Whats on the desk?

Hello everyone, i finaly got my hands on to cadian battleforce i ordered last week. At the moment im overwhelmed by numbers of plastic soldiers inbox, but i must say i enjoy it so far. One little exception was today morning when i found out, gw dont include at least on melta or plasma gun on to humble guardsmen sprue and had to dive in to deepest corners of my bitz box to found couple of plastic plasma guns i had left form grey hunters sprues. However im quite surprised how i enjoy painting these litle dudes. I did not liked their look with standart paint theme as can be often seen on games workshop site and except few expections cool mini or not is lacking better than average imperial guard soldiers i would like as well. Sure, there are great kriegs or elysians paint schemes but as long as i dont have money printer these are out of my reach. So i had to come with colour theme i ll enjoy painting, ll be simple enought for me to keep focused on army as a whole and not trying to simplify even more. I took inspiration from dow: soulstorm na its army painter features and when tried i chose to paint them grey flak armor and dark green cloth. So far i like them a lot, unfortunately i had time to take just this crapy picture but i hope it ll give you idea on what i am working right now. Expect a lot of imperial guard work in progres posts in following weeks, and wish me steady hand as i ll need it hightlighting mases of humble imperial guard infantry;-)

Space wolves update

Hello everyone, one more update today as im in painting mood and while cooking my lunch i managed to paint one more space space wolf marine i had left on my table. Its a little improvement since rune priest i did couple of days ago in rush. As i found out a lot of people keeps asking me about what colours i used to paint space wolf armor when i upload pictures of my wolves somewhere, so im gonna run through layers i did on this model. Started with black undercoat and then sprayed whole model with vma german grey. Then applied coat of vma light grey at about 45 degree angle, followed by light coat of dilluted vma pale blue again at 45 degree angle. At this stage model was to bright so i applied coat of dilluted badab black wash and thats all.

I realize not everone is using vallejo model air colours so im going to adda one more simple example how i paint my greyish tone of space wolf armour. Im gonna use my predator picture as example bellow. I ve got a lot of response when finished this one all asking about how i painted this kind of grey. Its very simple 1:1 mix of shadow grey and adeptus battlegrey over black undercoat. Its very similar to tone i achieved with vma color range and i hope those few quick notes ll help somebody out googling what colorurs to use for space wolves as a lot of pepople dislike their traditional blueish comic book look. See you next time!

Hard way towards improvement

Hello everyone, i ve just took time to take few pics of what i ve been doing in past two days. I ve been promising i ll try to improve my miniature painting so i ve collected spare bits and made my self another rune priest for my space wolves army. I tried hard and this guy took me about 3 hours of work but im still not even close of being satisfied for even moment with my miniature painting. No matter how hard im trying i still can not beat level of my fire wariors. When painting mini i just found my self fidling around too much and result is always somehow messy. Im in this hobby for about one year so i know i cant expect miracles but i think i should be better at this time. My minis look reasonable good on table, my goal is not attending painting competitions but i would like to have them looking better than average, and as i can see there is still much more i would have to improve than i tought couple of weeks ago when finishing my valkyrie. I ll have another chance to try harder tommorow as i have cadian battleforce incoming by post and i realy hope i ll not waste another chance for self improvement.

Second thing im working on is u-boat ixb kit i ve got as xmas present. I always liked german submarines but this kit really dissapointed me, it lacks detail and when first saw sprues made from different coloured plastic so it dont require further painting i wanted to ask my parrents where they bought it and if they still have receipt. However when came home i watched legendary german movie U-boat(nice movie for xmas evening) and started cutting pieces from sprues. Parts does not fit at all, lacks details but i can not blame manufacturer as this is motorized model intended to use as toy for kids, not a display model(kit itself contains few parts for non motorized display version but they are still ... meh). Have to use few parts from my gw bitz box to seal unwanted holes for swithces batteries etc and when started with grey undercoat i started to like the model and actualy what begin with disapointment is turning in to somethink im looking forward to finish. What a pitty im actualy reading False gods as i would like to start reading U-boat ace: story of wolfgang luth again;-)

Stunned by Mortis engine

This is gonna be interesting, i ve just checked our local wargaming club forum and seen this...epicness of awesomeness i would say. I ve sold my skaven army allready and gave up on warhammer fantasy battles , but this is the kit i must have when aviable, or maybe two of them. Ive always been fan of horor stuff, especialy werid things like rob zombie movies and this. Model i enjoyed most so far was skaven plague furnace and this is actualy very similar style so im really looking forward the release date of Mortis engine model. What else to say...excuse this nothing saying but picture post, but im just stunned by this.

