Free hand and dreadknight wip

So last night I had my first attempt at freehand after the masterclass. It was a U for an Ultramarine terminator shoulder pad. Nothing too taxing but I am really pleased at the results. The U is not quite symmetrical but its not bad for a first attempt. I used the dot plot technique to lay out the shape. I then painted a thin line joining the dots and expanded the line from there. I shaded and highlighted the base coat and outlined the whole thing is white. I had a much clearer image in my head about how I wanted this to look, which is why I think it turned out better than the wizards cloak.

Anyway here is a picture of the shoulder pad and then the front of the figure. 

The second half of this blog will be a summary of the work I did to magnetise the psycannon and gattling psilencer.

I drilled a hole for a magnet in the front of the casing and in each of the barrel subassemblies, which can be seen in the picture below. The back section of the psilencer clipped on securely but I had to put a magnet on for the psycannon, again it can be seen in the picture.

Subassemblies 

As a psilencer 

As a psycannon

Thanks for reading. Next up will be a Forge World figure I painted a few years ago.
HG

Allies!!!

After a quick WFB post i am back to 40k. Currently i am in the process of collecting  Plague marine, Space marine (Howling Griffons), Eldar and Nercon armies. That really should be enough armies for anyone but I would really love to paint some of the figure from quite a few other armies. However I don't have the time to paint an entire army. This is where the new edition, from my point of view, is just aces! 

Allies!

Pretty much every army now is allowed to choose a small force from another codex to take as allies. The limited choice of only two troops and a single slot from HQ, fast attack, heavy support and elites to choose from is a perfect taster that allows me to collect and paint a couple of squads from that or more accurately those armies I have always wanted to. 

Which armies? In no particular order these are Nurgle Daemons, Dark Eldar, Grey Knights, Blood Angels, per-Heresy armoured Imperial fists, Ultramarines, Minotaur Space marines, Deathwing, Space Wolves.......

What to do first? This is a question I ask myself a lot. I started a Dark Eldar army just over a year ago with the view to building a large force. Where I would finish painting one purchase before buying the next. I painted a unit of warriors, a raider and three jet bikes is way before other projects took my attention. I still have a succubus and thanks to two masterclasses another nine  warriors and nine wyches waiting to be stuck together.

DE warriors and Raider

One of my DE jet bikes

I also already have some Nurgle Daemons painted to go with my Plague Marine army. With the release of the new plastic plauge bearers and nurglings I may have to get a box of each to fill out an allied force chart. Below are some pictures that Dan from "Whats New Today" took. I will post some of the picture that he took of my Plague marine army in the next few days.

Great Unclean One

Plauge Bearers

GW Daemon Prince

FW Daemon Prince

The next allied force after that will be Blood Angels. I want to paint the unit of Sanguinary Guard I got from the Golden Daemon masterclass in the NMM gold that we were taught, as seen in one of my previous posts. But then again dreadknights are cool!

Thanks for reading.
HG

Forge world Masterclass (February)

In my first post I mentioned that I attended the Forge World Masterclass where Mark Bedford and Phil Stutcinskas demonstrated some great techniques that help make the most of limited hobby time. They concentrated on how to paint large monsters (the Ogre Thundertusk/Stonehorn) quickly. As always the day was fantastic and I learned a lot. I even went home and finished the figure off!

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to share the link to this blog and also visit http://northernwasteswarpaint.com/ where there is a new forum dedicated to figure painting.
HG

Golden Daemon Masterclass

Last weekend I went do to Nottingham for the Golden Daemon masterclass, where Darren Latham and Joe Tomaszewski showed us how to paint non-metallic metal (NMM) gold, object source lighting (OLS) and free hand. The day was brilliant; Darren and Joe were friendly and extremely helpful. I was really impressed with their enthusiasm for painting throughout the day offering tips and advice about how to improve the figures that everybody had brought.

Below are pictures of the three figures that I painted using the NMM technique. The first was a Sanguinary Guard in NMM gold. We painted the shin and top of the foot of one leg due to time restraints. I was pleased with the way mine turned out. I will have to paint a few more figures to learn the technique properly but I thought it was a good start.

Next we did some OLS. This seems to be a lot easier than I thought it would be. Essentially just a glaze of the light source colour carefully applied to the areas that the light would shine on. I think this will be a technique that will be easy to learn but difficult to master. Knowing where to apply the glaze and how much OLS to use on a figure, too much will just not look right. We applied this technique to the eyes of a Dark Eldar Warrior. I think I will use it on my Necrons as well, around the guns and the eyes.

The last technique that we were taught was free hand. The focus of this tutorial was how to plot the design before you start and choose an appropriate design for the area in the first place. I wasn't massively happy with my attempt But I think that ws due to the lines being too narrow. I'll have to keep trying and next time I will spread the design out a wee bit further.

