My abesence

Hey there folks. So its been close to three weeks since i have posted anything . This is due largely in part in due to adjusting to my new position at my work and stress from the priors weeks of having very little money so in short stress. That being said im hoping to get some painting time in here within the next week so look forward to some updates here in the near future .

Chernobyl

Finished Tau and IG WiP

Hey there folks. As the title of the post suggests I finished my Tau battle force for the most part.( still need to snag some green stuff and some magnets but the painting portion is completed) which means ill be turning back to my IG here once I muster up the resolve to do so. Any way here are some pics!



Up first of course are my Fire warriors taking a cue from Flekkzo I added a bit of red and some codex gray to break up the turquoise a bit and am pleased with the outcome.

Next up are the stealth suits at this point I'm finding myself surprised by how mechrite red seems to work well with damn near anything. They where painted using fortress gray to break them up a bit from the rest of the Tau.

( quick note I havn't glued the legs down on this guy yet so if he seems a little off center thats why) Finally the battle suit. Again I decided to throw on some more codex grey to break him up a bit and a spot of red on the back. The devil fish hasnt been worked on since it was done the last time I posted a pic of it, until I can get seom green stuff to fill in a few of the gaps its currently on the back burner

Now for a look at my two IG works in progress a tiddting up of my first Lemun russ and a re painting of my ksarkin.


The Lemun russ was the first thing I painted when I bought the first IG battle force. considering its the first tank I have painted I think it turned out alright however after finishing my Tau I looked back at some of my IG stuff and knew I could do better. The ksarkin more so then anything needed a repaint they looked way to bland so a green was of them later (Ksarkin not the tank) and it is time for round two,you can see in the pics the general direction I am going with them. The tank is going to get touched up maybe throw some more stuff from the tank bits sprue to livin it up a bit. So from here it will be IG until I can get my mits on another Tau battle force.

Pic Day: IG Creed and Marbo

Alright after all My sappyness last post I figured I better get back to what folks want to see on this blog. In the pics you will see the result of one of the tips I gave , the foundation and wash method for skin one, Which I think looks fairly good.


The big man himself. Ursarkar Creed . The model was so much fun to paint and fairly easy considering my somewhat restrictive color scheme, aside from a few minor touch ups he is done.

I have never tried the method on more then the face and hands before considering my army is Cadian IG so I was a bit cautious when doing Marbo. I am pleased to say that he turned out great and despite being a Catachan based model will fit in well enough with my Cadians. the tassel on the blade was done using a fortress grey base with a few thraka green washes applied to it.

And because I havnt posted anything Tau related in a whilte. My crisis suit based and looking snazzy. I havnt put the ear bits on yet since ive been busy with other stuff but I should have him and the rest of my Tau based and completed here in a few days look forward to more pics in the near future.

Well I hope you enjoy the pics I welcome any feed back. Have a good one.

Thoughts and ponderings: Painting

No pics this time around folks but look forward to some in the near future including Usarkar Creed , Sly Marbo (er i guess its just Guardsmen Marbo now) and my first Leman russ. However the overall point of this post is a sort of self reflection on my painting progress and experiance so hopefully if a new person comes along and reads through this blog they will learn from my mistakes.
( General tip )

• Paint for yourself not for anyone else: Everyone has a certain skill level or inate ability in regards to painting and damn near everything else. If you did your best then you have nothing to regret.
• Always seek to improve: What my be your best today may eventually make you laugh at how far you have come, always seek to improve at what you do and dont get discouraged if it dosnt turn out how you planned.
• Look to those who have laid the path before you : The internet is full of people who have been painting for a long time . just looking at pics of another persons army online can give you some ideas and folks like Jawaballs (blog listed on the right ) offer instruction on how to go about painting. Even if you dont follow thier methods 100% you can addapt certain techniques to your own.

• Sometimes you gave to know when to stop: this is sort of a two parter.The first is that you dont have to get everything done in one day and when painting with something a small scale can be tiring so take breaks or you will give yourself a wicked head ache. the second part is that when painting dont try to do to much.A case in point the recent Necron lord I did? shortly after I took the pics I tried to do some extra stuff to it and just totally wrecked the look of the model ( I have since repainted it and will also post pics of that as well.)

