Blood Bowl - Nurgle Team - TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Nurgle #BloodBowl players and they are all TO DONE! This was an exercise in two things - experimenting with various skintones and grunging up the armour and uniform.

Well he second part has been a success. I am well pleased with the way I've done the armour and clothes and been brave enough not to overwork the 'cream' colours on the pants after I've grunged them up.

The skintones have been a mixed bag. Some have been better than expected, some have been less. The 1 dimensional cartoon ones aren't bad, but they're a style of painting I'm familiar with and confident in. I hoped to push some boundaries but sadly didn't quite do that in some cases. 

It might have been that I tried too many. Certainly there are three green ones and with more chance to explore I got variety and success alongside the ore mundane.

The purple ones too are unique in each way and some are more successful than others. It was also challenging because I saw a number of amazing Nurgle teams over the last year or so and they followed the more uniform approach. That coherency and ability to make all their skintones, raw areas and diseased elements match presented a strong display.

Whereas my disparate gang seems less cohesive but bold in its own right and certainly helps define each layer as an individual.

And I think that grungy effect also helps to tie them together, despite their difference. Certainly if I make a display board it should make them even more impressive looking. 

I particularly like the Bloaters. The green one may be my favourite player, then the white one. My only other annoyance was that yet again I didn't really think about converting them. I have a metal tentacle arm somewhere, it would have been nice to tweak them a bit for more variety.

I actually had a game with my son who used them and I can see there are a couple of additional players I could add. I mean they're a surprisingly good team and we only played basic rules, no special skills.

There was another original plan for these - that I would paint them with my son. I may have ditched that idea early n but it was rewarding to finally get a game with him, for him to enjoy it and he also won, which might encourage him to want to play again.

Overall I think the team look great. Despite the parts I didn't quite achieve and my concerns about the mish mash of colours I think it all works together, especially on these black backgrounds.

Another item completed and if it gets me playing games with my son it will be worth the year it's taken to be finished.

This gets me my Great Big Granite Stamp of Approval - TO DONE! 

Blood Bowl - Nurgle Team Last 4 - TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my last 4 Nurgle #BloodBowl players. Just the tar bases, gloss and blood FX.

These final little things have a habit of killing momentum stone dead. As it has also deviated from the Genestealer Aberrants it feels like I have no current motivation for them either.

Realistically though I've usually had a post-Christmas malaise long before this. The Tyranid VSG put paid to that though and all this progress had kept me motivated.

Despite completing the Adeptus Titanicus Cerastus Lancer I felt like I needed another win, but I think in pushing these I may have failed to get the best out of the skintones.

This purple fella, is OK, I did want a much brighter purple than my other attempts, but in so doing I've lost some depth and it is much more cartoony and less realistic.

 

The pus filled buboes are pretty good and although it's not a complete disappointment it wasn't quite what I was hoping for.

 

Now, the turquoise boy. I love the colour against the orange, it works so well but again I don't think I've captured 'skin' particularly well, even if that skin is supposed to be diseased and chaotic.

 

I was hoping for more realism in these but I feel I've gone more cartoon, or not particularly well defined in place.s

 

Now this guy was supposed to be like one of those peat bog bodies, but I think the highlight on the skin has brought a little too much warmth to him and he looks almost healthy.

 

I added a blob of tar to his hand as well. I'd seen some similar black gunk based models recently with dripping tar blobs. It as the old UHU, black ink and invisible thread trick. That would have looked amazing but I fear, given how Blood Bowl plays they would be vulnerable to damage.

 

I think the Pestigor is the one I'm most happy with. I still think the green is a little one dimensional in places, but the raw edges bring it back a bit. 

 

The face in particular is a huge improvement on the other Pestigor and despite some elements being less than expected he is one of my favourites in the team.

 

Here's my Great Big Granite Minor Stamp of Approval, full team coming next.

