Sorcerer Base Done

This weekend, I finished the base for my sorcerer and therefor, the entire miniature. Pictures for the complete model are on 2nd City Warzone.

Here are some detail pictures of the base.
Here you can see the glowing, cryptic, hexagram-thingee on the disc of Tzeentch.

Here's blasted Space Wolf Helmet.

A Hidden little imp and skull.

And my favorite, the owl, a symbol of secret, forbidden knowledge

Sorcerer Complete (More or less)

Well, there you go.

I do believe that it's important to try new techniques and push the limits of your painting. I feel like I did that here, but at the same time, I not 100% satisfied with the results. I suspect that I'll take these lessons and improve them on my next piece.

I'll tell you one thing, these pictures really highlight some areas I still need to work on with this.

The hand is a touch sloppy. I might need to clean it up a bit.

I'm pretty happy with the freehand. I can see errors in this picture that I couldn't see with my eye, so I'll have to go back and correct them. I think the biggest thing is that the colors seem flat. I'm not looking forward to going back to highlight and shade the freehand, but I think it needs to be done.

I tried a combination of metallic and non-metallic painting here. I'm mostly happy.


Ok, after a couple touch-ups, I'll start working on the base.

Sorcerer Very Nearly Done!

The eye on his "casting" hand is going to be red. I'm planning on doing some object source lighting to make it look like it's glowing. I'm pretty intimidated by it, so hopefully it's not a complete disaster.



I need to start working on the elaborate base after that.

More Sorcerer WIP Shots

Here are more in-progress shots for my Chaos Sorcerer. The shots above and below were taken last week sometime, but I forgot to post them.


I dragged out my aspiring champions and a couple of Thousand Sons just to make sure I was keeping the colors consistent.

Here is what the sorcerer looked after this morning's painting session:



A lot of the blending is still pretty rough (particularly around the helmet, but I'm happy with how it's going so far.

Also, does anyone out there remember this paint company:


This used to be my favorite brands back when I started painting in the late 80s. I held on to this bottle long after it dried out. It's metal cap makes a great place to stick my magnetized mini and use as painting handle. I knew I held on to it for a reason.

Anyway, I don't see myself getting any more painting done before Adepticon, so that's it for now.

Speaking of Adepticon, keep an eye on 2nd City Warzone for what me and the other guys will be doing. Hope to see you there!

On the Table 3/12/10

Feels good to finally be painting power armor again. I don't usually paint in sections like my friend Nick does, but this is a special model.

Also, I finally picked up some daylight bulbs, so hopefully, my pictures will be coming out a lot better from now on.

Rohm Dutt and the next step

Rohm Dutt is done (and the title of this post would make an awesome band name). I'm pretty happy with the results.

However, I must now drift away from Tzeentch and the Thousand Sons. Let's see what's next on the painting block...


That's right. Time to shed some blood for the blood god (Blood Red paint, that is). It will be nice to not have to paint blue for a while.

I haven't done much on these so far: Just base coats and one layer of shade. I was hoping to show that with the picture below.

I'm afraid the shading is just a little too light at this point to really see. More shading next week.

I hate this part....

I spent a few minutes working on Rohm Dutt this weekend. Good luck finding what's differnt from the last picture I took.

Here one thing:

I like the way this little skull came out. It was shockingly easy.

Anyway, I'm at a point with this miniature were I'm just picking out tons of little details. It's very tedious and I really don't like this stage of the miniature. I had about a dozen different colors on my pallet and I worked on this model for less than an hour.

I believe I will have this guy done by the end of the week. Stay tuned

Thousand Sons, Rohm Dutt's Squad

Finally, after working on this unit for what seems like an eternity, I have finally finished my second Thousand Sons unit.

This unit was my motivation to vow to only do one unit at a time for the rest of the year. I'm very happy that I decided that. I feel a lot better without this unfinished unit looming over me.


One big concern for me was that the second squad matched the first squad. It's funny, because I've been working for them on and off for so long, my painting style and skill level has changed a bit. However, I think the above photo shows that they match pretty well.

You'll see in the picture that the two from the first squad (on the right) have only one stripe on their tabards where the new squad has two. Also, in an effort to differentiate them, I added more silver elements to their backpack (which you can't see in these photos).


The sorcerer for this unit is still a work in progress. I've this sorcerer Rohm Dutt, thus the title of this post.

I think I can get this guy done in one more session. Then, I have to pick a daemon unit to finish.

Thousand Sons progression photos

I have to say that I love Google "products". I knew I needed an Internet hosting site, but wasn't sure which one to use. Since I'm already using Blogger, I decided to try Picasa. The most awesome thing was that when I logged in, it had already created albums for me from the pictures on my blog. That's so smart!

(The album isn't public at this point, so don't go looking)

Anyway, I was organizing pictures today and noticed that I had taken a few very similar ones of my Thousand Sons in progress. I wanted to see what they would look like together, so here goes.








Admittedly, that second to last photo is kinda crappy. I guess that's what I get for being lazy.

