Well, as luck would have it.

The remainder of the work didn't take as long as I anticipated, and over a film or two this afternoon, I managed to finish the base and touch up the remainder of the miniature. and I am extremely happy with the result. Of course, being the eternal miserable bastard, all I ever see on finished miniatures are my mistakes. So the dreadful OSL on the cannon, and the occasional smudge, or area where overhandling has caused the paint to wear is all I can see. On the whole though, im thoroughly less miserable than with prior efforts, and I get to go to the Peak District this week umming and ahhing about what might be next.

Here are some images.

First, the cannon standing alone. I think I can probably neaten up the traction tyres and highlight them a little. But I'm happy with the snow and how it looks.

And now with the organ gun attached. I really wish I managed to nail the OSL on the front runes, I think it would have looked sweet. But theres nothing to say I can't return to it at some point:

Then we have what I refer to as the supervisor. Anyone with a clipboard is a supervisor. When I'm on stock duty in work, walking round with my clipboard, I feel like I'm the boss of everything. Sometimes I ask people questions, then shake my head at the answer and pretend to write something on my clipboard. It makes me feel powerful. I bet this idiot does the same.

But it turns out he's just drawing pictures of trajectories, as I couldn't think of anything else to draw without reverting to local bus stops for inspiration, so I just tried to copy the one on the box:

Then we have my favourite of the three, the loader. I love this guys furrowed brow. I put a little black soot pigment on the base to make it look like some had spilled form the cannon or from his jammer thingy:

The last of the three is the guy carrying the ammo:

Finally we have the base, with spaces for all the pieces. Followed by the completed scene in all its glory. Comments and criticisms, are always welcomed and gratefully received. There might be some touch ups incoming, but I'm happy enough at this juncture to move on to the next item:

Dwarf cannon / organ gun progress.

It's coming along really well. I've been trying to find tips on how to go about making what I've been referring to as nested bases. That is to say, a base for a gun or some such larger piece that functions almost as a miniature diorama, but one that has the mobility to be able to transport with ease by being able to remove the gun and miniatures from the base itself, leaving an indent for them to be inserted back in come game time.

Since the term nested base is something I invented, and as I don't know the correct term, finding guides on making such beasts hasn't gone well, so I've been slicing and chopping bits up. Its proven to be somewhat time consuming, and since time is something I am a little more keenly aware of since falling behind on my project, I'm not sure I'll be able to make all of my big guns this way. We'll see how it pans out though.

I begun with the modular movement tray. I then chose where I would like to place the gun and its crew, and blocked out the surrounding areas using spare bases, some of which had to be chopped.

I then used Milliput to fill in any gaps, since the bases are raised on a slight angle, and used some mixed ballast to base them. There are still some gaps, but I plan on filling these in when I put the snow on them.

The larger rocks are added using some cork chips.

I think that these will look really cool once its painted up, however, I have had to abandon my attempt at object source lighting for the time being. I just couldn't nail it. I'm also unsure about the way the organ gun has been highlighted with the brighter silver towards the front. Maybe this is because I'm used to seeing guns with powder/scorch burns at the end. I might reverse the highlighting at some point.

The skin I'm really happy with. I've been working a lot over the last few weeks on how I paint flesh as a result of a painting group I've been involved with, and this really, really top notch painter who has been pointing us all in the right direction.

The beards I painted in the usual way I have been doing on my main unit. I did two ginger dudes since that's the colour I'm most comfortable with at this point.

All in all, It's been slow going on this particular mini, but I'm happy with it. Alas, I can't see myself having it finished prior to going on Holiday on Sunday. I have a gig tomorrow, seeing a mate on Saturday evening. Along with working both days, I can't see it being complete, but that's ok. I can get as close as possible this evening and finish it off on Thursday.

Onward Dwarven Soldiers

30 Stoic hardknocks, marching to defend their piece of the mountainside from anyone who would steal the gems they've mined.

I'm VERY behind on my Tale Of X Gamers project. But I'm not worried man, I know I can catch up. The move in to the new flat really diminished my desire to paint and I had a good few weeks off. However, the last few days, I've hit back hard. Not only have I finished this unit completely, as well as making a movement base for them, I have gotten to work hard on my first cannon/organ gun. Pictures of which will be a little further below.

