Modelling Commandments

Well, it's almost a new year, and to kick it off I have something new I was thinking about the other day; a list of Modelling Commandments I live by and wanted to share with the rest of FtW. I envy the weekly Rogue Trader Fridays(never miss a post!), and Ron's Top Ten List every Tuesday. So I suppose I'll break up the established tedium of midweek with this pushy bit of prose. My first Commandment?

Thou shalt not throw anything away!(lightning strike)

Much to my wifes' dismay, I never easily relinquish what some may consider 'trash'. Her constant inquiries into my need for percieved refuse is met with a hasty "Don't chuck it!". I'm not talking about sprue frames and such like(not trash), I'm talking about excised pieces of limbs I didn't quite use in a conversion. Who knows what use I may find for the right half shoulder of an Empire Handgunner?

In all seriousness, a hobbyist whom sees the value in the entire kit his model comes in is a richer man. Sprues can easily become rublle for a base, or more cunningly, a framework for a large model built from scratch! That beautiful box your Carnifex came in? Model priming tray! And would you seriously consider yourself a man if you tossed away any left over on-sprue bits? I've killed men for less!

This philosophy extends to everyday items that can be turned by a clever hobbyist into just plain old darn handy tools! Jars are a cinch for storage of tools and brushes; used up credit cards and gift cards are a brilliant plastic-card; old cd's broken up create dynamic basing materials! I put it to you, if it can't be used as a basing material, why own it?! Even old soda bottles can make great water cups when cut in half, way to go Macgyver!

Thanks for tuning into this first weekly post of Modelling Commandments at I Love Yellow Paint! Go forth and model my children! Hey, who thinks I might go to Hell over erasing the Commandments off the photo of Chuck Heston/Moses? I could have really garunteed myself a Hot Seat if I had put a gun in his hand. Oh well, next week!

IMPERIAL FISTS- LYSANDERS DEFENDERS
HQ
Captain Darnath Lysander

TROOPS
Tactical Squad x3 squads
-x5 extra SM , lascannon , powerfist , flamer, razorback with a twin-linked lascannon

ELITES
Ironclad Dreadnought
-heavy flamer “Malatesta”
Dreadnought
-twin-linked autocannon L arm, twin-linked autocannon R arm “Cataphractus”
Dreadnought
-twin-linked lascannon “Arturius”

HEAVY
Devastator squad
-x4 lascannons
Devastator Squad
-x4 heavy bolters
Predator Tank
-twin-linked lascannon , lascannon sponsons “Vitruvius”

____________________

This is my army list for the Fists. I picked this force with the intention of turtling it shamelessly. I realized that one of the things that Space Marines do is deal with abuse. People don't fear a basic save roll of 3+ for nothing. Of course, the defensive lean doesn't take away from the Imperial Fists general strategy anyway, that being masters of fortifications.

Lysander was a natch for my HQ, as he is a monster. He gives all the yellow boys stubborn, and his bolter drill rule may seem useless, I think of it as a tactical challenge. It would seem natural to throw him into a squad of termies wielding storm bolters, but imagine the hilarity of unleashing 12 re-rollable hits from a fully equipped devastator squad wielding heavy bolters. See where I'm going with this?

The tac squads all have razorbacks with dual buttercannons. I will split up the squads into purpose built detachments, half taking the lascannon and plinking tanks, the other half rolling out in the razorback with the powerfist and flamer to raise merry hell with big monsters, IC's, etc..

The lascannon devs are pure antiarmor, simple. The heavy bolters are anti-infantry power-washers, hopefully doubling their efficacy with Lysander ram-rodding the unit. Predator is fairly obvious too.

The 'noughts are where things get interesting. See, the idea with this army isn't just "Hammer 'em from afar.", it's "Hammer 'em from afar and then OMYGODSTOPHITTINGMEWITHTHESEISMICHAMMER!!" See what I mean? Reel them in with the threat of firepower and then pound them to greasy spots using the anvil of my dreadnoughts(not the Mortis dread, he'll be too busy blowing things away).

Hey, if this strategem doesn't work, well, at least they will look good losing. Peace!