Blood Bowl - Nurgle Team Last 4 - Almost TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Nurgle #BloodBowl players. As is customary I have got to the point where I finish the base, I've painted some lovely trainer, hooves and feet and now I'm going to cover it up with a black drybrush!

It's frustrating that I can't just accept this is inevitable and not paint the highlights on but it's a peculiar OCD. That said there are other elements about the players that I'm not 100% happy with. The skintones in particular feel a little flat, or not quite what I was hoping to achieve.

The whole point of doing all of these differently was to try and explore different techniques and finished. I have to concede that these experiments aren't always going to bear [rotten] fruit. 

They'll probably look great all aligned together. I've seen some amazing Nurgle teams that are highly uniform, but it seems contrary to their nature in a way. How can everything decay and rot in the same way?

It's a minor frustration, more importantly I think I reached the end of the project. I've had the team for more than a year it was a bout time they were done. I've got to varnish, gloss and add tar to the bases. The next pics will be their TO DONE! ones and then there's the whole team...

Dark Angels - Macragge Tactical Squad - Big Build TO DONE!

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've had this Macragge tactical squad almost finished building for a year or two [or three]. I had ten of them, but two were heavy weapons so I actually needed an 11th finished to make the squad complete.

I got the majority of them in a bargain ebay win and the heavy weapons in a trade. I decided to try them on 32mm bases. This was originally back when Space Marines on 32mm bases were a novelty. Of course we now know why, they were in preparation for Primaris Marines needing a bigger footprint. 

This was the very last guy that I had to complete. He had a Deathwing Terminator shoulder pad which was a bit odd and I needed to find a way to make him aim that gun. I was lucky to have a set of plastic arms from the hybrid metal/plastic models from way back when. They don't have any details on the fingers but I will paint some joints on them.

 

I'm not sure whether I'll get these painted by the end of the Hobby Season. They are on my list but history shows Tactical Squads take a good couple of years to complete for more. No doubt I'll get them to the metallic phase and possibly stall. It'll take quite a feat of motivation to get them done, especially with so many other projects ahead of them. For now here's my Great Big Granite Big Build stamp of approval, they're finally built which is a big stepping stone.

Old stuff day 2021

Morning #warmongers and #WarhammerCommunity it's #OldStuffDay 2021. A few years ago now warhammer39999 wanted to join a movement to rediscover lost gems from the world of hobby blogs. To choose one of your own blogposts that your most proud of, or may not have got the attention it deserved or any thing that may warrant some necromantic blogpost bothering. On top of that you were to share blogposts from other bloggers which you thought deserved the same spotlight of attention before they were returned to their dark nightmare infested slumbers.

Here's some great posts from other bloggers [apologies to the many great bloggers out there I haven't included, you do sterling work too, these are just the ones I was reminded to remember over the last 12 months]:

Remember when we didn't have a Tyranid Spore Pod and we had to make our own? Eventually we got the Tyrannocyte but there were some who made some pretty great versions of their own. Davyart created this spore pod, the post is from 2019 but the model was built in 2012. You can follow it from concept sketch through to painting. I recall seeing the model at the time but I never saw the build or the finished article. As I'm still basking in the glow of my own scratchbuild success it's a fine example of what you can achieve. Also, the rest of the blog is worth checking out too ;)

https://paintinginthedark.blog/2019/05/20/tyranid-drop-pod-scratch-build/

This isn't Warhammer related but it is a pretty interesting article about perfectionism. I think we all strive for perfection in the hobby and this is helpful in keeping those expectations in check.

https://thevirtualinstructor.com/blog/perfectionism-the-enemy-of-the-artist

My antipodean twin Marc has been regaling the hobby community with his own blog for 7 years. It's a constant amusement how often our personal tastes in the hobby intersect, despite thousands of miles between us. One particular shared passion is our love of the 'blessed verdigris'. His technique is far more involved than my own, probably backed up by some real science. So take a trip back to 2015:
http://oldschoolg4m1ng.blogspot.com/2015/02/iron-snakes-verdigris.html