Painting Valkyrie - finished

Helo everyone, i ve just woke up and im must say im pretty impresed how votes on cmon for my finished valkyrie are growing. Its probably my best paint job i ve ever done and i know it even without cmon, but it always make you happy when you know ppl like your work. Still i made more than few mistakes during asembling/painting this kit and i ll try to avoid them on my next model. What it ll be? I dont know at the moment, hardest week of work lies just hour and half before me and that combined with total exhaustion of my wallet(yes, i ve bought generous presents for everyone this year)is not going to give much space to think about painting in few following days.
Still, i have four last grey hunters unpainted for my space wolves army so maybe instead of trying to get vote rating 8.0 on cmon with leman russ it is time to improve my figure painting as best score i ve ever got is 6.3 with my fire wariors and rat ogre whitch is not so much and i would like to hit at least 7 with my figures. That is going to be hard if im not going to cheat my self with puting on low resolution photos and so, but with help of my newly gained airbrush experience and help of youtube guides, i think reaching my goal ll be possible if i ll keep trying hard enough. Hope you enjoyed pics of my finished valkyrie and see you by next post;-)

- Tryzna

Painting Valkyrie - part 2

After sunday and monday painting break while waiting for paints i needed to arrive i managed to spent a few hours on my valkyrie. Started covering whole model with vma german grey. I had whole model preshaded allready so i tried to dilute paint and spray in thin layers to achieve desired effect. I partialy succeeded on this, effect was not as strong as i wanted to, but i managed to make nice surface with color variations around panel lines so basicaly ive got what i wanted and decided to move on and try to enhance shading even more later. Yellow parts were done by layer of  vma ochre and then another coat of golden yellow. I did not sprayed yellow paint straight on to model as i dont have good experience with painting yellow on to darker surface so i decided for ochre in few layers first and then added patchy coat of yellow later.

Camo patern was done with help of masking tape and that step was pretty simple, just added thin layer of vma light grey. At this stage i ended with awfuly clean model and i dont like models looking like brand new and enjoy weathering models most of whole painting. Took a sponge and started to dab german grey paint on to camo i did with light grey to achieve worn look. Then did the same with mix of chaos black and bestial brown on whole model, concentrating on edges and most used parts as you can see on first picture.
Model is in pretty good state right now but still lacks a lot of detail so i painted few dots on the spots i tought oil may be loosing with well thinned oil paint, waited about a minute and then with dry brush expanded the dot to look like streak of surface polution.

You can se result of this method on second picture, i like this effect a lot but this is the first time i tried it and my aim with diluting paint was to have streaks semi transparent on the end but i ve failed to achieve that. I ll have to practice this on piece of plastic later, but in the end it does not look bad, just not the way i wanted to.
Before previevous step was time to give whole model an oil wash, but as im lacking mat varnish at the moment and becouse xmas rush at work i have no time to go to the nearest hoby store and buy a can of it i decided to further shade the surfaces on the model with help of my favourite gw washes. First layer was uneaven layer of gryphone sephia wash shooting through the airbrush dilluted about 1:1 ratio with water. After couple of minutes i came back and did one more run concentrating on yellow parts of model and around panel lines. Then loaded delvan mud wash and repeated whole proces, but concentrating more on panel lines and less on to flat surfaces. Last layer was badab black wash diluted about 2:1 with water as i wanted realy thin coat of it and airbrushed it just around panel lines.

You can see state my model is in on the last picture. Its still much to do on my valkyrie and im quite satisfied with it as its first kit im doing whole with airbrush. Still theres a lot or room for improvements but i think its looking just fine to serve for gaming purposes. Let me know in coments what would you do different or better than i as feeback is pretty important for me and its hard to improve without it. See you by next and probably last part of valkyrie building log.

Painting Valkyrie - part 1

Hello everyone, after first use of my first real airbrush on shrine of aquila kit(ll add pics later) i decided to try what i have learned on somethink  more complex and less boring than ruined building kit. I chose imperial guard valkyrie kit for several reasons, while new tau rumors say the are delayed couple of months i decided to build small 1K points imperial guard army for friendly home games while waiting for new tau models. Second reason is somehow sentimental, but assembling plane kit reminded me my childhood and building never ending row of mig-21s and soviet ww2 planes kits as they were easy to get and incredibly cheap here during comunism era. However i  never had chance to paint them as my father kept reminding me im an idiot incompetent to complete such a difficult task. Now finaly, after more than two decades i took valkyrie kit as a chance to complete plane kit i never had chance to complete.

