Tau

So I got lazy.

Well it's been about a month since the last update. I've been lazy. Like... really lazy.
Well... sort of.
I've done some things. Like the Tomb Stalker. That's almost done now! Just two guns left to get painted up and then we can scratch giant-centipede-of-death off of the to do list.
The tank... has progressed a bit. That's my next goal. Painting this dark grey has become a bit of a slog. So I'm breaking that up and I'll be painting the first foot soldier for my Tau army tonight. Which is a snazzy wee pathfinder equipped with a rail rifle. Can't get enough of those S6 AP1 rifles. And Rapid fire. All of my love.
Once he's painted to a stupidly high standard (All my tau are going to be crazy well painted. Like my squats) we'll get back to that god forsaken tank. Or should I say C'tan forsaken? Bwahaha bad joke is awful.
So pretty much all there is left on the Ark is the 10 or so damaged troops, and the pilot. Oh, and the blue glowy bits. Then it's just a case of glowing the wanker together.
Never again will I cunt-punt myself with a Necron Ark. Although that there new tesseract vault is might snazzy... chortle chortle.

Another Picture-less Update

Heyo!
Just thought I'd fill y'all in on what I've been up to recently. Minus pictures because I'm a lazy wench.
The Ghost Arc is nearing completion; Pilot and repairing passengers are the last big hurdle.
Painted up my Rapier Laser Destroyer. The actual weapon platform that is. No crew painted as of yet.
Oh! I finally found a way to make that Necron Overlord stand out a bit more from the rank-and-file warriors. Painted on a silver rim to the shoulder plates, and redid the resurrection orb. Really pleased I can still do what I did on the shoulders. The Orb was a sheer fluke. Was pretty much dicking about with ideas and something happened that looks cool. Can't really explain it without a picture. Guess I need to be proactive.
~Morbs

TAAAAANNNK

HERLY K;HJSHDBNFUJKJP!
It's almost done!
Remind me to never ever paint a Ghost Ark ever again.
Because it sucks.
A lot.
Cool model though.
But then I just want to get back to painting squats. Also considering painting some fantasy dwarves to go alongside the three or four limited edition ones I've already got. Yes. I would consider painting an entire army of the stubby wee things just to compliment three or four single models. Crazy? Yes.Also that Dwarf Command Set on forgeworld is mighty awesome.
So the current list of priorities is as follows:

1. Ghost Ark
2. Tomb Stalker
3. Nuln Oil 2x Immortal
4. Make the Overlord look better.
5. White Dwarf Gyrocopter Pilot
6. Death Guard Army continuation - maybe another tac squad or something.
7. Tau Titan
8. Other Limited edition models I have. (White Dwarf 30th Anniversary, 'Drunk' Bugman)
9. Squats

Leaving the best 'til last. Well... Sorta.

~Morbs.

What we've got.

Heyo!

I said pictures were coming, and this time I plan to deliver!

Here we have the necrons in their current state. Not much left to go with them! Still need to make the overlord look... better.

 Now next up we have a shot of the wonderful Dwarf Daemon slayer. Still unfinished sadly. Though the axe  is just needed a last bit of gold. and the gold on the dwarf just needs a highlight of silver to tone down the ink.

Now last of I've got a few pictures of the wonderful HQ choice for the squat army. Quite an old paint job, though i had to repaint about half of it as a lot of paint had been chipped off in various moves around the country. Also rebased him, because the 25mm slotta-base just wasn't doing it for me. Super pleased with the result too.

 Squat space packs; Powered by Booze.

That's all for now dear friends.

Happy painting.

~Morbie

Arrrgh. Good Morning.

Hey guys and gals.
Or rather.. Hello one person out there who reads this!
Aaanyway, it's been a while since my last post. Over a month. Holy shit. Whoops.
Sorry about that, been super busy from changing jobs, taking on an internship at the same time, flying lessons, managing a youtube channel (which has taken a back seat too atm) and occasionally painting a little bit.
Oh, and also being generally awesome. Bwahaha egotism.

So back to the topic at hand; Painting!

In terms of the Necrons, I painted 20 scarabs, which is to say five bases of the cute little suckers.
Done a bit more on the tank as well. I'd say the Ghost Ark is around 50% completed at the moment. Gerdern me and making up a paint scheme as I go, takes so much deliberating. Never do this kiddies! Plan things in advance!

In terms of my own projects, the HQ choice for the Squat army has been restored and re-based. And Dayum it looks good. Really couldn't be more chuffed by how it's turned out. Also started on one of my Exo-Armour Squats. Orange jump-suit is done, going to start on the armour tonight. Yes. Orange. Jump Suits. WE'RE OLD SCHOOL MUTHA TRUCKA. Ahem.

