Adepticon 2014: Eye Candy (Pic Heavy)

These should have gone up weeks ago, and are likely already posted on the internet by what I call "conscientious and timely bloggers".  I, good people, will never be accused of that sort of recklessness.

My favorite army of the weekend.  Highly coverted "bio-shock infinite" mega nob ork army.

The undersea drills were "trucks", and even the display board looked like the sea bed.

What's cooler than a dakka jet submarine?

TWO dakka jet submarines!  duh...

Sweet converted helo valkryie.

Probably go good with "Codex: Stormtrooper".

Some cat actually showed up with 100 Dark Angels, so if you were ever wondering what that looked like...

And here's some Crystal Brush badassery.  Not sure if they placed, but they caught my eye, and that's got to be worth $10,000 right?

Free hand banner?  Yes please.

Conversion Beamer?  Yes please.

Neat diorama

Yep.  Bretonian Ogres.  Nope.  My picture didn't do this army justice.

Coolest display board ever?  Yeah, that would go to this guy.  I believe it was created by the guys who runs GMM Studios.  Amazing.

Some guys were giving this Chaos Dwarf player grief since this wasn't a GW model, but screw them.  I think it looks badass.

 

Come the Apocalypse...

That's apparently what it'll take for me to update this thing.  In any event, I'm not dead; I've just had a great deal going on.  New job location, new house, new son, new codex(!), etc.  Life is busy, but that's why they call it life I suppose.  In any event, here's some pictures of what I've been up to.  I may not be blogging, but life couldn't keep me away from the game!

The New Hotness.  I had to get in on this right?

I also had to get rid of some of those damn brass etchings that I had laying about...

And some more brass etching...

Here they are with a bit of paint.  Prime black, base with Knarlock Green, go over with Snot Green.  No idea
what the new names for those colors are.  Something appears lacking, yes?

"The New Hotness" doesn't come on a standard sized base, the way God intended.  GW in their infinite heresy
decided they would go with wonky 50mm bases.  Dark Arts Miniatures, the lads who made my gorgeous resin
lava bases don't have an equivalent.  So, a bit of cork and some assistance from my lovely daughter and I had it
sorted.

A closer look.  I was skeptical at first about what I was going to do, but after my daughter asked if she could help
They've become my favorite bases in the whole army.  Parents will understand what happened here.

It's wasn't all infantry.  Part of The New Hotness includes fliers, so here's mine.  I'm not a fan of the original kit,
so I had to borrow liberally from the internet to get a conversion I was happy with.

Drop pod fins for wings, removed the lower rear stabilizer, magnetized the weapons on the outside of the engines,
switched out the over-sized assault cannon for a converted land speeder version.  You know, the simple things.

Again with the brass etching, again with the non-standard base size that needed cork and my daughter to render aid.

There's probably a bit of highlighting yet to do on this guy, but frankly I got tired of painting Snot Green at this point.  If the Easter Eggs in some of the above pictures haven't been clue enough, I sold off my Tzeentch Daemons after their new codex dropped (and I absolutely did not like the way that new book played) and replaced with them with something else sinister:

An ancient Necron Dynasty has awakened, and they are pissed.  But it's not what you might think.  They were pretty cool dudes, but someone left a hatch or two open in the tomb, and now they're all corroded and even their ceramic has seen better millennia.  

Giving the new paints a go (Prime with Army Painter Brown, base with Rakarth Flesh, layer with Wych Flesh.  Metallics done with Warplock Bronze, Hashut Copper, & that new Oxide Technical Paint.  Use that stuff folks, it's so easy it feels like cheating.  Giving the textured paints a try on the bases as well.

So now we're all caught up.  I can't say I'll be regular, but I can say you'll see more of my Necron project log.  I'll likely have a few posts on the new paints and new techniques I'm trying out (tried a bit of sponging on the ceramic as you can see).  I won't win any painting contests with this army, but I'm having fun again and I'm testing my hobby skills.  And for me, that's what it's all about.

New Recruits: Black Templars

The days of painting Salamanders for Adepticon have waned. In the immortal words of Alice C., "School's out for Summer!" And, for the moment, I'm still unemployed. Throw in a much-appreciated invitation to participate in an Apocalyptic reprisal of the 3rd Battle for Armageddon, and it's time to do some painting!