Lets have a look what i have done so far, i decided not to use sponson heavy bolter gunners as i want side doors being able to shut for easier transport as ankles bolters are mounted on seems too fragile to me to dare transporting with bolters out and gunners would prevent me to do so. With my experience of painting land raider interior for no reason as it ll never be seen again unless i ll have flashlight in hand i decided to make interior as simple as possible. Just painted it with vma german green and drybrushed by boltgun metal. Thats it, just for case someone ll want to have a look inside, however, if there ll be flashlight nearby im screwed anyway. So far i ve just continued building, then sprayed whole model with grey primer while masking finished pilots and preshaded large surface to prevent flat look of my space wolves.
Not much is done so far, but im waiting for package of vallejo model air colors as i found out airbrushing citadel colors, even diluted, is challenge im not going to take. They are constantly cloging my airbrush, create watery surface and the paint is drying on tip of the needle during painting while vma paint range works like a charm i decided to wait for couple of days before continuing as i want to enjoy painting and concentrate all my effort on to painting instead of trying to persuade my airbrush and citadel colors to flow properly.  

Early xmas

My first real airbrush

Hello everyone, first i have to say i hate xmas, i dont like visiting family, pretending joy and happines while teribly bored, usualy sick and tired after december rush at work(especialy week before xmas i fell like working in madhouse instead of liqor store). But, this year is going to be better than that, or at least more bearable than usually as somebody noticed what my interests are and after many many years i ve got a present whitch made me really happy. After half year of tortue with citadel spray gun and home made copy of 20yrs old model of aerograph i ve got my first real airbrush. I know its just fengda, but it works way better than i expected(thats why i never bought it my self, becouse i tought it ll be simillar to spray gun). Tested it on shrine of aquila i assembled yesterday and working with it is real joy, now i can practice using preshading and all other advanced techniques i could not even think about with my old spray gun. Hope this tool ll help me to take my model painting to level im hoping for and i belive having a decent equipment shoud not harm my chances for even a little improvement. See you soon by shrine of aquila painting diary entry;-)

Refining old model - weathering

pre-refining

Hi again, i came back to my working table to further enhance my not so good looking land raider model. I wanted to add  more colour variation to flat looking model. I washed bottom part of lr chasis wit several layers of devlan mud and after dried i weathered it again using oil paints. It was first time i was doing this and im not familiar with it yet, but i have few rhinos left to train on and i ll try to cover my findings about using oil paints for weathering later in another article. Next step was(as i love dirty looking models)adding layer of light earth powder to 2/3 of lr height. I know not everyone ll like that much of dirt, but its up to everyones taste.

after refing - stage 2

Second layer in bottom parts was obvious dark earth powder. Its my first experience with weathering powders and i think they save a lot a time during weathering the model and they are bit cheaper and better looking than method i was trying before. I added "before refining" photo and todays picture for you to see what can weathering powders do even in unexperienced hands. I ll practice a bit on my rhinos with oil paints and this weathering set. When satisfied with results i ll try to make simple, few steps long guide for you to follow. Not much of news or useful newbie guides today but im happy i made my lr look at least little better than before.

Refining old model - Chipping paint

Step 1

Hi again! I had to cancel my 40k games this week couse i ve got flu and dont feel good enough to enjoy gaming, instead of that i ve been thinking about refining my space wolves land raider as lr model was reason i started space marines army as my first 40k project. However i finished my old friend in rush and now when looking on to the model im just not satisfied with it. Im not a fan of high contrast highlihting whitch is commonly seen on games workshop models so i started thinking about other ways how to enhance my lr. Drybrushing and highlighting few eges with boltgun metal to represent scratched areas seemed like a fine idea couple of months ago, but now i would like to try somethink more complex to represent this efect. If you look at scratched car for example u can se the silver only in case the scratch is quite fresh and as the time is passing metal underneath the paint ll start to corrode and thats what i wanted to represent on the model.

Step 2

As you see on on picture step 1 i first painted the scratched area with brighter color than the base color is. Try to make the line around scratched are as irregular as you can, fun is that shaky hand is not a disadvantage in this case;-)Step 2 is bit trickier as you have to paint corosion and leave small outline you painted during step 1 visible, again, you dont have to be ultra precise if you are aiming for tabletop quality like me. For corrosion i used mix of brow and black color. Tamtadada, thats it, its pretty simple technique if you try it somewhere first. It take some time especialy if you want to cover a lot of space by this effect but i think our models are worth the effort.

result

 I ll try to further improve my land raider godhammer model so expect more articles called refining old model as i ll try to cover all the techniques im going to use in improving model whitch got me in to 40K as i think this centre piece of my space wolves army deserves more attention.

