Just a quick update. Still on call so not much going on today lol. Right now I'm working on a conversion for my army.

Greater Daemon of Slaanesh: Keeper of Secrets.

The body is based on the original GW model. The face is a variation of things. The general idea is the straps on the face cover it's true identity, hence the Keeper of Secrets fluff. Most conversions I've seen are female, so I thought I'd try a male version of sorts.

What do you think so far? I'm working on a vector of the face to clarify the scheme a little. Should be up tomorrow. I'm also working on a Halloween banner for the site. Pics up soon :)

Bah, another week on call. Don't get me wrong, the extra money is nice, but I'm missing out on a tourney with my friends lol. I hope they do well.

Tourney Rules: Two players per team, 500 points each/1000 total. Each player has to provide one HQ and one troop choice, the rest is open.

Team Name: Taste the Rainbow
Players: Hoot and Crunch
Armies: Eldar and Ork
Tactics: Hoot is running an Avatar with a group of 30 Ork boyz out in front. Meanwhile, Crunch has a battlewagon full of Burnas and a Big Mek equipped with a shield generator. For added fire power Hoot has a squad of Rangers to hinder incoming enemy advances along with a nasty bunch of Striking Scorpions in reserves. Overall it's a pretty solid list and I think they will do well.

Team Name: Mage against the Regime
Players: S2ua7 and Mike aka "Guy"
Armies: Imperial Guard and Space Marines/Blood Angels
Tactics: S2ua7 has nearly perfected his IG army including a Valkyrie, Leman Russ tank, a squad of troops, and a command squad. They have proven to be quite difficult to stop and offer a lot of offensive and defensive fire power. If that wasn't enough "Guy" has a beefy squad of assault termies and a thunderfire cannon to rain down on the opposition. Add in his snipers with Telion, they have a lot of flexibility and staying power. It will be fun to see how they do.

Both teams have different setups so it will be interesting to see how they perform against the other teams. My guess is that there will be a majority of Ork and Space Marines variations (due to the Black Reach box set).

UPDATE: Grats to "Taste the Rainbow" for having best painted :D

Here's a quick and easy way to base your models.
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Materials: White hobby glue (Elmer's) or PVA glue, basing material (I use playground sand) and something to spread with (popsicle stick)

Step 1: Apply glue to the front and back of the base.


Step 2: Spread the glue to cover the base completely. It helps to clean the top edge of the base with your finger.


Step 3: Gently move your model into the sand. I prefer to bury it up to the knees. This works with painted models too, just make sure to push them in carefully :)


Step 4: Profit! You now have a quick and easy base for your army. It helps to tap off excess sand and run your finger around the edge to clean it up.

Depending on the size and shape of the sand you may need to do a second layer to cover the base completely. Some people prefer to base their models after they paint them. I prefer to base them before priming as it helps to "lock" the sand in place. This also makes painting the rocks a lot easier (if you plan to paint them that is).

Different methods yield different results

Did you find this useful? Anything to add? Comments are always welcome :)

After selling off most of my Ultra Marines, I decided to start another army. It came down to Tau, Eldar, and Chaos Daemons. I decided, obviously, on the latter and am pleased with the results. Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate the forces of evil, this just happens to be a pretty cool army :)

Chaos Spear Head, another Grinder, and a Chaos Lord.

I love plastic...

...and I HATE PEWTER!


Everything so far, minus a few headless hounds :D


What's next? Filling some gaps and cleaning details a little then priming. I'll have those pics up in a few days :)





Blood for the Blood God!

This weekend we tried something new. The scenario was to see how long our troops could survive before they got slaughtered by the Orks. Each player was allowed 125 points. Our opponent, an endless wave of Orks. They began slowly with a few Boyz and eventually building up to Kommandos, Killa cans, and Stormboyz in the frey. It was a very fun and fast paced game.

Left to Right: Bo with his Thunderfire cannon and Crunch's Big Mekon the upper left, my Blood Letters on the bottom left, Hoot and his Tau at the bottom, Kyle's Sternguard and S2ua7's IG holding the right flank


Ready to defend in the name of the Emperor!


Bo punishes a few unlucky Ork Boyz


Hoot's Crisis Suit gets tied up in CC with some angry Orks.


Battered and bruised, but still stanbding


A few Kommandos enter the mix, but my Daemons are ready to intercept


First game we survived nine rounds before finally being over run with a full scale assault. It was a lot of fun and hopefully we'll try it again pretty soon.

Tonight was rather short (since most of us worked late), and it's been a pretty busy week. Hoot is working on finishing up the Avatar and it is looking sweet! Pics up this weekend. As for Crunch he is nearly finished painting the last of da Burnas for the tournament. I think that just leaves his Kustom Big Mek and he's finished as well.

