Friday Top Ten #6

I kinda dropped the ball last week. Sorry about that.

Real life overtook me in a big way and i'm afraid it'll keep getting in the way. My studies and moving half way across the country next month will basically eat up all of my free time, hence why i've been resorting to doing lunchtime painting. Serious kudos to Ryan on FTW for finding the time to post his top ten on the same day every single week, as it's a lot hard than it first seems.

So this is the end of the Friday Top Ten as you know it. There'll still be a weekly Top Ten, just on whatever day i can find the time to post it up on. Some time in the future it will be restored to a set day, but for now, this is the way it has to be.

Here's this weeks list then

1. Big Will over at Heresy Workshop has this very nice pre-heresy veteran

2. These Howling Banshees by Stahly are just all kinds of awesome

3. Magilla Gurilla has this cool but slightly creepy Deamon Prince

4. Rob at Spikey Bitz has some truely epic Ninja Grotz

5. Suicide Badger has some cool Imperial Guard, complete with Xeno-Heretic Col. Straken!

6. Tolcrothlogan has some awesome Danes. I'm not usually one for historical figures, but these are just too good to pass by

7. Ron talks about playing 40k your way

8. John at Santa Cruz Warhammer demonstrates how to make Rhinos that make you go 'ooooh gribbly'

9. I want one of these models for my Khainite Dark Elves army and this one on Bellum Aeternum has brought my urge to impluse buy to the fore again. Truely inspirational paint job

10. And finally, Avertine at Zen 40,000 has this awesome Lamenters Captain

Lunchtime Progress 5th of may

As promised, better pictures of the Cauldron of Blood, along with the scenic base I made for it at lunchtime today. It's the first layer of a stepped structure I'm creating, sculpted from spare bases and green stuff.




I'm currently in the process of highlighting the blood in the cauldron and adding an extra layer of gloss to make it a bit more realistic, so that will probably be the next update.

Lunchtime Progress 4th of may

May the fourth be with you

Sorry, it had to be said. Now on to why you're here.



My Manticore is based at last. Now i just have to do the details on him and find a good donor model to use for Hellebron herself.



If anyone knows of a good model, i'm open to suggestions. At the moment, i'm leaning toward this one....





My Cauldron of Blood is nearly done. Not the best of pictures but i was in a rush to snap them before heading back to the studio (hence the food wrappings in the background too)

All i need to do is find and paint the arms of the statue, detail the bottom and make a scenic base for the whole thing.

I'm getting there. Slowly but surely

Any thoughts or critiques are welcome

Not A Top Ten

Hey guys, just a note to say sorry about the lack of Friday Top Ten last week. Little thing called real life got in the way.

It'll be back to normal on Friday. I promise

Assorted Progress

This is my hobby space. A complete tip, i know, but I've been a bit busy recently. What you're seeing is the detritus from both my hobby and my college FMP.

This is how what you're seeing breaks down to consume all my free time



Now you might be thinking I'm insane to try and undertake all these projects at once, but really all my armies are constant WIP's. There is no such thing as a finished army in my book.

On that note, here's what I've been doing recently

Cold One Knights

I've decided i really don't like the green, so I'm probably going to repaint them as a deep red, fitting into the Khainite theme I'm trying to get throughout my force.



Sorceress Luhna

I've lost her staff arm, so I'm looking round for something to replace it it at the moment. I might sculpt up more magical energy swirling round her to cover it



A Black Ark Corsair. Again, after painting it, I've decided i really don't like the green, so his cloak is probably going a deep red




And finally Master Allas Hyron, youngest son of the Hyron family and commander of my DE forces. All i did with him is essentially a touch up, flocking the base and neatening up the edge of the robes. At some point i might give him red robes instead, but for now i think the purple makes him look suitably regal, as well as differentiating him from the Khainite forces (he's not religious - the temple is just a tool in his plans to gain power)



What do people think?

Friday Top Ten #5

This weeks been a long week for me, with final major projects eating up nearly all my time, but i still found time to unearth these gems of our hobby.


