Back at painting BA and upgrading my army

Well, after my Warmachine hiatus it feels good to be back at painting BA. However, the detour was worth it: I painted my Cygnar army for the first time with a palette and those models have tiny little details, so I think that experience transfered into my new BA models having smoother blending and more nicely painted details. What do you think?

Sanguinary Priests

From Blood Angels

From Blood Angels

From Blood Angels

From Blood Angels

More Marines for my two existing Tactical Squads to add more punch:

From Blood Angels

From Blood Angels

My Cygnar 25pts army is done!

Well, today is a pretty big day for me that I have been looking forward to ever since I started painting these models on Christmas 2009 – I am done! So before I go back to the glory of my Blood Angels, I hope you enjoy with me the following pictures.

(I took pictures of previously finished and published miniatures again in order to improve their quality)

As always, click them for a larger view.

Captain Allister Caine & Reinholdt, Gobber Speculator

Thunderhead

Black 13th Gun Mage Strike Team

Dannon Blythe & Bull

Greygore Boomhowler & Company

Eiryss, Mage Hunter of Ios

Final note: Dannon Blythe & Bull were the models that made me start collecting a Warmachine army and I am very happy with the way Bull turned out. Not so much with Dannon Blythe as her skin color is a little weird, but what else would you expect from one of the best bounty hunters?

eCaine finished

After I finished the Thunderhead, it took me quite a while to post the pics, so eCaine has already been completed in the meantime and I can treat you with fresh pics.

I am pretty happy with how eCaine turned out. I kinda did a bad job on his coat as I was too aggressive with the Ice Blue in the end. I really like his body armor and his gloves, though; I started with Dark Angels Green that I darkened further with Badab Black (looks awesome! I even thought for the split of a second to start a DA army just to paint all models in DA Green and Badab Black ) and then added layers up to the highlights in Hawk Turquoise. The blue coat clearly links eCaine to the Cygnar colors, but the dark green body armor makes him a rather dark any mysterious character – like the sea where you don’t know what exactly lurks in the deep. eCaine has all primary colors (blue, green, red (his scarf)), yet he is a rather dark model except for his head. I guess his head in bright colors is pointing at that he has basically good intentions.

Thunderhead finished

Nope, this blog isn’t dead. I spent June/July watching the world cup in South Africa, but August and September were invested into painting whenever I had time off the job and family. I have to say I prefer spending time with my family, though, as our daughter is doing progress with every day.

Either way, here comes the Thunderhead, my first finished Warmachine model:

Besides being my first Warmachine model, it’s also my first model I painted using a palette for mixing my paints. Using the layering technique I was able to get a quite nice blue gradient, but unfortunately it can’t be seen that well in the photos. I’m sure I won’t win any painting competition with my blue gradient, but for a first timer I am really happy with the result.

A few additional words on the base decoration: I want my Warmachine models to walk over a terrain of rocks and ashes. As the kingdom of Cygnar is on the retreat, I figure they launch counterstrikes through torched no man’s land which suits especially the role of eCaine, my Warcaster. For that purpose I mixed aquarium sand with hobby rocks and glue, covered everything in black ink and drybrushed it with Dheneb Stone. Et voilà.

Your Absolute Worst Reloaded

So, the FTW collaborative post came out – many thanks to Ron for running cool ideas like this one!

This collaborative post was about our absolute worst miniature in terms of modeling and painting – my Blood Angels Scout Captain was part of it as well, of course. However, reading through the answers from other people I have to say a lot of stuff they did actually isn’t that bad. I mean, if I go to tournaments at the FLGS I see armies that are far worse but are still being tagged as “painted” by their owners.

Either way, I give my vote for “best of the worst” definitely to Gotthammer and his Chaos Predator tank that should really be an Orkzez Loota Waggon. I am sure you agree with me that it’s so bad a.k.a. crazy that it’s definitely cool. And if that’s not enough, check out his Apothecarius down at the bottom of the post.

(oh, BTW, I still have one of those HeroQuest Chaos Sorcerers, too )