Infinity: Morat Agression Force!

Finally had time to finish up the original starter for my Combined army, and also busted out the Zerat Hacker at about the same time! Had the Zerat sitting on my desk, just bare white primer for a long time. I was really struggling with color placement on her, and since Infinity figs are so clean, you really have to think about that before you start slingin the paint.

Scarab helped me immensely with the color choices and placement, otherwise I don't think she'd be even close to finished yet. The Vanguards were pretty easy as I had already finished one a while back when I first got the box set.

 

More pics when you click!

 

Here is a pic of the entire force to this point. Soon to be joined by  kurgat assault engineer with Autocannon!

Clash for a cure: Saxon Orrick

Got my donation to the C4C finished a while back as well, but just now found a second to slap him on up here. Kind of went all over the place with the coloring on this guy, but I think it came together well in the end.
I went fairly simple for the base, but wanted it to look like a native part of our (southern) Utah landscape. Hence the red dirt and dead grass!

Thanks for taking a look!

Mini Swap: Wildchevy for Mephistoles

Here is an update on my part of the mini swap.
Meph wants his Slannesh Champion to be pink. I started off with the metal areas and progressively tinted the metal. First layer was a blue wash and once that dried I went back over with the gunmetal color avoiding the deep areas. Next layer was with a purple wash and again I went back with metal but this time a brighter color. The last layer of tint was with pink and the brightest silver I have to just pick out the high spots.

May Mini Swap: Wildchevy for Mephistoles

Names have been drawn, minis have been prepped, and meet ups in dark parking lots have begun.
This May the guys from Geek Garage will be doing a mini swap. These swaps are always fun and bring out a  nice challenge to break out of the norm.
I'll be painting for Mephistoles and he handed me one of his precious legacy miniatures which is a Slannesh Champion.
Here's what I have to start with.

More updates as soon as the muse whispers to me about a pink color scheme.

Wildchevy

Scotty's IMC prize complete.

Well, unfortunately I was a total slacker and only got one quick pic snapped of the Circle Battlegroup before it went off to its new owner. Guess I should stop procrastinating with these things someday. ;)

Here is how they ended up. Thanks for taking a look!

Grims IMC WIP 2

Alright everyone here is a quick little WIP of my progress thus far my my Drow....errrrrr Nyss Hunters.  :)

  

More pics when you click :)




Essentially I have brought the highlights up on the armor, started by adding just a straight Vallejo Model Color English Uniform to all of the leather areas.  Then I began adding P3 Menoth White Highlight to the English Uniform more and more with each layer.  After three layers this is what I came up with.  Also began bringing the highlights up on the purple as well.  Did this by adding P3 Menoth White Highlight to the basecoat of GW Foundation Hormagaunt Purple.

I then added the metallics and got the hair finalized.  With the metallics I began by basecoating all of the areas with a Rackham Polished Silver, after basecoating, I washed the swords with GW Asurmen Blue Wash, I added a GW Nuln Oil wash to the hilts and handles of the swords.  I then washed the metallic portion of the bows with GW Gryponne Sepia... decided I didn't like it and followed that wash with a GW Nuln Oil wash as well.  The hair was base coated with a Delta Ceramcoat Quaker Grey and washed with GW Nuln Oil. After the wash on the hair dried I reapplied the base coat.  Here are the results:

Sorry for the pics... I have had one heck of a time getting a good group shot of these guys.  When I finish I will try to get a really nice set up so that the pics are more crisp.  But for now this is all I have.

Hope you like it!

Thanks for watching!!!

-Grim

Miniatures Showcase

Here is a showcase of the recently painted commission pieces for our local Pressganger. These were painted by Grimwolf and Scottykhan of Geek Garage. Miniatures featured are from the game Warmachine and faction is Khador.

Soundtrack:

Space 1990 by Kevin MacLeod
(incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By
Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...

Grim's IMC Prize Support

Alright folks in case you didn't hear, we here at Geek Garage are currently sponsoring the Inter-Mountain Cup, IMC, this is a Warmachine/Hordes tournament, this year it happens to be a Warmachine Weekend Qualifying tournament as well.

