More from the treasure box & a first application of the airbrush -- Simple classic ruins

Hi,

apart from many cool bits and miniatures, there were also six of these plastic ruins from the old 3rd edition Warhammer 40k box... I always like these corners, they are so fourtykay! Since my friend lacks terrain pieces for his gaming table to be created and I was eager to try out my new airbrush on some tabletop stuff, I decided to make some super-quick and simple terrain pieces out of them.

Some minutes of gluing later, I was ready to apply my special micture of black paint, white glue, sand and pieces...

I cut some "

The good thing about adding the black paint to the mixture is that the terrain pieces are already primed in black after everything dried.

So I applied some grey paint with the airbrush on the next day. Since GW colors are sooo expensive, I decided to use these cheap acrylic paints I got in a super market. Only disadvantage, you have to water them down a lot before you can put them into the airbrush.

After the gey, I added some brown to make the ground look more interesting...

Next, were some light-grey highlights on the walls and big stones. I added some yellow into the mix to again make everything more interesting...

Finally, the ruins still looked a bit boring to me. Thus, I decided to take some green (mixed with brown) and airbrush the shadowy parts of the walls with it. So unknown reasons it comes out waaay too much in the picture below! The effect is much more subtle in reality!

After the airbrushing, the ruins looked decent but they lacked "depth". This naturally results from the airbrushing itself, i.e. there are no highlighted edges and darkened corners. But this can easily be achieved with a conventional brush:

1. washing the walls with very much thinned black

2. Drybrushing with un-thinned white

Here are the finished classical ruins on the day. Unfortunately, the colors in the following pics are weird. Sorry for that!

So in the end, the airbrushing took longer than I expected (a few hours) but it was a lot of fun, in particular because, different to a normal paint brush, it was very easy to paint the many difficult-to-reach spots. This way, one can concentrate on building up nice color transitions...

Cheers!

The emperor's new cloths - Striping the paint from metal miniatures

Hi all,

last week, I decided that the number of painted metal miniatures in my stash reached a critical mass. So it was time to give them a bath and clean them from their old clothes of color. I find it always a little sad to do this and erase the previous owner's interpretation and attempts on these beautiful sculpts. But hey, they sold them! And only this way I can make express my own creative ideas...

So enough bla bla! Here we go! The best cleaning solution appears to be aceton ( you get one liter for a few Euro in your favorite home center or tool store).  I also bought one of these cheap two-sided scrubbers with tough hairs. Coincidentally,  I had a big empty jar (from pickles), so I through in as many miniatures as possible and filled the jar up with aceton. Some paint came of immediately and colored the fluid but I left the miniatures inside for a couple of days just to make sure. :-)

WARNING: Don't throw any plastic (or resin?) parts into the aceton. They will get completely resolved!

After a few days, it was cleaning time:

Many miniatures are happy to get rid of their paint when one takes them out of the aceton...

... so it just takes some scrubbing and brushing and they look like virgins! ;-)

There were a few, which were a bit more reluctant like these troopers below. So they had to go back into the jar for a few additional days after scrubbing as good as possible...

This commissar looked pretty cool as if some Nurgle sorcerer put an evil spell on him making his skin peel off.... ;-)

Oh! Another WARNING: Protect your cutting mat from the aceton! It leaves nasty stains.

Because of this and pieces of paint flying away during the brushing work I moved everything into a not to deep paper box...

 
I tried cleaning with the electric tooth brush too, but I found it not very efficient, mainly because the hairs are to soft. On the other hand, using some wooden pick to remove paint in the corner or difficult to reach places proved more helpful.

All in all, it was a pretty successful action that now left me with 90% clean miniatures waiting for their new "clothes" now! ;-)

Happy scrubbing everybody! 

Treasures of a surprise bit box

Hi all,

I recently bought a sweet large box full of bits and miniatures of all kind without knowing exactly what I would find inside. I can only say it was totally worth it!

I would like to share some of its treasures and curiosities with you:

What is the name of this beautiful model of a hell hound??? And what manufacturer? Is it GW? Anyone knows?

 This is a really cool objective marker. Who ever did it, my congrats to this simple but epic idea! :-) I would call it "Until Death and beyond. We are SPACE MARINES!"

This nasty guy with the large ugly hands is also a real treasure. He will nicely fit into the Necromunda World...

Similar, this traitor guard looks like coming from a Circus of Chaos directly. Very nice conversion!

And then there is this weird part of an Ork air plane or something. It is full metal! So as heavy as a complete army of plastic orks!

Then, there is this resin part, which looks like the leg armor plat of a titan. Where does it come from?

Finally, we have a pair of legs from some kind of walker. Its nature is completely obscure to me. But the metal will be worth some dollars in the next decade, I'll bet! ;-)

More in the next days!

The beginning of a new painting era - First encounter with an airbrush

Hi all,

today I managed to fulfill myself a longstanding dream - using an airbrush! After consulting the internet, I bought myself one of these cheap complete sets with a compressor with tank (AS 186), three different airbrushes and all equipment one needs to start. And all together for 100 Euro (in my case bought on ebay)! Apparently the compressor is fine (I heard people being happy with it even after 4 years). The three airbrushes are for all kinds of tasks, and only the smallest, a top-feed double-action with three different needles is relevant for painting models.  Supposedly, it is quite crappy but I think it is sufficient to get some practice as a beginner.

