Praetorian IV Mechanised Infantry whole army photos

Greetings everyone

This post has been a long time in coming. My last photo of the whole army is woefully out of date so I think it is high time I took a new one. I've also finally taken lots of new individual photos of various units which will be featuring in future posts.

Whenever I check other people's blogs one of my favourite things is always the photos of their whole army. For me, seeing a beautifully painted army is really what this hobby is all about!

So without further ado here is the glorious Praetorian IV Mechanised infantry.



Here we have all the fully painted elements of the army. It's been a while since I've played a game. In fact a long while, they've never taken to the field as astra militarium! If I had to make a guess on the points value of the army I'd think it would be about 4000pts.



A few closer photos that were taken while setting the army up. I'm still getting the hang of this photo taking business. It's a skill that I need to master!





Here we have the entire IV Mechanised, including the unpainted reinforcements. This will give you an idea of quite how much of a mammoth painting challenge lies ahead! We have the bane blade, wyvern, a couple of infantry platoons, highland guard, bullgryns...



If I get any more guard I'm going to need to get a bigger table...

In the next post I will take you through some (i hope they are) high definition close ups of some units which will hopefully be able to properly convey the details on the models and my painting. Its one of my frequent comments from followers I meet in the flesh 'they look much better in the flesh'!

Thanks for having a look!

What's on the painting table?

Hey everyone!

So roughly a week after my last update we have another! I'm trying to stick to my resolutions and post lots of lovely updates for your enjoyment.

A brief post for the moment just giving you a snapshot of what lies on my painting table and a glimpse of what models you can expect to appear in posts soon.



Here we are mid way through painting the main colour on the tanks. Just a couple more drybrushes to go and then it'll be on to all the detail.



Here is the Baneblade at the Baylor brown stage of painting. Don't worry it usually looks it a bit yellowy at this stage.



Here we see the mortar teams (years overdue) the remaining 5 lifeguards and the two almost finished riflemen.



Here we have the bullgryns lurking behind the Highland Scions. I'm very much looking forward to painting these guys.

In my next post I will have some more painted models for you!

Thanks for reading

Bullgryn Update

Happy new year to everyone!

Here's the first of many many more posts this year. I've made a number of resolutions to myself this year and one of them is to get back to hobbying and blogging!

The bullgryns will be the first project of the new year and at the same time I'm going to review my blog and have a think about updating all the various parts of it.

To kick us off her is the latest WIP photo of the bullgryn. He is the test bullgryn so is currently being worked on solo, however when I then go on to paint the other 4 and Nork I will post tutorials for the other aspects of the model. In the last post I covered the armour and the trousers.

In the above picture you will see that the skin is now painted with the eyes simply shaded for the time being. The grey will eventually be white like the rest of the belts etc on the army and the rest of the model has been undercoated black. 

I've learnt a lot from this model already and know some mistakes I need to avoid when painting the rest of the squad. The armour makes painting some parts of the model an absolute nightmare as there is detail buried in the cracks. To avoid this on the future models I am going to consider having a second black undercoat in between the gas mask and the armour/neck so that at least no white shows through. 

Hopefully the next post will show this guy fully painted and then the posts that follow showing the steps on the rest of the squad. 

Thanks for reading!

Bullgryn WIP with painting steps

Hello everyone!

I am finally reunited with my paints and some of my models! Hurrah!

Some brave guardsmen and some bone 'eaded bullgryns traversed the wintery wasteland of the Terran continent Europa Majoris and have safely arrived at their new barracks. Their journey was inexplicably delayed for several weeks due to warps storms and they have been screened for heresy by the commisariat.

There is plenty finally for me to paint in my new home and so tonight I decided to get back to it and to get started on something a little different with the bullgryns.



There are going to be a lot of photos following which show stage by stage the process on a couple of ogryn so words will be sparse until the end. I'll include the brush and paint details as I go however.

I gave the colour scheme some though and eventually settled on mixing my tank painting with my infantry painting. All the big armour was going to be painted in the same method as my tanks and the fatigues in the same colours as the infantry. A bold move. Would it work? lets find out...



Stage 1 XV88

I used a nunber 2 windsor newton brush for this model unless otherwise specified. It's one of the larger brushes but keeps a great point. I'm not such a fan of smaller brushes.









50/50 mix reikland fleshshade and nuln oil









Paints just in case we forget what they look like...



Drybrush of XV88 using the GW tank brush.









Drybrush of Baylor brown using the GW tank brush











Drybrush of Ushabti bone using the GW tank brush (wait does the tank brush still exist? Its essentially a very large drybrush).









Washed once again with the 50/50 mix used earlier









Cadian fleshtone (tallarn flesh's replacement though I'm not entirely sold on it). Don't worry I'm not painting him naked, I used the same base colour for the skin as the uniforms. I find it works well and makes my infantry that bit quicker and easier.