Fire warriors finished

Hello everyone, just a quick update about my fire warrior squad. First batch is finished and i like how they came out. Sure there is many things i ll have to improve, like mold cleaning and do what i did now cleaner in general but i think i ve reached tabletop quality level allready and i can only hope and work harder to get improved with next batch. Since wip picture i decided to wash most recesses and ressult was worth the effort, same as make an addition to traditional sand and grass bases(cant help my self but i like sand and grass theme most). Right now im thinking about adding some battle damage to their armor, but i think i ll just keep these as they are. Hope you like them. Im still thinking about what i should paint as next model, maybe another tau model?Or leman russ tank im thinking about for couple of months...or tervigon as i realy enjoyed painting skaven hell pit abomination while back and im hungry for another monster to my collection...who knows, i ll have time to think about that as im going to play few games with my space wolves during this and next week so i guess i ll decide then. Till next time!

-Tryzna

Fire warriors wip

Hi again everyone, i ve just came from work and painted for a while. Was working on tau fire warriors i sprayed yesterday and i must say i like graveyard earth theme i chose for my tau more and more. I was surprised how i enjoyed painting them so far and with few expections im quite satisfied with ressults. Pardon about quality of picture but i used just my cell phone for wip shot and ll add better ones when i ll be finished with them. One of things i missed are mold lines, they are everywhere and i think i ll have to get me a glasses becouse i never notice them until i take a photo of the models. Second thing i ll want to improve on these guys is the marking on their right shoulder. For some reason my hand is bit shaky today and i ll have to fix those later. However achieving of this was pretty simple, basecotaed models with chaos black paint, then airbrushed them with graveyard earth and as i wanted to give models more colour variation i added bit of sunburst yellow in to gr.earth and sprayed this mix at 45 degree angle onto models. I think i should have added a bit more of yellow to the mix as this layer is hardly noticable but in the end im hapy with them as they are. Cloth parts were just painted by adding two or three layers of badab black wash and the rest is obvious. Im satisfied with them as they are, but i think those guys deserve more attention as im not rushing anywhere this time. See u later!

Devilfish "almost" done

Hello everyone, abouth month ago i installed dawn of war dark crusade and instead of starting and finishing campaign as space marines again i decided to try somethink new, i never liked tau much, but i never played them and thats maybe why i gave them a try, while playing i realized i started to like look most of tau units, i was pretty surprised as i never felt even hint of excitement while looking at tau models but as i saw them in game in motion they somehow impressed me. And that was exactly what i needed, after month of painting break and unability to finish few space wolves models i have left in my army case they gave me the apetite for painting again. As i like painting vehicles more than figures i ordered tau devilfish as i wanted to give a try to this chasis. Looked at coolminiornot to seek for inspirational colour theme i would  use for this model and  found i like the decent ones with less agresive colours most. As you can see on the picture i chose graveyard earth, seconded by scorched brown and added few bits of orange for my devilfish. I did most of the work on this using citadel spray gun and it was really quick work. I did this in about 5 hours of painting but skipped weathering whitch is my favourite part becouse i saw my gf ordering somethink from forge world and i belive i saw weathering powders in basket so i hope i ll find them under xmas tree. Usualy i do weathering using sponge, washes, earth mixed with gloss varnish etc but if im going to receive weathering powders as a gift, then im going to wait a little to have even better looking model. Hope you like my first tau model, i tought i ll paint just this one and then move on to new necrons but while painting i ordered squad of fire warriors so i belive this is start of small tau army for friendly games. But with vision of new codex soon this can quickly overgrow to another 2500p 40K project(my wallet hopes not);-)

New begining

Hello everyone, while painting and listening to nine inch nails i come up with an idea to start another blog. As my grey seer blog i started bout year ago is dead becouse i sold my skaven army becouse both general anoyance by wfb rules and lack of oponents in city i live in. I managed to build and paint 2250point of space wolves in last four months and realized i m probably a painting addict(well that does not mean im good painter)and like sharing what i did along with few tips how i achieved ressult. I ll not make a mistake and start another army themed blog. I just want to share ideas, improve my english(hopefuly), make batrep time to time and have a fun writing. Those pages are going to be about painting minatures from warhammer 40K universe, right now im working on few tau, necrons and im going to paint few aditions for my space wolf army after new year. Most of you ll probably dont learn anythink new here but i ll be more than hapy if i ll hear some criticism and excited if my notes ll help/inspire somebodys painting. C u soon!

-Tryzna