Here is my set up:

And here are my first strokes with an airbrush ever!

I know not very impressive but it is really completely different from painting with brushes and one first has to get a complete new feel for the whole thing! Therefore, I tried to do some exercises like doing different dots and painting lines and so on. There are some pretty good tutorial in the cyber space. I watched the ones from airbrushtutor.com and checked the excellent Deadlift's Adventures in Airbrushing on BOLS before starting.


Tja and after playing around for one or two hours, I decided that it is time for my first airbrush picture:

Cool, hae?! I call it "Night sky over the Andes" and dedicate it to my girlfriend, who enabled me to live once more in the beautiful South America. :-)

OK, I know everyone who has used an airbrush already will say that it is boring and there are lots of mistakes to be found... Anyway, I am very motivated to continue, and in particular airbrush my first miniatures!!!

Cheers!

Typhus on the loose -- First 40k game in 2014

Yesterday was a very special day for me: I could finally play Warhammer 40k again, the first time this year and the second time in many years. Therefore, I am quite unfamiliar insecure with the current ruleset but since I played with one of my best friends and long-time 40k arch enemy it was a lot of fun anyway...

We played around 1160 points Death Guard (aka Chaos Space Marines) versus Grey Knights. None of us has currently a proper gaming table with terrain in his appartment. Therefore my friends kitchen table and printed paper-terrain had to do the job... :-)

My first list was:
- Typhus
- 2 x 10 Plague Zombies
- 2 x 5 Plague Marines with 2 x plasma gun, plasma pistol and a Rhino
- 4 Terminators with power fists and combi-meltas, mark of Nurgle and a Land Raider

My friends list was:
- Inquisitor Coteaz
- 5  Grey Knight Paladins with two psicannons and 4 demon hammers  in a Land Raider with a hatch-mounted multi-melta
- 10 Grey Knights  with  two psicannons and psybolt ammunition
- 1 Nemesis Dreadknight with a heavy incinerator
- 1 Chimera of the Inquisition
- 3 Imperial Soldiers with bolters

The Mission was to retrieve the holy imperial relict from a little space freight port on an unimportant small colony world. The imperium tried to secretly ship the relict away from the endangered world but Typhus somehow got to know about it and intervened with a small force.  Inquisitor Coteaz, on the other hand, was secretly following Typhus' moves for a while now, and this would be  a perfect opportunity to ambush Typhus with a small highly specialized Grey knight dettachment and kill him...

 Both forces clash in the small space port with the relict right in between them. The Grey Knights take the initiative while the Death Guard for now stays in cover. Typhus in the Land Raider with his guard of terminators first has to accommodate to the new situation...

The Grey Knights move forward in close formation and start killing the first plague zombies becoming visible between the containers...

Typhus decides to attack with full strength and annihilate these fragile humans. His Land Raider shoots forward to a head-on with the Grey Knight Land Raider, while the Plague Marines are brought into tactical positions in their Rhinos...

Unimpressed by the laser shot of the Chaos Land Raider, the Grey Knight Land Raider turns and releases the Paladins. The Grey Knights fire at the Rhinos, destroy one and severely damage the other...However, the plague marines inside remain unharmed in both cases...

Now it is time for the Death Guard to strike back! Typhus and his guard leave the Land Raider directly in front of the enemy and unleash their meltas at the Gey Knight Land Raider, which explodes in a huge fireball leaving only a huge crater...

But what is this?! All of a sudden a huge Dreadknight appears in the smoke stepping through the crater...

 ... and attacks the Chaos Terminators! Typhus' anger rises and he challenges the Grey knight in the chest of the Dreadknight for a duel. A bad idea as it turns out: The Dreadknight was designed exactly for this purpose: killing demons and their servants! Typhus falls to the ground his terminator armor torn open. Is he trully dead this time? Before the pilot of the Dreadknight can find out, the terminator guard of Typhus tries to take revenge for their master. Foolish of them because they are without chance...

 In the mean time the other Grey Knights  exit the Chimera and take the Plague Marines under heavy fire. But these are completely unimpressed and despite aweful wounds, none of the Death Guards goes to the ground.

The plague marines storm forward and return the fire of the Grey knights with their charged plasmaguns. With devastating results as all of the Grey Knight unit die apart from Inquisitor Coteaz himself...

Despite these heavy losses, Coteaz decides to assault the plague marines supported by the Paladins, which had stayed back in the mean time because of losses due to laser fire of the Chaos Land Raider. This decision proves correct as the plague marines cannot withstand the powerful close combat attacks of the Grey Knights. One after another they fall, while the Dreadknight first kills all Chaos terminators. The remaining zombies cannot harm the Grey Knights but while they keep the Dread knight busy, the Chaos Land Raider manages to retreat. Did it take Typhus' corpse? After the battle Coteaz orders a thorough search of the infested battle field. But no sign of Typhus...

Coteaz knows the Chaos too well to assume that Typhus would not come back to seek revenge another day. However, the relict is recured at least and can be brought to a safer place out of reach of the Death Guard...