We as a crew here at the Garage decided to offer up some support for our local press gangers.  So we did what we love best... Painted some figs.  We will be using these painted figs as prize support during the tournament, some will be raffled end of the later rounds of the tourney and others will be given away to best painted army, and best painted battle group.

All in all this should be a whole lot of fun.  We hope to have a long and fun partnership with the IMC.

Now with that said here is my entry:

Click the link for some progress shots... these guys are clearly still WIP... click the link drop a comment, question, critique, anything really.



Here they are assembled (PAIN IN THE A--! Anyone who has assembled these can most likely relate) and primed.

I recently acquired an airbrush... so I decided to throw down an english uniform progression on these guys for their armor. Threw some VMC English uniform in my airbrush and laid down a base coat, then I just bit by bit added Menoth white higlight... three layers later here's the result:

Then I washed the models with the new GW wash Seraphim Sepia... think this may have lost a bunch of the highlight... Im most likely going to have to go back and bring some highlights up on the leather armor.

Was really having some issues trying to figure out how to paint these sweet little elves, different from the norm, but still cool as ice!  I had a few theories, asked ol' Scotty what he thought about it... He confirmed that painting them up as Drizzts kin (Drow from WotC), and if you don't know who Im talking about... go to the bookstore and look up R.A. Salvatore and buy the Legend of Drizzt volume 1... pretty sure you won't regret it.  Anywho... here is the shot with the skin tone base coated with VMC German Grey:

 

Decided on purple for the cloaks... Used the old GW Foundation Hormagaunt purple as a base... then washed with GW wash Druchii Nightshade.  Added one highlight of GW Foundation Hormagaunt purple.

As of now I have finished the highlighting on the skin, added a Delta Ceramcoat Ocean Reef Blue to the VMC German Grey for the first highlight, then added a little P3 Menoth White Highlight to that for the final highlight... here is the final shot for now:

More to come so stay tuned!

Thanks for watching!

-Grim

Confrontation: Azahir the insane

Finished this guy up just the other night. Had a lot of fun painting him. At first glance I wasn't too impressed with the sculpt, it being one of the older ones and all. But as is usually the case with these figs, there was a lot more to him than I initially thought.

More after the jump....

I have actually had him partially finished for a while but couldn't figure out what to do with the doll strapped to his face or that dang shield.( I hate shields)
A text to my buddy Grim was the remedy for that. Its always great to bounce problems and ideas off others.

After all is said and done, I'm pretty stoked with how he turned out.

Old Witch of Khador

Finished this one up as a commission for a local. It just so happens to be the third time I have painted this duo, so I cant say I was terribly enthused about it. But I pushed through(eventually) and got em done.

 More pics after the jump.......


You may have noticed that the crows are missing from Scrapjack......Well, in moment of what I thought was clarity, I decided to leave them off for ease of handling while painting. The first times I had painted these, I glued them on and tried to work around them, which lead to headaches of knocking them off constantly and slathering the wrong colors of paint on them with an errant brush stroke.

This time however, I did not glue them on and apparently lost them in the jungle of a mess called my paint room! The search continues!

Thanks for checking these out, let me know what you think!

An Apology and Some WIPs

Alright, the Holidays have come and gone, and it has been nearly a month since I have posted anything up here on the GG...

I have to apologize... I always seem to think that during the holidays I will have more time for hobbies, yet every year it seems I have a whole lot less free time than I imagined.  So again, I am sorry for my slacking.

Now, here are a few WIPs I have been working on over the holidays.

First Up....

Tir Na Bor Standard Bearer:












Now, I know you want to see what else Im working on right? :) :P
Click it!! Come on!  Please? Click it!!

The next guy I have been working on is another one of my favorites from Rackham...

Magnus the Mystical:

Ill show you this guy from the very beginning.  Cleaned up and primed white.

Added some basecoats... You may have noticed something is missing...

I dare you to comment and point it out.  I double dog dare you!!

At this point I couldn't figure out what to do with his gloves.  I chatted with my buddy Scotty and he suggested doing some crazy red and blue transitions.

This is how it turned out...
Thoughts? Comments?...
Verbal Abuse?

