Thursday, March 24, 2011

Hey Stranger



Firstly, I have to apologize for being away. My computer had come down with a super serious virus and I haven't been able to do anything. I thought I'd show you what I've been working on.


Now I can't say that it's complete... there's still some finishing touches to be done (read lightning and shoulder insignia) but I couldn't keep myself from showing you guys.



 I give you... Talos (self-imposed leader 1st Claw!!)

Thursday, January 13, 2011

How to Dress in Blue and Look Cool Doing It!! (tutorial)



Well, I've been putting this tutorial off for long enough now and I don't think it's fair to you guys. I've been having issues with both my camera and my computer and I'm still trying to plug away at this. By the way, This is my fourth attempt. Hopefully my computer doesn't crash.....this time. If nothing else, I'm persistent.

With this tutorial, I'm going to cover how I go about creating that dark Night Lords blue. I'll save the gold trim and lightning bolts for a later tutorial when I get a larger subject so that the photos are clear.

I've never been satisfied the way GW presents the colour of Night Lords. The blue is always too bright for a legion that skulks in the shadows. Besides, from what fluff I've read, their colour scheme never truly fit. This is my take on it.

Before we get started, I want to first apologise for the seriously bad out of focus shots. I experienced serious camera issues that plagued me the whole way. I'm hoping that my narrative will make up for my abysmal attempt at photography. In any case, I will definitely be getting you newer, clearer, fresher photos in the near future. I promise. I just didn't want to delay this tutorial any longer.

With that said...................Let's get started!!


I think I should note here that I prime my minis with tinted gesso. The reason for this is two-fold. It's quick and easy for clean up and there's no need for nasty chemical smells. I haven't had  any issued with it in the past so I've carried on doing it this way. If your more comfortable using black spray primer, go for it.

Step 1: Prime your model. I've used a grey but black works just as well. Avoid using white as a base as it will make the colours too bright. If that's all you got then don't forget to basecoat your mini with chaos black before preceding.

Primed and ready to go


 Step 2: Basecoat your mini with a 1:1 ratio of Chaos black and Necron Abyss


Base coated


Step 3: Apply a heavy dry-brush of Necron Abyss all over.


1st dry brush of Necron Abyss


Step 4: Apply a heavy wash of Badab black all over. Let this dry completely and then go and apply a wash of chaos black in the deep recesses.


Badab Black wash

 Step 5: Apply dry-bush of Regal Blue and then apply a light dry-brush of Ice Blue. Concentrate your brush strokes on the upper plates of the armour. Don't worry if it seems too bright. We'll take care of  that.


Dry brushed Regal Blue and Ice Blue



Tidied up

Step 6: Using watered down Regal Blue, tidy up your edges. When all this is dry, apply a heavy glazing of Asurmen Blue all over. This will tone down the blue and bring all blue shades together. To make a glaze, I apply a touch of Liquitex matte medium to the Asurmen Blue just to thicken it up a bit. You don't need a lot. A little goes a long way!

Like a Glazed Donut!

Step 7: Now your ready to apply all the other details




And that's all there is to it, folks. As I said earlier, I'll leave the lightning bolts and gold trim for a later post. Hope this helps.

In Midnight Clad!! 





Saturday, December 18, 2010

'Tis the Season to be Sickly!

Hey guys, sorry I've been away for so long. It's been one thing after another. People have been dropping like flies at work and it seems Santa Nurgle has decided to gift me with one of his many plagues early this year...just in time for Christmas.

I just wanted to give you an update as to what I've been doing in the interim and what I've got planned next.

I've painted up some Atramentar terminators to share with you. These are a prequel to a tutorial I'll be doing to show you how I painted them.






For now....Enjoy!

Bolter blast from Armorcast
@Derina: Here's a close-up of the bolter blast. Sorry the image is sideways. I just couldn't get it oriented the right way, but you get the picture

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Reenforcements Have Arrived!

Sorry that I've been away. Work has had me working overtime to the point that I can't form complete sentences anymore. Sadly, it's not quite over yet for me.

Enough of that! I wanted to take the time to share some of my excitement with you guys. Check it out...more bikers and "what's that?"...could it be the beginnings of my Atramentar! I'll keep you guys updated with photos as I go along.

Viris colratha dath sethicara teshdasovallian. Solruthis veh za jass.

 




Sons of our father, stand in midnight clad. We bring the night

I thought I'd post some pics of some of my possessed. I think Big Jim just might get a kick out of them. I don't use them very often 'cause of the randomness but mostly because my rolling sucks.
 I've also posted a pic of a unit of thousand sons that I also use every once in a while. Admittedly, not very often because of the price tag but a fun unit to use none the less. Oh, by the way those are Armorcast bolter blasts on the 1k sons that I've painted in an eldritch green. They're sweeeet! I 'll probably pick up some more in the future. I really like the way they look.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

In Flanders' Fields.....


Hey Everyone,

As an past vet, myself....I do a lot of crying on this day. Please take a moment from your hobby, your painting, or your arts and think upon those that gave their lives to end tyranny and preserve peace at home and abroad. Through WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, various peace-keeping missions, Iraq and Afghanistan...we were there.