Mortis Pattern Dreadnought. Autocannons akimbo!

Well, some doubted, some hated, but Mortis pattern dreadnought cares not! This is actually an Attack on Black Reach dread with Forge World autocannon hate-throwers. I went really simple, nothing fancy. The metallic portions were the biggest example; just boltgun metal washed with badab black. It dulled down the metallic so the focus is really on the yellow. This bad boys name is "Cataphractus", a nod to the fact that he shoots....alot.

Note; yellow effect was created using Wil Davies yellow techniques! Check him out at cbstudios.com! Really rad minis!

I was just thinking to myself while scanning a ton of photos into my compy, "Gee, this is tedious. And boring. You know what else is tedious? Painting that yellow onto Imperial Fists. Hell, I bet if Imperial Fists were real, they would use painting yellow as a masochistic ritual instead of The PainGloveohmygodepiphany!!!" That's right. Yellow paint plus agony plus Games Workshop equals Imperial Fists. The Imperial Fists use the mythical Painglove to shrive a candidate/repentant Space Marines' response to pain. The bizarre confluence can mean only one thing; GW is using the Imperial Fists as a eugenics project to weed the inferior and weak from the strong in the hobby community! Fellow IF enthusiasts!! We are the future, rise up and throw off your chains of the oppressive multicolor pallette! YELLOW PAINT SHALL RULE ALL! CROCUS SCEPTRUM LOCUS!!

The Road to Baltimore Golden Demon 2010

Games Workshop has announced the date for Gamesday 2010; saturday the 21st of August. My wife(the most loving and generous creature on earth) has made my decade and said we can head on down to Maryland and attend. We have to start saving and getting ready for the trip as we live in Maine, as that's quite a slog for our New Englander sensibilities.

More importantly, I have to start some concept work on my Golden Demon entries. I know I may not stand a chance against the other competitors, but dammit, I'm gonna try! I have to figure out one basic thing; how many categories will I enter? I always planned on only one category....but 9 months is a LOOOOOOOONG time to build models. I have lots of ideas for duels/dioramas...I want to lay brushes onto a large model...and what about something humorous for the open category?

These are very important considerations to be made. Why waste time on a piece you care nothing for? I have always felt I paint better when I have lots of love to put into a figurine, the excitement of working on it fuels my pace. And what about transporting? I can't have a huge awkward piece break in the middle of the trip, I'd probably cry!

So many things will influence my decisions when it comes to selecting the appropriate models to paint, too. I have an aquantaince whom is a GD winner, and he confirmed that it can get a little political, and that some of the competitors can be territorial cliqueish dicks(I intend to bring my own clique, my pals from my FLGS will be attending GamesDay, and my rival, Zach, will be entering with a rather eccentric piece). So much to think about!

Check in routinely for projektlogs and my thoughts on preparing for the run-up to GamesDay 2010!

To Do List pt. II

Well I didn't finish my To-Do List in time for today, but on the bright side I got a lot of work done! Those Ratmen, my Devastator squad, and as you can see, I've black basecoated my dreads and have applied my vomit brown on both of them. It also appears as though bad times could get worse for Obama.

Is Patrick Gonna Hafta Choke A Space Marine?

At last! Devastator squad reporting in! I FINALLY FINISHED THEM! Super happy with how they came out, and the base adds alot of depth and story to these guys. I used walnut scree on top of super glue and flattened the pieces as much as I could to create a textured look, spread some matte varnish on top of that and dunked the base into sand. I let that dry and added some albino moss on a few bases, and added a final coat of matte varnish to seal all of it in! Much love to Wil Davies at Chaos Bunny Studios for the exceptional yellow paint tutorial, they wouldn't look half this good without it!

That means there are only 2 more items left on my To-Do list. I can't even articulate appropriately how happy these guys are done. Sometimes, you can get intimidated by a project. I was so scared to even base these guys I allowed my fear to stop me from working on them by saying "Oh, I can't base them yet, I don't have the materials!" etc., etc.. This weekend was great for jumping in and wading through this morass of work. Writers say the best way to break through a bad case of writers block is just to write. Write anything. Well, I would officially call my dry spell over. Bring those Dreadnoughts on. I will make them my bitches.