(painting tips)

• Painting faces made lazy: Possibly the most annoying part of painting IG is painting faces however a trip to a GW some time ago Me and my bud heard aneasy way that while only two steps looks preety damn good for being fairly basic. Tallaran flesh foundation paint (Always add some water to this and mix between applications) and ogryn flesh wash.You get some nice shading and it looks preety realistic
  
• Many thin applications beats one single application any day: always thin you paints ( unless you apply to the Jawaballs method of painting) I always add at least one drop of water to all my paints when painting and use layering to get a nice smoth paint layer even if it takes several applications to get the full color.
• Metallics NEED several applications and a wash to look good: Because of the nature of metallic paints it normally takes a few application to get a consistent covering. Also I highly recommend adding a light Badab black wash to metallics to dull out the flakes a bit.
• White primer? slap on a wash: This helps bring out the details and makes it easier to see where you need to apply your brush to paint....now if only there was a way to do this with a black primer.
• White primer for light color schemes Black primer for dark color schemes: A general rule of thumb is that if you are using red or yellow as the main parts of your color scheme use a white primer. If you are using mostly blue or green use black. tans and grays tend to work well over either at least from my dealings with it.
• Washes are the best thing to happen in painting EVER: They add shadowing with as little as a single layer in most cases.
• Simple Green: The best thing to use to remove paint from metallic and plastic minatures .Its found in the auto motive department of stores . simply put it in a container that you can afford to use for this purpose and a crappy old or cheap tooth brush. put the mini in the solution over night scrub the paint off the tooth brush and let it dry.
  

Well thats all I got for now. please note that thies are only my observations in my forays in painting sometimes its different for others its a matter of trial and error. I hope this helps someone. Until next time take care.

Tau! IG ! and Necrons!?....oh my!

Well As you folks recall I said I was going to paint a Necron lord....Snot green with scorpion green highlighting.....yeah didnt work out for me so well HOWEVER I came up with something , I think, turned out very well and proves that I seem to have a thing for turquoise...




Despite the fact that I dont currently have any intentions to play Necrons...I have to say that this is possibly second only to my Commisar Yarrik on how proud I am how it looks and turned out. On top of that I finished the thing in a little under two hours ( no including primering and the intial green application) This might be due to the fact that a single metalic color paint on a Necron will make it look cool as crap no mater what you do. While its not technicly 100% finished ( im debating if I want to add the green plastic bit or not and the back cape needs a quick badab black wash) its about as close to perfect as im going to get with this guy.

Tau and side project pics.

Alright the stuff you folks have been waiting for pics of my Tau accompanied by notes and thoughts.I'll start off with the test kroot.


Here is the more or less completed test kroot. Hes a little darker then what my plan was but I like the over all direction and color scheme. The gray shoulder pad is to tie him to my army. I might do some "war paint" on him but I am not 100% certain i want to take that root.



The stealth suits are done aside from touch ups and gluing the guns on. I figured I needed something that looked at least somewhat out of the color scheme just so my army dosnt look like just a tide of hawk turquoise . Its simple coloring but I think it looks good.



The Battle suit is assembled aside from the "ear" bits , the pose is a bit generic but as I am not yet comfortable enough to do some heavy modifications on something I acctually intend to play it will have to do. The drones are finished ...pfft like any one cares about drones....


And now for some stuff none Tau related!




Yup the side project the basic part of him is finshed I need to do some highlighting touch ups and all the free hand stuff I have in mind ( god help me) I am digging the way he looks though the left arm ( facing arm) was a bit of a pain though as I had to trim the shoulder a bit in order to get it to set properly. If i didnt his arm would be pointing a bit to the left....which looked goofy.

