March was an exciting month for the Mandulian Chapel. We saw our 300th post and brought our 5th author on board. Crimthaan (Andy) posted yesterday's article and will be a resident Space Marine player and fluff enthusiast. Now that we have five authors, it will be our goal to get in one article per day Monday through Friday. Our content will span from fluff to theory/mathammer, terrain, painting, converting, and battle reports. Together, we share a deep passion and respect for the hobby and the desire to share our thoughts and discuss our experiences. I hope you enjoy the additional content!
Before I dive into my portion of the team tournament coverage, I'm going to bring you up to speed with my CSM rebuild project. If you missed the beginning, I'm taking some of my 2nd edition collection from my college days and repainting them with some new exciting models mixed in for flavor.
To bring a new energy to the collection, I decided to go with Typhus and zombies since my original collection was Nurgle based anyways. I went with the Mantic zombies since they're super cheap. The problem is their zombies are pre-mounted on a plastic disc far smaller than 25mm. Covering up their disc creates new problems so I decided to re-base them before painting to avoid damaging painted models. I started with 1" washers and glued down cork chunks.
The board is just 1" foam insulation with strips of tape tacked down. This is to keep them from flying off once the air pressure hits them. Above they've been primed grey.
Then I airbrushed them with shades of dark fleshtone, earth, cold grey, and white mixed in. The front right row has also been sealed with gloss varnish and an oil wash applied. In the middle some test marines and zombies have been tacked down to see how they look. The bases still need dry brushing, grass tufts, and the washers will be painted black so the rocks pop. All 61 bases took one evening to get this far, and the costs of washers + cork board is less than $15.
Also on the work bench are my custom spawn. I completed the unit of 5 with bits from vargheists, ogres, ghouls, various tyranids, and tentacles from the mutalith face. Only one has received green stuff blending as that project is going to take longer than I anticipated. The unit should look pretty sweet once complete tho.
GW was sold out of Typhus so I decided to go with Scibor's Rotten Lord. Here he is primed and assembled on his cork base. The Slaughter Brute model captivated my imagination so I'm going to work one in as a Maulerfiend counts-as. I attached some dreadnought flamers to his smaller arms to represent magma cutters.
I've been using some new airbrushing, washing, and pigment techniques I picked up from Schnauzerface. You should check out his tutorials on youtube.
This video shows all techniques on a large model. His oil wash recipe is also on youtube.
Here I've airbrushed the base colors with highlights and shadows applied by mixing black/white with the base tones. Choose your assembly carefully as overspray is your greatest enemy in airbrushing. You can mask with tape or blue-tac, but I find it easier to just paint it in pieces. Next I applied the gloss varnish to the entire model.
Here's the model varnished with an oil wash applied. It's pretty impressive for so little work IMO. Doable in 3-4 hours without interruption. I still need to apply highlights and punch in the eyes and inset horns, but it's at a stage where I can move on to another project and still be happy with the way it looks on the table.
Here's the other angle. The gloss varnish distracts the eye so I apply dull cote to take the shine off before applying highlights by hand. Again this is only primer, airbrushed green, black, grey, and purple with an oil wash. I'll also add scraped pastel pigment after highlights and details like Schnauzerface did on his mountain king.
Here's my final WIP update. I call him "mini mauler". He will act as a nurgle palanquin for fluffy fights and a juggernaught mount for a knorne lord in harder games. I wanted him to match the rest of the army despite representing a khorne unit. I decided to go with the beast from the new chariot kit which coincidentally comes with an awesome character model with axes and a mace suitable for the axe of blind fury and black mace. This stage is post-airbrushing and pre-washing.
That's all for now, stay tuned for continued WIP updates. April's event is an 'Ardboyz style event without comp or painting so I'll be taking the full force out then. It should be a really fun army to play and look nice on the table too, eventually. Hope you enjoy some of my cost cutting and time saving steps! I've been lax in my baby pic posting so I'll leave you with the little nerd in jedi training. 14 months old and where has the time all gone!
The Spawn are frightfully reminiscent of Carpenter's The Thing, and the colour/painting on the Slaughterbrute is sublime. Well played, sir!
ReplyDeleteThanks! The Thing was exactly my inspiration for the spawn. They have small and large heads emerging from random places as well as tentacles and different sized appendages. Once I get to work on the greenstuff, the flesh will be tearing and melding as well.
DeleteHaving seen these a few weeks ago, I am amazed at the progress you are making. The Slaughter Brute looks outstanding too - especially with only a few hours into it. As a curiosity, where do you do your spray painting in the winter? I tried the garage but was unsatisfied with the result.
ReplyDeleteThanks man. Making progress as a new daddy has been challenging to say the least. I literally have to plan my projects a week in advance based on my wife's work schedule. If she works late and the kid goes to bed on time, I can get a few hours of airbrushing in. During smaller periods of free time I focus on assembling or projects without extensive setup and clean up times.
DeleteI prime models in the garage but always wait for low humidity or high winds. Airbrushing is done in the man cave. I have curtains all around my airbrushing spot to keep the particles confined and wear a mask. Spraying technique is key also. You want smooth linear motion and not a vigorous back and forth shake.
I really like the spawn. I've always thought spawn being what they are that each one should be really unique from any other. Great work, man. The airbrushing seems to be really working out well for you. I'm saving up now to get a new airbrush to hopefully do some modulation on my future vehicles and terrain.
ReplyDeleteWhy Oh Why do you come up with such good creature conversions that make me say...."why didnt I think of that" and froth with jealousy. Cant wait to get some Nurgle on Nurgle action going.
ReplyDeleteInspiration.
DeleteWhen tackling a hobby project with substantial time and money investments, don't do it without inspiration driving you. At least, that's my philosophy.
Watching The Thing was the inspiration I was missing for the spawn I was jonesing to use.
I was torn between bikers, maulerfiend, and more spawn to support the primary unit speed-wise and the new slaughter brute model had me sold at first glance. Not only does it serve as an appropriate counts-as, it comes with loads of extra spiky bits and tentacles to use on the spawn conversions.
The black mace is perhaps my favorite piece of wargear in the codex and browsing the new releases, I noticed the fantasy chariot comes with a character suitable as a lord with a mace. The fact that he comes with a beast and 2 horses usable as steeds just sealed the deal.
I'm more of a painter than a modeler so the fact that I could create a nurgle-themed army with an untraditional look, yet use all GW models was very appealing.