Pheonix Guard

The crew so far

Well its been along time again between posts unfortunately and whats more I haven't been able to get a lot done. I finished these two last night and I'm hoping with the start of the holidays I'll be able to start making progress on my High Elves again. Anyway I'm happy with how they turned out I think the gold is definitely an improvement on my last attempt, so with any luck I can get the technique halfway decent by the end of the army. Besides that I think it still looks okay now and more importantly for me it looks different to most other metals in the shop. As always C and C welcome and for a bigger view you can click on the pictures.

Birthday Goodies and Furture Plans

So it being my birthday on Tuesday I was very lucky to pick up an airbrush which I've wanted for a while. Besides that though, last Friday I received a replacement order from Wayland Games which included some paints that should go well with my new airbrush. Though it should be noted that when replacing my order (my last one never turned up and I had to but all the paints from Games Workshop) they were really good about it, explaining the situation and offering me credit for the order. So good job Wayland Games customer service.

Compressor kit came with two airbrushes, both dual action

Latest goodies from Wayland Games

But getting all this new gear, and not having any time to hobby, (for the past and probably next two weeks) has given me a chance to reflect on what I want to do. A good thing too as with the airbrush a whole lot more things are now possible.

• Firstly I want to repaint my Gondor army and build it up to a 1500 War of the Ring army. I already have the vast majority of the army, it being my first but I still need a couple of boxes to bulk out the troops. It being my first army the paint jobs are usually pretty terrible and the paint really thick, so I'll need to strip the lot an start from scratch. I'm hoping with the airbrush I'll be able to move through them pretty quickly. Finally it will also involve converting up about two companies worth of Osgiliath veterans from plastic warriors as I just cant face that many repeats of the same three models.
• Secondly I want to finish up my High Elves to a 1500 army. Again I want to repaint most of it, as I want to learn how to do True metallic metal (great tutorial here), and see if I can apply it to an entire army. Besides that I can't really decided what to add to it, but I'm leaning towards a BSB and some more dragon princes and an archer bunker for my mage. Finally if I get time I might try and convert some of my spear men to look like this.
• Finally I have my eldar army, about three years in progress and I still haven't got any where with it. The main problem I have with it is I keep changing lists because I can never make something I'm happy with, as a result of this I have a fair number of models but not enough of anything to turn them into an army that will work. Matters are made worse in that I lost some enthusiasm for 40k by buying the old rule book (hardback) and then getting two games in, one with the other guy forfeiting by the end of turn 1. Right now I'm tempted by Eldar corsairs from forge world and the allying them with some codex eldar. However the cost means I wouldn't get it done by next Christmas and with a new codex rumoured for next year unfortunately this just isn't an option as a result.

So where does this all leave me? Well in between wanting to enter armies on parade next year and commissions I'm determined to at least finish either my fantasy or my Lord of the Rings army and accompanying board. Fight now 40k is definitely on the back burner, though I am thinking of building a 500 point Imperial Guard force around Christmas with the models I already have, pick up the mini rule book and learn the game. (though this time I plan to start 6 months into the new edition instead of 6 months till a new edition)

But if you're still reading (understand if you're not) you may be wondering whats going to happen to the blog if I can barley get any time into hobby anyway. Well it should get a lot better as I'm able to experiment with new techniques, move through models faster (so fewer single model updates), and get on to new projects that I've held back whilst waiting for the airbrush. Any way the next year's looking pretty good , though definitely busy.

Back to the stables

After watching The War Horse last night (thought it was pretty boring by the way, but apparently I missed the good bit) I was inspired to finish up the horse for the last dragon prince. Enjoy.

The End is Nigh!

Well it is for this unit at least, I only have to finish up the standard bearer which I should do this weekend, I'm just waiting on some super glue. My motivation for painting these guys has noticabley dropped in the last few days, if I add any more to the unit it won't be for a while I think.

W.I.P. and Eldar List Building

So this is actually my painting station as it stood on sunday, I've now actually finished the horse and rider so I'll post finished pictures of that tomorrow not much to say besides that but the unit is nearly done only the standard bearer to go now.

After reading an interesting article on 3++ I was inspired to write up an army list to use with my grwoing eldar force instead of showing some pictures of a hlaf finished face (halbarad). Essentially the article was explaining the benefits of using very simmilar lists initially to help you identify trends and useful units in the new addition. Now the article didnt apply to me completley as im only planninng to play in a non competitive envviroment but I would still value any imput especially if you think theres any areas of the game the army will really struggle with.

