Weekly Snapshot:First of my Sanguinary Priests

Meet the first of my Sanguinary Priests for my Blood Angels army. It may be a little surprising that I started work on them what with their almost mandatory inclusion in BA lists, but I haven't played a Warhammer 40K game in over a year.

For this guy, almost all of the bits are from the Sanguinary Guard box set, except for the narthecium and apothecary torso. It's a very simple kit bash, but I think it works decently for a Blood Angeled up apothecary.

Weekly Snapshot: Paperhammering a Leman Russ Part 3

This week, I went back and cleaned up the basecoats. The camo I had last week was the first camo job I ever did on a tank, so it did not look pretty. I made it a little more interesting by adding variations into the pattern, instead of just vertical stripes.

It's not looking great so far, but it's not looking bad. Hopefully, the finished paintjob will make this Leman Russ look like a real 40K model, instead of just a cheap cardboard imitation.

Weekly Snapshot: Paperhammering a Leman Russ Pt 2

If you missed the Weekly Snapshot two weeks back, here's the link. So I've finished the modelling and assembling which took a veeeeery long time. It ate up quite a bit of my hobby time and effort, but I think it was worth it in the end.

The only money I spent on this Leman Russ is the demolisher cannon and the heavy flamer. I decided it was too hard to do the weapons so I bought them off Let the Dice Decide, which arrived stupidly fast.

It does look feth ugly at this stage, because I was rushing to put on the base coats for upload. Hopefully, it will turn out nicely and integrate well with a Steel Legion force I'm coming up with.

Weekly Snapshot: Imma step on my shield!

It's been a bit of a slow week. The scratchbuilt Leman Russ is on hold as I await the arrival of some turret weapons I ordered over the internet. Darn cardboard just doesn't work well when trying to make cylinders.

I had a Vanguard Veteran that was lying around for quite some time and decided to give him a base. You can't really see it from this angle, but he's stepping on a combat shield from the Space Marines Assault Squad box that I had lying around. I made some scratches and bullet holes into the shield to give it an abandoned and war torn feel.
Really sorry about the lack of photos guys, I cannot be bothered to set up my mini photography studio again.

I did some experiments on this guy with a new weathering technique. I just loaded my brush with silver paint and scratched away. I think the metal could do with some further work, it's quite bright in inappropriate places because of the light. Maybe a wash on the darkest parts?

Weekly Snapshot: Paperhammering a Leman Russ

I decided to start work on a Leman Russ for my new Imperial Guard force, which I'm waiting for to arrive. I've never really bought vehicles despite all the glory in 5th Edition, instead focusing on building up my infantry.

But vehicles are bloody expensive. Whereas you can get 10 infantry models for say $30, a tank costs $50 for one model.

So I decided to go the cheap, 'Paper hammer' way. As you can see, I built the beginnings of a Leman Russ with bits of cardboard cut out from a cereal box, and a template I got from the interwebs. It's fething tiring and my fingers are sore, but it helps me save some money.

Virtual Stranger at his blog: http://thegrimcheapness.blogspot.com.au does an amazing job with these. When painted up, it looks basically indistinguishable from a real 40K model.

Perhaps in a month's time, I'll be able to achieve this level of quality...Hopefully.

Weekly Snapshot:SM to Plague Marine

Again, I haven't gotten much done this week because I've got some exams coming up.

However, I did manage to convert a regular Space Marine to a Death Guard plague marine. Let me tell you one thing.

Nurgle conversions are easy to achieve and look awesome. This guy was actually the FIRST 40K model I had ever painted. You know those cheap snap fit space marines that they give you for your first demo painting session at Games Workshop?

Yep. This is him. Papa Nurgle decided that he would strip the guy, chop him up and repose him. Then add some lovely little textures to the surface of the armour to make it look disgusting and appropriately Nurgly.

I don't know if this plague marine will be the first of many in a new army (new Chaos codex!) or just a fun thing I did. Either way it cost me pretty much nothing.
Just spare space marine bits, the demo SM, and bits of sprue and sand for the base.

If you're interested in reposing your snap fit marine (from either AOBR or the new Dark Vengeance, etc.) I made a tutorial a while back here. 

Weekly Snapshot: AOBR Ork Convershun

I haven't been doing too much hobby this past week because I've got an exam coming up in a couple of weeks. So don't expect too many posts from me until their completion, I'm afraid.

Dark Vengeance, the new 40K starter set has been released, but I'm not planning on getting it this time round. For now...

So I've decided to repaint and convert my old Ork army which I've scrounged up from just purely AOBR Orks. I did a little reposing and made him look more...human. I was planning to run these guys as a WWII German inspired Blood Axe force.

Wow the guy hardly looks like an Ork anymore. He's still in the middle of painting, but I tried out a camo pattern on him which was new for me.

Weekly Snapshot: Knightly Blood Angel Conversion

I've been looking at the Horus Heresy: Collected Vision for some inspiration, and I've found some really interesting looking Space Marine helmet designs.

Pictured above is an AOBR marine converted to be taller than the average marine and have a more dynamic pose. The reposing tutorial can be found here.

From a normal marine helmet, I raised the top of his head a little bit, gave him a 'beak' and added a cross design. It kinda looks like a medieval knight helmet.

I got my inspiration from this picture, of Chapter Master Astelan in the Collected Visions book:

Another pre-heresy space marine tutorial coming soon!

Weekly Snapshot: "We're Big Boys Now!"

"We're big boys now!" says my Blood Angels. Well, at least one of them.

This week, I made one of my boys true scale... in a manner of speaking. I simply chopped off his legs, pinned them so that they were longer, and filled the gap with green stuff.

Real simple stuff, but it has made my Space Marine so much more intimidating and realistic.
I've always had an issue with the proportions of the GW Space Marine. It was so...squat and even cuddly looking!

My reasoning behind this conversion was that I wanted to get the look of a genuine true scale conversion, but without all the hard work.

Doghouse Pattern Truescale Marine

Pictured above is Doghouse's amazing true scale marine. There's a link to his tutorial on Bolter and Chainsword if you're interested: here

But the thing is, it requires a feth load of time, effort, skill and loads of terminators legs.

A regular male's lower body is about the length of 4 heads stacked on top of another, excluding the groin. But GW's Space Marines aren't exactly in proportion. The upper part of the legs are shorter than the lower parts.

So I simply extended the upper parts so that they were equal in length to the lower parts. See my reasoning?

Weekly Snapshot: Assault Marines!

So today, I spent a couple of hours working on my Blood Angels again. Man, I hadn't touched red paint in ages!

You'd think that the main parts of the mini; for example the red of the assault marines, would be the most difficult and time consuming to paint.

Nope.

Yes, the red does take the longest to paint, but the details; helmet lenses, chainsword teeth, parchment, etc., are the most annoying. You have to keep switching the colour of the paint. They're so small, but they consume a surprisingly large amount of your painting time.

It's ridiculous.

I've spent all this time on them, yet I'm not happy with them. At least, not with the photographs.
I really don't know why they turn out darker than they should, I use a lightbox.

Perhaps I'll explore this issue in a post in the future.

Weekly Snapshot- Scratchbuilt MK4 helmet

I've always loved Forgeworld. All of their kits. Every individual model. So it's no wonder I began to lust after these puppies:

Weekly Snapshot: Blood Axe Ork

Today is the start of something new. As you may have noticed, my blog name has changed because, well to be honest, the previous one was a little long. I've also changed my name for the same reason, and because I thought a mysterious, foreign sounding name was a perfect match for an Eldar Farseer.