The tribe of Mount Chemicalor (pic-heavy)

After having read practically half this forum, I think it's about time I'd introduce myself, and start a Gnoblog. I'm Nico, Belgian, PhD student in Chemistry and a big fan of dwarves. The latter is why I spent 12 years painting a dwarven army of 3000 pts. It took me that long, because of my enthousiasm when I was young, which led me to buy way too much miniatures for a beginner. They were mostly left unpainted, save some 10 miniatures I managed to paint every year. Last year I started painting again, and thanks to some bets I placed on me finishing it before may 2010, I got it completed.  If you are interested in pictures of the dwarven units, you can find them here: http://www.mandragon.be/battlegames/schilder/fantasyminis/16467.gallery#new, http://www.mandragon.be/battlegames/schilder/fantasyminis/15649.gallery#new or http://www.mandragon.be/battlegames/schilder/fantasyminis/16188.gallery#new. (Mind though, the website is in Dutch.)

Of course, after such a long time, I got bored of shooting the other side to bits and pieces, trying to wobble more than 12 inch in a battle, tired of the beer jokes, tired of hearing the comments about the 'great-all-rescuing'-armour saves... I didn't mind skipping the magic phase though, that really saved some time during battles.

So, after the small and sophisticated, maybe it's time for the big and rather straightforward Ogres. I promised myself not to make the same beginner mistakes as I did when I was younger, so before I planned any fluff of started playing, I'll first start painting. As long as the army is unpainted, I will not use it on the battlefield.
This gnoblog will be mainly about painting, as I hope to get some advice from you guys about themes, bases and other ogre stuff.

I didn't make a favored army list as well. Although you should at least make a first draft before buying your army, I figured I couldn't do much harm by buying the battalion Box. I'm still trying to figure out the different tactics in the armylist section of the forum, together with the use of magic items. To be honest, I like to use armies low on magic items, high on units. I'd prefer units of 6 ogres, instead of 9.
I figure I need to paint at least these to form a 2000 pts. list, including magical trinckets:

- 1 tyrant
- 1 SM
- 1 bruiser (?)
- 12 bulls (including 2 standards and 2 bellowers)
- 6 ironguts (including standard + bellower)
- 1 scraplauncher
- 1 Gorger
- Approx. 40-50 gnoblars
- 10 gnoblar trappers

Now, time for some Bulls.

Wow this looks good so far, loving the different metal effects. I'll be keeping an eye on this

The website might be in Dutch, but the painting speaks for itself. One slight critique though. Either dull coat your models, or tone down your lighting. I'm getting a pretty bad flash reflection on most of your photos.

Otherwise, great job!

The brightness/contrast levels are indeed a bit of the scale on some of the photographs... I'm afraid photography is not part of my painting skills. I'll try to improve the quality of those pictures in the future .

I tried another set of photographs on a newly painted bull, advice on how to take these pictures is always welcome.

Wow, that paint job is awesome. Why do I keep looking at these? Just makes me feel worse about my models.

Yet another one, this time a bellower. I tried some experiments with the photographs, hopefully these are better. I'd be happy to hear your comments.

Okay man those yellow trousers are insanely good, got a recipe?

The general recipe is sheer laziness, I must admit. It's nothing more than a Iyanden Darksun underlayer, a wash with ogryn flesh, and a highlight again with Iyanden Darksun. Usually, I'd highlight these again with sunburst yellow, but, after spending way too long on my dwarf army (e.g. by painting at least 4 different highlights) I decided to keep it plain and simple. If I find some time later on, I can still give each one of them an extra highlight.

Meanwhile, to keep you entertained , I took a first guess at designing an armylist (2000 pts):

Heroes:
Ogre Tyrant: army general, Luck gnoblar, Tenderiser, Maw Seeker 271 pts.
Slaughtermaster: Luck Gnoblar, weirdstone necklace, 225 pts.
Bruiser: Ironfist, Heavy armour, 144 pts.

Core:
6 Bulls: Light Armour, ironfists, standard, bellower, 288 pts.
5 Bulls: Light armour, ironfists, standard, bellower, 250 pts.
6 Ironguts: standard, bellower, 323 pts.
20 Gnoblar Fighters: 40 pts.
22 Gnoblar Fighters: 44 pts.

Special:
3 leadbelchers, 175 pts.
Scraplauncher, 165 pts.

Rare:
Gorger, 75 pts.

There's no general strategy in this list. It seems like a list I can build out of 2 battalion boxes. The only unit I have doubts about are the leadbelchers, as I've been reading a lot of negative comments about them here. On the other hand, how could a guy carrying a real cannon not work on the battlefield ?

Ah, Iyanden Darksun. Like Tin Bitz, it's a color that changed my life.

Good looking stuff here, can't wait to see more!

I finally finished the standard bearer of this unit of bulls. Time to start painting the ironguts. Taking pictures is still not one of my greatest talents .

