Another Space Wolf Conversion

 Space Wolves for me are always fun, much like chaos and Black Templars.  You can do so much with them and there is so much good visual reference material out there for them.

I used this back banner mainly because I like back banners and also because of the runic symbols.  When I think of Space Wolves I think of Norse.

I don't use cork very open, but when I do, it gives a neat effect on the base.  And it paints up well.  I normally seal the broken edges of the cork with a thin and fast superglue.

I love doing drapings and sculpting fur.  The claws are not hard to do either.

Fun project that I shipped out and no longer have cluttering up my desk.

Converting the Old Space Marine Captain

I've always kind of liked this miniature.  It has a rather cool looking pose.  Having done this miniature several times I decided to convert this one and make it look a bit different.  So I added a new hair cut, a plasma pistol, an auspex and some draping to the back pack.

 I think it turned out the way I envisioned it.

And as much is the norm for my 40k modeling, someone is going to be painting it as I sold it to someone already.

Until next time.....

Space Marine Hero Conversion

 I built this model a while back for a friend.  He supplied the pieces, and he wanted a big tabard and some other conversion work done.

So I made the tabard and repositioned the pistol arm.  The head is a berserker head trimmed down and modified.  I added the berserker head on the backpack, and thought it was appropriate.

 I left everything in pieces to make it easier for him to paint. 

Fun little conversion after doing so many Vikings.

Work In Progress: The Forgotten Vikings and Tray

Funny how you focus on a project and forget something as large as a movement tray, but I did.  So I put another togther quickly and started painting.  As I got this ready, I decided to add a few more Vikings to the table.  One is a replacement for one of the uglier berserkers.

Above is the pre-clearcoat casualty on the tray, and his helmet.  Below is a dying Saxon.

Below are the WIPs of the additions.  Don't know if I will finish most of these for Adepticon, will see.  I'm struggling with what to do on a display base, the way that I want to do it and I still have a go-kart to get ready for the track now a month away.  So I may not get the display done.

The above berserker is a converted Warlord Games barbarian.  You'll also note the Old Glory Viking killing a Saxon. 

This Saturday I hope to get some games in with the army, won't be totally done, but close enough to game with.  Will see if it works.  Then the following Saturday will be probably spent building the new kart, I feel the need for speed, just wish the snow would melt sooner.

Progress: The Movement tray casaulties Dead...er...Done

On to the clear coat table and flocking.

All of the trays on this desk are basically done.  As you can see some are for the Vikings some are for the Romans.

Apologize for the photos, these are taken by my work camera and I've touched them up and edited them a bit, I'll figure out what it likes for settings, as I look for a new camera.  I used a bunch of transfers on the barbarian shields, the Saxon and Viking shields I all hand painted. 

I think these have turned out really well, using some Perry, Warlord Games, Old Glory, and other casaulties that I created with a variety of parts and pieces and things that I casted.

They definitely help create that feel that I want for the Legions and Shieldwalls.  I look forward to doing more like this in the future as I have even more ideas on how to tell a story with rank and file.  When I get to the Fireforge stuff more of this will happen, as I have some thoughts about doing similar things within the ranks.

So up later today these and the others and all of the Vikings will get shot with clear coat and then the really tedious work of flocking will begin.  I also have some transfers to put on the shields for the last Roman unit I made and to finish up building one more Viking movement tray.  Somehow I miscounted.

Calling for Recommendations on Cameras! Anyone??

Well, I knew this time would come eventually, but I think my Nikon is dying and the On/Off switch is definitely on the fritz.  This is the camera that I have used for years, a Coolpix 4300, 4.0 Megapixel, from about the year 2000 or so.  Yea that's right, all my pics have been basically shot with an ancient digital camera with low megapixels.  What was nice about this camera was its macro function and its ability to take really close pictures of miniatures.

And my 8 megapixel Cannon PowerShot that I use mainly for work and regular stills, was a cheap buy, and completely sucks at shooting miniatures and anything small and anything red.

I know about go-karts, but I really don't know much about cameras. 

So, the question, anyone have recommendations for a new camera that is suited for shooting good close-up pics of miniatures????  What do you use???  What should I be looking for?

Work In Progress on the Desk: Movement Trays Part 2

Well some more progress. 

The Roman Trays are coming along alright.

