Dwarfs??...in my Space Sharks blog??!

Now for something a little different!  A friend of mine is trying to get me to play D n' D, and Iv'e never played so I figure ,"hey I like the computer games (Baldur's gate, NWN, etc.) guess this will be fun too". They use minis in the games, but I he said they used those pre-painted ones sold by the makers of D n' D. I've seen those things in the store and they look like crap, so I figured an old reaper mini would suffice for me.  I managed to get a dwarf barbarian painted up pretty quickly, it was a nice break from space marines. Here it is in all my crappy lighting kitchen's glory:

 

 But, this post isnt all dwarfs and fantasy RPG's - I got some Space Sharks updates as well! The command squad is almost complete minus some basework  on the minis and the standard bearer needing further painting:

So here they are as of this posting. This is turning out to be the most colorful unit in the army. I cant decide on what to for the standard, been scouring the internet for ideas to stea-err "borrow" heh heh ;) Just a finish up for the standard and some basework n touchup's (like that powersword ughh) and it will be done! Thanks for looking, more to come soon!

P.S. Got the new Space Marine videogame today as well, its off the richter scale!

Apothecary WIP

Almost done with the Apothecary, just needs some touch-up and the basework completed.



More to come!

Librarian done and FW madness!

I got some things finished today, namely an HQ unit for my Sharks. I also got some FW multimeltas on the table ready to be primed. Once again excuse the photos, its late here and my house lighting/camera sucks:



Had a time trying to glue resin to resin, I washed the parts pretty well in the sink before the build so I dont know what was going on.
Ah! who is that in the back....?



Why its the Librarian that's gonna lead this party bro! I've had this mini sitting on my table primed for well over a year and I finally have gotten to finishing him up. I'm not happy with the face and how it came out, but its gonna have to do because I know I'll make it worse if I keep messing with it. Maybe I can get some better pics tommorow or at a later date when the sun is up and I can take 'em outside for better lighting (and therefore better pictures).

More to come, the command squad is basecoated n' ready!

Landspeeder complete!

I got the landspeeder finished up today, but I'm not that happy with it. I made the mistake of assembling this one completely and that made it harder to paint, so I just got real sloppy with it.







It looks alot better than it did when I got it, with its crazy thick red gore paintjob slapped all over it along with missing radar, weapons, pilots, and base (I know I have the wrong base on it right now, but I'll remedy that soon).

More to come!

Dreadnought WIP begins!

I'm on a mad tear trying to finish up these models, and the next one up to get the paint is this AOBR style dreadnaught (bad lighting photography ahoy!)



These guys are smaller than thier regular boxed brothers, but thats not stopping me from modifying this joker. I have cut the bolter off the fist arm and plan to attack a flamer instead. Hell I may magnetize both so I can swap them out (photo taken earlier).



I also got this joker basecoated up so it'll hopefully be next real soon!

My first Classic Rhino

Got this lil' gem in the mail today.



Its in ok shape (no missing exhaust pipes hatch guns, etc.), but not nearly as rough as some of the other items I've proccured off ebay in the past. So far I've fixed the rear end bar where flags used to go, and you'll notice the paperclip being fashioned into a replacement gripbar-thingy that circles the rhino as well.

I cant decide which army I'll have this rhino be apart of - my Black Templars or Space Sharks. I'm leaning towards BT's at the moment because I got some ideas in mind accesory-wise.

More to come!

Rhino Work

Well, I decided to try and work on the Rhino first this go round. I have never painted a Wargaming vehicle in my life, so I'm hoping this tank will come out decent. My wife has been really sick this week and weekend, so that takes priority number one and minis will have to wait!

Here's the Rhino so far, lets start with some drybrush work:







Process was Adeptus Battlegrey basecoat > drybrush (more like dryscrub w/ as little paint on the brush as possible) Codex Grey > drybrush Fortress Grey on hard edges/ lines.

I plan to weather the tank lightliy with a painted "dirt mix" to match my shark's bases. I think the tracks came out pretty well:



Ready for more grime n' dirt!

Speaking of weathering, I also tried to do paint chips and scratches type weathering on those cracks (see earlier posts), but I dont think I'm doing it right.
The results have been less than spectacular with painting the paintchip or scratch area black followed by a fill of boltgun metal and then a lil chainmail or mithril silver (depending on scratch size) to top it off. Any suggestions would be appreciated on this type of thing.

In addition to the chipping, I managed to get a few decals on. They need soem touch up and I'm not done with adding more, but here's where am at on things for now:







WHy the last one came out sideways I'll never know. More to come!

Terminators and Vehicles: Basecoating begins!

After coming to a comfortable stopping point on my Black Templars restoration project, I am now back at getting these Space Sharks up to speed. The terminators got thier basecoating today:



Hopefully I'll get these guys looking decent by the end of the weekend if time permits. The main problem was coming up with a decent color scheme. Thanks to the good folks in my Bolter & Chainsword WIP thread, I think we've got a winner!



Also, I managed to get one of the secondhand rhinos from ebay basecoated too:



Kinda looks like it hasnt been painted at all since the basecoat is close to the color of the original plastic!