Fantastic and neat painting all around.  Nice work!

Thanks. This blog has been a little bit inactive, mostly due to my 5:1 dwarf:ogre promise: I still have a small stack of unpainted dwarfs left, so I promised myself to paint 5 dwarfs for every ogre I paint. This way, I should still paint: 10 thunderers, 12 miners, a couple of lords (e.g. a master engineer and a runelord), 14 warriors. As you can imagine, I'm a little behind on my dwarfs.

The next unit on my dwarf list was another block of warriors. These are composed out of various bits: old unnecessary crossbowmen with new arms, some models from the Battle for Skull pas box, and a collection of very old Foundry models I found on a Game Fair in Belgium. Funny story those , they were apparently rather rare, and I bought 25 of them for a total sum of 4 euro's. All this rabble together forms the 'Second Sons' regiment: a regiment built out of lesser lords, i.e. the second sons of the dwarven nobility. They have no claim on their fathers throne, thus are doomed to seek their fortune elsewere. I use them on the battlefield as longbeards.

Pictures:
Examples of the old Foundries:



Newly painted command group and warriors:



After 6 more, it's time for ogres again .

Good looking dwarfs. Nice eyes especially! Eyes have always defeated me. I'm just unable to do them.

Eyes are always something difficult and in my opinion, even more so with Ogres. Still, with a bit of practice everyone can do it. Just try to first shape the form of the eye using skull white (or bleached bone), and place a black dot in either one of the corners. I never try to make the figure look straight ahead, I think it always looks more natural if they are watching something to the left or right. And, if you put the dot in the corner, you don't need to worry about the right amount of white on the left and right of the dot.

If you managed to paint the general shape of the eye (even with errors), you can then try to correct your eye using your fleshtone paint. I sort of 'push' my smallest brush below and above the eyes, untill they have the correct size.

It's difficult to explain this on the internet, I'll try to take some pictures while doing the steps, after the next round of dwarfs.

Unwanted self-reply: I got around to getting some (rather unclear) pictures of my eyepainting technique; I doubt they will be helpful.

First, find the eye socket (if existing). I always try to emphasize it by painting some ink (in this case Ogryn Flesh) around it.

This is followed by a white line or egg-shaped eye. If you miss or spill to much white paint on the flesh, I just leave it as it is.


Last, the black 'dot'. If you miss here, it's always better in my opinion to correct again with flesh tone over the inked area around the eye. Try to (sort of) scrape your brush with the tip pointing towards the eye over the painted error, it prevents you trembling your flesh tone over the eye again.

I hope (but doubt) this was helpful...

Meanwhile, I got around to painting and finishing the famous Second Sons Regiment:




Now, it's really time for some ogres, 4 ironguts this month...

Self Reply: 2 ironguts finished, 2 more are almost done.




Any comments/advice on the quality of the pictures is welcome, there is some improvement in the quality...

Amazing looking army. LB do the job mate, sometimes they miss fire mostly they dont. If you give them plus1T they'll do fine.

Time for 2 more:

nice paint job.. simple but good effect on the pants

Due to a large concentration of students giving me a lot of work, things got a bit quiet on the painting side, however, I managed to paint this one .

Brilliant metal, trousers..........and EYES, oh yeah and do you got a recipe for the skin as well mate haha 

Ok, this blog has been inactive for quite some time... Mainly due to my holiday to Canada for 35 days. The skin is rather easily made: It's just a layer of Tallarn flesh and a wash with ogryn flesh. This is then followed by a highlight, again with tallarn flesh, and a wash in the deeper area's with devlan mud. Finally, I usually do a highlight with a tiny amount of elven flesh.

I'll kick some life in this blog again, by painting some dwarven miners and a leadbelcher (or 2 ).

As promised, the first 5 of 15 miners. I must admit that I didn't spend much time on them, mainly because I hardly plan on using them on the battlefield. Besides that, they shouldn't have this polished look on them, which makes me skip a set of highlights .




Next in line, 2 leadbelchers.

good stuff so far mate

As promised, 2 out of 3 leadbelchers, now it's time for another set of dwarves.

I could not resist the 3th leadbelcher, especially with the new ogres coming up... I'm going to dump my dwarves back into the drawer, and attack the pile of gnoblars on my desk first.

Painting has been slow as ever, I did manage to paint this griffon as a birthday gift for a friend, together with a pile of Gnoblars.

Wow... I hope it's alright for me to revive this blog, after a total year of silence.

I've been busy for quite some time, as you can see. 2012 was a busy year, where I got married, and I'm now between jobs.

That means that I finally have some spare time again, and I picked up where I left: with a bunch (around 30) of gnoblars. I'm not planning on using them, but... they were in the army battalion box, so a layer of paint it is. I must admit that I painted them rather fast, with little regard to fine details like eyes (those details are hardly there anyway).

Next on the list: a new block of ogre bulls (and regular painting updates)!