These Aren't the Imperial Fists You're Looking For...

Soooo....yeah, someone at Games Workshop is having a little fun at my expense. They made these craptastic blocky looking bitz kits for my boys, then just today GW releases these kits for the Crimson Fists...look at the flowing shapes of the emblems...glorious....

So WTF am I supposed to do? How am I gonna manage to build my IF if GW is only giving love to the CF?

(note; sarcasm oozes off this post. In all seriousness, GW put out some new bits for the IF/CF and I am loving it, mainly because the old bitz kits were bad...real bad...like Galactic Crusade yellow plastic Mainres bad :( )

You Dirty Rat

Ha-ha! Another project bites the dust! Scratch those friggin clanrats off the to-do list. I really went pretty basic on the paint job, scab red on hoods, codex grey on cloaks, covered by a gryphonne sepia wash. The armor was mithril silver, and the sepia wash made it look nice and dirty, almost like dried blood. Perfect for filthy ratmen. I finished her off by gluing small grit art sand to the bases and applying a matte sealer so when I put the sepia wash on it wouldn't disturb the sand, and applying it after the wash might reactivate the paint. It came out darn good if I must say so myself. I was just so surprised that the project came together well.

To Do List, or Procrastination Panacea

Well, I've been sitting on my hands of late, and the work has been piling up. Let's see...a battalion of Clanrats for my friend...that squad of devastators for my yellow boys as well as my mortis pattern dread and an ironclad on the slab. Soooooo, yeah, lots to do! I'll be busting out those rats first, they're easy enough. The IF stuff has been sitting for a looooong time too...guess I just have to get off my ass and roll!

-x20 Clanrats
-x5 Devastator Marines
-Mortis Pattern Dreadnought
-Ironclad Dreadnought

Done in a week? We'll see.

Should You Fail, Destroy All Evidence

Well, the better artist won today, and that wasn't me. We started the competition at 1pm, 5 competitiors, the pieces were chaos knights. It was very quiet the whole time, only the rough scraping of brush on model breaking the tension. In the end, a gentleman whose name escapes me emerged victorious. His piece was the green knight. I placed about 4th. I was very defeated by my friends Zach and Josh.

I want to mention how well these gentlmen all competed, they created simple yet elegant entries and earned their places as superior painters. The subjects were definitely a challenge, namely the fact that they were essentially two models to paint in 4 hours. None of us had ever really painted them either, which I feel was very fair.

My impressions and feelings; I didn't like losing! There, I said it. I did bitch after the contest, and I was the only one complaining. I always espouse an attitude of "If you do not win, the only way you truly fail is to not learn from the experience". But I felt I had invested alot into this competition and I was defeated. Looking back, I regret my actions after we wrapped and were graded, what with all the sour grapes talk on my part. I will not allow this to color my attitude from now on, and I learned some valuable lessons, especially about some egregious mistakes I made in painting my submission.

Rule #1-(and this should apply to all things in life) Keep it simple stupid! Don't go crazy building a wild-ass design with poorly matched colors.

Rule #2- Metallics are an accent, not a paint scheme. If you have more time for metallics to be taken to a quality extent, go for it. Otherwise, refer to rule #1.

Rule #3- Be efficient. Take the time to be careful on the delicate stuff, but haste is a virtue in timed competition.

Victory Belongs to the Most Perservering- Napoleon

My FLGS is sponsoring a painting competition today. Guess where your friendly local painter will be today. Oh yeah, that's right.

This will be my first painting competition. Even though it is a small one, in my mind, it's for all the beans. My arch-nemesis, Zach, may be competing with me today. I intend to take the field today and destroy him. No fancy maneuvers, no tricks, just victory.

