Master and Commander (and Helmet Guy)

Hey all,

Quick post today with a couple of shots of Commander Azrael and the little guy who tags along with him.

These figures were given to my brother all those years ago when we first got into the hobby. We got round to assembling and undercoating them but didn't get any further, and they've sat around in a box for the last few years.

When I went about reclaiming old pieces a few weeks back, I cleaned these up and ordered a new backpack and banner for Azrael. They were both reassembled, based and spray undercoated Chaos Black. I then put down a Dark Angels Green basecoat with the airbrush.

The articulated joints in the armour and the sword hilt were painted Charadon Granite, before the armour was washed with Thraka Green and then with Badab Black. The cloth areas, banner, and iconography were basecoated Dheneb Stone and the red areas basecoated Dark Flesh. The sword blade was painted Boltgun Metal. All of these areas were then washed with Ogryn Flesh.

For the highlighting stage, the armour was blended up with a 50:50 mix DAG and Snot Green, with SG on the edges. The extreme highlights were Scorpion Green. The light cloth areas were layered back up with Dheneb Stone. The red areas were layered up with Dark Flesh and Vermin Brown. The bases had the usual treatment of Scorched Brown with the tops drybrushed Dheneb Stone. Army Painter grass scatter and jungle tufts were added for a little extra detail and to compliment the green armour.

Olly, next time I see you chap, you can have your figures back :P

Laters all!

White Dwarf 390 & New Skimmers For 40K

Hey folks,

GW are really on the money at the moment, with another cracking White Dwarf this month.

Looking ahead to my (intended) upcoming games of Kill Team, I'm really tempted to pick up one of the new fliers, as they will fit right in and add an interesting dynamic to the games; a bit like the end of level boss sections in the video games, having a squad of guys ducking around to avoid the vehicle fire..... could be a lot of fun. Not so keen on the Necron Scythes, but the Marine gunship and the Ork plane look tops.

For the Orks, I'm thinking take a Dakkajet and spend the rest of the points on swarms of grots. This could give the opposition KT a real headache, deciding whether to lay-low avoiding the strafing runs and let the turn counter run down, or risk taking down the grots en route to the objective and risk the aircraft guns?

 

Due to the relative points cost of the Stormtalon and the other possible codex options, the gunship will pretty much be the only model on your side of the table if you take it in Kill Team, although you could take some of the upgrades. That being said, it's like a mini army in itself with the amount of serious firepower you can sling about.

Definitely food for thought...

A brush of fresh air...

Hey all, I thought I'd take a slightly different angle with today's post and put up a few words about my recent dabblings with airbrushing.

A few (well, 12, or thereabouts (wow, was it really that long ?!)) years ago, while I was at college, I was given my first airbrush as a birthday gift. I'd not long been into the hobby so hadn't really developed a solid painting style yet, but was convinced airbrushing was the way to start. After talking to the guy in the art store about my intended application, we picked up the recommended kit; a dual action airbrush and compressor. I experimented with it a bit, but was largely unsuccessful so quickly gave up on the idea.

Much more recently I picked up a Citadel Spraygun and managed to source the necessary adaptors to connect it to my compressor, as I figured it would be more economical than buying tins of propellant. Again, after some unsuccessful experimentation and a dozen-or-so pots of citadel colour flowing down the drain, it all got put back in the cupboard, until I found it a new home with a colleague at work.

Another year on and I'm increasingly frustrated at being limited to certain colour palettes that brush on easily where you have limited time and so after a lot of researching, I bought another Citadel Spraygun and a couple of tins of gas when the good people at Maelstrom Games had a promotional offer on.

This time, the results were much better and I managed to undercoat, basecoat and camo my brother Olly's Dystopian Covenant fleet in very short order.I managed to coordinate my spraying schedule with promotional codes at Maelstrom and pick up a couple of tins of gas each time, to keep me going. The spraygun is a very useful tool, but it is very much an entry level piece of kit and has it's limitations. One thing to bear in mind if you are going to use one is to have at least two usable cans of propellant handy each time you set out to use it. You'll need to switch back and forth as each gets cold and looses pressure, plus you'll need to use a fair amount when you clean down between colours and when you're finished.

I was hooked after a short space of time and the opportunities now afforded were considerable. Red/yellow/pink figures were no longer out of bounds and the possibilities of an Emperor's Children warband were back on the radar. In this time I'd also been doing a lot of research online about the whole airbrushing thing and posted a few findings on here.

In the end I picked up some new kit from the Airbrush Pro website and am really pleased with it.

The airbrush is the BD-133 set shown on the site. It's a dual action (essentially meaning more control of the air speed and paint flow) airbrush and comes with a decent sized paint jar. My original Paasche airbrush from years ago was fairly pricey as I recall and only came with a tiny colour cup, which was fairly user-unfriendly. This one is really cracking and does exactly what I need, plus it retails for under £20, so I'm really stoked with it.

The compressor is AS18(2) and again, I'm really impressed with it's performance. It's sold as low noise and it really is a stark contrast to my previous compressor which required ear defenders if you were using it indoors for any length of time. It's compact, relatively lightweight and is a great price.

All in, the total bundle came to around £80 once you add in an airline and one or two other bits, so is an absolute steal, considering the rediculous price of stuff at the moment. Add in that you don't need to keep buying extra gas and you use paint more economically and it gets even better. Plus, (and this is really cliche), you're also buying time here too, as you can easily basecoat the average squad of figures in 10-15 minutes. If your painting figures like space marines that don't require much more detailing, the deal gets even better.

All of that cheese aside, it's well worth considering if you're painting figures in any quantity.

Laters all