Some Random Painting Projects

It's been a while since I have posted, so I figured it was time to put up something.  Over the last few weeks I have been working away on a number of completely different painting projects in a couple of completely different styles.  Just trying to learn and improve on some of my painting skills.   Hope you like.


Kingdom Death Dung Beetle Knight


This was a piece I have wanted to paint for a long while but wasn't quiet sure how to go about it.  I wanted it to have an iridescent look like some insects have, but wasn't sure how to do it.  I decided to give the Forge World transparent airbrush paints a shot and am pretty happy with the results.

I painted the whole model silver, then clear coated it and did a pin wash with black oil paint to get all the crevasses black, then wiped up the model with white spirits so that there was no black outside the recesses and clear coated it again.  I then airbrushed on some clear green over the silver and then yellow at the highest points.  I then hit the wings with some purples and greens to give a shimmer to them. 

The "fur" type areas and everything else were done with my normal painting methods as this piece was just to play with that clear metallic look, which I think came out pretty well, especially in person.


Arena Rex Beast Master

This model is another great Arena Rex figure that has so much character.  Not really much new tried here other than some blending to get the transition on the hyena right.  I had a lot of fun with this one though.  Same NMM as on the other Arena Rex gladiator I did previously.

His tartan was fun to do, but not super clean, the lines are not all completely even.  Freehand is something I will have to work on sometime soon as well.

Ultramarine Space Marine

This figure was done to play more with glazes.  He was painted with a black base colour and then zenithal highlighted with grey and white with an airbrush.  Then the blue on him is a single shade of blue glazed over in thin coats, then glazed over again with an off-white mixed in for the highlights.

While I have glazed before, I wanted to do a test piece with the simplest colour to do (blue) to play around with what results I could get.

Since I was spending some time on him, I also decided to do NMM for the shoulder pad and chest, but used normal metallic paint for his shoulder pad trim and the teeth on his sword.

I then weathered him up with chipping and scratches and then attached him to the base.

Looking at him now, I may need to go back and transition the caution stripes to fit the rest of the transitions, but you don't really notice that in person it's only the camera that catches it.

Death Guard Knight

Last up is a piece I have wanted to do for a long time and just never have gotten around to. It was another chance to work even more on my weathering and rust effects, this time adding the cool new AK Oilbrushers product to the mix.

I wasn't really sure how to go about painting or converting this model as ideally I wanted it usable in both my 30k and 40k Death Guard armies.  I decided in the end that since Knights would generally be by house and not legion that I could get away with a lot, so went with a look similar to my 30k force which is old and weathered, since I am going for a look of the guys that followed Garro and had to weather the bombardment of Istavan IV.

I started by painting the whole model black, but leaving all the armour plates off.  I then painted the armour plates in various shades or brown, red, and oranges with the airbrush.  I kept the paint thick and the air pressure super low so that it splattered on in random patches, and kept layering in colours.  Once that was done I put on AK chipping and scratch solutions in various areas, and then painted on the bone and green colours.  Once that was all done the magic begins.  I spray the paint with water and then start brushing it, and it just starts pealing off randomly, revealing the under colour.



Once all the chipping was done, it was time to break our the AK Oilbrushers (pre-thinned oil paints in mascara type bottles) and use them to apply dots of colour to the chips.  I then used white spirits to pull that down into smooth rust and dirt streaks.

The entire mechanical skeletal parts were done black, then shaded up with 3 silver colours, and then treated to the same Oilbrusher treatment.  I put browns, oranges, and even yellows in to get the blends looking like rust.  I may go back and add even more.



Last up was "blueing" the barrels which I did mainly with the Forge World transparent airbrush paints I got for the Dung Beetle Knight from earlier.  I started with doing 1/2 the barrel copper (Vallejo) and then did purple over most of that, then blue over part of the purple, and then black over the very end.  I think it came out ok and looks close to realistic.

Onto other projects now...

So there you have it, 4 recent painting projects with 4 fairly different styles.  I am now moving onto a few new projects including even more different looks.  Currently on the painting table are some heavily converted Death Guard vehicles (with even more spikes, tentacles, pus, and skulls, because I know how Greg loves all that stuff on GW models), some alternate Sisters of Battle figures, another Arena Rex figure or two, and some modern stuff from Spectre. 

OH, and a pile of terrain that I need to paint up as demo pieces now that I am producing that again as well!