I decided to move the transitions over to his sword as well.  Like this Mystical magician was doing some crazy magic voodoo on his sword.

Not sure if the effect came out exactly as I had pictured... but I think I like it.



















I did a little bit of work on his face at this point.  I love for the face of all my little Dwarves to be the focal point of the mini.  I worried that the sword may draw too much away form the face.

Here are the quick first few steps done on his face.
















And the finished face shown below.  I took the picture so as to ensure you all saw how grumpy and mean this old dwarf is!  The lesson of the day:

DONT MESS WITH MAGNUS!

I have yet to finish this guy.  When I finish him I will be sure to throw up a pic so you all can tell me what you think.

Thanks for Watching!!

-Grim

Thursday WIP's

Well this is both a Thursday WIP and Part 2 of the Extreme Jack Commission!

Here is a brief write up of my adventures with the sweet and sexy Extreme-oth:

Been working on this commission for a buddy.

He did all of the converting and asked me to paint it for him.  Here is a pic of the starting point:



His instructions were pretty simple... "Don't care about the color scheme, I just want him to look filthy."  Simple enough, I thought.  Lots of room for artistic license always makes me happy :)








  You know you want to see more....


With this guy I decided to try a new technique, kind of my own take on a salt weathering technique that is a three layered primer effect... let me explain:
1) I began by spraying the model with a rust colored automotive primer (sorry I didn't snap pics of the priming stages... kind of did it on a whim real quick like :) ) 
2.) After allowing the rust colored primer to dry, about an hour or so, ( I would probably suggest you wait longer, but I happen to be extremely impatient) I applied the salt.   Here is how I went about my salt application:  I grabbed some of my wife's hair spray and sprayed into an open Privateer Press blister to get a nice pool of liquid hair spray.  At this point I grabbed a gnarly old brush and began slopping hairspray on the areas I wanted to show the chipped weathering.  I then sprinkled Kosher salt (big ol' salt grains) on the hairspray. 
3.) After allowing that to dry a bit, I waited a half hour... I again primed the model, this time with black primer.  I did this because I knew I would have some areas that were red in color, rust chips wouldn't show as well with the red paint. 
4.) I allowed the black primer to dry and repeated step 2.
5.) After allowing that to dry I came back with a white primer, spraying from the top mainly. 
Here is a picture of the model after the three primer salting technique:

I sat and let this sit and dry for a bit and went and had a game/paint night with some buddies, and talked with them a bit about the salt weathering techniques etc...  I was informed that letting the salt sit for too long may eat through the hairspray and possibly the pewter...  Getting a bit shaken by that as soon as I returned home from paint night I promptly began brushing the salt away... at first with a toothbrush (it wasn't working as well as I had hoped) then with my fingers and finally I started using a hobby knife as some of the salt was just being stubborn!  Here is what it looked like when I finished.

So as you may have noticed on the Menoth Jack... (the torn up jack that is part of his base) I decided to test the theory and base-coated the jack before I removed the salt.  Still up in the air on weather or not you should pluck the salt before you paint or not. (Side note: If I owned an airbrush, I would have airbrushed the colors before I removed the salt)











Moving on.... As I began to paint this guy tragedy struck! While trying to paint the underside of some of his armor I heard a *CRACK*, I had zero time to react and... well... Behold the pitfalls of Zip-Kicker:

This model was sooooo top heavy, and my buddy is super fond of the zip kicker... he even has a tendency to gob super glue and zap it to get things assembled.  If you look closely at the model you will notice this in a few places.

After apologizing profusely to my wife and children for the tirade of profanity that boomed from my painting table, I picked up the pieces and reassembled this guy a bit... to be honest it actually helped me to get some harder to reach spots.  Here is another quick update of the painting after the tragedy.

Just the base coats for the armor colors have been laid... mainly so I could see if the color scheme was going to work.

 OK, now here we are, added some highlights did the metallics, and began slathering this guy with washes. Black washes on the behemoth himself, Devlan Mud washes all over the Jack for the base. Here's a pic:

Added some finishing touches and at this point he is nearly finished... Need to add a little bit of pigment and apply the finishing touches to his base.

