Ulric!

Well its been ages since I last posted up a blog. Finished uni, returned home and now find myself with alot more time on my hands - unemployment has that effect on your spare time quota. Therefore I have started painting more models, and am starting to actually enjoy it! Here is my recent offering, an old Warrior Priest of Ulric.

He is an old model, now OOP, released way back when GW did the Storm of Chas campaign in Warhammer. Naughty Archaon was laying siege to Middenheim and causing all sorts of problems in the Empire again. He was a pretty fun model to paint, which is something seeing as I normally hate painting humans (prefer skeletons these days). Nothing special went into his paint job, just the usual drybrush-to-death method (TM) I do on most models. He may serve as the first model in a new Empire army I have always wanted to do. I really like the current Empire range and would love to do a Stirland River Patrol army with this Priest, now named Tancred, sat in a block of 50 Spearmen. Hatred would work wonders for all those lovely spear attacks!

Until next time, and I hope to be posting more regularly now!
Donald Paper

Rawr!

After some time of keeping (some of) you waiting, I can unveil my latest project - a Tyrannofex! Here he is in all his glory, squaring off with a somewhat unfortunate Grey Knight...

It was a pretty fun model to make and paint, though he was meant to be a Tervigon at first. However a faulty sprue meant that he had to be a Tyrannofex instead. He is my first Tyranid model and I like the look of the scheme.

The Tyrannofex was mainly bought because it is an incredible model and I'm more than happy just to keep him as that. I had just finished loads of essays and wanted to chill for a few days making and painting something up. However I can imagine I'll get myself a Hive fleet in the future, I have some Termagants arriving soon after all...

The background I imagine for the Hive fleet - Hive fleet Revenant being its name - was that, after a battle with forces of Nurgle, won and went about consuming the planet. However they seem to have picked up a few nasty things here and there, namely Nurgle's Rot. Whilst being re-absorbed by the Hive fleet removes most of the nastiness, the plague seems to resurface each time the Hive fleet spawns. Nurgle won't be denied it seems!

However I didn't want to jump in the deep end, with rampant infections left, right and centre. I modelled the occasional boil on the Tyrannofex, one looking suspicously like the Mark of Nurgle...

The main idea behind this was that my modelling skills with green stuff actually isn't that good, limiting what I can do with it massively. In regards to the model though I didn't want to go over the top. I wanted it so that a guardsmen wouldn't care to notice the boils - a rampant tyrannofex is trying to kill him after all! However if a Space Marine scout was looking at the creature from a distance through his sniper scope, then I imagine he would spot this oddities and realise that something is amiss with the Hive fleet. Then panic a little.

The colour scheme I have to admit was stolen. A recent Games Workshop blog had a lovely Tervigon painted in dark, muted colours and I liked it very much. It was also very easy to do! Starting off with a heavy drybrush of Charadon Granite, I then drybrushed lighter layers of Graveyard Earth, Kommando Khaki and Bleached Bone on top. The boils and the like were then repainted Dark Angels Green, followed by a drybrush of Camo Green. As Tyranid models are big and have nice angled plates, it looks pretty good!

The next stages I cannot tell you what I did however, as they were a blur of implusive decisions and literally anything could have happened in that hour or two. However I am happy with the final result - a slightly ill Tyrannofex!

He has been given a Fleshborer Hive, mainly because I think it looks best. This means with his other gear he will shred infantry at short ranges. If there is any vehicles near by he'll just stand on them, being a monstrous creature is handy in that respect. The only problem I have with him now is finding something big enough to transport him in!

Hope you have enjoyed, comments are welcome.

Donald Paper

Get the Ball Rolling!

Okay then here is some models I found nearby my desk to get the ball going as it were. First up we have a WiP Herald of Tzeentch/Changling for my Fantasy Daemons. At this point I issue my general disclaimer - I do not own a camera of any great technical ability, and at least until I get home, all photos are taken from a phone camera with the model just sitting on the desk. That out of the way here he is:

I was sat assembling the Pink Horrors and was left with the last one. I started fiddling with parts - a panel from the Chaos Space Marine Vehicle sprue - but they were all too big. In a fairly haphazard way I started messing round with green stuff and then inspiration hit home! I imagined in my head that Pink Horrors - being made of pure change and all - would often shift their faces around, mainly to amuse themselves, but also to scare anyone thinking of fighting them. With that in mind this chap was born!

A plastic skull from the Vampire Count range sits neatly amongst the green stuff shroud. A small chunk of plastic also sits in the middle of the sign held in his hand (a little blurry, but he is holding a sign). Eventually I will get round to sculpting some more flames round the outskirts of the robes, so that he visage is almost sprouting from the flames. If I ever get round to painting him I will try and work out how to paint the robes normally, with the edges and flames fading to magical fire. This looks good in my mind but not sure how it will turn out in practise!