Byron's 5th, 6th, and 7th Painting Challenge Submissions

Another week has past, and with it some additional submissions to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  After a super slow week last week due to being sick, I had a whole pile of things ready to go live, so even though it was one week, I had 3 submissions.

Entry #5 - Small Scale Items

This entry was a whole bunch of random small scale items.

Great War Naval Forces - 1/3000 scale Dreadnoughts

Having done WW1 in 28mm over the last few years, I started reading more and more of the history around the whole war.  The naval aspect of the war caught my fancy and I thought, why not do some ships to have some small games at some point.  After all, you don't need that many ships, and how hard could they be to paint?

Well, the answer to that last part is, very hard if the sculpts are not great.  I got my ships from Mick Yarrow Miniatures after searching around for a while, they had decent reviews online and they were cheap so I figured why not.  Well, they are cheap, but the quality is pretty horrible.  They must be using molds made around the same time these ships were really sailing!  Some were concave, some had bubbles, some were missing guns, some were 2-3mm thick and others were 7-10mm thick, making them all very inconsistent.  They were CHEAP though, so I guess I should have known.

 
Epic 30k - Death Guard (Part 2)
 
Thanks to Greg, I got corrupted and dragged along with the Epic 30k madness that he has descended into.  Luckily, I have only gone partially insane as I am sticking to one single faction and a small force of them at that.  

 
Team Yankee 6mm - American Reinforcements

 
I have been working on both Russian and American forces to do Team Yankee in 6mm, but basing them on a desert conflict so that I can use them for a cold war gone hot like Team Yankee or for theoretical or real gulf war games.  Anyway, I have most of the forces done already, but needed some additional infantry, so banged off another unit of American infantry and their transports, which have to be one of the ugliest transports ever invented.

Entry #6 - Arena Rex 35mm Beasts

My friend Steve picked up a new game a little while back, and after seeing the quality of the figs I just had to get some to paint up.  That game is Arena Rex, a 35mm skirmish Fantasy Gladiator game. The figures are just stunning up close, the detail is amazing.  The only down side, the price is stunning as well!

The rules are available for free though, and I tried a game with some proxy figured with Steve before I ordered my own.  It is one of those rare games that looks super simplistic at first glance, but has an amazing amount of depth hidden in it.  It has strategy, tactics, resource management, and more all rolled up in to what seems at first glance a simplistic smash-up gladiator game.

 I wanted to really sell the Arena setting of the figures, but also make them usable for other things, so... I picture that arena with a sand based floor I wanted to do something sand based.  However, not wanting something as mundane as simple flat sand, I decided to try some cracked earth effects in parts of the base.  I picture this as areas where the arena got wet from blood, thrown beverages from hecklers, or hell where a horse or bull took a leak, and now the sand and mud has dried and cracked.  I also added just a few tufts of dead grass to the base to add a bit more interest.  Again, probably not seen in a lot of arenas, but if you picture a weekend circus and then time passing before the next big event it is possible that some small tufts find a way to grow. especially around the dried cracked mud that has extra nutrients added.  That's my story anyway, I don't care if you buy it, I can live with it.

Onto the beasts themselves, I did almost everything with my new toy (a Harder & Steenback Infinity CRplus 0.15mm airbrush, which is AMAZING to work with!).  The beasts were done with black primer, then white or grey zenithal highlights and then many thin layers of glazes for colours.  I know Greg's eye is twitching over all that, but it really was simple and fast.  WAY faster than trying to get the same results with a brush.  I honestly believe that the Scorpion was done (primer - clear coat) in less than an hour of work time, and by brush I know I would have spent 4-6 hours to get the same effect.

These guys are HUGE, they are 35mm scale, the WW1 infantry
model is a 28mm scale fig to show just how big these are.

Entry #7 - 28mm Napoleonic Artillery Teams

Last up for the week was three teams of French Napoleonic Artillery all done on some huge diorama-like stands (60mm wide x 120mm deep).

Four years ago now, I started doing some French Napoleonic figures as a promise to Curt that I would at least try doing something historical for my first painting challenge.  It was a unit of Perry line infantry, and my first exposure to painting the madness that is Napoleonic uniforms! UGGG!

Four years later I finally have enough done to think about some small games!  Something Greg and I will have to arrange sometime soon for the group.

Having completed some pretty big projects in the challenge lately, I am pretty tapped out, and will not have much ready to go live this coming week, so I may not have another update here for a few weeks (other than the theme week entry).