Thousand Sons Update Time!

I'm embarrassed at how long it's been since I've posted pictures of my latest Thousand Sons Squad. I guess I'm also embarrassed by how long it's taken me to paint this squad. In my defence, I have painted and built quite a few other things.


Also, my picture taking skills seem to have gotten rusty. OK, I'll stop complaining here are the pictures...

Here's the whole squad. I have to put a layer of highlights on the gold and yellow, then pick out the details and I'm done.


Here's the front of my sorcerer. You may notice from the last time I posted a picture of this miniature, that some of the highlights on the tip of his cowl have warn off. This is because while I've been painting his mini, I've been using it in games. When I realized that routine game usage was wearing the paint off, I decided to stop using it in games until it was finished.


Here's the rear of the sorcerer. The robe came out a lot darker than I wanted, but oh well. It was the first time I used Foundation paints (Charadon Granite, specifically) and I didn't realize how dark it would come out.


This was a stab at taking a better picture of that Tzeentch Horror I featured recently. I think this picture may be worse. Also featured here is a work-in-progress Tzeentch flamer. Yes, I'm very, very excited about the demon codex.

Give Thanks for Updates!!

OK, these pictures aren't the best, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't update my blog before going away for Thanksgiving.


Here is the second unit of Thousands Sons. The sorcerer needs a little more gold, but all the rubric marines have their base gold (which is a 1:1 mix of Vermin Brown and Shining Gold)

Here are my unmarked Chaos Space marines. They're going to represent Space marines that have recently rebelled, so I've mixed a lot of loyalist parts in.

LET THE SPAWNING BEGIN!!!
This was one of my birthday presents. Thanks again guys.


Here are the first four chaos spawn I've made. I tell you, making spawn is fun! I could just make spawn for the rest of my gaming career, seriously.


Game Store Update and Sale!

As mentioned in my last post, there is a new store in town. I got to visit a couple of weeks ago and it's looking good so far. I heard they've added a couple of tables, so that's even better.

I thought about it later. This is probably the first game store with gaming in Chicago in nearly 10 years. The last one I can remember was Third Eye games, and close down a long time ago.

Anyway, Galaxy America is having a Thanksgiving sale. Here are the details.

In the spirit of the turkey, we are having a sale this Wed., Fri., Sat. and Sun. (closed Thursday) 10% off on everything in the store (several baneblades in stock), 5% off special orders, and a few specials including a SM Battle Company marked from $450 down to $400. Also, LOTR is 15% off. Our 2 full-sized gaming tables are up and running and terrain options are constantly expanding. You can find us at:

4318 W. Irving Park Rd.
Chicago, IL 60641

Wed-Sat: 2-8pm
Sun: 2-6pm

Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Update

This will be quick, but I'm now finished with all the layers of blue.

More later...

Quick Update

I've been super busy this week, but I couldn't let a week go by without an update. So above is the only miniature related work I got done this week. It's my HQ for my Thousand Sons Army. I attached his right arm with a magnet for easy storage/ transportation. I'm especially happy with the way the halberd came out (hereafter referred to as "the can opener").

Enchanted, Pt. II

Well, I'm finished with the Enchanted Blue stage of Squad #2. sorry, but these pictures came out terrible. I think I had my exposure set wrong.

Anyway, time to break out the Ice Blue!

I'm Enchanted

I'm on Enchanted Blue, that is... What I mean to say is the layer at which I'm at is Enchanted Blue... on my second squad of thousand sons. But only these five guys.

Whatever. I'm kinda out of it.

Here's another picture at a slightly different angle:

Blogsplosion

I have a couple new blogs that I've added to my links that I'd like to point out.

First off, my friend Aaron has started a blog to showcase his many painting and sculpting projects. Aaron's a great sculptor, so I'm sure we're going to see a lot of great conversion projects from him.

On the other end of the gaming spectrum, Bill Kim, the winner of the 2007 Chicago Warhammer 40K Grand Tournament, has started a blog talking about strategy. Since I'm kinda dumb when it comes to basic strategy, I'm looking forward to reading this.

While on the subject of blogs, I've been a big fan of Bell of Lost Souls since around Adepticon this year. Then, I meet these guys at Adepticon and they were super cool. I've been secretly hoping that they'd link me from their site and recently, they added me to their blog roll!

I felt terrible when I realized that I hadn't added them to mine. Oops, bad form on my part. That has been corrected.


Thousand Sons HQ Update

Not much has been happening on the Thousand Sons front. I've been painting slowly, but nothing that would be that interesting to anyone. I'm still in the early stages of the models.

I have however done some work on my Sorcerer HQ.

Look, I glued an arm on:



The other arm is complete, but I'm waiting on an order of magnets that I need to attach it.




The picture above is generally what it will look like when I glue the head on and put him on his base. This picture makes me realize that this base is way too tall and I'll have to trim it down a bit. Also, I need to take a picture of it someplace other than my cluttered desk. The camera has a hard time focusing on the mini with all that junk behind it.