For the Death Guard; they're currently on hold as the Squats are just too much fun to paint and have distracted me completely.

Another little side project I've been working on is that Dwarf Daemon Slayer. Almost finished now. Just an axe, and last highlight on and gold left to do. I'll maybe even finish it tonight!

Heck, we might even get some pictures of these models later on. Wouldn't that be something?

Morbie out.

Oh! not yet actually. Fun fact: Morbie is making Pax Prime plans. This one I get notice for, unlike my 2 week warning for E3

Current status.

Ahoy!

So having just added a new desk to my room, and now having a decent place to set up hobby shop, as it were, my painting output has increased dramatically. This being said, it's picture time!

First up is a picture of my (very almost completed) tactical squad. Only nine done so far, but that's four more then the total was yesterday. 

I'm actually really pleased with the overall cohesion of the army.

And now the fun begins! Here's a few pictures of a couple of my side-projects.

This is the decapitated head of a Golden Demon.It was the games day model of either 06 or 07. I always wanted it when it came out, but in a way I'm glad I din't get it. I'd have painted it horribly. I'll be taking pictures of this model sporadically throughout the painting process. Maybe once every 3-5 hours of painting done. So far I've basecoated all but the hair (not too sure what colour I'll go for there yet), and last night I began building up the flesh tones from my very old but still good Bestial Brown, then nuln oil wash, followed by a re-base (i.e not putting the bestial brown back into the recesses), and then I've need slowly blending in a bit of my other very old but still good paint, Vomit Brown. I'll be gringing the skin tone right up to a bronze-yellow colour. After all, he is a golden demon.

And ow for the real challenge. My very own Tau Titan

Fun fact: The burst cannon is taller then a Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought

Fun fact: The twin-linked Railgun is as tall as the titan itself.

Fun fact: The base it's on also comes with this rather brilliant destroyed Space Marine Rhino on it.

Fun fact: The titan has a fully detailed interior for the pilot.

I'm still unsure of what colour scheme I'm going to go with, though I have a few idea brewing. Then again... I'm not exactly sure how one paints something that size.
All credit to the building of it goes to a wonderful chap named Matt, who can be found on coolminiornot.com going by the name of hk1x1. 

So that sums up todays entry.
Have a good one, guys.
Morbie out.

Oh heck yes.

I'm buying a desk to put into me room. That way I'll have my own space to paint. Also getting a new bookshelf at the same time.Clean and efficient storage for all of them warhammers. That's proper English. Yup. Very much looking forward to getting that sometime this week or next. Will speed up the production of my painting no end.

Morbie out.

Oh golly it's some more pictures.

Hey again y'all. 

I thought I'd entertain you with a few pictures. 

First up we have an image of the area I'm currently using to paint in. Very messy. Also perched on the edge of the dining room table. Which is why it is messy. I have no room so it's all crammed in there. I'm getting a desk put in my room soon, so I'll finally maybe have some space of my own to hobby it up.

Next up we have a box of undercoated things! I went through literally all the remaining chaos black spray I had. Which is an issue. Especially as I missed a bit. Mainly on the scythes for the deathshroud.
So the full list of undercoated minis in here:
20x Legionaires.
1x Rapier laser battery (with 2x crew)
5x Deathshroud.

I thought I'd add in an image of Necron army too. Currently have 2 more immortals awaiting their baptism by oil. The Lord is still awaiting another looking at. Tomb Stalker has body work almost done. Then come the legs ._. And then we have a ghost ark to complete.

 That's all for me at the moment. Have a picture of my cats. The one on the left (Thor) went missing for two and a half weeks. Good to have him back. His brother (Jairo) was missing him severely.

Morbie out.

Holy crap a picture!

 ERMAHGERD! A pictures.

Another pictureless update

Because I mostly find the time to update this when I'm not actually anywhere near the models, or a camera for that matter, still no pictures! (my bad)
At any rate, I thought a quick update was in order.
We're going to cover a few things such as current and future projects, paint schemes (many-other-colours) and actually that's pretty much it. Huh. Could have sworn there was more.

