The Artillery Train of Nuln (Part 8)

With the store heat only days away I managed to snap a quick shot of the Artillery Train of Nuln as it stands today. Not long now, just three character models, a bunch of flocking, and some touching up of the bases before it hits the table at GW White Marsh. Be there on Saturday around 5pm to cast your vote in the final judging.

May the best army walk away with the prize!

Cheers

Dave

Difficult Decisions

I'm not sure if your hobby time gets filled up as quickly as mine, but I know that sometimes I take on a bit too much. I make commitments to projects, to others, and to myself. I sometimes feel overwhelmed. Typically I just cut back on sleep, but right now I'm thinking I really shouldn't do that. I can be a bit cranky with less than 6 hours of sleep.

Currently on the "painting table" are the following projects:

• Armies on Parade

I've been working hard recently on getting my Artillery Train of Nuln ready for the Armies on Parade event GW is running at Games Day. The "First Cut" round for the US is being held in GW Hobby Centers on June 25th. I'll be taking my army along to the White Marsh store, so make sure you're there in the afternoon/evening (I think judging is between 4pm and 6pm) to cast your vote for the best army present.

Anyway, the replacement parts for my Landship arrived on Tuesday, leaving me around 10 days to get it washed, assembled, and painted up, all while finishing off my display board and about a dozen other figures. Difficult Decision #1 has been to not worry about trying to rush the elaborate (and expensive) model. I'll paint up the Steam Tank I have as a centerpiece instead. If I'm successful at the store level, I'll get to work on the Landship and have it ready for Games Day (July 30th)

• Heroes of Armageddon

I still have eight Chimeras and the Command HQ to finish off for my part in the project (as well as ensure all the other models make it on time so that we can send them all out to Chicago for Games Day. Time line on this is a bit tighter, as I need to have as much as possible finished by the 4th of July weekend so we can plug it as much as possible before the July 16th drawing. I also need to prepare the order for Battlefoam to get the sweet foam trays and bag sorted ASAP.

As this is a commitment to others (and an awesome project to boot) there is NO WAY that I will budge an inch. Everything will be done!

• Secret Golden Demon entry

I've been planning a particular diorama entry for GD for the last 12 months, I even had the chance to chat over the story of it with Dan Abnett at Adepticon this year. I have all the pieces sitting on my desk, ready to go. It was going to be a July job, but there are a number of factors (some of them mentioned above) that are going to make that impossible. Difficult Decision #2, I've decided that instead of working on it in secret for GD 2011 (and no doubt rushing it), that I'll turn it into a more public job (WIPs on this 'ere blog) and get it done for the Crystal Brush 2012. This way I can put more effort into it, learn a few new techniques, apply them appropriately, and end up with a piece I can enter in a few comps.

Of course, should I be unsuccessful at the store stage of the Armies on Parade competition, I'll work on this project over the Landship.

So, two difficult decisions that I would never usually make. Am I growing old and giving up? or am I growing wise and making better decisions? Who knows?

More posts on some of our great Heroes of Armageddon sponsors soon!

Cheers

Dave

The Artillery Train of Nuln (Part 7)

I've finally grabbed a chance to post up some more of my Artillery Train of Nuln. With just under two weeks until the Armies on Parade heat in local GW stores. I'll be heading up to GW White Marsh, not quite the closest store to me, but the one I've spent most time at since the Battle Bunker in Glen Burnie closed.

Anyway, there's still a LOT of work to do in 13 days. Wish me luck.

Here's my second unit of handgunners, the Marksman is armed with a repeater handgun, effectively giving the unit 12 shots a turn.

Here are the first ten Ironsides, the resin handgunner bodies from Warhammer Forge. Lovely detail and very characterful, if a little "samey".

And here are the second unit of ten Ironsides. I enjoyed painting stripy pants on a few of them, just to break things up.

Here are a few shots of my Helstorm Rocket Battery. I'm thinking I should do some freehand work on the back of the cloak of the merchant and I'm open for suggestions. Leave your ideas in the comments ; )

I think I've mentioned before, but I'm keen on creating a story for each of my artillery bases. On the Helstorm base above, a prominent Nuln merchant has purchased this experimental weapon and is keen to find out how it might perform in the upcoming defense of the city. Bothering the Engineer whilst he is getting the machine ready for battle is obviously the best course of action.

The story here is much simpler, the crew are readying the cannon for another shot. Once the crewman at the business end has finished packing in the powder charge, the cannonball can be dropped in and the engine returned to its firing position. The crew have also been allocated a guard "for their safety". I must admit though, I've never seen cannon crew win a round of combat against anyone.