I've owned Grimaldus and Retinue since I got back into the hobby (oh, going on mid-fourth edition now). Sadly, because he's a bit cumbersome compared to much cheaper units, he's been languishing in his box all these many years.

Now, with Helsreach being so key to his fluff, and me having a bit of free time, I just had to drag him out, dust him off, and slap on some paint.

I tried some new techniques with this squad. The main difference is I used Vallejo Air grey primer, applied with my Grex airbrush, instead of Chaos Black. I wanted to see how it would work, one, and I also wanted to start experimenting with alternatives since the Chaos Black spray will be hard to come by from now on (I have no idea what the current GW Black will look like so it's best to find an alternate route to get where I need to go).

Here are some before and after pics of the models.

Grimmy sprayed with Vallejo Air grey primer mixed with VGC Black

Retinue primed with a mix of VA Grey primer and one with the Grimmy mix leftovers.

The whole gang.

Backside. Cause it's smexy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It felt good to paint some Templars after such a long time. It was strange, though. I kept blending and building the highlights on the blacks and it just kept looking wrong. It was only after about 12 hours that I realized it was the absence of color that was messing with me.

I plan to add High Marshal Helbrecht next. I've also ordered some more Assault termies and I'm building some new neophytes (although I seem to be missing their heads. Guess it's time to give Genocide a call to see what WFB junk he's got laying around).

Oh, and as an added bonus, here's an updated (and much better) picture of my TH/SS Terminator Marshal. He's been done for a while, but it's one of my favorite conversion pieces.

STOP! Hammer time! (Yeah, I went there)

Ignis Rex

I have written and deleted a half dozen witty blog posts about this Land Raider but, in retrospect, none of the them have been sufficient.  I'll stop stumbling through my futile attempts at prose, and let the pictures speak for themselves.  Before I go, however, there are three things you need to know about it:

1) This tank was built & converted by CVinton (look here and here) at Dark Future Games.
2) This tank was painted by Team Snake Eyes' very own Chaplain Aerion.
3) This tank is ridiculously awesome.  I am in awe of the artistic ability on display by the two individuals above. Enjoy.

Photoshop compilation of "before" photos.  This is how we received the tank from CVinton.

Photshop was used to make "color tests" before putting paint to model.

Photoshop "color test" of right side.

Crewman photo:  Forgeworld Salamander shoulder  pad and close up of CVinton's sculpting work.

Front Grill.  Yes, the eyes ARE  following you...Heretic!

Front Profile

Left Profile.  All hatches are fully magnetized.  Not pictured are the Flamestorm Cannons
that can turn this Crusader into the Redeemer variant. 

Left Side Sculpting

Right Profile.  If you don't love the dragon mouths on the Hurricane Bolters, you're
either not alive or not human.  True story.

Right Side Sculpting.  "Ignis Rex" is likely horrible latin for "King of Fire" or "Fire King".
We were also pleasantly surprised that CVinton sculpted a fire imp or some such
into the flames at the bottom of the tank behind the Smith figure.

As you might have deduced, there is more to come.  While we did manage to acquire CVinton's beautifully converted Ironcland Dreadnought (Seriously?  It's crushing a traitor guardsman in it's claw, how cool is that?) alas, we are not taking that to Adepticon this year, so it's not a priority right now.  I did manage to get my scaly claws on Bray'arth Ashmantle (that wasn't a shipping mistake CVinton, the Emperor was trying to tell you something...) and he will be serving as my personal HQ choice at Adepticon's 2012 Team Tournament.  Stop by our table this year in Chicago for a closer look.

Ol' Seth is at it again

I'll be honest, I'm too lazy to figure out how to tie these new pictures back to their original posts, but Ol' Seth has finished up (I think) his flying rhino and Dreadnought as well as teased us with a heavy weapon trooper.  Enjoy the eye candy!

Now with sculpted wind shield!

On base, left side.

On base, right side.

A neat idea, I too would like a push button missile launcher.

He carries the shield because he was bullied.

It may be the Salamander in me, but I prefer the heavy flamer over the storm bolter.

Looking good!