Erm, hello.

Hi folks it has been an AAAAAGE! but i am actually still alive, still kicking and still painting.

Life caught up to me in a big way and painting fell off while i dealt with it. nothing bad, no sob stories to share and no massive dramas. Just life  :)

Painting has been going on in the absence of posting but unfortunately most of it is away with friends and customers already and with no foresight in taking pictures of them first. D'oh!

But I am back in the saddle, paint has been flowing and a couple of commissions are in  various states of progression. My Guard army are a few figures closer to being finished but still a couple hundred to go ;)

My painting dungeon is now my office for work too and is now slightly tidier than previously posted :)

The only thing i am struggling with getting decent lighting for taking pictures of my minis so if anyone out there has a suggestion give me a shout out!

Stay frosty and i'll hopefully i'll be back with some pics and progress to share!

Apoc/Rob

Progress

 Hi folks,


The Eldar are coming along nicely, the farseer is finished and the warlocks should follow shortly,

Have got the base coat and first wash on the Screaming Banshees. I have started blacking out the weapons and gems, I will finish that and then get on with building up the bone colour on their suits.  

I have also got the Dark Reapers and Warp Spiders primed and ready to start. For some reason the Matt primer i used came out shiny, so i will have to go over them with some watered down black or maybe some matt varnish.  

Next up, I have been doing a little bit of work on my Imperial Guard in between Eldar sessions. I went back and changed the plasma colour on one of the older models from orange to turquoise as it seemed to fit a little better.

Next up are 6 guardsmen that I managed to finish, nothing too special, but it means I'm that little bit closer to complete ;)

Also put some base colours on the Ogryn.

On the base front, I just cannot justify the cost of buying the resin bases (to my wife anyway!), so I will need to make my own. The choice is to go with the slate bases or maybe go back to my original urban bases (way back when my guard were red!); what do you guys think? or do you have any better ideas?

And finally here are a couple of pics my objective markers and some pics or my Marbo.   

    I need to track down another aquila to finish the Objective markers off, it's the one from the Apocalypse vehicle command sprue, if you spot one let me know!
I still need to come up with a good name for the army, does anyone have any ideas? I was thinking along the lines of the Cadian 24th "Dire wolves", but if anyone has a good name feel free to post it.
Until next time..
Apoc

Painting dark flesh my way

 Just a quick post,

I had a request over on DakkaDakka on my tutorial for painting faces, they wanted to know if it was possible to use the technique to paint dark skin tones.

Answer = Yes!

Using the same technique from Painting Faces My Way to get dark skin tones and again using SWG to highlight. The pictures are a little dark and grainy im afraid, but they still show what you can acheive.
 
Using Dark Flesh as a base:




Using Scorched Brown as a base:





I love the way a face can really bring a model to life, as you can see below; although they are not fully painted the painted heads bring the WIP guardsmen to life.

Painting faces my way

Ok, I am sick of painting blue so I thought I would take a break.

 

Here is a rough tutorial on how I paint faces using only Tallarn Flesh and Space Wolf Grey.

First, I take the head and clean the mould lines using the edge of a hobby knife with a brand new blade.

Next I undercoat the head in Black.

Now paint the flesh areas with Tallarn Flesh mixed with a little water. This will take 2 coats if you don’t use too much water, to get a solid but smooth colour. I left the recesses on the head with only one coat, so the eyes and around the jaw have a slight shadow to them from the black undercoat coming through.

Now i mix the TF with Space Wolf Grey at about 4:1. I leave the recesses with the base coat and use this mix on the exposed areas, such as the forehead, cheeks ears, jaw and chin.

Nest i add some more SWG to my mix, about 3:1 now. At this stage i am looking at adding highlights to the prominently raised areas on the face, such as the brow, nose, ear, chin, around the mouth and the outer edge of the jaw.

The final highlights are done pretty much by feel alone, but first it is roughly 2:1 TF:SWG to pick out the raised areas around the eyes, nose and mouth. 

The last highlight is approx. 1:1 and is used on the tip of each brow, the tip of the cheeks and the tip of the nose.

After the last step I used a fine brush to paint his eye sockets black, followed by bleached bone on the actual eye but being careful to leave a black outer rim for definition. Then it was just a case of adding a couple of dots for pupils and painting the teeth BB too.

Using the SWG really works well with my army as they have the blue and grey armour, but the technique really works well with nearly any other scheme. 

No doubt there are other much better tutorials out there, but this is how i do my faces, so why not give it a try and see how it works out for you? 


*** Dark Flesh Tutorial has been added - Rob/Apoc 20/08/11 ***

If like me when i first started, you struggle as to where you need or don’t need to put your highlights, i recommend taking a look on GW's site and their 'Eavy metalpainting faces guide (You need to be logged in to see the article) or having a flick through some of the articles on CMON. 

Anyway, i need to get back to painting lots of blue before A Game of Thrones comes on.

Any C and C on the tutorial would be greatly appreciated, and who knows maybe i will do more or not depending on the feedback ;o)

Stay Frosty,

Apoc

Have been side-tracked of late, after feeling disappointed with the last escher ganger i needed a break and decided to try and save my dried up GW paints.

I have been using Vallejo mostly of late so my poor neglected GW stuff was left to sit in a cupboard untouched for a year or so :o(

using a few drops of water and giving them a good shake and stirring, i managed to refresh 95% of my collection back to a good, usable standard.

to try and prevent the paint drying problem in the future i am gong to transfer all my GW paints over to Vallejo style bottles (which will help with getting my mixes right), and use an 8mm glass bead as an agitator to help keep the mix nice and even.

I have also decided to re-start my guard with a new scheme, the old ones i have done will be stripped and repainted after i finish painting up the unassembled stock i have.

The new scheme is based on the Cadian 122nd from the last rule book, but will use the winter scheme and will be renamed into my own regiment with its own history too no doubt.



Progress so far, need to do a little more work on the blue and the fatigues will be taken up to near white before i add the camo pattern.

I have never played Guard, either with or against! so need some help picking my army list so if you have any advise for an infantry heavy army list please feel free to comment!.

Until next time, The Emperor Protects.

Apoc

Breaking through the barrier

Ok, i think after a few days of struggling i am hitting a bit of a barrier with my painting.

Other hobbyists i know personally seem to have the same problem occasionally too, where you sit down and KNOW that you only have a few bits to do or a couple of minis left to complete the unit/squad/army BUT you just cant find the Willpower to pick up that brush!

Suddenly that detail brush weighs a hundred tonnes and the momentum you had over the last couple of days or weeks comes grinding to a halt.

Right now i am there. I managed a few bits on a ganger and just about finished her, but i feel like i've just done a double shift at work! lol

I got some lighting strips that go under kitchen cabinets to light up my new painting space.

Unfortunately they are a little longer than i realised but will have to do for a little while until i can afford something more suitable (clicking the ads will help ;o) so please feel free! lol).

Other than the ablove ganger, I have one more that is nearing completion but i find myself avoiding it at the moment (see above) but will endevour to crack on and get her finished today/tomorrow.

Ill end with a couple of questions, do you ever hit this painting block? if so how what do you do to get yourself through?

Until next time folks....

Apoc