Berzerkers basecoated

Black Legion Khorne Berzerkers' basecoats are finally done

Basecoating these miniatures en masse has, at times, been a tiresome process. While this factory assembly line approach to painting is certainly a quicker and more efficient way to paint a squad of miniatures, the method does have one serious drawback. Nothing spells BOREDOM more than having to paint the same colour on the same parts, again and again. That being said, it does help a noob like me paint faster so ... as a commissar would probably say ... suck it up soldier.         

As mentioned in earlier blogs, a detailed how-to-paint-Khorne-Berzerkers will eventually be compiled. For now, a quick step-by-step guide to what has been done so far can be seen below.

All the non-gold metal parts were given a layer of Boltgun Metal and a wash of Badab Black.

Gold metal parts were given a basecoat comprising a 1:1 mix of Scorched Brown and Dwarf Bronze

Finally, miscellanous parts were basecoated - eyes were painted with Dark Angel Green; chainsword tassel with Mechrite Red; leather straps with Scorched Brown; and.teeth on the helmet were eventually painted as non-gold metal parts

While working on the Berzerker squad's Skull Champion, I got an idea to also do a how-to-paint guide for the champion's power sword. Its going to be an obsidian blade with what hopefully will be a sinister-like green glow. If it fails ... we could call it the Nickelodeon sword. Word up?

Sneak peek of what will become a LEGEN ... wait for it ... DARY sword

Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays

May your Xmas surprises be merry ones,
May you be safe in the company of loved ones for the holidays,
May your new year be better than the last,
May you be well and happy.

P.S. A BIG thank you to my wife for making the little santa hats for my miniatures. =)

A slight detour to ... a galaxy far far away

They are still miniatures and it's still sci-fi ... but of a different kind. After a morning appointment at a local mall, I came across a mini-exhibition on Star Wars Lego miniatures. They looked rather cool so I snapped a few pictures for the blog. I am more of a Star Trek fan but Star Wars still holds a special place in my heart. Star Wars was the first sci-fi I ever saw as a kid together with those old black-and-white Flash Gordon TV series (Yes, I am that old). Reading Issac Asimov's Foundation books strengthened my love for sci-fi (as Lord of the Rings did for fantasy) and Star Trek sealed it. GW's Warhammer 40K is the icing on me sci-fi cake.

I actually snapped a lot more pictures than is displayed in this blog entry. But being the geeky nerd that I am, I probably messed up some of the photo-taking cause they were not saved on my mobile phone camera's memory card. Oh well ... to the pictures that did make it from warp.

Battle for Hoth
These, I thought, were the best of the miniatures on display. I am bit bias here as Empire Strikes Back was IMHO the best Star Wars movie ever made.

Imperial Landing
A scene synonymous with Lord Vader's signature theme. If look carefully, you can see that one of the imperial guards has fallen flat on his face.

Battle for Endor
Ewoks ... the less said the better.

Tatooine
Home of a young Skywalker.

Clone Wars
Why Lucas why ... did you have to spoil the romanticism of Star Wars with CGI !!!

That's all folks! Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

A sign from the Skull Throne

Khorne is displeased with the progress of his berzerker squad. A not too subtle sign in the form of a broken paint brush is the blood god's way of saying paint faster or else ... =)

So what has another week brought me? Well, the painstakingly slow process of painting multiple thin layers of Scab Red means only the basecoat for the berzerkers' armour have been completed. But at least I managed to tinker with some alternative lighting in order to brighten up the photos I had been taking. Budget constraints has put the IKEA lamp out of reach for the foreseeable future so I did the best with what I had in hand.

First, I used natural sunlight as a light source.

 

Then, I tried taking the picture using a car-emergency-kit as a light source.

For a future 'How-to-paint-Khorne-Berzerkers' tutorial that I plan to put up later, I decided to go with the second method of lighting. The following pictures are sort of a sneak-preview of what's to come later. I put them up mainly to show the huge difference additional lighting had contributed towards picture quality. On my previous blog entry, the pictures did not turn out too well due to bad lighting.

A behind-the-scenes look at my temporary lighting solution in-lieu of a proper work lamp.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. =)

Next up for painting will be the zerkers' metal parts (both gold and non-gold). With my son at his cousins' place for a couple of days due to the school holidays ... I should make slightly better progress at painting. But that's if I can get off my lazy arse and stop watching 'Supernatural' and 'The Walking Dead' marathon sessions on TV. Going slightly off-topic ... the ending of Walking Dead (Season 2) gave me massive goosebumps and spooked me no end. Superb writing for the series. Anyway ... back to the forges ... Khorne demands it.

Mini-anniversary ... progress so far and a future project

Mini-anniversary

Exactly four months ago, to the day, I began my journey into the world of miniature painting. In this mini-anniversary of sorts, I find myself looking back at that fateful day which has resulted in me spending many long hours hunched over a table with a paint brush in hand, miniature models up close to my eyes (thanks to a bummer combination of short-sightedness and middle-age), paint all over my hands as well as aching shoulders. BUT it has been absolutely worth it! 

It started innocently enough. Having been a long-time fan of Black Library’s Warhammer 40K publications, I decided to find out more about the lore and background story of the sci-fi novels I had been reading. That brings me back to July 27, the day I bought a copy of the Warhammer 40K Rulebook. Flipping through the pages, I found my eyes invariably drawn to the beautifully painted models instead of reading the lore that I had initially sought. I was hooked … the rest is history.

Painting miniatures is a great stress-reliever. After a hectic day at work, it’s always nice to lose oneself for awhile in the hobby. Moreover, I am very lucky in that some fellow hobbyists have been very helpful and supportive of my attempts at miniature painting. That has inspired me to work at becoming a better and faster painter.

So after four months and only 12 fully painted miniatures, I decided to take stock of my situation and see what the future holds for me in the coming months.

Progress so far ...

Firstly, my main priority is to complete the Chaos Space Marine and Ork armies. On that front, progress has been slow over the past three weeks. Using watered-down Chaos Black, I finally managed to fully undercoat my Khorne Berzerkers.

Following this, I applied a basecoat of Scab Red on the armour of one the ‘zerkers using a ‘Eavy Metal technique I read about. For the benefit of fellow noobs that may be reading my blog – the ‘Eavy Metal team is a group of expert painters from Games Workshop.

 

In this case, the basecoat comprised up to five or more, very thin coats of Scab Red. The reason I did this, instead of using just one thick coat of paint, was to ensure an even and smoothly-coloured basecoat. It worked but was rather time consuming process. One ‘zerker’s armour basecoat finished … just seven to go. O_O 
Anyway, when I am done, I will be compiling it into a step-by-step how-to-paint guide.

Future project ... Citadel Finecast

For future projects, I got a great idea for a blog topic from Alvin of HobbyForge. He suggested I do a blog on a Finecast model project. So far, I have only worked with plastic models so it will definitely be a challenge to work on Finecast’s resin models.

Over the past four months, I have managed to amass a collection of Finecast models, all of which I have yet to do any work on.

But a recent acquisition from Hobby Forge i.e. Ghazghkull Thraka has given me the confidence to finally assemble and paint a Finecast model. It’s the biggest model of all the Finecast models that I have, so it should be the easiest one for a beginner to work with … I think. 

So coming soon are blog entries on the trial and tribulations of a noob’s work on a Finecast model … warts and all. Should be good for a laugh =)

Well, that concludes my lengthiest blog entry yet. Hopefully my future blogs will have more pictures and less blah blah blah ...