Farseer                                                 95
Doom, runes of warding

8 fire dragons                                      258
Exarch with fire pike, wave serpant with twinlinked shruiken cannons, underslung shruiken cannon

8 fire dragons                                       250
Exarch, wave serpant with twinlinked shruiken cannons, underslung shruiken cannon

10 Dire Avengers                                 287
Exarch with 2 catapults, bladestorm, wave serpant with twinlinked bright lance, underlsung shruiken cannon

6 Dire avengers                                     72

 6 Guardina Jetbikes                            152
2 shruiken cannons

5 Rangers                                              95

Falcon                                                      180
Bright lance, holo fields

2 Warwalkers                                          110
2 Shruiken cannons, 2 eldar missile launchers

Total 1499

Another Dragon Prince

Got a lot done this weekend, obviously finishing another dragon prince but also got started on the second last horse and this years golden daemon project. Instead of one big post I thought I'd show you the two WIP models on Tuesday. Anyway not much to say about the dragon prince you would have seen it all in earlier posts, but I hope you like it. In other news, my parents kindly gave me a new pinning set as I had lost the drill bits from the other and have been complaining about it for a couple of weeks, who would've thought you could be excited about pinning.

Completed Drakemaster

So after a solid afternoon of painting I was able to get back to my last project, dropped halfway through to start painting the archers. Initially I was rather nervous as I honestly couldn't remember how i painted the red armour but I seem to have got if not the exact same pretty similar. Hope you like it!

Finally finished (Archer Showcase)

With the help of a long weekend I've finally managed to finish the unit of archers, it only took me about 8 weeks. I really enjoyed painting the banner bearer using a similar process to on the the razorback a painted a while back. I adapted some images form the army book and I think the elements combine really well to make a great centrepiece for the unit. I also cleaned up little things on the unit like missing eyes and other details, hope you like them!

Nearly There

Just a quick post to show what I've been working on this weekend, and that's not much. I finished the unit champion and got started on the standard bearer. After taking the pictures though I noticed a few areas I missed but by the time you've read this they'll have been fixed up (namely a bit of colour run and lack of purple line on his robes.) I'm nearly finished the unit, in fact with the long weekend next weekend they should be finished within the week. So far I've really enjoyed painting this unit, initially I had concerns that they were too plain and were going to look boring, out of character and most importantly be boring to paint. But on with the pictures!

How To Paint Red Gems (the semi advanced way)

Since I've recently been painting both an eldar army and a high elf army I've had a bit of practise painting gems. Initially I found it difficult since there were no tutorials for the level I wanted to paint them, a bit better than basic table top finish but not to the extent of heavy metal. So after a bit of trial and error as well as army wide practise I thought I'd make up a tutorial on how I paint my gems.

1. Paint the gem chaos black.
2. Layer a bit over three quarters of the gem scorched brown.

3. Layer a bit less than three quarters of the gem blood red.
4. Layer about half the gem with blazing orange.
5. Glaze the entire gem with thinned blood red.
6. Paint a skull white dot for reflection at the point closest to your light source.

Unfortunately this doesn't show the gem at the end of the process, only about halfway through. The final picture stuffed up for some reason but in reality it looks very similar with the layers just smoother.

 The key I find to succeeding with gems is to use multiple thin layers so that the colours blend easily, in fact it doesn't matter too much if they end up being slightly patchy as they will usually be either hidden by another layer or add to the effect. Also here is a list of colour conversions if you're using GW's paint range:
chaos black = abaddon black
scorched brown = rhinox hide
blood red = evil suns scarlet
blazing orange = troll slayer orange
skull white = white scar

More Finished Archers

Finally, this unit is nearing completion with only the champion and standard to go and then I can get started on my war hawk conversion. After an all too long break because of exams it was nice to be able to paint again especially since I was feeling a bit down hobby wise [ a result of my local store closing, price rise and the new edition of 40K coming after I only getting two games with my old book, which makes it a bit of a waste money wise.] Anyway these guys are the product of about an afternoons steady work , hope you like them. Of course I've spotted a few spots I need to clean up but that wont be too hard. Since the last batch of archers I've changed how I shade the robes from thinned Devlen mud to Codex grey.

What's on the work bench

 This is the first in what I hope to become a semi regular series, where I just put up a quick post on whats on my work bench at the moment. Today I'm in the middle of two archers and have the rest of the unit built and sprayed for painting. Should get them done in the next few days.

High Elf Dragon Prince

So the second instalment to get rid of the back log of posts, so here is the first completed dragon prince. Currently all five horses are complete [ just the animal only three have the armour and such finished] and 1 rider is done. C and C welcome and click for a bigger view.