I always approach any competition in a certain way. I sometimes feel like a blood hungry berzerker, donning my armor, prepping my weapons....packing my paints :) But in all seriousness. I did psych myself out getting ready for this today. It's going to last 4 hours, we don't know the model we will be given, and I'm not certain of how we will be judged. I don't even know who else will be there! I just know I want to show my best skill, and crush them without mercy. So I guess when you have no reliable reconnaisance on a battlefield, confidence can be the only course. I'll report back when I come home tonight!


c

Silence on the Hill on Veterans Day

Good morning folks, and happy Veterans day. I'd like to take a moment on my little corner of the internet to thank those brave individuals serving at home and abroad in our armed forces. Your work is appreciated, and I wish you all safe journeys as you pursue the goal of protecting America and prosecuting the difficult task of war in the name of freedom. Thank you also to those men and women whom never left the armed services, but whose silent testimony in death have inspired Americans to be the best we can be, and appreciate our rights, purchased with your blood. Thank you vets, you are not forgotten.

I Convert, Therefore I Am

Ah, my Severites. This is just a bit of a change of pace for me. Prior to Loving Yellow Paint, I Loved Kit-Bashing. These boys you can see here are my home brew Imperial Gaurd regiment, the Severites. They had really low-tech(note the las-locks instead of lasrifles), and had a Baroque sensibility to them. More than that however was the copious amount of kits it took to create a squad of Gaurdsmen. I needed a box of IG Cadian shock troops, two boxes of WHFB Imperial Outriders, a box of WHFB Handgunners, and ta-da! Severites!

I put a lot of love into these guys, but they have been the victims of financial and sane constrictures; I'm not rich and I'm not crazy.

To your direct left you can see a Severite medic! He's consulting an anatomy test and prepping his tools for cuttin' and drillin'!

Oooh, look at that heavy weapon team! Yup, those are cannon wheels from the WHFB artillery kit.
These fine fellows are always ready for a scrap, I made sure that bayonets played a heavy influence in their design. I used the feathered cap heads to help denote different squads, it makes modelling sense and it makes battlefield sense!

They've also got some heavy duty backpacks. I intended the impression to be given of a group of hard-core campaigners.

The las-locks not only have bayonets, but the power packs from lasrifles smacked onto the bottom of there Handgunner pieces. Beauty ain't it?

Hoarding: Where Everything is a Must-have

I've been known to collect a little too much. I have 4 concepts for armies currently in progress(Imperial Fists, Severites, a Death Korp army, and some stuff for WHFB). I have a whole short list of projects for other people; a chess set for my brother for x-mas, a double set of armies for a friend of mine in payment for work on my car, and some mock ups for a colleagues' FULL THRUST ships.

My concepts and ideas list pales to the amount of unfinished, half there projects. I have started(and nixed, or postponed), a WHFB Empire army, a Brettonian army, multiple super-heavy tanks...the list goes on.

My bits collection is probably bigger than anyone else' at my FLGS. I have kits and pieces from every army if both WHFB and 40k. This allows me to pull some wacky-ass ideas from out of my proverbial hat. I have plans to convert a carnosaur into a counts-as sentinel for my home brew IG regiment, the Severites.

Concepts, armies, bitz; I collect them all! It's almost debilitating. Because of my scatterbrained nature I have a hard time focusing on one project. Sort of like ADD for gaming. I start my Imperial Fists project only to get side-tracked by the idea of getting my DKoK started.

I know that many of my fellow gamer hobbyist are afflicted with this disorder. How do we transcend this difficulty and embark on a more successful carreer? Is their a way to avoid this hopping from one project to another? I've been building models for 3 years straight, and I don't have a single army to show for it. Isn't that kinda wierd? If you have a friend or pal in your local FLGS whom suffers this diffculty, please be kind :) We are only trying to figure out what we love best about gaming. As it turns out, we love everything about gaming. Folks like us love every army out there that has tremendous capacity for conversion, concept work, or just excels at collectabilty. I guess that's just the way things are. So the next time you see me, please don't ask me how my latest army is doing. You will only make me cry.

Rare Yellow-belly Razorback Sighted!