Also A pic of my IG comander and commisars. Im planning to pick back up on thies guys shortly, the commisar on the end just needs the sword on the sword arm painted before i glue it on. I am also working ( after a recent green washing) on Usarkar Creed he was almost finished but the coloring and look to the face and hair bothered me to no end. As for the state of the IG in general I need to base all my basic infantry ( ugh) build and paint a standard leman russ and a demolisher ( double ugh) and 6 heavy weapons teams ( Face palm).

Well thats the update for now. Now for a little bit of a treat for myself , If you folks read one of my previous post you know I have some necrons sitting around, well one of them is a necrons lord and seeing as i'm on unpaid leave for about two weeks or so ( I work at a school cafeteria and the normal confrenses we have over the summer of them most have dropped out due to the economy....) I figured I would try out a basic paint scheme idea I had for them....Snot green with scorpion green highlighting. We will see how it goes once I get around to it. Till then, cheers.

Painting experements ( insert evil doctor music here)

Alright as stated in my previous post I was wondering how I should go about painting my Kroot. After much simple green washing , testing and beer I came up with something I like , but as I want to impart my knowledge to those who have an interest in this blog I will share my process and my conclusions on them.

The final choice first. Hawk turqious with a heavy asurman blue wash: If I was to compare the end result (pics will come) I would say the skin tone is like that of the WH fantasy lizard man color and for the kroot it acctually looks mighty good as an alternative to the typical brownish tanish look on the Tau box.

Flex's suggestion green using blue wash: A good idea that just didnt quite work for me or turned out the way i planed the problem i would guess is that green and blue are so close in color that the blue was just dosnt seem to take as well as I would have hoped, HOWEVER it seems like a great means of doing slightly darker shades of green and might work for those playing orks.

Gray with blue wash: kinda the same as the one above it just wasnt turning out the way i hoped it would.

Gray with Ogryn flesh wash: this will be going on the belly portion of the kroot it gives a nice flesh tone that seems to work well. A tip for those folks who hate painting faces.Ogryn flesh is an excellent wash to use over tallaran flesh foundation paint.

The question of Kroot

Alright so aside from basing my tau and some clean up work on them the tau them selves are more or less done. Now the question ....what should I paint the kroot? At first I wasnt going to even bother with them, with the mind set that they were not so much worth fielding however after reading blogs and my own personal pondering. They may in fact be worth the time of day ( such as putting them in transports for use as scoring units while my fire warriors would be better used else where. As far as I have seen in the rule book or codex there is nothing that says they cant go into a devilfish, heck there isnt even a counts as two note on the krootox.)

So what am I asking here? Well its sort of two fold. One is for those with experiance playing tau and is how would you best utilize the kroot? The other is for any one out there and it is what color scheme should I paint them? I want them to be a bit diffrent from my Tau but not so diffrent as there to be such a color variant as for them to look like two seperate armys. Im thinking possibly a combination of Regal blue and a yellow or tan of some sort. Anyway post your thoughts. Thanks

Alright I promised some pics and here we are, my ( for the most part) finished Tau fire warriors. I would like to note that I unfortunitly got the camera late in the evening and so I had to use a desk lamp to even get a remotely good picture



My battle suit painted up, ive been slacking on putting this guy together, since i cant decide on a suitable pose.



And my Devil fish, you can see where I need to put the green stuff on the thrusters but still looks good so far.

Alright and now fo an advanced look on what I'm working on for the Jawaballs painting comp next month.



Ugh honestly the picture dosn't do it justice with all the color blending I did in the deeper areas of the robe. which to me says either I need a better camera (easyshare my Anus freakin auto focus makes me want to rip my hair out) or a natural light. The guy is going to be death company maybe ill name him and throw in a backstory for fun. I have a plan in mind for doing a free hand blood angles symbol on the left lower robe ( the second pic, god help me on this one its sounds cool but im not sure i have the skill to pull it off) and some "scrible" writing on the other side and the chest. Im trying to challenge myself on this, even if nothing becomes from it ill have some more experiance to work with. Worst case scenario I some day make a chaso army and use this guy as a Khorne lord or something. Any way im making this guy out of left over Dark angels vet sprue i picked up to practice painting robes ( might post thies some day as well as explain how I did it) the twoarms had hand swaps. the pointing hand came from the BR seargent the other one is from a SM bikers arm I had lying around from way back when and one of the DA hain swords.

