Red Modeling

Under Construction

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

I am BACK!!! and this time I have company!

That is right folks, I am back in contact with the real world. I will be ramping back up to full painting production with in the next week, still have a few boxes here and there to unpack. In the meantime though I was able to get this guy painted up. He will be auctioned off at a charity event called "Clash for the Cure" I was trying to strike a balance between playable and showcase. In addition I was also trying out some new wet blending techniques, I think as time progresses and my skills increase, it will definitely be a technique that I will use often.

Another unique thing that I tried out with this model was playing with colors. Typically my go to color for shading reds is Vallejo Black Red. I decided to try something different this time and I shaded with a Vallejo color called, "Dark Sea Blue" it is a really nice deep greenish-blue color. I really like the resulting effect as it seems to add a richer deeper red to the over all scheme.

Another new thing I tried was the base, it was actually colored using pigments form Secretweapon Miniatures. Pigments are not a new thing to me, I had used them quite a bit in my military modeling days, but I found that using them on mini's was no fun. After talking to Justin over at Secretweapon, come to find out that many of the weathering powders out there have a binding agent in them, like a wax or some other thing...in the small scale of mini's this often translates into a mesy, or blotchy look, Secretweapon's powders are pure pigment, no binders, so they go on much smoother and have a more even appearance. The base turned out a little darker than I would have liked, but I am happy with the results.

Lastly, I know things have been a little sporadic around here on updates, going forward I am going to have weekly updates, talking about everything from recent completed projects, to tutorials, and possibly rants on my own gaming experiences. Look for those updates to come on or about Friday of every week!

Ashton

Monday, July 25, 2011

Death Company Dreadnought and transport!




I recently took to fielding DC in my lists, they are pretty fun, but in the end I decided that DC was not for me, I am far to conservative of a player to field DC. But these guys were done up so nicely that it is worth the mention.

The rhino/razorback combo is now how I am building all my transports, with the ability to have the stormbolter and top hatch removed so that the transport can be ran as a razorback if needed. In addition the weapon, las/plas, has been magnetized as well so that I can switch things out if needed too.

The big guy is a conversion I did a while ago and was quite fun to do, basically I looked at the BA dread box and said, "there is no way a DC dreadnought should be standing still like that!" So out came the plasticard, and razorsaw and an hour later I had a pose I liked.





Ashton

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Bad Ass Space Marine Conversions!


I love Space Marines, I think the fluff is awesome, I think the models, to a degree, are awesome, and I love painting and converting them...So when I set out to build my Imperial Fist army, I decided that I really wanted to take my time and make each marine as unique as possible. In addition I have been reading a lot of the 40k battle books, and though it does not translate so well sometimes in the game, Space Marines are freakin uber!!

So the decision was made to try and make my marines look "bad ass" I know when you see the title to the post you might be thinking that I am implying that these are "bad ass" marine conversions, but that is not what I am leading to at all, in fact I think in some ways my conversion skills are sub-par at best....the conversions I am talking about here are conversions that make marines look "bad ass", as opposed to the Space Marine "two-step"....lean to left, lean to the right...

So in the end my goal is to build the entire Imperial Fist 5th company, and to make each tactical marine, and maybe the others ;) unique in some way, something that can contribute to the "bad ass-ness" of their appearance.

Feel free to check out my Imperial Fist album, it has more pictures there of other conversions in various stages of build. In case your wondering too, the bases are resin bases from Base Contacts, tell him Ashton sent you when you order your stuff from him!

Ashton