Author: Joe B

Good Reads – 2015W29

Published by Joe B

Life is starting to settle back down, which means I have started catching up on my blog article back log. This week brings a great collection from around the interwebs for your viewing pleasure. So lately I’ve been really digging the INQ28 world, not so much for the Blanchian scary/odd art, but for the crazy and awesome conversion people are using to make their war bands. Wilhelm is another new additionÂ to my personal blog roll and his recent update on his warband has some great work in it – I especially liked this Inquisitor. Marble is one of those cool stone looks that really fits well with the Grim Dark, Gothic look, but is really hard to pull off. Apologist from Death of a Rubricist put together a nice tutorial for all of us to make our own marble additions. He even gets bonus points for writing in imperial data slate style! This last month has been a flurry of new releases that have had the community chatting loudly, but one release that seems to …

Tyranid Hormagaunts of Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

After finishing the Warriors brood, I realized that I didn’t have any pictures of the Tyranid Hormagaunts that so feverishly leap forward into the enemy. Obviously this isn’t run as a single brood, but rather two smaller ones, but I just lumped them together for the pictures. The actual models make up a combination of an old army box and a pile of sprues that I had given my brother in law. He then mashed up as many bodies and arms as he could assemble from the old bits so some of theÂ Hormagaunts are actual Termigant bodies or Genestealer arms. The difficulty with the leaping forward nature of the TyranidÂ Hormagaunts is that they tend to tip over at the slightest breeze. To prevent this as much as possible, we glued down layers of washer both under the base as well as on the top of some of them. The ones on top then got covered with thick layers of sand to hide them. Overall this made the models much more stable. You may have noticed …

Talos Conversion by NafNaf on Objective Secured

Good Reads 2015 W28

Published by Joe B

And I’m back! Well at least enough to pull a Good Reads together for you. Life is still a bit crazy, but I have three interviews lined up this week and two offers already in hand, so the next job thing is looking good. Now onto some Good Reads! Some of these are a few weeks back, just working through some back log! I’ve only recently started following Kraut Scientist, but man he has some inspirational kit bashes. Seeing as the Iron Warriors were my first 40k army back in 3rd edition, I couldn’t help but love Kraut’s take on a small kill team. His posts are also epic stories of his thoughts, work in progress, and finally some painted minis. With the improvements in cameras, digital editing software, and light-boxes we are able to see our minis in very high detail – much more detail than with our own eyes. This inspired Adam over on Sprue Grey to write a post on his struggles and breakthroughs on painting viewed by the camera. He gets …

Cool Tools: Silicon Shapers – Very Helpful for Sculpting

Published by Joe B

For this week’s cool tool, I’m switching to sculpting. First up, I am very much an amateur in terms of sculpting with most of my green stuff work limited to filling in gaps and details to bits bashed models. The biggest issue I had with using green stuff was that it stuck to everything but the actual model. I tried wetting my tools, using vasoline, even used super glue to fix the GS to the plastic, but nothing was nearly as helpful as when I found silicon shapers. These fantastic little tools are basically paint brushes with a silicon heads in various shapes. For anyone who has used silicon baking dishes, you know how fantastic of a material it is for non-stick properties. I use them in conjunction with the normal metal sculpting tools to push the green stuff into rough form. Since they don’t stick at all to the green stuff they are great at shoving the clay into crevices that I normally struggled with in the past. The different shapes also come in …

Traitor Guard Veteran Squad

Published by Joe B

Next up in my picture re-take experience is my Traitor Guard Veteran Squad. I really wanted to make these guys stand out a bit from the standard traitors so I added a number of extra bits, conversions, and mutations to the group. The bits includes an array of parts from the Cadian and Catachan Imperial Guard kits, the ever wonderful Flagellant kit, and Chaos Marauders. I also used a good deal of Green Stuff to add mutations including a complete new arm to hold one of the Catachan blades. Some of the conversions were subtle, such as the extra tentacle on the first snipers trigger finger while others were a bit crazier, such as the eye-stalk head. Ever squad of note needs a fancy banner to guide them and encourage the troops. While not a real upgrade for veteran squads, it looks so darn cool I had to find a place for it somewhere. His sword army I actually think comes from the Zombie box, so now I’m up to 5 product lines. For the …

Iron Warriors Land Raider

Published by Joe B

For today’s showcase, I present my Iron Warriors Land Raider. A classic for any powered armored army, the Land Raider is beast of a tank considering its age in comparison to many of the other amazing Games Workshop kits. I finished this model over six years ago now but wanted to post updated pictures since I have improved my photography skills over the years. Considering the number of engagements this guy has gone through, he is in remarkable shape with only a couple of the spikey bits breaking off. Its also fun to look back on some of our older models and see where we have improved, but also where we may have lost some things. For example, the weathering on the tracks is a mess compared to some of my recent models, but the hazard stripes on the lascannons are in a place I would be timid about placing now. This was also the time that I actually painted in the inside of the tanks – for what ever reason. To achieve this I …