Well I hope you enjoyed the pics. Next time im planning to show some of the equipment I use , how I use it and show how i utterly destroy brushes ( cheap five dollar for 12 ones but damn they look like they went through a meat grinder)

Jawaballs up comming painting comp

Well as some of you folks know Jawaballs ( see link on the right) is going to be having a painting competetion coming up next month. Looking at the folks on his blog roll (hell Black Matt says it all for the most part) its gonna be brutal despite this I have decided I would take a crack at it. Do I expect to win? Balls no but I am taking this as an opportunity to try some things out that I wouldn't ,at this point, try on my regular armys such as some slight converting and parts swaping as well as fiddle around with some painting techniques.

Tau army progress update

Well I am almost through my first battle force set of Tau ( excluding kroot...) the fire warriors are painted up, the battle suit is painted and need to be assembled ( gonna wait till i can get some magnets for the weapons) the devil fish just needs some detailing work and some green stuff. and the stealth suits are next on the plate to be completed.

I hope to have some pics up soon I am currently debating if I want to go for the standard basing or go for some Jawabases (shameless promotion) we shall see.

Chernobyl

Thoughts on the various armys

Alright, a little history on Chernobyl time.

When my bud expressed interest in starting up 40k again I was all over it. the problem was I didn't really research the armys before I kinda just bought a battle force of Necrons, being a big fan of the Dawn of War games and the necrons being my favorite it seemed like a good idea, ...Until i discovered the phase out rule...and that more or less killed Necrons for me the idea that an opponent just needs to kill a certain percentage of units in order to just poof wipe out whats left didnt sit well with me. Since then i have bought various codexs of armys the intrested me and aside from tyranids,ork,eldar and dark eldar I think I have the rest. As you guys know I now play IG and Tau but I figured since im still in the process of finishing up my tau battle force and i havnt posted in a little while I would throw in my thoughts and opinions of why I picked the ones I did and passed some of the others.( by the way you know the saying about opinions and A holes that applies here so dont take offence.)

IG: Honestly this was my number two pick for my intial army, I am somewhat of a tread head and was kind of inspired by the russian scenario in Call of Duty WaW to try thies guys, that and they have some cool named characters.

Tau:Was my third choice. The fire warriors , the basic infantry of the Tau, are possibly my favorite models in the GW line up. The sleek look of the transports was also a big draw for me, my only real complaint are the heads on the battle suits for something with such a big body it has an awfull tiny head.

Necrons: My first choice intitaly, the models are mighty cool looking and fairly easy the paint if you want to go with the straight metallic look. Although Fritz at Way of Saim Hann ( link to his blog on the right) made thies guys look good I just still do not like that blasted phase out rule, maybe once they get a new codex ill look into them again until then my battle force is sitting up on a shelf.

Chaos: I like the looks of a number of units in this one and honestly might have passed the Tau if it wasnt for one thing, metal models, It seems to me that the majority ( or at least the stuff I would have wanted to use) is composed mostly of metal figures which is kind of a downer.

Generic Space Marines: I think its because it was the most played army that i didnt want to play it, that and my buddy is playing Crimson Fist so...

Dark Angels: I like the honor guard units in the robes but of course if you play Dark Angels you do so to play either an all terminators or all bike army...pass

Black Templars: Some cool units and abilities I might look into them again later on but until then Space marines with some diffrent tricks dosnt do it for me.

( thies last couple are based soley on opinion and looks as i dont have the codex for thies ones)

Eldar: Honestly with the exception of the warlocks i dont care to much for any of the other stuff in this army.

Tyranids: Well it was a toss up between thies guys and IG for my horde army despite how cool the carnifex looked I myself like tanks better.

Orks: I love the sheer funny and random nature of thies guys honestly reading my friends codex (the orks being his secondary) makes me laugh every time, that being said it is another horde army and well...go puny 'umans

Dark Eldar: thies guys need a codex update something fierce, that aside i just didnt like the overall look of the models.

