Gifted Prince WIP

From Mars' Project Blog

I would like to thank all my readers, or reader, for his suggestion for the name of my prince. Thus far the names in the running are:

Chad the Daemon Prince
Or
Mhaught, the Frenchest of Ticklers, the Sloppiest of Seconds.

For folks who are fond of banter filled internet jackassery there is s a fella' what goes by the name of Mike over at Scary Biscuits Studios. We tend to leave each other "helpful" comments from time to time. Mike and I went to college together, though he lives in New Zealand now so I am sure he calls it "University" or something equally as pretentious.

Anyway, back in my acerbic gamer youth I felt it was not only appropriate, but necessary, to ridicule those gamers who didn't play the games I did. Mike was the standard bearer of Flames of War, and his WW2 shenanigans were claiming the guys I played with at an exponential rate. We had many a "back and forth" on the internets, but enjoyed each other's company a great deal in person. I think we are also the only people in our club who give a damn about baseball.

Mike has since moved on to work for Battlefront, has a killer blog, and secretly is developing a fantasy game within the FoW scale because he such a fan of the genre (I probably made that last part up, unless it turns out that I didn't. In which case you heard it hear first!). Check out his blog, it is awesome, especially for not having any monsters.

Back to my shiz. I spent a little time on this guy last night. I added the final shade for the yellowish skin (1:1 Thornwood Green/Cryx Bane Base). Then I had a little time to reclaim some of the higher parts of the model with my base skin tone (2:1 Midlund Flesh/Rucksack Tan).

From Mars' Project Blog

Normally I would finish this color up before moving on another part of the model, but this guys is sculpted in such a way that areas of flesh just kind of become armor and vice versa. I want to get those areas blocked out before I start adding final high lights, chiefly because I don't want to put a lot of time into something I will just end up painting over. I should be able to get some of that down tonight so I at least have an idea of what I am looking at.

Lastly, the interwebs tell me GW is losing money again, or has been for years, whatever. I know that this is in part, perhaps largely, to them sometimes conducting themselves like perfect bastards. Even still, buy GW, or whatever game you are playing. We can't keep playing their game if they go out of business. And if you think they have done some dumb stuff now, wait till you see what they do when they need to drop into a recovery mode.

Ok this was a long one. So summation is thus: Mike Haught, good guy, killer blog. Daemon prince is being worked on. Buy GW, or whatever game you play.

Thanks for reading,
T

Gifted Prince Under Way

From Mars' Project Blog

The history of this guy has been alluded to in a few posts, but the skinny on this guy is that my buddy Greg gave him to me for Christmas when I was rummaging through his crap in his super-secret back room. That room is very cool, and loaded with magical GW product. I was over come with flashes of petty larceny at its viewing, but refrained on account of the fact that he is my daughter's godfather, and I figured it would create weirdness if I busted out a good old smash-and-grab.

I am obviously not very far along with this guy, just the base, skin base coat (2:1 Midlund Flesh/Rucksack Tan), and first shade (2:1:1 Midlund Flesh/Rucksack Tan/Thornwood Green with a lot of Glaze Medium and water).

Painting tip, when you wash or glaze large areas with a shading color, do it with the model upside down. Also let it dry upside down if you can help it. I normally have magnets in my base, so I just stick them to the metal pole that runs under my painting table.

I ended up spending a little time with the base, just because there is so much of it. I wanted to keep with the shattered and out of time landscape, so I worked in a little cobblestone into his base.

From Mars' Project Blog

I have only played a few games with this guy, so I haven't even named him. I have been running him cheap, just basic prince, no mark, with either Breath of Chaos or Gift of Mutation. I think like the idea of giving him the 3+ armor save with Iron Hide, especially with the prevalence of poison out there. Not sure if it is worth the 30 points though.

I still have along way to go with figuring out the best prince for me, but in the meantime who can resist this winning smile?

From Mars' Project Blog

Thanks for reading,
T

First Thoughts on Daemons

Just a quick note. From last Tuesday, to Saturday, I got in at least one game of 40k and a twelve pack a day. All of my opponents were gracious enough to let me proxy so a combined Daemon/Tau model force tore forth from the warp to go 1-1-2.

In all, the games were a kick. Daemonic Assault is pretty interesting. Especially because you don't break your forces until your first turn. That pretty much cements in my mind that there are very few instances in which my Daemon army will want to go first. By going second you have advantage in objective missions by going last, in Kill Point mission you deny your opponent the first turn of shooting, and you can see what is down, and where, before you start calling in your vile beasts. (Or in the case of this weekend, some beasts and some fire warriors.)

