Kobold Warriors Paint Guide - Super Dungeon Explore

These guys are the first of the Super Dungeon Explore models I've painted and I have to admit, for a relatively simple painting scheme, these Kobold warriors have turned out really well. Since it's not my normal guard paint scheme and I'm likely to be getting more in the future, I thought it would be a good idea to detail the paints I've used. So, here they are ...

• Primer - Halfords Light Grey
• Bases - Base Adaptus Battle Grey
• Skin - Base Foundation Mechrite Red, Drybrush Blood Red, then Blazing Orange, then Fiery Orange, Wash Baal Red
• Teeth & Spines - Base Mournfang Brown, Layer Graveyard Earth, Layer Bleach Bone
• Straps & Wood - Base Mournfang Brown
• Armour & Blade - Base Gunbolt Metal
• Eyes - Base Tausept Ochre, Layer Sunburst Yellow
• Wash entire model with Agrax Earthshade, then drybrush bases with Codex Grey and then Fortress Grey. 
• Relayer eyes, add Chaos Black pupil. 
• Edge highlight metal with Gunbolt Metal. 
• Rewash metal, cloth and spot edge define with Badab Black wash.

And there you have it guys, I hope you find it as useful as I'm hoping it will be to me in the future.

Mel

Challenging Horses

My recent foray into historical gaming has presented me with some interesting challenges. One of these challenges is painting, no longer is my painting station full of comforting guard greys, it's now swamped with an array of new pots holding all sorts of non grey colours.

Never being one to shy way from a challenge, I decided the first historical models I should tackle should be horses. My Norman force has a substantial cavalry element, so I've got quite a few of these beasts to paint, 17 to be precise!

(I always thought my first horse would be a rough rider, who'd have guessed they're be William the Conquerer's mates.)

Anyway, I digress, it's not only new colours I've got to contend with, it's new painting techniques as well. Dry brushing and hard edge lining don't work so well on horses, so I've had to start to learn layering, blending and washing as well, it's the dark arts of painting I tell you!

The final challenge I've had to face is the actual colour schemes. 40k gives you a lot of freedom when it comes down to colour schemes. It's down to you what colours you paint your army, there's no real right or wrong way, and most the 40k community accept this happily. The same is not so with the historical bunch. They like their models to be accurate and so I've found myself researching what Normans would wear, how their shields were decorated, what dies were available etc. Who would have thought I'd end up doing history homework as part of my toy soldier hobby!

Luckily, my mate Mike is a fountain of knowledge when it comes down to these things but even with his help, I'm still having to do lots of research. Take these horses, I must of spent at least three hours looking through google images to work out various colour schemes for them and I'm only just getting started.

So, those are the challenges and these are my first very challenging horses, let me know what you think in the comments guys!

Col

Painting faces

As some of you know, I have a real problem painting faces. For the past couple of years, all my faces have been a base coat, wash and dry brush affair.

Well, this is no longer the case. After a master class over whatsapp with my mate Mike, I managed to paint the face of my HeroQuest adventurer. I have to say, I'm really chuffed with this guy. Let me know what you think guys ...

Harker finally gets deployed ....

There's a little bit of me that can't actually believe that I'm typing this. It's been over 18 months since I first started Sgt Harker and his squad of devils, to be honest there were times that I honestly didn't think they'd ever get finished.

It's hard to imagine what these guys were like when I first started them, they've had a serious amount of conversion work done to them. All the old catachen headwear has been removed and then they've all had t-shirts, cloaks and berets sculpted on to them. I must admit, I've learned a lot from doing them but I wouldn't want to have to convert every model this much, it'd take years to get an army complete.

Anyway, sorry the light ain't brilliant but there's a couple of closeups, first off, we have the man himself, Vet Sgt Harker .....

Next up we have the three standard troopers, including scar face who got hideously disfigured during his dremmel haircut ....

Then there's the special weapon troopers and yes, the middle guy was another dremmeling accident, it was the first time using a dremmel - lol

Finally we have the demo troopers, luckily, I'd got the hang of the dremmel by the time I'd got to these guys ...

So there you have it, the first squad of first platoon, only six or seven more squads to go. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with them, they're not my best painted models, I'm still relearning to paint after my hiatus, but I'm still pretty pleased. Now all I've got to do is finish the second Starstreak Hydra ...

Just a quick one

I was just looking at my blog and I thought that I really should get a picture of my painting progress posted, so here's a quick snap of the Starstreak Hydra on my painting station ...

Just need to get them finished in time for Blog Wars! I'm off camping for the long weekend, I'm planning on taking the travelling painting kit, so I'll be painting in the sun by the lake.  Hopefully, I'll get quite a bit done :-)

Have fun guys!

The Great Paint Drought

The image above is quite appropriate for this particular post. If you're regularly follow my blog, then you'll have noticed a decrease in posting recently. Work, Kids, Wife, Blah, Blah, Blah, you've heard them before and no doubt if you've been in the hobby a while, then you've experienced your own painting droughts at times.

For me, it's been over six months since I last dipped my brush within a paint pot, so I'm definitely suffering a painting drought. That doesn't mean I haven't been busy with hobby stuff. Actually, I've been busy with lots of different things. I've been reading quite a lot, at the moment it's a Ciaphas Cain books. I've finished the first two and I'm just loving them. It's strange to go from Commissar Gaunt to Commissar Cain, but I'm finding it quite refreshing to the doom and gloom of the Ghosts series. I've also been working heavily on the first of my campaign pdf's for my campaign focused blog, which hopefully should be ready for publishing next week.

But I digress, recently I've tried to jump start the painting side of my hobby and I've hit a bit of a problem. Unfortunately, after six months of not painting, the above image is quite adapt when it comes to describing most of my paints. Yep, they've dried up!

Quite a few are completely dried up and literally have solidified and cracked in the tub, some have just turned to a very thick sludge. So, I've got myself a load of glass beads from ebay and started the monumental task of sorting through them all. Some will be thrown, some will be revived, but hopefully, I'll have the majority rescued in the end.

I'm working on the ones I use most often to start with so that I can actually do some painting whilst I'm going through the rest. In the meantime, I'm working on a storage and maintenance plan to make sure this never happens again. Any tips would be gratefully received guys!  

Halftrack sentinel

I put the final details on my halftrack sentinel standin last night. Considering I put it together over 18 months ago, I'm quite chuffed that I've finally finished it. The original plan was to make three of them as a sentinel squadron but I'm now thinking that it'll be a one off as I already have a full sentinel squadron and I want to start work on my other projects.

It's going to be attached to the HQ section of 571 Infantry company as an escort and a nod to the old codex that let you take sentinels with your command section. That finishes of the command section, so expect a post sometime in the future showing off the command section in all it's glory.

 

Sorry the pics arn't brilliant, the light here today is terrible. Next up is going to be the final troops for 2nd platoon. They're already undercoated and sitting on my paint station, so they'll be coming real soon.

Glass beads

I always seem to have problems with my paint thickening in the pot. So, when I came across this excellent blog on extending the life of your paints by Tinweasel, I just had to give it ago.

Unlike Tinweasel, I had no problems finding cheap glass beads thanks to ebay, I got 120 for £4 with postage. My beads arrived this morning and I immediately gave them a go. They work like a treat, a couple of drops of water and a glass bead, a good shake and they're like new.

I'd highly recommend reading Tinweasel's blog and giving it a go for yourself.