So what was the overall point of this post? None so much , maybe to get folks possibly thinking about getting a secondary army something to think about and to have my own thoughts displayed before me. At any rate I am wondering what you folks think so please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions.

Chernobyl

The Pros and Cons of building two armys at the same time

Well as some of you folks may be aware I am currently in the process of making two armys, Tau and IG. I know im not the only person who does this but I thought I would give some insight on why I would do such an insane thing and why at time i kind of regret it.

Pros.
Releaves boredom: Painting the same thing over and over again, IG imparticuler, Can get painfully boring having some uniquely diffrent gives you something to switch too when you need a break from painting the 40th odd guardsmen.

Gives some variety in play: after playing a few games with one army you might wanna switch it up a bit having a secondary army going along with your current lets you switch it up a bit even its on a smaller scale.

Cons.

Money sink: doing this is not cheap nothing involving GW stuff is so seriously consider your finances ahead of time before even considering it.

takes a long time to get even one army done: fairly obvious if you split your attention you double your time. If your a fast painter , which i am not, this isnt a big issue.


There are some other pros and cons but thies seem to be the biggiest ones for me. feel free to share your thoughts.

Chernobyl

...And here they are

Well I said i Would produce some of my work and here we are! my commisar yarrik for my IG and my incomplete Tau fire warrior test model. Looking at the two models i came to the conclusion that i can paint in two diffrent fashions, the more realistic way ( the FW) or "artistic" (yarrik). What do i consider the diffrence between the two? Well the fire warrior has substantialy more washes used on him, specficly on the cloth areas , I think this makes him look a bit drab and dirty looking like hes been fighting for several days in rain and mud (and with engagments in the GW universe lasting several years who honestly has time to do laundry?)
Any way as can be seen i still need to base him and finish his back back I like his overall look.

Yarrik is my pride an joy of painting ability , he was the first character model I got and painted since returning to WH40k and I am very pleased with how he turned out . This is my more artistic painting style, clean crisp colors ( thought i need to pick up some chainmail and brightin up the claw a bit) that really stand out , I guess if I was to enter a painting tournment I would enter him and see how far he would go since that style of painting seems to have a broader appeal.

So which do I like better?

I would have to say the Tau Fire warrior for three reasons.
1) He has a more realistic look and follows the fluff i created for my tau army( which i might post if i feel so inclined to do so)
2) The model itself is just cool looking , not that yarriks isnt bad ass but as a matter of prefrence I gotta go with the tau
3) Hawk turqois , honestly if it wouldnt have looked so lame on IG I would have painted them that instead I like the color alot .

So if anyone is acctualy having a look see at this blog please let me know what you think.

Chernobyl

I Had a camera all this time and didnt even know it...

So apparently my family and I had a digital camera for about 2 years , my sister needed it for school but left it behind when she moved in with her boyfriend, so lucky me! expect pictures soon once i can figure out how the whole thing works, then it will be time for me to put up or shut up.

Chernobyl

First Post- A little about me and the aim of this Blog

Hello there Chernobyl reporting.

Well as this is my first blog ever you will have to excuse the lack of content and for thought.
A little introduction I am 26 and a cook living in southern California. As you can more then likely tell I am a warhammer 40k player. I recently picked it back up again after a loooooong hiatus ( back when i think third just came out, it was when Dark Eldar was released in a box set with SMs cant recall exactly ) I am currently working on my Imperial Guard army and fiddling around with the begginings of my secondary Tau army. (Hence the blog title)

The purpose of this blog: Pure self gratification and to have a record on how I ( and perhaps my bud if he feels so inclined to join in on this) progress in both gaming, painting and other such goodness. Honestly I wish I still had my old space marines so I could do a comparison of how far my painting has come along (Dip in paint one dip in paint two good to go!). I will also offer my input on any of those things as well. Once I get a decent camera I will have to post some pictures of some of my work aswell as post a discussion on either painting models in a artistic sense or realistic one.

Thats all for now.