Also from Marc, here's his entry into my terrain competition, the ultimate winner of the Imperial Knight:
http://oldschoolg4m1ng.blogspot.com/2016/04/dawn-of-war-thermoplasma-generator-to.html

Speaking of terrain, how about Mike Corr's collected works on terrain. With a focus on gaming it's interesting to see how diverse you can be with some of the older Citadel terrain kits. Sadly some have been discontinued but it's well worth seeing what you could do, as well as what he did for my terrain comp.
http://standwargaming.blogspot.com/search/label/terrain

Last year Rob suggested I should take sole 'ownership' of Old Stuff Day, as I am more proactive in its celebration/promotion. I understand his point but I can never dismiss its origins - credit where it's due I'm not one for reshaping history. So, I'm going to throw even more credit his way with a flurry of great posts - like when he made a Gormiti toy into a pretty awesome Tyranid Bastion. And credit where it's due I told him about it after I saw it mentioned on a Tyranid message board.

https://warhammer39999.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/tyranid-bastion-progress-green-stuff-and-gubbinz/

And yet more 'nids

https://warhammer39999.wordpress.com/category/warhammer/tyranids/page/19/

How to dip your 'nids

https://warhammer39999.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/dipping-tyranids-hopefully-for-the-last-time/

And an interesting piece of terrain ;)

https://warhammer39999.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/an-unofficial-terrain-piece-for-a-horrible-rule-that-only-applies-to-a-bad-unit/

Lastly, I refer to Garfy's Hierophant strengthening/pinning whenever someone asks about making bases for them or how to make them stronger. It is the best guide and if you're in the market for one you will need this if you have the balls to cut it up and put steel rods inside it.

https://taleofpainters.com/2012/03/wip-tyranid-hierophant-biotitan-1/

What about my own posts? Well I'm going to wimp out a bit and just point you directly to my FREE terrain templates page:
https://www.40kaddict.uk/2011/02/terrain-is-everything-standard-template.html

and my freebies:
https://www.40kaddict.uk/p/free-downloads.html

I may not have created a new template in a good few years but that enhanced feeling of satisfaction I got from building the Tyranid VSG is something I wish I could share with everyone.  These templates may go some way to allowing folk the opportunity to build some terrain [mostly] from scratch . Maybe they'll feel as fulfilled as I did, maybe it'll encourage me to try and make some more templates, who knows?

Wait a minute, I just got a reminder that 4 years ago me and my mates organised a 40k tournament! We may never do it again but it was a really great experience at the time and worth remembering. We started thinking about it well before we let the world know in November 2016. Tickets went on sale mid-December and we'd got the venue at the old WarGames store [now Dice and Decks] all sorted. I got 36 unique objective cards created for all those who came for the bash [and check out those winners certificates]. The day was an absolute blast, or should that be bash? And the quality of armies on show were really high. And I had 1, 2, 3 great games.

Blood Bowl - Nurgle Team Last 4 - WiP

Afternoon #warmongers and #warhammercommunity I've been #paintingwarhammer on my Nurgle #BloodBowl players. This has been concurrent with my Aberrants. I may not be a fan of huge batch painting - 10 termagants can be a nightmare. But, this was quite refreshing as the models are all so different it was just the colour that was the same.

Mainly I was adding a variety of washes and Khorne Red. Even if I've peaked to early with the red additional washes and colours will help add depth and character, so I'm not worried.

I've added all the highlights to the orange and picked out all the pus filled buboes.

I also decided to half the trouser colour on the purple rotter on the far left. I just thought I needed another player with halved pants.

On top of that I thought some could do with Orcidas stripes down the side. It could be challenging to get them to stand out on the pale cream background but I'll see what I can do.

So close to getting these last players done and then the full team is complete. At some point I want to consider creating a proper display board, fully coated in tar. That could be a challenge for later int he year though.