29 January 2018

Sylvaneth Kurnoth Hunters

Today my post covers a unit of Longbow equipped Kurnoth Hunters. I finished these at the end of last year but it's been a busy start to 2018!

The Sylvaneth list I am preparing is extremely heavy with melee units and the army I will be facing, for my first Age of Sigmar battles, will be Ironjaws… so, also pretty primarily melee focused… bearing this in mind, I chose to equip this unit of Kurnoth Hunters with longbows.


I found the unit a pleasure to build and paint… and I especially love the little critters that accompany the Hunters and carry their ammunition!

Let's go through the paint scheme:

The main ‘bark’ was painted following the Harvestboon grove scheme I've been using thus far. The layers were all applied with the airbrush. Dryad Bark > Gorthor Brown > Baneblade Brown > Ushabti Bone > Screaming Skull. Aside from in the darkest recesses, the Dryad Bark isn’t particularly visible on the model, however, whilst painting a couple of Branchwraiths I chose to follow a different process and skipped the darker colours, going straight in at the Baneblade Brown stage: this was a mistake as it compromised the tone of the Caliban Green which has layered on top… so I reverted back to my original process with these models! The secondary tones of the bark are a 50/50 mix of Ogryn Camo and Screaming Skull whilst the green is Caliban Green.


The recess ‘flesh’ areas of the models were again painted along the same lines as my other Sylvaneth models: Caliban Green and then highlighted up with Warpstone Glow and Moot Green. The leaves were first painted with Moot Green and then glazed with Lamenters Yellow.


The flesh of the little critters was first painted Celetra Grey, then glazed with Guilleman Blue and finished off with a drybrush of Skull White. The bark of the critters followed the same scheme as the bark of the Kurnoth Hunters. To add a bit more colour to the arrows, both those held by the critters and the main models, I lightly airbrushed Averland Sunset onto the feather/leave area. These were then glazed with Lamenters Yellow.


The remaining details were painted as follows: Gold: Balthasar Gold > Gehennas Gold > Auric Armour. Bow shaft: Rhinox Hide > Doombull Brown > Tuskgor Flesh. Lamentari: Caledor Blue > Teclis Blue > Lothern Blue. Finally, I painted the runes, eyes and mouth with Baharroth Blue.

Once the models had been painted I applied several thin coats of gloss varnish. Once the varnish had been left to dry overnight I finished off the models with a 50/50 wash of Soft Tone/Army Painter Shade Medium.

I based the models using the process mentioned here.

22 January 2018

Blood Angels Tactical Combat Squad

Towards the end of 2017, my unit of choice for hobbying whilst away from home has been this Blood Angels combat squad. Work has been busy and progress has been slow but last weekend I finally managed to get enough time at home to sit down and bash through the finishing touches.


I posted my Blood Angels colour scheme here, however, since that post was written I've altered the process. I no longer use oil washes; they're great but just too fiddly (and smelly!)... especially now I'm using the great Army Painter/Matte Medium paint.


In terms of the secondary colours: the Gold is Retributor Armour > Auric Armour Gold > Liberators Gold. The silver is Vallejo Model Colour Gun Metal and highlighted with Stormhost Silver and the black is Vallejo Model Colour Black > Eshin Grey > Dawnstone. The smaller details have been painted with the standard GW colour choices!


For the base, I chose to follow a rather neutral desert (Baal?) colour scheme. I spent a long time deciding how to base my Blood Angel army. I was tempted by a grey urban theme, however, I wanted to retain the Steel Legion Drab colour on the rim so that my Space Marine and Blood Angel armies could work well if I chose to field them together. On the character models and larger bases, I will add more details so they all don't look quite as plain as these guys!




15 January 2018

Sylvaneth Branchwraiths

This week I'm posting about a couple of Branchwraiths I painted just before Christmas.

The list I will be playing uses the 'Forest Folk' battalion so I needed 2 of these Finecast monsters. I made a mistake painting these models up; I chose to skip a couple of the darker shades I use when painting Sylvaneth bark. I figured that the darker shades didn't add value to the final colour. How wrong was I!!

In terms of the other colours used. I followed (aside what the aforementioned deviation) the scheme described here.


The models look ok in isolation however in terms of the light brown bark and green areas, the colours don't match the rest of my Sylvaneth units.


I'm aiming to complete my Sylvaneth list for the end of April. If I have the time I will either repaint these models or sell them on eBay and paint up a couple from fresh.

13 January 2018

Orc Blood Bowl Team

So it seems I completely forgot to post about finishing this unit! I think I got them done back in August 2017... my goal was to get them completed for a gaming weekend so my guests could play a game of 3rd edition Blood Bowl with fully painted teams. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time to play any games so they haven't been used in anger...yet!


I provided a WIP update here where I covered the main base colours. To recap the skin was painted with the usual Waagh Flesh > Warboss Green > Skarsnik Green whilst the red is Mephiston Red > Evil Sunz Scarlet > Wild Rider Red.


The black followed Vallejo Model Black > Eshin Grey > Dawnstone, the white is Celestra Grey > Ulthuan Grey > White Scar and the skulls are Zandri Dust > Ushabti Bone > Screaming Skull.


The base followed how I did the Human Blood Bowl Team. I based the models with sand and then painted a diluted Steel Legion Drab over the sand. After this had dried I drybrushed Eldar Flesh over each base. On top of this, I applied static grass and panted the rim of each base Black.

9 January 2018

2018: Hobby Goals & Targets!

2018 should prove to be my most active year in the hobby. I have 2 gaming weekends planned and a weekend trip to Warhammer World planned. I should end up playing games of 40K, Age of Sigmar, Shadesspire, Shadow War: Armageddon, X-Wing and Blood Bowl. With this in mind, I need to paint a lot of stuff and will set some goals accordingly.

My first goal is to play the following:

  • 8 Warhammer 40k battles,
  • 8 Age of Sigmar battles,
  • 10 Warhammer Underworld: Shadespire battles.
To ensure I have enough painted models to match the above goals, I will aim to paint the following models:

Age of Sigmar
  • 5 Sylvaneth Tree Revenants,
  • 16 Sylvaneth Dryads,
  • 1 Treelord,
  • 3 Sylvaneth Wyldwoods,
  • Steelheart Champions Shadespire Warband,
  • Sepulchral Guard Shadespire Warband
  • 5 Stormcast Eternal Liberators
40K
  • 10 Blood Angels Tactical Marines
  • 5 Hellblasters
  • 10 Intercessors
  • 3 Inceptors
Other/Scenery
  • Build and paint a Realm of Life board
So its a fairly ambitious list! I will be spending a lot more time at home in 2018 so I feel the goals are achievable. I would like to paint more Blood Angels but those listed above will be the minimum... if I have time, I'll do Sons of Sanguinius.

Right... time to crack on! where my paint brush!!