1. Right off the bat, Sytus has painted an Imperial Navy pilot. nearly 5 years on and it's still and awesome model.

2. Wallshammer discusses breaking the mold

3. An awesome Ork Humvee from Da Green Skins. hmmmm... i'm getting ideas now

4. Erik A has cool trees. Normally i avoid those GW plastic trees, but he's made them work

5 A Gentlemans Ones documents his epic one man struggle with a Realm of Battle board. Here, Here and Here

6. Bushido Red Panda has an jaw-dropping Sanguinor. I hate the model, but love this paint job

7. ThePete shows us how he makes plastic Stormtroopers

8. This Space Wolves standard bearer is just all kinds of awesome. Kudos to J Croxford.

9. Feeling down? Feel free to have a hug from this beauty by Sam

10. And finally, there's this jawdropping Terminator Assault Squad from Roleplayer

Lunchtime Progress 22nd April - Dark Elves galore!

Cauldron Witch Elf undercoated. This one is going to go with the one i put up a few days ago.


Crossbowmen nearly done


Closer view of the WIP freehand banner for my Crossbowmen


Cauldron of Blood WIP, layering wash after wash of Thraka Green over Shining Gold


Finally, one of my Plastic Executioners converted from the DE spearman box. There will be a tutorial one day. Honest.

Lunchtime Progress, 20th April

Ok, so i didn't get round to the Manticore wing today like i said i would, but the prospect of finishing off this Witch Elf was too tempting.

She can either be used as part of the Cauldron of Blood crew or as Death Hag in her own right. The cauldron itself got a round of washes too, but i can't be bothered to get pics of it right now, so i'll do that tomorrow.

It's amazing what you can achieve if you work in little steps

Deathstrike Missile and a lone Gobbo

Unleash the secret weapon! *cue evil laughter*

You may remember about 8 months ago i put a post up about using a Deathstrike Missile in a game against Deathwing ( if you missed it or forgot, it's here), well i was digging out my old vehicles from a cupboard a few weeks back and realised that i couldn't find my Deathstrike anywhere. I reckon it got lost when i moved house a while back, but it wasn't a great loss, as it gave me the opportunity to create this :





It's built from a cut-down V2 Rocket kit i found in a model shop. It came with everything it needed, including launch pad (although i modified it from the default vertical position). The only problem was that it didn't fit on a Chimera chassis, so i grabbed a spare rhino i had lying around doing nothing - if anyone queries it, i'll just say the Blood Pact aren't fussy who they loot their vehicles from. In fact, i think the Pacters will take great pleasure in corrupting the vehicles of the humanities finest defenders.

For WYSIWYG though, I'm going to have one of the crew carry the 'front mounted' heavy bolter

Although it's not obvious from these pics, I've made the Missile removable for after the launch.

The only thing left to do now is finish painting it, add some cultist crew and unleash it on an unsuspecting foe mwahahahaha!!




Also, this is a Night Goblin that my Girlfriend is in the process of painting and has asked me to put up. I'm so lucky that my girlfriend is as big a geek as me - and even luckier that she's willing to paint up my Gobbos for me!

Painting over Lunch

Between being an art student going into my final major product, the pressures of home life and having a girlfriend to keep happy, i often find that I've got very little free time to sit down and do hobby stuff.

However I've also said to myself that i won't buy any more models till i paint most of the ones I've already got, in an effort to clear my backlog

Unfortunately, i have all this and more to work through



So after much pondering, I've come up with a novel solution to my problem. It goes something like this:

I'm very lucky to live right next to where i study - five minutes walk each way

I get between 30-60 minutes of lunch break each day.

Take off walking time there and back and i can squeeze in between 20-50 minutes of hobby time into my otherwise jam-packed day, before returning to an afternoon of lectures

Sure, this time restraint means that i can't do anything too ambitious. It forces me to work in little steps. but also i find it's improving my painting skills by forcing me to think about things and plan them more thoroughly before i do them - something I've always had trouble with.

It's helped to set a task for myself for each session, like basecoat all my crossbowmen, or flock 20 bases, ensuring that slowly but surely, my armies are getting painted.

Here are some of my fruits of my labour so far


Dark Elf Crossbowmen



Space Hulk Terminator with Heavy Flamer. The flame was made from Green Stuff



Skull Pass Troll, painted over 2 lunch breaks, starting from a grey undercoat, then just using washes for the colours



A rather gruesome base for my Khaine-themed Dark Elves. This took the better part of a week to complete



WIP DE Manticore to be mounted on the base shown above. The other wing is being finished tomorrow


I'll post more up as they get done, but for now, what do you think?