Above, the two on the left are Viking trays.

The above Chaos Warrior trays are essentially done.

I still have to add the blood, shield details, highlight and shade all of the figures, but I'm getting there.

Work In Progress: The Movement Trays

 Well its movement tray time.  I already have a couple of the Viking trays done.  These others are covering just about all of my current armies:  Vikings, new Roman trays, Warriors of Chaos Knights trays.

So further progress being made to a playable army in the Vikings and replacing the majority of my Roman movement trays.

Work In Progress: Onto the Bannermen

 Well as you can see where there was once 76 vikings we are now down to five, the banners remain.  The others are sitting on another table waiting to be based. 

Below is a closer look at the banners and where they were early this morning.  The one with the wolf's head actually is using a GW Space Wolves transfer that I painted over.  The one behind it is a painted banner, not sure I pulled it off but the head is meant to be a badger as I was watching the Badger Hockey team play last night. 

On the white banner you can see how I layout the hand painted designs, doing a sort of light colored underpainting.  On the red banners I use a darker red to layout the design.  I do this as its easier to to cover it up later and if I happen to miss a spot of three it generally just blends in with the background.

Old Stuff Wednesday....March: Release the Hounds!!

This month has gone to the dogs.  They are not pretty...chaos has a way of warping things, but these are my warhounds from circa 2003 for my beastmen army. 

Not a whole lot in the way of conversion work, I think I added a extra head and removed some horns in places.

I remember being very happy with the way the skin tone turned out.

The occassional leaf is a birch seed leaf mixed with my painted Italian seasoning.

I like the howling ones myself.

Like I said, they are kind of ugly, but I still like them, and it probably the most work I have put in on 30 points worth of models.

Skjaldborg!!

I'm putting some finishing touches on the now 76 Vikings tonight.  Well most of them.  I still have all of the banners to paint.  But I'm mostly painting eyeballs.  You know when you start painting eyeballs you are just about done.  I'll soon be moving onto the movement trays and the display base.

As I was painting last night I watched the History Channel's Vikings.  I expected it to be quite horrible, like a lot of the other crap that they have on that channel.  To my surprise, I actually liked the first episode.  Visually its pretty stunning, great scenery backgrounds.  The opening sequence was pretty cool, the intro with the bodies sinking below the longships with the Fever Ray music is freaky.  I don't really know any of the actors, with the exception of Gustaf Skarsgard, from Arn: The Knight Templar (a visually attractive movie, even though its creator is a complete twit), but I felt most of them were pretty good.  I'll definitely tune into more episodes. 

It all kind of fits together as I'm reading Bernard Cornwell's Death of Kings, which is a pretty quick read, but the is the next book in the Saxon Tales, that I was behind on.  I'm enjoying the tale of Uhtred.  I'm finding myself drawn more and more to this whole period, something that I did not think would really happen with this Viking project, but for which much of the credit is due to Cornwell's Saxon Tales series.

So no pics right now.  You'll have to wait for a bit to see more of the Vikings.  Supposedly a lot of snow is coming tonight and tomorrow, we'll see, I think its mostly fear mongering thus far.  The Vikings will soon be cleaned off of my desk tonight, with the exception of those pesky banners, and they will wait for the next semi-warm day that will allow me to shoot some clear on them in my garage.

This past weekend I worked on my old truck with my dad.  Its getting closer to being finished.  Sorting out all of the wiring, its not good when you you have one left turn signal flashing and in the rear you have the right turn signal flashing.  That could be kind of confusing.  So, there are few things that need corrected.  But it does turn over, now I just need a fuel pump and fuel line connection and the old nuclear banana will be running.  And we are waiting for the new LTO kart frames to get powder coated, so soon it will be assembly time on the karts.  The next dilemma is that Adepticon and the first night of practice for this race season coincide.  That's going to put me behind some on the race track.  My dad will shakedown my new kart and get the set-up close, it will be in good hands.  That's over a month away.

Wednesday is the first Wednesday of the month of March so that means it will be Old Stuff Wednesday.......so tune in for that.

Thursday night, I will be going to the official local oval track meeting.  It ought to be interesting to see what kind of reception I get as the reigning champ.  I'm mostly going to observe, but as you all know, I'm never short on opinions whether you like it or not.

Back on Wednesday with the Old Stuff.