Author: Joe B

Death Skull Warboss

Published by Joe B

To lead my growing Ork hoard, it needed a good Warboss to knock some heads around. Enter the Death Skull Warboss from Assault on Black Reach, which is very suitable for a head-crunchin’. With a simple adjustment to the right arm, I tipped it out a bit and opened up the model. The gap was filled with green stuff, and I added an extra shoulder guard from the Nobz kit. I figured the power klaw should be suitably messy and covered in gore. The rest of the metal is suitably rusted up and worn out. I also added a nasty looking trophy head and slightly tilted the head towards the Klaw. The missing neck was also filled in with some green stuff and smoothed into place. The blues add a nice contrast to the green skin and the bloody red. Want to paint an Ork just like him? I’ve got you covered with a painting tutorial! The tutorial has the step-by-steps I used for this guy, including the skin and bloody mess. He has so …

Mentor Legion Stormtalon

Published by Joe B

Another model sitting on my shelf for way too long. Last year when flyers were the big hot thing, GW had a air force kit for the Space Marines with two Stormtalons and a Stormraven, I quickly built them up and started painting but got distracted with so many things in life. So here is my Mentor Legion Stormtalon. I also got a set of bases fromÂ Secret Weapon Miniatures Secret Weapon Miniatures to add interest on the large, nearly empty base. The junkyard base had a downed plane reckage that I painted up to look like a Ork flyer, a bit of internal competition. The base colors were done using an airbrush and painters tape to mask the other areas.Â I then used washes to mark the panel lines and shade the green areas. The green was then highlighted and weathering done. The biggest issue I had with the original model was the nose weapon, so before building I did a search for other conversions and found Hand of Junk andÂ Excommunicate Traitoris that both had …

Hacking Custom Decals

Published by Joe B

So on my Knight Titan I had decided to create my own house, which meant custom house insignia. Now, I’m not a great free hand painter (yet), and since the patternÂ would need to be repeated multiple times over the model, I needed to turn to water transfers. While I haven’t tried it yet, I have heard that Testors Decal PaperÂ can work really well if you have a design in mind.Â After searching through my pile of transfers from Space Marines, Chaos, IG, tanks, the knight titan, and even the Ork and Eldar sheets that I had, I finally settled on the winged sword from the Baneblade to create my custom decal. The only problem was that the two transfers on the Baneblade sheet were only big enough for the shins and as i wasn’t confidant that I could hand paint a larger version for the shoulder, I turned back to the decals at hand. Looking at the Hawkshroud icon, it would give me a great wing once the head was removed and the wing turned 180, …

Imperial Knight Titan

Published by Joe B

My first picture post of the year should be epic right? Well here is my firstÂ Imperial Knight Titan for my yet unnamed house. My wonderful wife bought me this Knight TitanÂ [get it at Amazon] last Father’s DayÂ and it has been a slow process to build and paint this beast. In the end, I can’t get over how amazing this model is in person – any one that has finished one knows what I am talking about I’m sure. I decided to create my own, as yet unnamed house, and since my wife’s favorite color is yellow, it was only fitting that it would be the primary color. The amour plates were left separate and I glued them to penny nails to act as handles to paint and I could stab them into corks to dry. The main colors were all done using an airbrush and my meager skills allowed for very little highlighting – but a good dose of painters tape allowed the pauldrons to be painted both colors. The family crest of …

A Little Chaos to the mix: Iron Warriors Helbrute

Published by Joe B

So to break up the aliens a bit, I got a bit excited that the Helbrute kit finally came out for Chaos. I had been holding on to the Dark Vengeance model – which I think is a fantastic model (especially for a starter kit!) but I was waiting for a multi-part kit to customize it. For me the stubby Multi-Melta looked a bit off, so that’s what I fixed! To contrast the silver and yellows of my Iron Warriors, I figured purple would do just nicelyÂ so I went with purple-blue skin and red-purple red accents. The skin is worked up from Xereus Purple to Calgar blue (with some Lothern blue on the tubing). I used washes of Khorne Red, Leviathan Purple, and Earthshade to add the bruising and shadows. The red was built up over a few shades of red and purple wash used on the daemon face and tentacles. Hard coat was later added to the claws to make them blood-glossy. From the top you can see the nice contrast between purple flesh, …

Tyranid Zoanthrope

Published by Joe B

Because what is cooler than a floating brain with iity-bitty claws? How about add a row of menacing teeth in a snear?Â And with that, I present the Tyranid Zoanthrope from Hive Fleet Behemoth! This is the ‘old’ Finecast model that was at least an upgrade for the extremely top heavy metal version, but that little point between the tail and the ground spike is a point that keeps breaking. To prevent this I have added a small pin so we will see how that holds up. The biggest question for the colors on this guy was what to paint the brain. I decided to keep it blue but reverse the highlights from the carapace so the depths were the white and dark blue on the ridges. This helps give a glowing, alien look to it and contrasts to the hard plates. I love the skin stretched over the brain. If GW ever asks my opinion for the greatest sculpt, this may be among my top 10, though the new plastic version is pretty cool …