Necrons:
So first up we have the current projects. The primary focus is the Necron army commission. The current state of things is two squads of warriors done, along with the overlord. Though I'm not happy with the overlord. Looks too bland for an overlord. Might do a bit of gold work on it to make it stand out from the grey horde.
Two Immortals are done. One just needs its baptism by nuln oil. I hope to get at least one more immortal done tonight. Getting all of them done would be quite something.
As a way to mix things up a bit, I've started work on the Forge World Canoptek Tomb Stalker. Absolutely brilliant model to paint. Or the carapace body thing is. the legs may be a bit of a different matter. Have to do a lot of clean up on them. I'm going to be painting this model to a very high standard as it's pretty much the centerpiece of the entire army. Considering doing a lighting effect around the eyes.
The ghost arc will then come along after I've finished that up. I don't look forward to it. It will be hell.

On to my own projects!

Death Guard:
So if you don't know already, I purchased a Forge World army. Pre-Heresy Death Guard. I painted one legionary up, though I may revisit it an make it a much crisper paint job. Also have the Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought done. Mostly. A lot of weathering details need to happen yet. Other then those two, there's the following to go:
Rapier Laser Destroyer, Deathshroud terminators, Legion Champion and Master of the Signal, 29 more Tac marines.
I've been talking to a few other painters from around the world who are also starting new armies up, and we're grouping up to paint this shizzle up... yo. So each week over the course of a few months we'll have a different unit to paint, keeping each other updated on our progress.

Tau:
This is a possibility. Not sure if it's going to happen or not. But it might.
I like tau. They were my first 40k army ever. Battlesuits are cool. And although I've now lost/converted/sold all of my original Tau models, I still love them. Probably the only race in 40k who aren't massive wanks.
So anyway, I frequently stalk around in the background of a site called coolminiornot.com and there was a wonderful WIP thread showing the progress of a scratch built Tau Titan made from two Hammerheads, some plasticard, and a ton of skill. And then the crator put it on ebay. I've placed a bid. If I get it, then Tau army is a go! If not.. I'll probably look at commissioning one from him using Riptides as the base.
Now the issue is, that if I do get this, I need to paint it. Well. Because not doing credit to that model with a brilliant paint job would be a crime. I have some old fire warriors left over from a previous attempt to start a tau army from about 2 years back. So I'll spend some time this weekend trying out colour schemes and find one that will work on battlesuits well. I would like the force to be primarily battlesuits. Maybe purple. Possibly green.


On the subject of colour schemes, I'm dredging this picture back up.

Why? Because I'mma tell y'all how to paint it. Sorta. We'll do a more detailed one some time soon showing step by step pictures as well.

So The necron warrior!

I start by undercoating black, I suggest two things here:
Use spray.
Don't assemble the model fully prior to undecoating. You'll end up having to go back and get in gaps with black on a brush. and that's never smooth and thin.
After this I mix Abaddon Back and Lothern Blue and a bit of water to thin it down. Abbadon black is really thick.. It's pretty much a 3:3:1 mix.. This mix is that wonderful blue grey colour. If yours looks lighter then the picture, don't worry, it'll fix later.
This is applied to all the raised armour plates of the model, gun included.
All joints, pistons, blades, back-of-the-head, are then given a coat of Leadbelcher. (I still think 'Boltgun Metal' sounds better).
The hexagonal shape in the center of the chest and the energy coils on the gun are coated in a slightly watered down coat of kantor blue.
The raised surface on the hexagon is gently painted with lothern blue. I suggest using a small amount of paint and the edge of a fine detail brush to accomplish this. The energy coils on the gun are also highlighted with lothern blue, as are the eyes.
Now then, the tricky part. The barrel of the gun. It's hard enough to get the thing undercoated black due to the type of plastic it's made out of. Definitely need spray paint for it.
Now there are two ways to do it, one is just an extra step longer, and was only done for the test model above. On the finished product, you really can't tell the difference at all. So we'll just go for the quicker way this time.
Start by using slightly watered down kantor blue, and painting it in thin, wiggly lines along the barrel, branching out and stopping, merging with others etc. I then took  watered down Altdorf Guard Blue and painted along these lines. When I say along, I mean inside of. Leaving a bit of kantor blue on the outside makes it look that little bit more special. Lothern blue is then watered down, though not my much, and is used in the same way the Altdorf Guard Blue was.
Finally, (and this is where the model would be fully assembled) I take out me pot of nuln oil and go to town. Not to the point where the wash is dripping off the necron, but a good even coat is applied over the entire mini. This serves to tie all the colours together, tone the sharp Lothern Blue back a bit, and give an overall grimdark appearance to the model.

So there you go! How to paint necrons, made easy. Although, most necron players just slap some leadbelcher on and call it a day...
How to paint necrons that look unique! Made easy.

That's all for me today... unless I manage to get pictures up. Ha. Wouldn't that be something.

Morbie out.