What's annoying about this kit is the fact that you get ALMOST enough to make both the cannon and the organ gun, which is really frustrating. With this in mind I decided to do a little chopping and magnetise the base of the gun. Not the ideal solution as I still only end up with one base, but it will allow me to swap and change them at will which is nice.

I photographed the process of how I magnetised it. It's not a massively ambitious project like magnetising the Dreadknight or anything, but it will be helpful.

This is the base after being put together. Its difficult to see, but the holes have been drilled in those two bumpt protruding from the top. I have then filled the gaps with green stuff and pressed small magnets in to both sides, facing inwards, being sure the polarity is correct so you dont have one repelling and one attracting.

Heres a really blurry close up where you can just about see the magnet.

You then need to magnetise both the cannon and the organ gun. For the cannon, you need to attatch the cogs and wait for your poly to secure them in place. Then, remove the protrusions shown in the picture below so that the middle of the cog is flattened. This is where you'll be drilling.

Here is a rubbish shot of the same cannon with the right bits chopped off, and some sort of looming shadow threatening to engulf us all.

Once the cannon is done you need to do the organ gun, its the same process really. You add the cogs then chop off the protruding bit remaining. That gives you the area you need to drill and insert your magnet. As shown in these two images:

With regards to the strength and size of the magnet, it really doesn't matter too much, you can use as small a magnet as you can get away with since you're not holding a dreadnought arm in place or anything like that, its just something to keep it snug while gaming.

Here are a couple of work in progress images of the cannon and its grubby crew thus far:

Painting wise I went for something rather quick, at least on the metals. I airbrushed it with my Boltgun Shadow mix first. Then gave it a blast of Boltgun Shadow + Chainmail, then a final hit with some Mithril Silver added in to the mixture. It worked really well and stopped it from looking too flat.

I also wanted to add something to make it pop a little more. So I painted the runes a nice blue colour. I made my very first attempt at object source lighting, to awful avail. But I think I might be able to tidy it up a little to make it look bearable.

Work will continue on these through the week and I'm hoping that, before my brief holiday next week I will have these finished, based, and with their own movement tray.

Move completed, finally.

Almost a week on and I am finally settled in to my new place. The move went very very smoothly. I was a little concerned as it was just me and Sarah, so the heavier items were bound to be a problem, but we powered through it like troopers and were in town eating lunch by mid-day. Since then we have had one minor (by minor, I mean major) flood to deal with, but apart from that its been plain sailing.

Having been focussing on stupid real life for so long, I haven't really had the time until today to set up and finish my painting station. The bare bones were done on Friday, but I have only now completed it. And its looking good. The only downside to this new flat is that there isn't nearly as much natural light as there was in my old place, but that isn't anything I can't deal with. Here are some photo's of how my painting station is looking now.

I also snapped a shot of my book case with my rearranged White Dwarfs along the bottom. My army books on the slef above need a little work but that'll be sorted soon.

I have a cupboard in which I can store all my boxes and the likes, and since I'm on the ground floor I can keep my compressor on the floor without worrying about upsetting neighbours.

Now... Where did I put those Dwarves...

Moving house is a real blow to my productivity.

It pains me to have to take all my paints off their awesome holders. I write this while taking a break from scrubbing bogs and cleaning shower glass things. My Dwarfs are coming along at a slow yet steady pace, and the work I'm producing as a result of this painting group seems to be of a much higher quality. So life is good. Or at least it will be once my new painting area is set up and the mountain throng are being prepared once again.

A non dwarf update.

I have been working on my Dwarfs, but not as much as last week when I was off.

I've been going to this weekly painting group in the Liverpool Games Workshop. There are some good lads there, and one really exceptional painter who runs it. I've learnt a lot in the last 14 days just from actually interacting directly with another painter.

I'm not complaining about the fact that I've been painting on my own for all these years. It's kind of what attracts me to it. I'm a solitary man, I like it. But there isn't much more I can learn from YouTube and DVD's. So I guess the only thing I can do now is to start hanging out with actual people.