The Daemon shooting powers are really cool, and I don't want to put them on BS 3 heralds. Much rather have them on the BS 5 princes, but the princes get very expensive with a mark. In all I am still a huge fan of Breath of Chaos, because Bolt is only hitting half the time anyway. But I will need to test it a touch more. My favorite power is Gift of Mutation. The turning to spawn thing is OK, though in many ways detrimental, but being able to single out a model, and use the shooting power in close combat makes me feel like I am getting 30 points out of it.

That is all for now. Going to snap some WIP pics of the daemon prince I am working on and hopefully get him cracked out this weekish.

Thanks for reading,
T

Comin' Through For the Masses

As I said yesterday, I finished The Changeling. In all, he was kind of a pain in the arse. I am happy with how he came out, though I would love some feedback from ya'll. I have never worked in yellow as a primary color, so I was kinda making it up as I went. He started out a lot brighter, but I dulled my yellows a little to make the robes look a little less plastic.

From Stuff I Have Painted: Chaos Daemons

From Stuff I Have Painted: Chaos Daemons

I wanted to have the model be busy, as he is supposed to always be shifting and stuff. Since he is a Tzeentch guy I tried to accomplish that with lots of scrawling, runes, and mystical writings. That plan did not survive contact, as my best brush for fine detail died because my dumb arse forgot to wash it out the last time I used it. So I had to use a much bigger brush, which made my detail not as precise as I would have liked.

From Stuff I Have Painted: Chaos Daemons

From Stuff I Have Painted: Chaos Daemons

The runes on the robe are a little flat, so I may put a highlight on them, though probably not.

Me and The Changeling are kind of fighting because he tricked me into putting the time into him that I would put into an HQ, before I remembered he was a 5 point squad upgrade. So there is that. Anyway, he is done, we may start talking again soon, but in the meantime I moving on to the next project. A daemon prince that my buddy Greg gave me over the holidays. So stay tuned.

Thanks for reading,
T

Teaser, Kinda...

The last few weeks have seen me busy with the usual amount of travel and familial activities that one usually invests around the holiday time. There was a weekend where I drove 30 hours, which I feel is "above and beyond" however it is was for my wife, and the axiom of "Happy wife, happy life," seems to ring true.

However, yesterday I did get to paint for quite some time before I left to watch my Seahawks get their heads' kicked in. When I got home I decided I was going to get the victory Seattle failed to achieve and finish painting The Changeling. I failed. I didn't think I had. In fact, I put the last "touches" on him at 10 PM and went out to the shop for the first coat of sealer. The plan was to get up this morning and snap some pics.

Sadly, I loaded him into the portable studio and realized through the camera lens that I had completely forgot to paint a vambrace on one of his four arms. Friggin' bummer. Anyway, just like the Seahawks, I let me down. I will finish up the vambrace tonight, snap some pics, and post them tomorrow. Check me out then.

Thanks for reading,
T

Min Horror Squad Done!

Whoo hoo amirite? First squad done for this army, kinda. In actuality this unit may want to be 10, and have a standard. I am not 100% on if I will use them for anything other than a minimum cost Bolt of Tzeentch. Anyway here are some pics:

From Stuff I Have Painted: Chaos Daemons

From Stuff I Have Painted: Chaos Daemons

From Stuff I Have Painted: Chaos Daemons

I don't have much to say about these guys outside of what I have said in the WIP entries. I will need to clean up my flame technique a little for the standard if I run one because it has a lot. Other than that, I am already on to the next:

From Mars' Project Blog

I am hoping to have him done by Friday so I can enter him 4 of the 5 Horrors into our club's monthly painting challenge.

Thanks for reading,
T

Skin Done

So finally got the skin done these guys, sans tongues I guess. The magenta parts came out more pink on these guys than it did on my test model. I am not sure if I like it better or not. I will have to wait until I seen the models all completed to decide which I like better.

From Mars' Project Blog

From Mars' Project Blog

A quick note about glazing, do it! The models are pretty skin intensive and so I have been looking for ways to get a smoother blend. I messed with glazing a little while back, but it took too long, and I am impatient. I have been revisiting it for these models, though only one glaze after the color is done, and have been pretty happy with the result.

My glaze is 10:1:1 water, Liquitex(sp?) Glaze Medium (can get a big bottle from Michaels for like 8 bucks.), paint. I Have just been keeping it on the raised areas (musculature, knee caps, etc) of the model and out of the recesses. If some of it works it way into the cracks it isn't a huge deal. Just wipe everything off your brush with a paper towel and then wick it out of there with the recently wiped brush. Takes no time at all.

Hoping to have these guys done this weekend and spend next week on the Changeling. But...hope and reality so seldom coincide in my world.

Thanks for reading,
T