Catachan Updates

So I've done a little work on the Catachans over the last week, adding a few details to the tank after I decided to drop the idea of painting a camoflage pattern on it.

I've added a second layer of Death World Forest as well as some grey and metal to the tracks and cannons.  Beyond that I'm going to try and make it look grimy all over but not in an industrial way.  I might also drybrush some Helion Green onto it in a similar manner to the way I've drybrushed my Cadian tanks.

Apart from that I've started working on the Scout Sentinel,  Again I'm going to use the same techniques I used on the tank to finish off the Sentinel.  Besides that though I added a Sniper by the simple expedient of taking him from my Cadians.  For this guy I decided to try and paint a camo pattern on his cloak.  It didn't turn out brilliant, but I think with a splotch of Moot Green added here and there might fix it.
























Finally I want to add a Leman Russ Punisher to this army, but I can't decide if I should give it sponsons.  You see the cannon is awesome and looks every syallable of that word.  I feel that if I add sponsons to the tank, they'll detract from the cannon.

 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                             

 

How Camoflage Turned to Rust

Having decided that my Leman Russ Exterminator would not be joining its sister on the frozen battlefields that my Cadians fight on, but instead fighting in swamp-infested jungles with my Catachans, I thought no jungle fighting tank would be complete without camoflage.

Now I've never painted camoflage on a tank.  I've tried on infantry but that's a simple case of adding a few bits of complemantary paints to a main basecoat.  With a tank that doesn't tend to work as I found out when I tried adding Skrag Brown to the basecoat of Death World Forest.  The initial stages were enough to put me off doing anymore.

 

The pictures you see above are the result (yes I should have kept the pictures I used the flash on) and at the time I was disheartened but tonight while I was applying another coat of Death World Forest, I realised that Skrag Brown makes for some pretty good rust so I left bits of it on to add some character to the tank.

This time I did use the flash and while the close up of the back isn't brilliant it does show how the Skrag Brown makes for the rust.  Quite whether I'll stick with going for camoflage I'm not sure, but maybe with something that's mostly peeled off.

Catachans

Having backtracked from my earlier position that Catachans were gay softcore porn, I've been painting a few up recently to go with the twenty or so I bought years ago.  I've also expanded that small collection by adding in a Leman Russ Exterminator.

I was not sure about that but having covered the tank in Death World Forest, the end result has been well worth it with the tank a satisfyingly drab green.

However, I've also heard talk of the next IG codex coming out in the early months of next year.  At the moment it might be in January or March, depending on where the Orks end up on the release schedule, though as talk has it both will have to wait until after the Tyranids who may be out in November.

According to some of the rumours, Company Command Squads may be the only HQ choice possible which they kind of where in the old codex where you had to take a command platoon.  Those same rumours also talk about Veteran squads being limited to 2 special weapons instead of 3 to prevent plasma spam.

Doubtless we'll hear other rumours in the coming months and I'm sure if you look on the forums you'll already be able to find pages and pages of them.  Anyway here are some pictures of my newest tank.

 

 

I'm going to add another layer of Death World Forest to the tank before trying out some camoflage patterns using Skrag Brown.  I'm thinking to go for more of a disruption pattern than standard camoflage.

I've also got a Scout Sentinel with Missile Launcher that needs painting up and I'll try to use the same patterns on that when the time comes.

Painting in smaller scales

Those of you who've looked at my first post will have seen the slipshod work that was my first attempt to paint in 15mm.  Well that dates from last year and I haven't tried anything in that size since, despite the face I've got a load of Eureka and Rebel Minis figures sitting in one of my top drawers just waiting for a lick of paint.

However my desire to paint some of the great collection of metal I've acumulated has yet to extend to anything smaller than the 28mm figures I'm used to working with.  However yesterday, after seeing a freind, I walked into my local WH Smith's knowing I would spend money I don't have.  Which I duly did, buying the latest copy of Wargames Soldiers & Strategy.  In amongst the various articles was the first part of a guide/propaganda exercise in how to paint 10mm figures.