Here is the test mini I have worked on. Well... it's actually not. This is what I have done as homework using the techniques I have learnt over the last couple of weeks.

I must say, I'm pretty proud. It was mostly painted using glazes, and what I wanted to work on with it was the lighlights and shadows. Not so much getting them in the right places, but getting the techniques right.

Blonde beards sorted!

After waiting in this morning for a parcel, I finally managed to get out and do my Day-Off Ritual. I even stayed for an extra coffee. Upon returning home, I put on some miserable, but redemptive coming of age/coming to terms with middle age films (Diggers and Cemetery Junction, brilliant and ok), and settled in to some beard painting.

Today was spent on the blondies. My last group went fine, the blonde looked ok, if not a little clumpy with little attention paid to individual strands of hairs. So I sought to remedy that. Like with the ginger beards, I'm really happy with how they turned out. Here are some pictures. These images make them look flatter than they actually are. My photo snapping skills, they're not the best.

This means that I have 7 more beards to paint. I'm going to go with black, and dark brown. The beards I have thus far are all quite bright, so that will contrast nicely. I really want to paint more grey beards, but I've used grey on my veteran to make him stand out and don't want to use it on any more models in this particular unit. The technique for these was inspired by the video I posted yesterday. However I didn't go up to bleached bone as I really like the yellowy blonde look as oppose to a whiteish blonde look. So here is my method: Based with Calthan Brown Layer up with Snakebite Leather add successive amounts of Golden Yellow in to the Snakebite Leather. Do a final, very light highlight of pure golden yellow Kock it all back a little with a wash of Gryphonne Sepia. This not only ties the blending together a bit better, but also seeps in to the recesses to bring out individual strands that my big clumsy moron hands couldn't get. As always, comments and criticisms are more than welcome.

Ginger Beards, attempt number two.

So after a very long week, I finally managed to sit down and do some painting last night. It wasn't much, just a few hours while watching some films and listening to some music, but it was enough for me to start on my second crack at ginger dwarf beards. My first attempt, which can be viewed here, I thought went very well, but I did think at the time that I could probably push myself a little more.

With that in mind, I started on 5 of my 16 dwarfs in the hope of making them nice and ginger, I chose 4 different beards. These here are the best of the bunch:

The method I used was as follows:
Base with Calthan Brown
Layer on Bestial Brown. At this stage I left very, very little Calthan in the recesses, as that was more of a base than anything.
Layer on Blazing Orange leaving some Bestial Brown.
Knock that back with two washes of Ogryn Flesh
A small highlight of Blazing Orange mixed with Dwarf Flesh
A final, very slight highlight of pure Dwarf Flesh

I must say that I'm really really happy with how these have turned out. Cant wait to have a crack at the blonde and brown beards!

A Tale Of X Gamers.

Over on the Librarium forums, there is this thread. The thread outlines a project called A Tale Of X Gamers. This doesn't mean that I will be undergoing my painting while snowboarding through flaming hoops to a nu-metal soundtrack. It is based on the Tale Of 4 Gamers concept that White Dwarf runs from time to time, in which 4 gamers choose an army of a pre-determined points value, and assign themselves tasks for each months, with points gained for completing on time, and penalties issues for missing deadlines. The idea being that at the end of the allocated time, the four players have a fully painted and ready to play army.

It's a great concept and is something I've been drawn to as a means to motivate myself for a while now. So when I saw it on Librarium, after ensuring that it was a rolling time frame as oppose to a static one starting last September, I started to make my preparations.

Now, there are a few things standing in my way. The first is that my project has already started, and I have one unit (its actually half of a unit) that is already painted up and ready. So there's that. There is also the fact that I have started my April project already, it being the unit of 16 I am working through right now. But finally, and most importantly, there is the fact that I am not used to Warhammer, having only played a couple of games in the last edition, so making a competitive army list of X amount of points is going to be difficult.

With these limitations in mind, I have decided to make a list of everything I have first. Which is now done. I have a LOT of blisters of heroes and lords both in metal and in Finecast. I have these more as painting projects than as models I intended to use in a list. I also have plenty of boxes of things I can move on to.