My heart and prayers goes out to the American, Canadian, British, and other families that have lost loved ones fighting overseas. My hope goes out to those families who still have loved ones there. Please know that we are proud of you, worry for you and that, most of all, we pray that you return home safely.

In all seriousness, find the time this week to speak to a veteran. You'll both be glad you did.

Thanks 


~Quietviper


Sunday, November 7, 2010

Soul Hunter

First off...thanks to Big Jim for the shout out! Jim's Stuff is amazing and an inspiration to me making this very blog in the first place. Thanks Jim!

After going on for ages about what inspires us to make lists, I came up with the idea of creating characters from the novel Soul Hunter. If you haven't read this book by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, I urge you to pick it up and give it a read. The characters are deep and are painted in a very different light than what you'd expect from a chaos marine force. Mr. Dembski-Bowden definitely weaves a colourful yarn!

Talos, the main character in the story, is a definite given. I thought of using a blood angels torso and sword, a scratch built chaplain's head and other various chaos parts from my bits box. I also like the space marine chaplain with jump pack because of the dynamic pose; though I'd definitely have to consider removing the jump pack. I've even considered doing Septimus and Eurydice. (I have some left over Flagellant and Cadian guard parts)

The Atramentar (chaos terminator) should be pretty straight forward, though I'd like to do something to make them a little different. Maybe some pre-heresy shoulder pads.

Xarl, Cyrion, and Uzas, from their description, don't really have any distinguishing physical features but I figure I can do something with their painting to set them apart. I'll be sure to share all of it with you and I'll make sure that I take lots of in process pictures to boot.

One of the things that I've struggled with in the past is how to represent these characters in game terms. I thought about using them with Codex: Space Marines and setting them up as a command squad. My abuse of the new Codex: Blood Angels is practically legendary though I would like to do something to distinguish them the false-emperors filthiest.

So, what ideas do you guys have that you can share? I'd love to hear from you. Can you give a brother an Amen!









Friday, November 5, 2010

Bring on the Beer and Pretzels!! (Night Lords 1500pts)




So, I got to thinking the other day (trust me, it's not something I do lightly).

In my experience there are two types of gamers... competitive players and beer and pretzel players. Now, I know this is a very grey area as there are some very competitive or tournament players who love and immerse themselves in the fluff and there are also those players that Just want a fun game but could care less about the background.

I tend to be the beer and pretzel gamer myself. I want a fun game with an army that lives up to its fluff. I don't really care if I win or if I get my ass handed to me as long as everyone has fun. I tend to avoid the double lash daemon princes or any other "sure-fire" list modifiers that have worked for others. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with using a double lash DP with six obliterators. It's just not the way I like to play. I'm certainly no perfectionist myself when it comes to my army lists but I do try and stay away from spamming units.

Lately, with my Night Lords, I've come up with two lists to play depending on how "tainted" I'm feeling at the time. Both lists are approximately 1500pts. My friend and I agree on 1500 points because we feel we can get a good sized army without it becoming too much of a Landraider slug fest. We think that this forces us to be a little more creative on how we play. I'm not sure this is how it plays out in the end, but we enjoy it just the same.














Here's the "tainted" Night Lords list I play.

HQ-         Daemon Prince - wings, warptime
      
              Kharn "The Betrayer"

Elite-      Chaos Dreadnought - 2 CCW, twin-linked bolter

Troops- (9) Berzerkers - champ. w/pwr fist, 2 plasma pistols
                                     rhino

             (10) Chaos marines - champ. w/pwr sword, melta gun, flamer, IoCG
                                            rhino

             (10) Chaos marines - champ. w/pwr fist, melta gun, Missile, IoCG
                                            rhino

Fast-      (8) Chaos Raptors - champ. w/ l. claws & melta bomb, 2 melta guns, IoCG

Heavy     Defiler- havoc launcher









I think the point I was trying to make was...what kinda lists do you build? Are they strictly for tournaments or do you, like me, write lists according to a background story  you read?

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

My Night Lords....Finally

So, finally, I was able to get some photos together of my army. I'm not one of those guys that takes pictures of everything. When I go on vacation, it's my wife that generally takes all the photos. If left to my own devices, I'd probably forget that I brought a camera or, worst yet, I'd leave it behind altogether.

That said, I was able to put together some shots for you. The quality isn't the greatest but I hope you like them.


 
My Raptors
My Chaos lord


Chaos Bikers







Bloody interior of a Chaos Rhino
Kharn
Skull champion of my Berzerkers
So, what do you think?
I hope to add some more pics as I go along.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Halloween, eh? That's apt!

Hey ,  I've come for You!!

I thought it'd bee appropriate that I start my Night Lords blog on Halloween. I haven't  too many photos to start off with but I'm hoping to rectify that very shortly.
I thought that I'd start off with why I love the Night Lords. In my opinion, Night Lords are the perfect mercenary army. They hold no true allegiance to any of the chaos gods and they temper their hatred for the "false" emperor with patience for the perfect kill.
Excellent character background lies in both "Lord of the Night" by Simon Spurrier and of course "Soul Hunter" by Aaron Dembski-Bowden. In both books, I got the impression that the protagonist were noble warriors that were wronged and misunderstood. Both characters look upon the lost chaos-tainted warriors of their own legion the same way the imperials look upon any chaos marine.

What are your views? What's your favorite army and why?