Tutorial: Painting Custom Space Marine Banner for Mentor Legion

Published by Joe B

Today I have a tutorial onÂ painting custom Space Marine banner, in this case for my Mentor Legion but the ideas could be easily transferred to any Space Marine chapter. Before beginning, I had to first think of a design for the banner itself. I scoured the codex for ideas and did the obligatory google searches. The general idea I decided on was similar to the Raven Guard banner in the codex: I also found a handy PDF on Bell of Lost Souls (I know…) that had real basic banner designs for each company. So with a rough idea of what I wanted, I then dug through my pile of water transfers to find the starting point of each element. Water transfers? Yeah, I am still working on my freehand so I like to use water transfers as the base idea and work off of them, kind of like coloring books 🙂 Like these sort of tutorials? Make sure to sign up for my newsletter. Not only will it keep you up to date on Broken …

Vostroyan Hydra by the GunGrave on A Guardsmen's Guide

Good Reads 2015W23 – Tanks

Published by Joe B

Welcome to another week of Good Reads, this week I have put together a great collection of tanks from the last few weeks – and I love tanks. So check out the posts below and leave your fellow bloggers some comments! Rednekkboss is a fan of theÂ gribbly bits and it shows in this fantastic Nurgle Vindicator. You can check out his previous posts to watch this nasty, horrible, awesomely painted beast come together from the amazing rust effects to that creepy green eye. So the new Hydra Kit from Games Workshop is awesome, but the GunGrave took it one step further and modified it to be aÂ Vostroyan Hydra complete with custom gunner and loader. Hopefully someday GW will give these other IG units some love again to make it easier to theme our armies. I love the new Stalkertank and I have a fondness for traitor guard, so I loveÂ bigbossredskullz’ take on it. Not only is the weathering well done, but the little chaos bits are spot on. Greggles has been doing some great …

Cool Tools: Testors Model Master Plastic Glue

Published by Joe B

For anyone getting started in the hobby of building plastic miniatures you need three things: clippers, knife, and plastic glue. These things are so basic to our hobby that many of use still use the same tools and glue that we started with, often times the Games Workshop glue for those that started with their models. For me, I started this hobby in the model airplane world which is ruled by Testors, well at least at the big box stores in the US. Those of you who followed a similar path probably remember the tubes of doom that Testors sold as their plastic glue, think of those tiny tubes of super glue, but much bigger, and much messier. Fortunately at some point I bought the Model Master line of plastic glue instead that came in a nice applicator bottle and a metal tip. This changed everything. The tiny metal tip allowed precises control of where the glue would go, and since it wasn’t in a crinkly, old tube, it is also very easy to control …

Mentor Legion Company Command Squad for the Second Company

Published by Joe B

I have completed my Mentor Legion Company Command Squad led by the Master of the Watch, CaptainÂ Rothn Ryn. At one point Games Workshop released a four-pack of the ‘masters,’ four metal space marine captains that created an Apocalypse formation (before the current formation styles). This is the Captain of the Second Company, the Master of the Watch with subtle conversions such as the helmeted head and winged skull on the backpack. The Master of the Watch is responsible for the protection of the Fortress MonasteryÂ and the chapter’s relics. As such he is armed for defense with his storm shield and symbolic key to the keep. There is just something about Space Marines with capes. One of the cool things about the Mentor Legion is their vague background and history of working with other chapters. So when I was reading through the Space Marine codex for ideas on how to build out my chapter, I liked the idea of using the different chapter characters as baselines for each captain. Being armed with a storm shield and …

Good Reads 2015W22

Published by Joe B

Welcome to another week of some great blog posts from our little corner of the noosphere. Check out some of the great blog articles below and give your fellow war gammers, hobbyists, and bloggers some love. While I haven’t played fantasy in many, many years, I still enjoy seeing some of the amazing work people put into their units. RJ_Payne from Paint Hammer shows off his completed Inner Circle Knights that includes a great unit filler. The little diorama depicting a Nurgle champion challengingÂ Valten while the knights rush past. Klaus is back with another amazing sculpt and painted creation, this time The Rider. After checking out the glorious pictures of the finished piece, make sure you go back through the build steps and watch as wire is turned into magic. Admiral Drax had a post sharing a great hobby challenge hosted by the Spider Web of History named the 6 Month Mountain Reduction & Painting Challenge. The idea is a group support effort to reduce our mountain of grey plastic sprues by limiting ourselves to …

Tutorial: How to Paint A Broodlord from Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

So after a good reception of my tutorial on painting a Hive Fleet Behemoth Carnifex, I’ve put together how I painted the Broodlord from the Shield of Baal box. My goal with these tutorials is two fold: first to document how I painted the model so I can repeat it for additional units in the army, and second, is to give back to the community. I’ve learned so much from my fellow bloggers that I want to contribute my little piece to the greater whole. So if you are looking to paint up a Behemoth swarm, or just looking for ideas/inspiration for your own army, check out the steps below and see how straight forward it is to paint a decentÂ looking army. Broodlord Step 1 – Primer The first step I have been doing with all my models is a two-stage primer. First I give it a nice coating of black followed by an top over-spray of white. The black undercoat provides a first level of shadows, any time I have tried to prime just …