The second chap I have to show today is my Justicar Thawn for my Grey Knight army. Sadly a faulty plastic glue means that the Grey Knights break whenever they can, causing me regular frustration and often meaning they stay at home. Even then they find ways to break! The good Justicar himself seems (quite appropriately) the most sturdy of the bunch and has only broken a few times. He is just a normal Grey Knight Terminator assembled from the box, in the colour scheme of the army.

It isn't very clear in this photo but the army colour is mostly stone, with turquoise as the secondary colour. I am seemingly incapable of painting an army the colour it is supposed to be. This is probably because if I did, it would be easy to see how bad it is compared to others! I am happy with how he turned out though, especially with his halberd:

I love painting the force weapons in the army, as the method I use means that even I don't know how they'll turn out! I first paint the blade Midnight Blue. I then get Royal Blue, Enchanted Blue and Skull White. Using the same brush I liberally apply all three of the weapon with the same brush, mixing them up and generally making a mess. Add the white last and make sure it doesn't mix up too much with the other colours. This is where you have to be brave, as it looks pretty dire at this point! However leave it a good while to dry and it turns out looking like this. It leaves, in my opinion a really good looking lightning effect on the weapon, an effect that is otherwise beyond me. By being random as well each Knight is guaranteed to have a different looking weapon!

On the tabletop I use Thawn either as a normal Justicar or as the special character. I find him useful to have as I can make him take the saves of killer weapons like Lascannons or Railguns. If he lives then cool, if he dies that he could come back to life later on in the battle, a most useful ability! Being a Grey Knight Terminator as well means that on his own he can certainly tie up units in close combat, and depending on who he is fighting, has a good chance of winning the combats. Opponents sometimes forget about him as well once he's died, and play on the board like he isn't there. It can be a nasty surprise for them if he stands up once more, as he can act normally on the turn he revives. At least one opponent has learnt the hard way not to stand too close to his corpse, lest it gets up and swings a halberd at him!

Hope you've all enjoyed this little opener into my hobby. I hope to show you lots more in the future.

Donald Paper

New blog!

Hello people!

If you have stumbled onto this blog, then welcome! I hope to start adding models, thoughts and other bits and bobs over the coming weeks and months. Today I'll hit you all with a little overview on myself.

I have been collecting Warhammer, in one form or another since Year 7 in school (that's 11 years of age for those who don't know what that means). I started out with a poorly painted Crimson Fist army and since then I have gone to owning many different armies between Fantasy and 40K. I find that the most satisfying part of the hobby is creating the plan for the game and watching it all come together. I grew up playing games like Rome: Total War and loved moving the armies round, catching opponents in traps and otherwise being rather cunning and clever. Being outnumbered or outclassed was just a new element of challenge - there's nothing like beating someone who outnumbers you 4 to 1! It is this joy of the tactical side of Warhammer that pleases me the most.

However I love the rich background of the game itself. I love buying the army books, not necessarily to collect an army of that race, but to learn of that race's background, and what I'd do with them if I owned them. I'd say then that my approach to collecting an army is not so much building a winning army, but picking units I love the look and feel of, and then working out how the army should work on the tabletop. Thankfully being in the process to getting a  degree in Military History helps me somewhat in working this out!

In 40K I own at least a 1000pts of Grey Knights, Imperial Guard, Nurgle Marines, Dark Eldar and Eldar, with an eye to owning Blood Angels and maybe even Tyranids some time in the future. My armies will often try to stick to some sort of theme, but there are some prevailing beliefs in army selection throughout:
A) I hate tanks that are not my own. I am the guy in Battlefield that runs round destroying every tank and helicopter in sight! Thus my armies tend to probably have more anti-tank weaponry then they really need...
B) I like the assault phase and often like to fight actively in it, something I'm learning swiftly that Guardsmen don't do very well...
C) I tend towards elite armies. Mainly so I have to paint less...

In Fantasy I own at least 1000pts of Vampire Counts, Warriors of Chaos and Daemons of Chaos, with bits scattered here and there of other armies. I'd like to re-start Empire and some point. I follow themes in Fantasy as well, here's a few:
A) I like to try and be active in all the phases of the game - moving, magic, shooting and close combat, which is a pity when you look at the armies I have...
B) Hordes are fun!
C) Every army must have one Lord/Hero carrying a Charmed Shield - its my favourite magic item!

On a whole I'm not great at painting stuff up. I consider it a chore really, though do enjoy it at times. As such most of the models I own are unpainted, but I'm getting better at that! I also enjoy adding the occasional conversion to my armies as well. As my painting skills aren't exactly Golden Daemon, I like cheating by drybrushing most things, followed by block colours on top. I think it creates quite a distinctive style which can be seen across most of my models (the more recent ones anyway).

There you have it! I reckon that's a good introduction into what I do. Hopefully I have some pictures for your viewing pleasure soon. Until next time!

Donald Paper