Ah, the crispness of autumn! Well, actually the crapness of autumn in Maine. But the turd tastic weather has allowed me to delve into my workload! Voila! Et un Razorback(I don't speak french, and the only french I know comes from World War II movies, so if that last thing makes no sense, not much I can do about it.)! Finished my first piece for my Imperial Fists army, a sweet little APC. I also got to go full circuit with Wil Davies instructions on how to paint yellow. His advice to utilize a yellow ink glaze over the coat of vomit brown makes this paintjob really warm and sensuous. Note the Forge World doors on the sides and the front plate with the IF iconography. Those naughty lads came in my FW order three weeks ago, and I had been itching to slap them onto this piece. They were also a bastard to fit on. Who would have thunk it? FW products not fitting right? Surely you jest. I ended up slowly filing them down to finally snap into the cavities on the sides of the 'back. Ditto with the forward armor plate. I even made sure I got my moneys worth out of this model by building both the Rhino and the Razorback kits. It was simply a matter of glueing the two pieces of hatch together for the plain old Rhino, glueing together the Razorback cannons together, and then glueing neither permanantly onto the 'back. Should my precious get deaded on the field of battle, I'll simply remove the hatch plate to represent mortification. What should I build next?

Space Wolves Are Broken

Gar! Yet another commission for my pal Nick. This time it was a piece I was only vaguely familiar with; Dreadnought! I had the distinct displeasure of putting together a Venerable Dreadnought kit about a year ago. Damn. You. Games. Workshop. This half pound piece of crap destroyed my entire complement of drill bits, didn't fit half the time(the chassis was a bastard), and ruined two metal files. Dear GW, Patrick again.....yeah....about those models that are huge bricks of pewter....ummmm, I'm gonna have to never buy any of those again. Sincerely, Patrick. Well they finally got rid of the paperweight that is the Steamtank, though it's secondary function as a doorstop and even an instrument of self-defense will be missed.

I digress, as you can see I had been commissioned to build and paint a Space Wolves Dreadnought. Above you can see the project midstride, based black with some portions painted shadow grey. The portion I want folks to see most is the right shoulder of the chassis, the yellow and black area. I was very happy in particular with this non-standard paintjob, it was accomplished witha bit of blue painters' tape and my airbrush. It even pushed me to make the right arms(lascannon, assault cannon and JOY! plasma cannon), black, with only certain parts painted a very darkened boltgun metal. I then shaded them progressively with a mix of chaos black/grey/skull white, up until the final highlights with straight skull white. I had to go super light on the white, you don't want it overpowering the hard work you put into creating a consistent gradation from black to white.

I chiseled the raised areas off the faceplate of the sarcophagus and painted it white, then placed a decal from the Baneblade in the middle, it pulled a good piece together and added my signature custom touch to the piece.

I am super satisfied with my efforts this time around. The SM Dreadnought is a joy to assemble and paint. I only hope that Nick thinks so too!

Have Brush, Will Travel

I just finished a commissioned piece for my pal Nick; a Damocles Rhino. The kit is actually from FW, and it’s really just the satellite dish and a comms package on the right side of the Rhino. As you can tell from my blurry (sorry) pictures, they are done up in a Space Wolves color scheme. The yellow was actually a tasteful mix of Iyanden Darksun and Golden Yellow, it produced a warm yellow to contrast the drab shadow grey base. Speaking of the base color, I achieved the consistent base with my airbrush. I enjoyed doing this piece for my pal, and he was so pleased, he commissioned me to do a second piece for him; a Space Wolves Dreadnought!
This is my first time finishing a commission for pay(I charged Nick a $35 troop box, and I earned that box). It was kind of funny doing the Rhino. I felt freer than when I would have doing work on my own miniatures, it didn’t matter that the Rhino wasn’t super individualized or the chapter home-brewed. I just set my mind to it, and ground that bad boy out. I also felt a tremendous amount of pride in providing a service to my friend. I really tried to do my best work on his commission, and it touched me when I gave it to him that he placed it in his stores main glass case(he’s the LGS owner). I would say that the greatest compliment one player could pay to another is to ask him to enhance the look of his army and trust him to do just that. I’d also like to recognize a fellow rad painter/modeler in my area whom is doing the special characters for Nicks army; Zach Phillips. His exceptional efforts with the brush are pushing me to blow Nicks mind as best I can and bring my skills to a further threshold. They say great opposition makes for exceptional efforts, I certainly hope this applies to the work Zach and I put into our friends playing pieces!