Now I don't have any 10mm figures and I'm not likely to buy any in the next few years, but the piece looked interesting so I read it anyway.  As I expected the author, James White, started off by dealing with the charge that often seems to be made against the smaller scales; namely that they are too small for a good painter to work with.  In a clever move, he turned that accusation on its head by arguing that since a lot of the details you'd find on larger models, were missing by neccessity at this scale, you didn't need to be a good painter to end up with good models.

Mr White went on to point out that if you're basing a lot of models together, you can get away with not putting highlights on certain areas of the rear mounted models, since no one will see them.  Now I struggle with highlighting models as it is, so I'm not going to worry about that yet.  As for the first point, I have little doubt that will be debated endlessly by everyone who's read the article when they get on to their favourite forums.

Personally, I struggle to seperate areas on 28mm models (and as a result have been tempted by 40mm and 54mm models), so I now it would be a little harder for me where the smaller scales are concerned.  That said though, I've seen enough models in 10 and 15mm, or 6mm for that matter, to know that you can paint well enough if you're willing to put the time (a key failing of mine is that I'm usually not prepared to do that).

Furthermore, echoing a point that plenty of people have made about using smaller scales, not only can you have larger battles on the same size of table you're using, but it's a lot cheaper to buy smaller figures.  I'd bought mine for use in figuring out the dynamics of battles for a sci-fi novel I'm trying to draft, though work on that, like the models, is so infrequent that I'm a little ashamed when I tell people about it.

All points about me aside though, I can see the main advantages of smaller scales clearly enough to make them worth reiterating:  First is the cost with your money getting a lot more figures the smaller in scale you go.  Second, individual models don't take anywhere near as long to paint; a definite bonus for those of us who aren't professional painters.  Third, you can wage much larger battles on the same surfaces.

Indeed, with that last point, there are some gamers whho use different scales for different battles.  Larger scales for smaller actions such as skirmishes with smaller scales for all out slogfests.  A win win for companies but nevertheless appealing to many gamers.

As part of my new pledge to spend at least an hour or so painting a day, I've been working on my Sister Hospitaller model.  I've liked the idea of the Sisters Hospitallers ever since I read about them in the second of Graham McNeill's Ultramarines book, Warriors of Ultramar.  Unlike the Sisters of Battle, the Sisters Hospitaller don't actually fight, they tend to the wounded instead.  Okay, so occasionally they help the Inquistion torture someone, but we all know that if you're hauled before the Inquistion, you've done something wrong don't we?

Anyway I've always liked the model and was delighted when I found one amongst the great number of Battle Sister and Inquistion models I bought in 2011/2012 (I have a memory like a sieve).  It sums up the nature of the Sisters Hospitaller and the universe they're a part of perfectly, with the robes conveying a gentle aspect, but with the rebreather mask and little bone saw on the right arm still likely to scare the crap out of anyone unlucky enough to need their services.

Now for my model, I'd planned to go with a tradtional nurse's white for the robes, and a light blue for the armour.  This latter choice was inspired by the blue nurse's uniforms you get in Britain and I wanted to give the model a bit of national flair, but more on that later.

Painting white has always been tricky.  Being such a light colour, it's really hard to acheive a good, consistent look, since anything underneath will show through unless you've got enough layers on.  Some people manage to simply use a white undercoat and then build it up from there, but when I've tried to copy them, the results have been mixed.  Using a white spray paint simply leaves a dirty looking model that requires a lot of work, almost as much as if you hadn't bothered with the spray paint in the first place, as you can see below:

Admittedly I'm not sure if I was holding the spray paint too close or not but the experience was enought ot put me off ever trying to use a white spray paint again and currently the can is sitting, unused, on one of my shelves.  My other attempts to use a white undercoat, made much earlier in my painting 'career' involved simply applying layer after layer of skull white to first a Rhino (it was suppossed to be for the Imperial Fists) and then some Vanguard Veterans.

Well the Rhino ended up looking much like the Dreadnaught above (it looked even worse after I tried painting yellow but let's not go there) while the Vanguard Veterans taught me something about Science.  You see, whatever materials were in the paint and the composistion of the metal, combined to react by turning the models pink.  I'm not joking, almost as soon as the white paint was applied to the metal, the affected area began to turn a bright candyfloss pink in hue.