My current boxed content is as follows:

3 boxes of warriors
2 Boxes of assembled or completed warriors
- A total of 80 miniatures

3 Boxes of Thunderers/Quarrellers
- A total of 48 miniatures

1 Organ Gun/Cannon

10 Miners

Multiple lords and heroes.

With this in mind, I started to write a list. This was NOT a list of a legal and competitive 3k point Dwarf army, but more a list of 3k points from which I can pick and choose a nice 1.5 or 2k points list in the future, should I ever start playing again. For example, the list points values do not include any upgrades other than the command units I will be including, (I am including them in all units for two reasons, first to give something eye-catching, and second, because I will have enough models left over from the boxes to be able to swap them out should I wish to paint without them.) Here is the list I have written: Core:
Dwarf Warriors - 30 - 240
F.C - - 25
Shields - - 30
Total - 295

Dwarf Warriors - 30 - 240
FC - - 25
Great Weapons - - 60
Total - 325

Dwarf Warriors - 30 - 240
FC - - 25
Great Weapons - - 60
Total - 325

Thunderers - 20 - 280
FC - - 25
Total - - 305

Quarrellers - 20 - 220
FC - - 25
Total - - 245

Quarrellers - 20 - 220
FC - - 25
Total - - 245

Total Core - 1740

Lords:
Runelord - - 140
Great Weapon - - 6
Total - - 146

Dwarf Lord - - 145
Oath Stone - - 30
Great Weapon - - 6
Total - - 181

Total Lords - - 327

Heroes: Master Engineer - - 70
Brace Of Pistols - 10
Total - 80

Runesmith - - 70
Great Weapon - 4>br> Total - 74

Total Heroes - 154

Special:
Cannon - 1 - 90
Engineer - - 15
Total - - 105

Cannon - 1 - 90
Engineer - - 15
Total - - 105

Miners - 20- 220
FC - - 25
Total - - 245

Grudge Thrower - 1 - 80
Engineer - - 15
Total - - 95

Total Special - - 550

Rare:
Organ Gun - - 120
Organ Gun - - 120
Total rare - - 240

Total Points - - 3011

Please do let me know if you see any glaring errors in my maths. It really isn't my strong point. I spent most of Wednesday moaning about how I had to spend nine hours on a coach the next day. The coach left at half nine and arrived at half three. So... make of that what you will.

Tactics and the likes, I'm not too fussed since I don't know the game overly well. So I've made the list based on what I have access to already. I hope that when I put it forth on the Tale Of X Gamers thread that's ok. This list means I have a few more things I need to pick up. I still need two cannons, an organ gun, a box of miners and a box of Quarrellers. I can pick these up as the months go on though, I'm not overly fussed. This means I have to paint roughly 251 points per month over 12 months in order to succeed. Doesn't seem so bad when I put it like that.

The longer projects will be the core troops, which I will be doing first in order to get as much beard painting practice in as possible. Big guns and the likes will be for when I have a busy month ahead and can't do too much, and Lords/Heroes will be when I want to work on something intricate and throw everything I have at it.

Really looking forward to this!

Photos from last nights update.

So last night I worked on some of the metals. I sorted the gold out and finished off the silver. After photographing them this morning I think I need to brighten up the silvers a little. I think I might still be stuck in the murky world of Space Marines, with dull functional metal guns. Not that thats bad, I love that. But Dwarves take great pride in their metal work, so I need to make it gleam!

After a comment by my new spiritual mentor, namely Kruffy who writes the excellent Grumpy Stunty blog, which is a fantastic resource for any aspiring Runesmith, I wanted to push the contrast a little on the red cloak from a few posts ago. So here that is, a before and after shot:

Before:

After:

Ok, so not my best photographic work, so you'll have to take my word for the fact that it looks cool. I'm really happy with it. Here are some shots of the finished silver and gold areas. Again, once the miniatures are done, I might redo the silver so its a little brighter. my only concern with that is that I do really want the blades of the axes to look shinier than the remainder of the silver parts, and I don't think I can achieve that with a Chainmail base/Mithril Silver highlight. I'll figure something out. Maybe a pure Boltgun base/Mithril highlight? Who knows. Enjoy the images homies.