Two more artillery bases to go (another cannon and a Helblaster), plus two Engineers, a Battle Standard Bearer, and a Captain. If the replacement parts for my Marienburg-class Landship arrive on Monday, I should be able to get that done too. Plus finishing off the display board.

Busy, busy, busy!

Cheers

Dave

Heroes of Armageddon Update

Here's my latest update on how things are progressing for the Heroes of Armageddon Project.

A couple of weeks ago I sat down for a Skype interview with Romeo and Kyle at 40KRadio. You can check out the interview here. I'm talking for about half an hour, from just after the one hour mark.

Also, my friends at Rankings HQ TV put together an ad that they'll be running in their programming over the next few weeks. If everything goes well with my novice embedding skills, you'll be able to see it below, but head to Rankings HQ and see it in their shows too : )

Here's a shot from John Dickerman from Santa Cruz Warhammer. He's finished off these Armageddon Ork Hunters (will be run as Veterans), and is now getting stuck into his unit of Savlar Chem Dogs. Very cool!

It also looks like other team members are starting to wrap up their commitments. I'm looking forward to getting in the eight other infantry squads, along with the four other vehicles and three sentinels, phew!

Last Friday afternoon Justin from Secret Weapon Miniatures was nice enough to give me a quit Skype tutorial on how best to use the SWM weathering powders to add lots of crazy "road dust" to the tanks I've been working on. He is planning to finish up a video on how to use them in the VERY near future.

It was a lot of fun to see where the dust/ash waste would collect and settle, then pile it on.

On the two Leman Russes with track guards, I went light on the dusting on the tracks where they emerged from under the guards, and then I added a few smears of the Metallic Iron powder to show where the dust would have been knocked and rubbed off as the tracks travelled around.

Here's the 1st tank of the Armageddon Steel Legion 23rd Armored Company.

Here's the 4th tank of the Armageddon Steel Legion 23rd Armored Company.

Here's the 5th tank of the Armageddon Steel Legion 23rd Armored Company.

And here's the 7th tank of the Armageddon Steel Legion 23rd Armored Company.

I hope you like them. Don't forget to donate as much as you can right now! Click on the button in the right column and best of luck.

Cheers

Dave

EDIT!: Looks like Matt at MWC has not only posted my interview with him (see link below) but he has also made a teaser post regarding his contribution to the cause, see it here.

Steel Legion Tank Detailing - Heroes of Armageddon

And we're back...

Last post you saw all the tanks we painted on Saturday. Lots of airbrushing and a fun experiment with the "hairspray and salt" weathering technique. What is this technique Dave? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Essentially the process is this: a basecoat of a rusty color (or colors) is put down on a model. The model is then coated liberally in a lacquer-based varnish (hairspray) and fine salt is sprinkled onto the areas you would like to see significant rusty weathering. Once the hairspray is fully dry, the topcoat is airbrushed over the top, along with any highlights and/or camouflage patterns. Then let everything dry thoroughly.

Once you've reached this stage, you can start to reveal the rusty layer beneath your top coat. Knocking off the larger chunks of salt is fairly easy, then the next step is to use a large, wet brush to soak through the acrylic topcoat layers, softening them up and allowing them to pull away from the hairspray layer, leaving you with smaller "chipping" alongside your larger clumps of "salt chipping".

Here's a fun YouTube video on the technique, and how it can work really well.

As I mentioned earlier, this was an experiment for us. As we were painting 13 tanks in a limited time, it also meant that any "mistake" we made in the application of this technique would be multiplied across all 13.

Above is an example of a Leman Russ once the salt had been chipped off. At this point I realized we hadn't used enough salt, and the salt we'd used was too coarse.

Not to worry, onto the next stage. Removing the softened acrylics from the hairspray layer.

Above you can see the result of a few minutes of soaking and attacking the paint fairly vigorously with an old, old drybrush. I think it looks quite cool, but comparing the ease of getting the paint off to that in the above video. I really get the feeling we didn't use enough hairspray. Oh well, lesson learned.

The next step was to detail up the tanks, painting all the stowage and accessories and insignia and markings and so on and so on. Once these were painted, I added a few more damaged areas using the sponge weathering technique (applying Scorched Brown). In some of the larger areas I applied a few dabs of Solar Macharius Orange to add depth to the new "chipping".

So here you can see the nine tanks I've detailed up so far. I'll be completing the rest this week, and then tackling the final (I hope) stage of weathering over the weekend, applying the very cool weathering pigments supplied for the project by Justin at Secret Weapon Miniatures.

I hope you enjoy how they're looking so far. More to come next week : )

Cheers

Dave

PS. For some more great weathering pictures, check out the awesome model that is this week's prize over at the Heroes of Armageddon blog, and make sure you donate early and often!