Sadly I didn't take any pictures, because the result was hilarious.  In the end the Veterans received some yellow paint, which ended up fading because I left them in the Sun for so long.  It was in the end, a waste of a fair bit of money even if it did teach me not to use a white undercoat.

Therefore, using a black undercoat as my starting point, I have to start with a dark to mid-grey when painting white.  Before the new Citadel paints were released, my preferred colour was a Fortress grey with one or two coats, followed by Space Wolves grey with another one or two coats.  Unfortunately my prolonged absence from painting has seen my remaining supply of Fortress grey dry up, so I've had to go straight to the Space Wolf grey stage on my Sister Hospitaller.

I've already given her three coats of Space Wolf grey, but a fourth is needed, possibly a fifth as well.  I'm painting with the figure already stuck to the base, which after seen umpteen painting sites where the models are mounted on sticks to give access to the underside, I'm going to have to try and emulate.  However with the model already on the base, there are plenty of bits I've missed with the initial coats.

This is a particular problem for me and is, in large part, responsible for my lack of neatness.  It's a problem that tend to be excerabated by my tendency to rush painting a model.  It's also I'm determined not to have for this model, since it's so well detailed that it deserves at the very least a decent paint job.

For the blue, meanwhile, I've started with the old Enchanted blue as the intial layer, with one coat applied.  I'll add one more before moving on to Lothern blue as the mid layer.  However that isn't quite light enough for what I want so I'm going to switch to Privateer Press's Formula P3 range for the final colour.  In this case it'll be Arcane blue, which hopefully will be close enough to the sky blue look I want and not end up looking too much like turquiose.

Spot colours will be a straightforward metal for the bonesaw and attached mechanism, with a red for some of the little plates on the armour.  I'll try for a gold or bronze on the small fleur-de-lys symbols, but I'll need a new detail brush for that.  Till then I've leave you with some little work in progress shots:

Am I the worst miniature painter in the world?

I got into wargaming about six years ago, though I only started playing properly around February of 2009.  Now my path into wargaming was from the Dawn of War computer games.  These constituted my first exposure to the world of Warhammer 40'000 and from the moment I saw the very distinctive intro movie to the first game, I was hooked.

It wasn't too long after that before I was checking out Games Workshop and looking at their products.  The next thing I knew 2008 had come along and I was buying battleforces and building armies.  Then late that year my friend Shaun, who'd played 40k when a lot younger, decided to get back into it and by the time 2009 came along we were going to have a game.

So I decided Chaos Space Marines would be my first main army, after a bit of messing around with the Crimson Fists and Dark Angels.  With limited space to play in, Shaun and I agreed that we'd stick to a thousand points.  So I came up with a list, started building it and then, started painting it.

The results were shocking, essentially just lots of paints slapped on plastic.  Shaun described them as so bad that his then three year old daughter could have painted better models.  Bad as the insult sounded, the worst part was that it was true.  When I heard, I determined that I would become, if not the best painter in the world, at least someone who could paint decent if unspectacular models.

In the years that have passed since then, I'm not certain I've  managed to acheive even that limited aim.  Too many of my models have dirty looking paint on them or bits where I've gone over a line and painted the wrong colour.  For example too many of my Imperial Guard have streaks of blue on their red pants.

That tends to be because I end up rushing models so I can use them in games and tournaments.  However since I haven't played a game in going on ten months, I have no excuse for rushing any more.  Now in that time I haven't picked up a brush once, but today I did.

I'd forgotten how strangely relaxing it is.  The act of just picking up a brush, wetting it, then dipping it in paint and applying that paint to a model is so simple that I couldn't believe I've waited so long before doing it again.

With money tight at the moment I can't really afford to buy anything new which is a good thing since I have so much that needs painting.  Apart from dozens of Sisters of Battle that I'd bought either early last year or in 2011, I've got some Tau and other little oddites including two French Napoleonic soldiers, circa 1812 and a 17th/18th century North American militia man.

Anyway I think I'll bring this introductory post to a close now but leave you with an example of just how bad my painting is.  These guys represent my one attempt to paint 15mm models.  Believe it or not but the visors are painted a different colour to the rest of the helmet; turquiose as opposed to blue.