Gee Whizz! A post!

I'll start this up with an apology for not putting any blog post up sooner. It's been pretty hectic recently. Full time job + painting a commissioned army + Forge World order arriving + Bioshock Infinite coming out + managing a youtube channel + being a moderator/community events runner for Guns of Icarus Online.
Call me ladies.
Before my mind blows up would be nice.

Aaaaanyway. A few updates. Minus the pictures.

I'm currently in Wellington. Capital of this tiny country I call home. Met up with the wonderful Harpreet and Ashton. We played LoL. Kicked bum too. It was excellent.

As Harpreet is the one I'm painting the necrons for, he got to take a first hand look at what his money is getting him. Seemed pretty pleased about it too.

For the other two people that read this.. I assume that's all there is at any rate... The two squads of warriors are done. Necron Overlord is... sort of done. I pulled an all nighter prior to coming down to Wellington and painted him up along with one of my pre-heresy Death Guard. Still not happy with the overlord though. Not unique enough to be a unit that commands the entire army, so I'll be revisiting that once I get home. The Death Guard looks excellent however. I was also bored yesterday and painted and assembled my Contemptor Pattern Dreadnought and it looks godly. Can't wait until I get two more.

While at Games Workshop, we played a three way (giggity) game. Necrons v Marines v Guardsman. Small armies. Two troops and an HQ. Somehow I managed  to break my curse of only rolling 1's and 2's, and even pulled off a win. Somehow. Ah well, I won't complain.

It was rather hilarious however, the guy running the Games Workshop... really intense. Especially about the new Tau. Yes, they are very cool. No, you do not need to get 3cm away from my face to tell me to abandon all other armies to play them. I'll probably get the Fireblade model. It's awesome.
Heck, I may even look into actually starting that Tau army up properly. I have a few models already that can be seen earlier in the blog, I could just go back to them after I finish wave one of pre-heresy. Well... once I have 2000 points.

I'll be getting some pictures up of the so far completed necron army when I get back home, along with a painting guide, because that will probably be a good thing to put on here.
Also pictures of the Dreadnought, because it's huge. And awesome.

God that was a long blog. This is what happens when I don't blog for a while. Once more, sorry about that. mind has been in overdrive. Holidays are nice. Work on Tuesday is going to be hell.
Morbie out.

Test painting!

Ok, no instructions on how to paint the necrons today. But I have got an example. Seeing as I have never painted a necron in this colour scheme. Or even a necron before (ermahgerdwhatamIdoing?), I have decided to just take one of the warrior units, and paint it up as a test.

So here we have an image of the necron warror in-progress. I decided to paint him up in parts like this to get a better feel for the necron warrior as I've never painted one before. 5 Paints were used to paint this happy chap, I'll list them when I do a step by step for how to paint them.

Now for some finished shots! Wuhooo! Hilariously, the only way I could get decent shots was by holding the warrior up outside. So enjoy the nature in the background.

So that's all for now.
Will start mass production on the warriors tomorrow.
Morbie out.




I like nuln oil.

Undercoats and brain damage

 Alrighty Ladies and Gents. We've done a quick sub assembly of the necron warriors, making the torso and gluing it to the legs, and the legs to the base. Then using a dash of PVA glue on the base and putting some basing...stuff... on it. I've then laid all these sub assembled warriors out on some old newspaper along with the sprues that contain the remaining parts. Generally I like to get some blu-tack and put them on a ling piece of wood (think paint stirring sticks), but given a recent move, I no longer have any of that. So I've snapped a few images of pre-spray and post spray for yah.

I see these necrons and I want to spray them black.
no colour anymore I want to spray them black..

I took my spray can and then I sprayed them black!

Ok, I've run out of ways to continue to kill The Rolling Stones. So here's some images of the necrons Post-Spray.

I don't know how common it is to put the basing...stuff... on the base prior to spraying, but I felt it could be easier then going in there with a brush later and having to worry about the possibility of getting black on the painted warriors. It took a pretty concentrated spray to actually get the bases done though, and I may have to go over it with a brush at any rate. Not sure if I'll use that technique again on the rest of the army.

 And there you have it. Sprayed necrons. Only just managed to get them done prior to it starting to rain. That was lucky. Sadly I don't have any mask or anything to use when I spray them, so I have to play my second favourite game of all; Hold your breath, whenever I want to undercoat minis. This is of course followed by my favourite game; Remember to start breathing again. I hate to think of the amount of brain cells I just knocked off. My head certainly hurts in one location now. Might have to look into something there.
I'mma professional!
Tomorrow we paint!
Morbie out.