This thing came to me painted bright fire engine red and whatever paint was used, Simple Green couldnt strip it completely. After a 3-day soak, the rhino came out a strange hunter orange color. I thought about sanding it, but feared I would lose detail. The paint was smooth so I figured a good spray painting of black primer would kill the orange but I was wrong. For some reason the black paint would bubble and crack like it didnt want to stay on. After another soaking, the primer decided to stick with only minor cracking. The cracks show up a bit more with the lighter basecoat, but I think they'll work in my favor when I weather the rhino.

More to come soon!

New restoration blog for Black Templars

Instead of bogging down stuff here, I made a seperate blog for the black templars I'm restoring. You can go to it here: http://www.blacktemplarswh40k.blogspot.com.

I'll be adding more stuff to get it caught up to my Bolter and Chainsword forum post like this blog, but check it out if you havent already!

3rd 10-man tactical squad complete!

Just a few minutes ago (9:10am) I completed my 3rd and final 10-man tac squad. pictures arent great because of the lighting in here but if you've seen my other squads you've seen these style/paint wise:







I got another sergeant w/ powerfist in the works to lead a previously made squad, along with a missle launcher guy and a flamer guy to sub into this squad for the melta and lascannon dudes.

more to come (and soon hopefully!)

Painting on a Larger Scale (and a biggger WIP!)

Haven't had much time to do painting of the Sharks recently. My fiance' and I have been painting on a larger scale, aka renovating my house. With my roomate moving out we've had time and access to his old room to make it into a better guestroom. Next room on my list is this computer room ;) - I'll try to manage without computer access a few days for the greater good ("greater good"?! HERESY!). Room's still a WIP as of this writing, but not much is left to do. The awesome hardwood flooring that was obscured by some nasty ass carpet is in good shape, yet could use a lil cleaning and waxing. Here's a few pics of the process:

Scout squad complete!...and DWARFS?!

well sorta... they still need basing so they match up with Telion. I'm dissapointed in my experiment on the faces of the two scouts you see (the others are obscured by goggles/sniper scopes - these faces came out good though). Pics to come as soon as I get access to a camera! Time to move on to some sergeants I redid with powerfists! In the meantime, have an old WIP pic of some dwarfs from the BFSP set. These are from the first miniatures I painted:

Scout WIP pics

Here is some poor quality scout pics, still a WIP:




Will get some better photos taken soon, just a quick lil' ditty at the moment!

Cold weather is cold

Well, this terribly cold weather is putting an extreme damper on spray-primering things outside, so nothing new on the vehicle front. Spray paint just doesnt do well in 19-degree weather! I did manage to get one damaged/badly primered rhino black primered up before the temps dropped off though. The inside is kinda bad and I may just glue it up so it doesnt open and leave all the detail work for my still on the sprues Land Raider and other rhino.

The scouts are about 85% done, just need weapon painting and faces painted along with some minor touch ups. Tac Marines to fill out existing squads are about 95% done just neeed highlifgts and touch up. I have gotta bit lazy on these marines because they are kinda plain (unlike the special characters and scouts) so trying not to dip to much in quality (well my ability's quality). Work schedule and personal schedule have pretty much kept me from having these done already. Look for pics soon!

Scouts!

I've been at it on the scouts this weekend, and pretty much got stuck on Sgt. Telion to where I just went ahead and completed him (minus basing of course). No pics yet, but soon.

Also got the stuff in to make waterslide decals, so now both completed tac squads have shoulderpad space shark insignias!

1st tactical squad complete (well somewhat)

Got the first 10-man tac squad painted up except for the sergeant and the guys havent been based yet. I'll base them all at the same time when I get everyone painted. Here are a few pics of the progress:



Its just a snippet of the whole group, I'll probably have the sergeant/captain/whatever I want him to be guy done by tommorow. Here is a shot of the ol' workspace:

1st Post! Lets get this ball rolling with a lil background information!

A while back I decided to try a new hobby, and that hobby turned out to be table-top wargaming. What that entails is getting a bunch of miniature army men and vehicles and playing them out on a table made up like a battlefield or forest etc. I figured hey, I like models and I like painting, so this looksl ike a win/win sitituation. I set about to find some Warhammer 40k models, but to my suprise these lil bits of plastic and metal cost a good bit more than some bag of green army men. $15 for ONE small metal guy in a blisterpack?! There's got to be a better way!

I decided to do this on the cheap, so I checked out ebay and found a lot of broken, badly painted, and all around mishandled space marine minis on the cheap. I like a decent challenge and figured this would be the best way to try 40k out without the big investment. With my "buy it now" bid placed, I was the new owner of a slew of minis that arrived at my door fairly quick. Upon opening the boxes, the minis didnt appear as bad as they looked in the ebay photo, but they needed alot of work nonetheless. Alot were put together wrong (i.e. medic guy's shoulder badge on the wrong marine etc.) and painted horribly, but I had a plan - and that plan was SIMPLE GREEN. With the minis sitting in a bucket of Simple Green, a good bit of the bad paint sloughed off leaving the rest to scraped with a toothbrush.

While I dont have a pic of most of the "before" models I do have a few showcasing the damage and quality of what I had to work with:



And here is a vehicle that was broken up. I managed to get a few replacement bits off Ebay to fix it up (most dark parts are new addons). It still needs more work as of this photo:



I've decided to make the Space Sharks chapter of space marines (hence the name) due to the simple color scheme and awesome name! SPAAAAAAACEE SHARRRKKSS!!
I've got all my paints and tools out, time to get crackin'!