So what do you think?

Working on this guy has been a blast, while there were a few times I was ready to rip my hair out all in all a great experience.

I will finish the base up real quick and then throw a final round of pics up here in the next few days.

But until then

Thanks for Watching!!

-Grim

Tutorial: Armored Greatcoat

Here is a quick tutorial on how I made the armored greatcoat. 

Materials needed:

Milliput (yellow grey)

Super Sculpey (Firm)

No hole glass glitter beads

And sculpting tools

First I mixed equal parts of the milliput mix together with Sculpey. This creates a nice compound that is easy to work with and hardens well.
After that was all mixed I pressed the putty flat in between some parchment paper and cut into a nice long strip with my blade and ruler. Carefully I set the strip on the mini and tap it down into place with sculpting tools, being watchful not to cause and dings.
For each panel I simply make a small knife line and used the sculpting tools to fix the shape I wanted.
Now the hard part, placing the beads into place. Since these are so very small and have a static cling to them, the simplest way I found is to use a moistened toothpick to pick each on up and set them into place.

Once the putty is cured you can go back and glue any beads that have slipped off. 

Wildchevy

IKRPG: Grim Ulthas

As a group we have decided that we were going to jump into and start playing the new IKRPG.  Our lovely Happy Panda has issued a challenge to the members of the GG.

I gladly accept your challenge sir!  En Garde!!

I started with character creation.

In the new IKRPG the first step to character creation is to choose your race.  My choice: Dwarf! (anyone suprised by my choice?) Step Two is to choose an archetype: I picked MIGHTY... I mean he's a Dwarf for crying out loud, didn't think there was another choice. :)

Next you choose your careers:  Decided on a Military Officer/Bounty Hunter.

Then you name your character and start picking up equipment and the like:

Name- Grim Ulthas
Tailored Plate armor
Mace
Warhammer
Knuckledusters

So with the character creation out of the way I went about picturing in my head how I wanted my character to look on the table top.  I began by scribbling out some concept art:



The Ulthas brothers are ex-Rhulic military that have fled to North Eastern Khador to start up a Mechanik's shop.

As they are located in the cold north, I figured it only fitting to make my dwarf look a tid bit like a Rooskie.

So here is my concept.

Now on to figure selection: As a military officer I thought that the best base for a Dwarven military officer would have to be the new General Ossrum fig. I picked him up and began looking for options to match my characters load out.

So starting with Ossrums body I grabbed the right arm off of my recently acquired Gorten Grundback fig... (going to be ordering another right arm from the PP bits order to replace it :) ) clipped the head off his axe and added a mace head, filed his warcaster back pack down to look like a normal back pack and clipped off his pipe... end result:

I really wasn't sure how I felt about the mace.  I bounced the idea off of my good buddy and blog contributor Scotty.  I felt the mace looked a bit too much like a stick grenade.  He thought if fit the IK pretty well, but also agreed it had some stick grenade feel to it as well.  So after a bit of deliberation I decided to switch it up and this was the result:

I also forgot to note that I have added a few bits and pieces to the Ossrum fig as well.  Three pouches on his back, and two rolled up scrolls.

As a Military officer you start with Battle Plan: Call to Action and have access to several more Battle Plan abilities.  I figured to represent these Battle Plans I would add maps and intel-type scrolls to my figure.

Step 1

So with the bits all attached and the figure nearing completion there was only one thing left to do...  Yup you guessed it... Give him a right Dwarf-worthy beard.  And so it began, my first stop in the beard building process:

Step 2

  
I then thought to my self that maybe this beard was a bit to rough... might be hard to paint... So I moved on to step number 2:

Step 3

I decided to run this by Scotty as well... his thoughts were that it may have looked a little bit better a scruffy and unkempt... then he threw in a bit of a challenge to test my Green Stuffing abilities... told me to throw a ring of some sort on his beard to break up all the scruffy beardliness.  So I moved to step 3:







I did a bit more tweaking here and there... until the green stuff was essentially no longer workable.  And ended up with this as a final product:

Well thats it for the conversion part!  Next step:  Basing and Painting!

Thanks for Watching!!

-Grim