I have been painting up one of the Forge World show only skin wolves for a friend and only have to finish the poor soldier he is holding. On Saturday night after the masterclass I decided to do the soldiers helmet in NMM silver. The helemt pictured below is the result of two and a half hours in Warhammer World on Sunday morning.

Pictures of the rest of the skin wolf will be in a blog all of its own in the future.

Hopefully I will be posting more often.
Thanks
HG

New army for new edition

Sixth edition 40k was released yesterday woohoo!!!!!! The rules look very nice with a feel of 2nd edition to them. There are loads of reviews and discussions online about the differences this edition brings and I am not going to add to them here. 

Today's post will be about my newest army for 40k, the Necrons. I started collecting the army back in February, with the view that I would use it when the new edition came out, and quite surprisingly I have amassed a few painted units in a short space of time. Now these figures are not going to win any Golden Daemon prizes but I think they are of a good gaming standard that most folk would be proud of. 

I started this army in my usual way, I had a look in my cupboards in my parents house to see what I already had. Turns out I had a box of warriors and a lord. I had painted up one of the warriors in a white scheme many moons ago with the vague hope of painting a whole army like Clone troopers from Star Wars!

With this army I wanted to paint them quickly and in a dark metallic so I went to Halfords (a car parts shop) and bought a tin of Citroen Arctic steel spray, which is very close to mithril silver, sorry runefang steel. After being washed with black/sepia then two washes with just black, I then edge highlighted the armour with runefang (mithril) then aded some brass and green details. Its a nice simple paint job so I can get through them at a good rate. 

Without further ado here are some pictures.

Warrior squad with lord. I have another 10 warriors done and 10 still to finish. I also have a ghost ark half done that most of this squad will depoly in.

10 Immortals tesla carbines (yes I know most folk don't like them but I do and with snap fire they will be overwatch kings).

5 Lych guard plus Overlord.

Scarab bases I have 8 fully painted.

I still have five deathmarks and three wraiths to start painting. I want to expand this army to apocalypse scale therefore the next thing on my to buy list will probably be a doom sythe but the canoptek spyder and the triarch stalker are both very cool and then there are the tomb blades ...........Oh well don't have to decide just yet. 

I'll put a proper guide together as to how I paint them in the next wee while. I'll just have to remember to take the picture in between each stage.

Thanks for reading. I hope you are enjoying the blog so far.

HG

Chaos Reaver Update

Hi, this is just a very quick update on the titan.

I got some more pieces cleaned up for the leg last night.

The pieces finished (for one leg only)

Still to do (for same leg). Mostly just pistons that will be cut to size nearer the end of the build.

Thanks for reading.
HG

First post

Hi, this is my first blog that I have ever done, so please be kind. I will predominantly be talking about painting toy soldiers from a variety of companies and genres. 

As a wee introduction I have been painting and playing tabletop wargames for over 20 years now and over that time I have collected many armies for a few different games (mostly GW games to be fair). I am currently working on a Skaven and Ogre army for Warhammer, a Chaos Marine with Daemon allies ;) for 40k and a British and a German army for Flames of War.

I am a hobby butterfly! I am going to admit that right now. I jump from project to project like frog on steroids! Most of the posts on this blog will be extremely random as my attention is pulled in first one direction then another.

I will be posting painting guides that I have found to be useful and pictures of WIP and finished figures that I have painted, hopefully on a regular basis.

As the title of my blog suggest I am a fan of the Howling Griffon Space Marine chapter from Warhammer 40k. So here is a, fairly rubbish to be honest, picture of them. (I will be posting better pictures that I have on my computer at home at a later date). I entered these in the UK Golden Daemon last year received a finalist pin, which was a pleasant surprise.

The second picture for today is an Orge Thundertusk. I went to the Forge World Masterclass back in February where Mark and Phil taught some great techniques to make the most of each of your painting sessions. The techniques such as painting fur, leather, stone and skin were all put to use on this figure and a Stonehorn that I have not quite finished yet (I got distracted).

To end this first post I am going to announce that I will be documenting my progress through the building and painting of a Chaos Reaver Titan from Forge World that I started just last night. At the moment all I have done is tidy up a few of the pieces for one of the legs (exciting I know). One small note, that may be interesting, I am not going to wash the pieces in soapy water but I am going to spray the completed sub-assemblies with varnish before spraying it black. This seals the release agent and gives the black spray a prepared surface to adhere to. I have done this for the Brood Horror and it seems to work. More to follow including pictures of the finished sub-assemblies hopefully soon.

Thanks for reading

HG