Tyranid Rippers for Hive Fleet Behemoth

Published by Joe B

Just because they are small, tinny, bitey things don’t make them less scary en masse. Today I add some Tyranid Ripper Swarms to the growing hive fleet. I love the fact that these guys come on the various sprues because buying a box of just rippers would be a bit lame to open and ‘assemble.’ Having them as a freebie gives a nice surprise instead! For the coloring on these guys, I purposely left the red a bit darker except for the face to help emphasize it a bit more. I left the extreme blue contrast through which helps brighten up the otherwise dark mass. While only three ripper bases may not accomplish much in a game, since they come in each gaunt box they will continue to grow as the horde expands to consume the universe!

Tyranid Warrior Brood

Published by Joe B

Ok so that teaser post was a while back now, blame it on Real Life ™.Â But anyway, here are some more units for Hive Fleet Behemoth, this time aÂ (now old) Tyranid Warrior Brood to lead the little gauntsÂ into battle. Each is armed with the classic scything and death spitters to give a well rounded battle field role of longish range shooting with an extra attack in close combat. While the lack of the special weapon gives it a lack of punch, it also helps cut down on the point cost – which makes this a great throw-away leader unit if needed. This is one of my favorite aspects of the Tyranids, in that you can see the hunger and drive in each of the units. From the snarling faces to the forward lunge it is clear they are trying hard to get forward into the enemy. This view shows the contrast between the deep, smooth(ish) red and the high-contrast blue of the carapace. I really wanted an army that sticks out from the table top …

Lizardmen OOP Kroq-Gar on Carnosaur

Published by Joe B

In keeping in line with my recent trend of completing models that have been collecting dust on my shelves, I present the Lizardmen Kroq-Gar on his carnosaurÂ Grymloq. This is the recently out of production metal model that has been in my collection for almost 5 years with no love at all. After the new Lizardmen models came out in the fall I felt even more guilty for never finishing this lizard-hero. I had forgot how heavy metal monsters were until I started working on this beast – especially since he is so long it made it rather difficult to hold his base and paint either end. Color-wise I used to color and pattern of the new kit as I liked the contrast and organic feel of the stripes. It allowed me to color out side the lines a bit and not worry about it. It also was fairly straight forward to paint. The fleshy color was simply the Flesh wash over white primer. The red and black were highlighted then washed with black. For …

The Hive Mind Devours All – Tyranid Carnifex

Published by Joe B

So I few years back I enticed my brother-in-law to join me in the 40k world and he was drawn in by the Tyranids. While he has built up a small army of the bugs he hasn’t quite got around to painting them all yet. Over the Christmas break we spent time base coating his whole army red and had planned on doing the black/blue base as well but just ran out of time (future post coming on Kill Teams!). To help motivate him and get the painting juices going I volunteered to paint his Carnifex – ok it may have been a bit selfish on my part too! He had chosen Hive Fleet Behemoth and painted a few ‘guants for me to pull colors from. The whole model had already been sprayed red so I based in the Necron Abyss for the blue areas, black for the weapons and claws, and elf flesh for all the soft bits. A black wash later had the model tabletop ready. I love the look of …

Mentor Legion Scout Squad with Sniper Rifles

Mentor Legion Scouts with Snipers

Published by Joe B

Finally finished off another Mentor Legion squad – holidays were a bit busy! This time it is a scout squad equipped with sniper rifles and camo cloaks. These were a good diversion from full power armour; the cloth and flesh were a nice change up. I kept the colors a bit more muted than their full brethren figuring they wouldn’t want to stick out too much as they did their scout thing. They followed my normal painting flow: base coat, devlan mud everything, highlight. The Mentor Legionnaires I do two layers of green and three white, but to keep the scouts muted I did a single highlight. The “white” comes out more tan colored, but still fitting with the rest of the army. To add a bit more interest to the large cloaks I did a simple camo pattern using the stippling brush. It consisted of light green, light ochre, and off white, finished off with another layer of devlan mud wash. I’m happy with how they turned out – especially with how simple it …

Sir Lucien Bretonnian Knight of the Realm

Published by Joe B

A few years ago I picked up a Bretonnian Knight of the Realm box as a way to mix up my painting and try different colors, free hand, and styles. I had painted up the first knight up to his final colors but never got around to finishing him. I even tried getting on board with the Knights of Bal Timorea that Santa Cruz Warhammer was putting together, but alas, he has been collecting dust on my desk for almost three years! So after finishing off a few of my Mentor Legion units I finally broke through and finished him off. So I present Sir Lucien of the Realm. The yellow sword for his arms came from the transfer sheet but I painted back over it and the border to remove the “decal look.” I also spent a good deal of time on the base and mud splatter. I wanted that mud tracked earth look as a unit was breaking through the ground and a gallop. So along each edge of the base the grass …