It looks like I missed a stage. Apply reikland fleshshade to the model and then when dry apply a 50/50 cadian fleshtone, ushabti bone mix leaving the washed colour in the recesses.



Now use ushabti bone to highlight.





and finally add some white to the ushabti bone for the final highlight.



There you go that's where we are up to for now. I'm pleased so far, when I start adding in the black and paint the flesh it'll really come together.

The plan will be to weather the armour just like my tanks too. All the belts etc will be white like my infantry and there will be some red somewhere as its another of my colours for the army.

Word of advice if you decide to paint up some bulglryns, their poses are a pain for painting as it leaves lots of almost impossible bits to reach, particularly with the armour as it clips on like a shell over the usual torso. Try and paint it off if possible but it would mean having the model armless too due to the way it is constructed.

I hope this was both useful and interesting. If you would like me to post the next part in the same manner please do let me know. It'll likely be two weeks before that will happen due to Christmas and the fact I will once again be in a different country to my hobby stuff... Bah humbug.

If I don't post again before, Merry Christmas everyone!

Warhammer Dark Elf army

Welcome to another post!

Apologies for another lengthy delay since the last. I'm currently separated by international borders from any hobby equipment as I've recently moved to Spain and haven't brought any of my stuff over yet. Sadly other things had to be prioritised...

Nonetheless, I did take some photos a while back which I haven't had the opportunity to post yet. I have showed you pictures of my Khemri and Von Carstein armies and now it is time to show some pictures of my oldest Warhammer army, my Dark Elves!

So where to begin on this walk down memory lane. I suppose the beginning is as good a place as any! When I first got into the hobby in the early nineties Dark Elves were my passions almost straight away. I remember the plastic one pose warriors, rakarth on his dragon, male sorcerers (before the fluff changed) and so much more. I must have had at least one of most things. All of that old school stuff has since been traded or sold over  the years. The models in this post are from when Dark Elves got a much needed reboot and some fantastic sculpts. Onwards to more photos and I will elaborate more on the way.



The army pictured above is only a small portion of what my total force was. It happened to be all in the same case that I stumbled upon. There were also a lot of crossbowmen, more bolt throwers, Malekith, lots more knights a cauldron of blood... Where all of those models are now is anyone's guess!

The models pictured would have been painted by me approximately 14 years ago I think. My Dark Elves, or smurfs as they were known due to their blue tinged skin, saw a lot of action and were generally very shooting heavy, however towards the end of my time with them I branched out somewhat in favour of lots of small hard hitting combat units.



Here we have a few Witch Elves and an Assassin. There were lots more of these girls and I used to run them in only 2 ranks with a very wide frontage to get maximum attacks. The new plastic models are fantastic but I still think for their time these models were very impressive.

The purple that you see if I remember correctly is broadly speaking liche purple with
various highlights and washes added. The skin was always based on space wolves grey.



Here we have  small unit of corsairs led by none other than Malus Darkblade himself! This unit I entered in Golden Demon (around 2001/2 I think) set on a nice display base with a couple of slaves lying about (the dark eldar ones from Vects raider). I placed as a finalist and received an invite to warhammer world where I got a tour of the factory! Those were the days.

The pictures sadly don't do them justice as even today they look very nice. It makes me think though how much the standard of painting has improved over the years as I can't imagine them getting anywhere near the finals now!



Here we have a unit of spearmen, who I understand are now called Dreadspears. These guys were once again revolutionary at the time with the ability to have the front rank with their spears pointing forwards in the shield nook, with those following having their spears at various angles. It was a great plastic kit for its time. I'm unsure yet how I feel about the new plastic kits being rather more 2 dimensional and less poseable, however I imagine it makes ranking and painting a lot easier!

Behind you will see a few cold one knights on the prowl. My favourite cavalry in the warhammer world without a doubt!



A couple of twin sorceresses converted from beastmasters. Even then magic was very powerful and I liked to run lots of wizards in the army to overwhelm my opponents. These models were some of my first attempts at greenstuffing.



You can see the host of Naggaroth advancing behind these two menacing fellows...



and here they are brought into focus! Sadly only two of them, but here are the Black Guard! Once again I think these sculpts are beautiful. I loved the models but sadly they suffered the curse of being made of metal and therefore very expensive. For some reason I never managed to finish painting a whole unit of these guys. The two pictured would have been painted shortly after the corsairs which explains the move from black to silver armour.



To finish off a photo of the limited edition Malus on foot sculpt.

I've still got a real soft spot for Dark Elves and all this end-times excitement is pushing me ever closer to starting a new dark elf army. It is proving harder and harder to resist ordering a few boxes of the lovely new models...

Thank you all for taking the time read through this. So, what do you think? Is it about time I made a return to the old world for the end times?