Rogue Trader Brings His Holds Stuffed With Forge World Tastiness!

Just a quick shot from the hip, I got my Forge World order in a weeks time!? Yup, my friends and I ordered enough goods for free express shipping and man, was that shipping express! For those not in the know, Forge World is a subsidiary of Games Workshop that does some of the most exquisite model work ever witnessed by man(check 'em out- forgeworld.co.uk ). As right on as their models are...well, their shipping procedures are precisely the opposite. Guys have waited months for tiny pieces, things are shipped incomplete or severely damaged due to the highly sensitive nature of the resin product FW uses to mold their models. But fate was kind today, and has delivered me my products in fine fashion...except for my posters...bastard UPS is holding them in...checks tracking number....Philadelphia?! What the hell?

Laboring at the Whipping Post

Well, there's a bit of work I've done this afternoon on the first of the yella fellas. Of course some might be confused as the "yella" portion is more of a pale brown. s'truth, the actual base color is vomit brown. I've put some watered down scorched brown(50/50) in the crevices of all the armor, and it certainly has picked out all the details of the Fists. If anyone is curious about what my plan of attack is going to be with my paint scheme, I'm following the advice of an exceptional painter, Wil Davies. His website chaos bunny studios, has some select, yet exhaustive, tutorials on a few difficult subjects. In fact, Davies interpretation of the Fists inspired me to start my force of IF.

I digress, my painting today has ended a long drought that lasted just about the whole summer for me. I hope to spend more time at my LGS to really motivate myself to get back on the horse and roll these guys out and make them look good.

My Love Affair With A Badger

When you first begin using a new gadget as a hobbyist, whether it's flocking, new brushes, or even a new sculpting medium, there is always a learning curve that simple instruction can't bridge. The difference is time spent behind the wheel as it were. I've Just finished putting multiple coats of vomit brown on my Space Marines, and I can definitely see myself using this airbrush to further my goal of paint domination. I wouldn't use one for single pieces, but as a tool being used at a large scale, it really decreases the time investment and increases the quality of the paint coverage.

I've learned that gloves are a must(I stole a pocketful from a hospital room while visiting my wifes' gram over the weekend, let's hear it for petty theft!). I clean that bad Larry after every use too. I had to learn that my teeny-tiny compressor can't handle the thick Citadel pigments, and they need to be thinned. This hobby that started as a social activity has really taken on a life of it's own. I've delved into old interests that I thought I had forgotten; being an artist, doing concept work on my armies, model work for conversions, I love it all!

Symphony in the key of...well whatever a mini-compressor sounds like

I have just got my first airbrush set complete with compressor. It was a bit of a farce as I realized that i have never actually used an airbrush before. My hands are still covered in paint as a result. The models themselves are looking ok, and I trust with more coats the coverage will be uniform. As a personal note, don't shop at AC Moore. Over priced and under knowledgable. Even with those vaunted 50-40% off coupons, Blick actually makes better deals. But, such is life.

Acceptance speech and the goals of my administration

Good afternoon! Welcome to my first posting on my very first blog! Exciting, isn't it? In this blog you will see a daredevil miniature painter take on some of the most hair-raising tasks an artist can! Doing an entire Imperial Fists army? Thrills and chills indeed! Green stuffing custom parts? I should think so! Oh my god, he's base coloring without a net!

In all seriousness, I as a hobbyist seem to gravitate towards projects that seem daunting and often times foolhardy in scope. I've never been one to go with convention, and nothing gets my blood pumping more than doing concept work while others scoff and weaker men cower! I began my deep obsession with warhammer by building a fluff intensive Iron Snakes army...ah, good times. My more recent projects have seen me kitbashing Imperial Gaurd with Warhammer Fantasy Empire kits. But I decided that I needed a new project. I delved back into my first army, and came up with a concept for an Imperial Fists army. These guys use ALOT of yellow. And yellow is a bastard to paint. Why?, ask the unitiated. 'cause yellow shows through friggin' EVERYTHING. Like a nice black basecoat? Be prepared to do quite a few coats of that lovely yellow. White basecoat? Enjoy doing all the shading you'll be required to do!

I digress, let's get this puppy started!