MWG Fantasy painting contest entry - Archaon

'Lo there!

Here's my entry for the Miniwargaming.com Fantasy Painting Contest. I'm a bit rusty after not painting seriously for 6-8 months but I just had to try. First I want to say that this model is one of the best looking models that GW ever made, but the amount of flash that you need to cut and other problems related to assembly make it also the most horrendous. And without further ado, I give you the guy that makes you run out of time, Archaon:


This is the first picture I got of my horse almost done, with the first pass on the base. I've done the horse color by mixing Chaos Black with Codex grey in many layers, then adding a bit of Fortress Grey and Asurmen Blue to give it a blue-ish tint.
The lava was done in a few passses of Mechrite Red, Blood Red, Blazing Orange and Sunburst Yellow.

Here's the cloak (inside) and horsey placed besides each other, as well as proof that I DID paint it for the competition :D Also have a look at my marvelous handwriting. Following, there's the final product, indicating with his sword that YOU are his next target.



In the next picture you can see a better view of the base, cloak exterior which was painted in 7 layers of red, as well as his flaming sword.


For this side shot, Archaon shows us his shield which is a bit battered. The horse doesn't agree with him carrying that insane amount of metal on his back. The shield was painted in the color of the armor, which is basically 6 layer mix between chaos black and blood red, going up to a rust color at the highest intensity.

And finally, a better view of the furry shoulders and sword. The shoulders were made by blending 2 shades of brown, namely PP Jack bone and PP Bootstrap leather. The sword was done in a 7 stages, going from Mechrite Red, Blood Red, Blazing Orange, PP Cygnus Yellow and with a Baal Red wash in-between.

Enjoy :)

First go at some Forgeworld shoulderpads

I got some Forgeworld shoulderpads for my terminator squad. I'm going to make a mixed unit, part Space Wolves, part Salamanders, part my own chapter.

What you see in the picture is the first go at the Space Wolves shoulderpads. I still need to clean it up a bit in order to make it final, but I'm pretty happy with the result. The only thing I'll do differently is go straight for silver metal rune plates instead of what I did here. I tried to make them gold, but then I realized that the contrast will be quite weak (hence the brown rune writing).
If those were normal pads, I would go again with the color over them, but as the rune writing is so thin, another layer of any paint might ruin it forever.

Deffkopta squad done

I've painted this Deffkopta squad as a gift for a friend. They're not as detailed as the other deffkopta that I previously posted, having only 3 layers in average per surface in comparison with 5 for the solo kopta. The props are all magnetized and interchangeable. Here's how they look.



The main problem was that these guys were painted with a time constraint, summing up to some 6 hours for all 4 of them, that's why they could use some work. But oh well.. he's gonna finish them if he wants :)

Deffkopta done :)

Tried my hand on a deffkopta model, painted in the same vein as the other ork. Here's the result:

Nob done

I have finally finished the nob. It's a great model and I recommend anybody who collects them to take their time and paint them properly.

I did not do the base, because this is a model that belongs to a friend and I have no clue how he's gonna base his nob squad.

Enjoy :)

Ork nob part 1

I got an ork nob from a friend to make some color tests on it. It's gonna be a Goff nob, but there's still a lot of work to be done on him. So far the green skin and leather clothes are done, but I'll finish it soon.

1 Year of space marines

Hi guys,
I just thought to put up a small sum-up of my miniature painting that started , well, one year and a half ago. But since I took a break off painting for 4-5 months , it's pretty much on the 1 year mark. So, here's what I've got painted so far:


HQ:
1 Librarian (converted from a regular space marine)
1 Jump Pack Chaplain
1 Captain

Troops:
3 Tactical Squads and some change (33 Tac marines)
1 Scout squad (4 Snipers 1 Heavy Bolter)
Fast attack:

1 Assault Marine squad (10 Marines)
Heavy Weapons
1 Devastator Squad with all weapons options (6 Marines)

Vehicles
1 Drop pod
4 Rhino Chassis , 3 of which are magnetized and can be fit with Predator sponsons and turrets
All the weapons options for predators magnetized (main guns, sponsons bot heavy bolters and lascannons)
Door sets for the Rhino chassis just in case I don't use them as Predators.

Here are some detailed shots of everything:

These are my first painted marines. The one in the right with the double plasma pistols is my first model. As you can see, there is not much unity in these guys, mainly because on each one I tried a new painting technique and then decided to stop in order to have a summary of what went well and what didn't. Also, these are mostly AoBR marines, with a few exceptions.

This is my assault squad, 5 of the marines have some green stuff work on them in order to create some jetpack flames. The chaplain in the middle was my first painted metal model and helped me change the techiques I have been a lot, mainly because I didn't want to mess it up :). Here's a close-up of the model.


Following is the squad where I finally decided on a proper color scheme for my army. These guys were made also to stand in for a Sternguard squad in case I ever need one.

Next is another tactical marine squad that I painted because I needed some extra marines for games. This is also the first squad that I used edge highlighting on.


This scout squad provided a much welcome break from the standard armored space marines and gave me the opportunity to learn about cloth and painting faces. On the snipers I have made extensive use of drybrushing and washes to give the clothing a somewhat natural look. It went ok for most of them.
On the heavy bolter scout I tried to use layers to create a more realistic face, instead of using washes and drybrushing as before, and it paid off.

In the next picture we have a sergeant for the sternguard/tactical squad and my librarian conversion. The sergeant has one of my first good face painting jobs , following the example of the heavy bolter scout.


The librarian is a conversion on which I used all kinds of cloth, leather and scrolly looking bits. He was painted using several layers of paint , especially on soft surfaces such as skin and cloth. The Ripper that's lying dead there is also painted using several layers and lots of color mixes.

Heavy weapons are always fun, because they are huge, are easy to assemble and you can paint them in all kinds of ways. For the weapons I tried various effects such as highlighted or glowing wires, glowing plasma exhausts, etc.
Also, these models is where I started to freehand my chapter logo on the shoulderpads. Following this squad I have went over older models and put logos on their shoulders.


On to the vehicles, this is my first painted and assembled Rhino. It has some assembly problems, but much of them have been covered through painting. This model is the only non-magnetized chassis that I have. All others can be converted into a Predator.
The hatch tactical symbol is painted by using masking for the arrow with a brush over sticky tape.


This chassis was completed long after the 1st one. Here I used my chapter colr scheme, and I finally stopped fumbling with colors painting large surfaces. This is the first model that I weathered with mud using several layers of brown colors, technique that I applied on all my other vehicles.

The following 2 pictures are my latest rhinos/predators. I tried to use several new techniques, such as nmm , minor plasticard conversions. I tried to do some hazard stripes on the extra armor plating but I failed miserably, so I decided to make them all black and spam some decals :)


And last, but not least, the drop pod. It's the single most difficult to paint model that I had to do so far (I have 2 land raiders to assemble though, so it might get knocked down to 2nd place ). The plastic is of amazing quality, everything fits almost without gluing stuff and it also requires a great deal of attention during the last assembly phase.


And this is it :) I hope you enjoyed it.