Aside from magnetizing a few Terminator arms I'm also working on terrain ideas for the next week. They will probably be Catachan and Ork themed. I have a few sketches going lol.

Other than that I'm narrowing it down to which of two armies I want to play next; Eldar or Tau. I've seen both in action and are pretty sweet, not to mention I can get a good deal on either one. I would play IG also, but there's too many of us running them and I want to try something different :)

Here's an update on the Avatar for Hoot. I turned it over to him so he could work on the details on the armor. I'm fairly pleased with the results, though given more time I'd like to add a bit more to the lava and effects. I think that's a good thing though since I could feel myself wanting to paint something else lol.

One thing I'll try next time is starting with a white primer and work my way to black. That would help in creating the really "hot" lava effect.

The sword was a new test for me. I started with a little boltgun over the symbols followed by a fade in of fire around the blade edge. From there I went over it again with Dwarf Bronze to give it a type of golden fire look. The pic doesn't do it justice, though, it came out pretty cool.

The Helmet side armor was faded from TinBitz to Boltgun Metal and highights with Mithril Silver.

Next project: I'm going to take a break from painting and focus on terrain again. Right now I'm sketching out a few ideas and plan to have the inital ideas up soon. Aside from that I have a few green stuff models to finish too lol.

I wanted to have this guy done fast so S2ua7 could use him this weekend. Work this week, however, spared few hours to devote to painting. Determined to finish him by Saturday I decided to speed paint him Friday Night for table top quality. This took a little over an hour.


Pic1 - Started the face with Tallarn Flesh base, followed by a layer of Mechrite Red to the hood and dry brushed boltgun metal on the body.

Pic2 - Detailed the face a little with dwarf flesh followed by Flesh Wash and more DF to finish it up. Painted the rest of the cloak Mechrite Red, washed with Baal Red, then a 50:50 mix with Dev. Mud. Added Dwarf Bronze to some of the features and re applied boltgun and chaos black to the body.

Pic3 - Cleaned up some details and added Badab Black Wash in the armor. Painted the Searchlight with Hawk Turqouis followed by a 50:50 mix with Ice blue. Added a little Tin Bitz (woot) to the base and drybrushed with Boltgun/Mithril

I'm pleased with how he turned out, but like any painter I hope to get my hands on the model again to finish it up.

I've been working a lot of 12 hour shifts so haven't had much time to devote to painting :( I'll be glad to be off call Friday to get back to living a normal life again (normal for me lol).

Here's a few pics of a Ratling Sniper I've been modding. I'm planning to add a "Y" branch on the tree under the gun to make it look like he's using it as a Bi-Pod. I had some extra Green stuff and decided to give him a gnomish hat lol. It's missing something though... I think some ammo and the "Born to Kill" slogan like the helmet in Full Metal Jacket.

What do you think of it so far? Have anything to add to it?

Aside from working on call, I had a little time to work on the Avatar some more. It's nearly completed and I'm liking the results. I'd like the lava to have a very "hot" look to it, so I will probably go over it again with skull white some more.

This was a test for the lava on the base.


Dry bushed Scab Red followed by Red Ink


From here I started at blending from Red Gore to Blood Red to Blazing Orange.


Blending up from Blood Red to Blazing Orange to Sunburst Yellow and a little skull white

Started the detail on the head piece with a thin coat of Commando Khaki (shown on the left of his face) followed by Bleached Bone (right side of face)


Cleaned up a little with Chaos Black and added Tin Bitz (woot) to the armor

More pics to come :)

Here's my work so far on my friend's Tech Priest. I'm hoping, work permitting, to have him painted by this weekend.

I learned from my first few Pewter models to wash them before you prime them, lol. They have some sort of residue on them that makes it hard to paint.

The Servo arm on his back was not cooperating, lol. It sits on a ball joint that's not sized very well. Oh well, a little green stuff can fix that :)

Primed and ready to paint. I removed some excess green stuff from the Servo arm and changed the base a little bit. Looking forward to painting it

Working on the Eldar Avatar. I had to put it on hold since I wanted to re-prime the model. I noticed some areas of the base coat were chipping off as I was painting and decided to start over. While the model was in the dip tank I decided on adding a green stuff lava base to it, rather than the normal glue-n-sand method. I'm pleased with the results so far. It's subtle, but won't distract from the model like some bases I've seen. Check it out!

- - - Avatar of Khaine - - -

- - -Basing - - -

While the green stuff is still soft I added a few grooves to it. It is much easier to sculpt with the surface and tools wet.


After an hour I went back and started molding some detail to the base. I added some textures to the surface areas to help with highlighting later.


Primed and ready to paint

The next step is to start the lava flow between the armor and similar effects. I'm looking forward to finishing the base. Going to try a new tchnique for lava. More pics to follow in the next few days.