slow progress...

well my crappy work-hours, coupled with lots of overtime recently has slowed down my modelling work over the past weeks. lots of evening and night shifts mean im either too tired to do much other than eat and sleep at home or leaves me with a mornings off, which i havent been able to get my head around working in yet. but anyhow, i managed a bit of work on the librarian and something else.

Librarian

i repainted most of the blue and, on the whole, am a lot happier with it this time round. the highlights are a lot better than before (still far from perfect, but good enough for me) and the colour is better, though i suspect most people wont notice the difference. originally it was painted with a base of necron abyss over a white overcoat, feathered up to regal blue, ultramarine blue and finally highlights painted on with ultramarine blue + skull white. a few layers of black ink and badab black were applied before early coats. the second time round i started with a base of 50/50 necron abyss/regal blue with a single black ink wash painted to the recesses before feathering with regal blue, regal blue/ultramarine blue, ultramarine blue and final highlights with ice blue. i think the new colour i not as dark and a bit colder than the original one, which offsets the red/yellow and warm base...

im happy with the robes. pretty simple and rough, which is how i like them. i like to imagine marines in really rough burlap tabards - cheap coarse stuff - so i dont take too much time on them. keeping mind that the tabard is scratch-built from milliput im quite happy with it. finally i can say im getting the hang of sculpting robes (though full on cloaks are still defying gravity somewhat, as youll see when ive finished the other howling griffon characters and especially garro...

the howling griffon shoulder pad turned out nicely, though theres not much to it. i did mess up with the quartering, giving too much to the left (front) side than the right (back), but luckily, thanks to the shield it doesnt show. this was also my first experience using home-made transfer sheets and i think i done pretty well for myself considering its my first attempt, and on a curved surface to boot. i feel confident i can apply them to the rest of the unit without problems. i also intend to use a larger griffon on the banner, once i decide exactly what else ill add to it (thats why the brown on it isnt exactly up to par - ill most likely be covering it up anyway later on).

the base im not too sure about. the rim is dark flesh, which i used to good effect on the angels of censure. its difficult to tell as of yet as the majority of the models are going to be red/yellow - warm colours, which might complement that choice of base colour. not sure yet. i can always repaint it later. maybe scorched brown or chaos black?

thinking too add something to the right shoulder pad - maybe the librarian horned skull, though not sure how to do it (plus havent done freehand in a while, so need to practice more)

EDIT: as always, in my haste, ive realised ive left loads of bits unfinished - the book on the shield, the piping on the force weapon and other details. they can wait until i paint the rest.

Tyranids
well, i had so much fun painting the zoanthrope that i had to think about what to do next... and here it is:

so its two big boys up next. im going to really enjoy painting these guys in that black/turquoise colour scheme and applying baking soda and weathering powder to the bases. maybe ill actually finish this army one day!

Orks
my long gestating orks are slowly coming back to life, in the form of this monster:

i scratchbuilt this about a year ago and never got round to painting it as i wasnt entirely satisfied with with end result - felt a bit too flimsy for a proper ork vehicle. though im more than pleased with the technical aspects of the model - the hydraulics and mechanical parts, for instance - i really think it could be more orky. well ill keep that in mind for when i make the next one :p for the time being ill paint this up in my bad moon scheme and see if i can sell it off.

painting the chrome and applying the badab black / devlan mud rust was a breeze with the airbrush, really saved a lot of time and gave me the confidence to go ahead and maybe make that transformer model ive been wanting to make for a while - from a proper lamborghini car kit, chopped up and reassembled in transformery fashion - ive got the kit, just havent started yet. ah so many projects, so little attention sp...

a bit more paint and stuff

so i had some time to do a bit of painting today. i managed to get about halfway through the Howling Griffon librarian and done some painting on something new; a wasp zoanthrope.

Librarian
i had some problems with the blue on the librarian. apart from not being happy with the highlighting (quite messy), i also thought the blue was a bit too dark; especially with the yellow/red from the Howling Griffon scheme on the shoulder and shield. so i decided to leave the armour alone for now and concentrate on some other parts - the tabard (not that clear in these pics) and small details. ill most likely re-base most of the blue (some parts, like the arms and torso im pleased with; as theyre smaller surfaces than the greaves, the proportionately larger number of highlights make them look paler). ah well, i am a bit out of practice. better pics as i continue work on the librarian.

Tyranid wasp zoanthrope
i always loved the 2nd edition zoanthropes with warrior-like bodies and big flat heads and have never been too keen on this iteration of the beast (both the 3rd edition and 4th/5th edition floaty versions). its not so much i dont like the idea, its more i dont like the execution so much. i love the idea that theyre modified warriors, as essentially, standard 40k creatures seem to be based on gaunts and warriors, which i think is great.

using that philosophy i decided to make my zoanthropes more warrior-like.

ive always loved the carnifex crushing claws and thought they were just an interesting shape, and just thought theyre one of those parts that has potential for something other than a claw... which i found out they do; as fat insect-like tails (well, abdomens technically). after some messing around with GS and some warrior and hormagaunt parts and a 3rd edition dark eldar jetbike prow that was heavily converted with GS (regular viewers will recognise the head from tyrannic war veteran im working on), i had something that i was actually really pleased with, so i made three of them...

and forgot about them for a year :p

until today!

the painting is really simple - just a hawk turquoise drybrush, with some skull white added for consecutive layers. no proper painting at all on the blue. the armour was just chaos black and painted in lines, highlighted up in about 5 layers mixed with more skull white until the final layer. the armour was finished off with a gloss varnish.

Brother Nelchael

Not a Howling Griffon, but at least some paint

my first time usinga  brush in well over a year and im pretty pleased with it. its a quick job, more to get paint on the conversion than anything else, though i like the result. ive always been a fan of the Mentor colour scheme (actually, come to think of it i tend to like segmented marines with white - pre-heresy death guard and world eaters and mentors, as well as sons of guilliman and howling griffons) and really enjoyed painting this model.

the model was painted with GW paints and Mig weathering powders. It was sprayed white with my airbrush. the green areas were bascoated Orkhide Shade and highlight stages included Snot Green and Scorpion Green with Badab Black. i tend to be frugal with highlights, which shows in the pics, though the more subtle colours tend to look better in the flesh (or at least i think so!). the white is just the spray undercoat with Black Ink and Badab Black shading painted back up to Skull White. the pouches are Scorched Brown with Calthan Brown highlights and the eyes/lenses are Blood Red highlighted with Golden Yellow. the chapter symbol/squad marking are just Blood Red.

the legs received some Russian Earth and Ashes White weathering powder rubbed into it as well as watered down badab black.
the base is a base of chaos black, drybrushed with charadon granite highlighted up to skull white (and some Russian Earth weathering powder rubbed into it and the pipe in the back was painted Boltgun Metal and then washed with Scorched Brown, Vermin Brown and Blazing orange with a light dusting of Sharpened Rust weathering powder before a matt varnish was sprayed onto the entire model

EDIT: damn, just realised i forgot to paint the grenades...