A rather amusing coincidence.

So I'm watching Terminator 4 while building necrons. Rather hilarious, no?

They have awoken

The models for the commissioned Necron army finally arrived after two days of the couriers pussy-footing about. So here are a few images of what we have to work with. Deadline is easter, so I'll be painting and uploading images like a boss over the next two weeks.



So here's the basics. A very large army case, which includes the custom foam on one side for the Ghost Ark. The Necron Battleforce; an excellent place to start. And it's rounded off with an Overlord. What surprised me about this model was that the golden rim around the shoulder armour that you can see in the Heavy Metal colour scheme is actually painted on. No separating groove or anything. I'm also really quite glad I picked up that pot of liquid green stuff a few days ago. Quite a few places on this mini that it'll be useful for.

Next up we have an image of what you see when you open up the battleforce box. Good golly is that a lot of sprue.

And finally I've snapped an image of all of the sprues from the battleforce laid out so you can really appreciate how goddamn much they managed to fit in the box. Top right we have 5x necron warrior frames. Top left is the Immortal/Deathmark frame. Along the bottom is the Ghost Ark.

Tomorrow we'll be starting on the 20 necron warriors! Stay tuned.

Morbie out.

Older work

Thought I'd post a few examples of what level I'm trying to get my painting back to. Then of course we're going to push that boundary as far as we can.

We start with a Games Day Space Marine Captain. In a depressing turn of events I can't remember what year it was from, but I'm sure you can find out if needed. In all hilarity, the thing I'm most proud of with this mini is the base. I never was good with basing.

Followed up by a Commissar. Similar colouring of the two. Funny that. I don't have a limited palette. Don't be silly. So I've been trying to push what colours I can use competently. One of the reasons behind having white and purple Tau.

And last up we have an absolutely disgusting relic from the past: Morbie's first ever mini.
Enjoy! (I certainly cringe whenever I see it, but I keep it as a reminder of how far I've come)

Until next time,
Morbie out.

Some pictures!

About time I got a few pictures up, don't you think?

First up we have the basic colour scheme for the tau. Rather white, no? This isn't actually the original stealth suit. That one was fully based and whatnot. I'll get him up once I've done a few touch ups; he's been smacked around a bit over the past year and moving house 3 times.

Next we have the Piranha as it was when I started. Now the crew is quite happily chilling out in there, with their pretty control panels.

And finally we've got a Fire Warrior Shas'Ui. Slight conversion on him too. A very basic one, I cut away at the right shoulder plate, and replaced it with a right shoulder armour from the stealth suits that I happened to have sitting around.

I might get a bit more work done on the piranha today too. I'll get some pictures of the current state of it up later on as well hopefully.

Morbie out.

Small update.

Well I've fished out the Tau Piranha, firewarriors and 25th Anniversary model. Not sure if I'll get around to the fire warriors. So much white to paint, and with the upcoming Pre-heresy Death Guard also being white in most places, I don't know if I have the fortitude to paint the Tau on top of it.But I'm going to get the Piranha done at least.I did a bit of work on the consoles last night, so they can finally be glued in place before I lose them. Again.

In terms of painting said consoles, here's what I did. Note that I will be referring to paints as their old names, as I'm still running with those.
I started by using a bit of Midnight Blue mixed with Chaos Black for the background, then used khemri brown on all of the buttons. The Khemri brown was slowly blended with Skull White, to a highlight point of about 1:3 Khemri:Skull ratio. The screens stated with Liche purple, blended up to warlock purple. Then I mixed warlock purple and white to achieve a grid effect on the screen, all brought together by a wash of Liche Purple to tone down the contrast.

Pictures will go up later today, including the Piranha so far, the stealth unit that was the test for the entire colour scheme, and also a slightly converted Fire Warrior sergeant.

Morbie out.

A blog? Crazy stuff.

Well, a good day to you all. All nill of you out there.
I thought I'd start a blog type thing up to coincide with getting back into painting Warhammer 40,000. So here we'll be seeing the step by step process of what gets painted. Hopefully we'll all learn something new, as you can only ever get better at painting. Hopefully I haven't lost my skill. I have a few half painted Tau Firewarriors  and a Piranha lying around somewhere, so they're going to be coming up first. Then I've been commissioned to paint a Necron army (a few very cool ideas for that bouncing around in me noggin), and then my own Forge World army - A pre-Heresy Death Guard.
And I just remembered that I've also got the 40K 25th anniversary space marine to be painted as well. Excellent. Y'all are in for a treat.
Until next time,
Morbie Out.