 has the Top Ten posts as follows:

#1 - FireForge Games - Teutonic Knights Review: 8,261

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2012/03/fireforge-games-teutonic-knights-kit.html

#2 - Gripping Beast Plastic Viking Hirdmem Review: 5,640

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/12/gripping-beast-plastic-viking-hirdmen.html

#3 - Nurgle infested Chaos Space Marine: 4,726

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/nurgle-infested-chaos-space-marine.html

#4 - Chaos Warriors to Chaos Space Marine: 4,318

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/07/chaos-warrior-to-chaos-space-marine.html

#5 - Something Different....Skaven War Litter: 3,559

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/something-differentskaven-war-litter.html

#6 - My Chaos Warrior Unit Beginning to take shape: 3,500

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/06/my-chaos-warrior-unit-beginning-to-take.html

#7 - Old Stuff Wednesday - July - Pre-Heresy Iron Warrior: 3,238

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/07/old-stuff-wednesday-julypre-heresy-iron.html

#8 - Boba Fett Space Marine Conversion: 3,040

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/06/boba-fett-space-marine-conversion.html

#9 - Green Stuff Cloth Tutorial: 2,995

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/12/green-stuff-cloth-tutorial-space.html

#10 - Space Wolf Scout Conversions: 2,944

http://psychosispc-themadhouseworkshop.blogspot.com/2011/09/space-wolf-scout-conversionsusing-chaos.html

It appears people really liked looking at my review takes. I’ve been quite surprised by that. The other thing that is always shown is the popularity of Warhammer 40k, it is really quite unquestionably the most popular of the gaming systems and I really have not done anything in 40k for years. My Old Stuff Wednesdays are certainly popular as ever also, as they are routinely high in hits on a monthly basis, even though only one is in the Top 10, there are a number that are just outside of the top ten. And one of my tutorials climbed in to the top ten for the first time.

So there you have it once again, my blog. Good bye to 2013.

I am very much open to suggestions that you the readers may have, I don’t always ignore them.

WIP On the Desk: Chaos Spawn

Been awhile since I have painted any chaos and love of spawns returned me to the Chaos.  I often name the spawns something stupid, not sure what I will name this one, so if you have a suggestion, post it. 

 On this one I went a bit wild with the tentacles.  I had thought about painting them in a fleshy color and then thought they should have a bit of red in them.  So I used the Reaper Master Series Rosy Skin palate with Vallejo Model Color Red on the tentacles.  I went back over that with a GW wash.

I still have a bit to do on the model, still have the hooves, the axe, the pupils, gloss the eyeballs, blood effect on the head, along with the head's beard.  It's a fun model.

And while painting up the horns I put some finishing touches on this Centurion.  The Foundry models are so easy to paint, so smooth, with self-explanatory details.

 I think this Centurion is turning out very nice.  One I'm done with him and his Roman brethren, I'm going to be auctioning them off on Ebay.  The armor was 3-4 metallics and then washed with Secret Weapon's Soft Body Black.  Still have a few little details left on this model.

This batch is nearing completion, then I will move onto the next batch of 25 models or so, probably a bunch of Holy Crusaders, more Vikings and a big batch of Foundry Legionnaires.

Hope you all had a good Christmas.

WIP on the Paint Desk: Vikings, Romans, Chaos Spawn, Crusader, etc

Well really did not do anything tonight except paint a few rosy highlights, did nothing on these the last two nights, so its essentially what I managed to get done Sunday night.  A sort of grab bag of miniatures.

At this point most all of the colors are done, except for the Spawn and one of the Romans.  I've yet to do any washes to deaden the metals and get into the shadows and recessed areas.

The above mini is one of my new berserkers, a conversion of Warlord Games Barbarian.  I'm glad that I have begun to add a bit more rosy-ness to my fleshtones. I think its adding a lot more depth.

And below next to the berserker is another of the Warlord Barbarians done up as a Viking.  This one will go on the base with one of the Old Glory minis.  No shields yet, will do all of those later.

Below is one of the big batch of Foundry Romans.  They are pretty easy to paint, decent looking sculpts.  I'll be selling all of the Romans when I am done with them.

That's it for now, next up will be the washes, eyeballs, bases, blood, death and details.  Getting closer to having this batch done.