Xoan's Gnoblog...

Heya guys,

My real name is not Xoan, it is Clark, but I would appreciate if you called me Xoan while on here, if you ever see me at a tournament you can call me either that is cool.  I have been to college, I got my 2 year degree, and most of a 4 year double major in Business and German...  I am going back, but what I am doing with it I am not a 100% sure of yet.

I have been in the early planning stages for the last few years about opening a Cyber Cafe with a drive through, and coffee and some light food ready to go at 05:00 in the morning.  I am debating on having open internet, or charge a small fee that goes away as you go up in membership with the cafe.  This membership if I were to do it would give special benefits that are pretty cool, but unless people want me to talk about a cafe I have not even opened yet I wont go into all of that here.  I was also wanting to have a split off room with computers in it so that people could play against each other as a group or together in a raid of some sort.

I worked at a game store that had that, and it is surprising how many families showed up on off nights so that all 5 or 6 of them could play Medal of Honor or something of that nature against each other.

Because it would have great coffee something the early morning people want and the people working or studying late would also want, the place would have someone in it pretty much 21 hours a day.  This means I can not do this alone lol... which is one of the biggest reasons I have not gone farther, another being it is not a good time to open a business imo. heh

I have never taken a real art class in my life, so all the techniques I use are self taught or through online reading or videos.  My old boss at the game store had some ideas that he learned and taught me, but not that many really.  I tend to not go with the grain on painting, and I like to take chances, but I like nice looking models too so it is normally a balance.   I have been really rushed on my Ogre Kingdoms army, the bulk of it which is already painted was painted in 21 days, and I have a full time job, so it was some long hours.  Same with my Cryx Army I am painting up, the bulk was painted in about 34 days.  I will have pictures of both up soon, I will post them by squad and talk some about them I just want to redo my pictures.


I do have some armies I taking my time on.. I have a Chaos Space Marine army with a lot of simple conversions, and I have a Daemon Prince who is going to look nutz. I also have an Empire army which is going to take forever, since I am painting each miniature as if it were it's own person.  Yes they are in uniforms, but I am still spending a lot of time on each. Lastly I have my nids, I really have two armies of Nids.  I have one that is totally made up of old miniatures from 2nd ed of 40k, and I have no new miniatures for that army, and I have a new heavily detailed nid army with a lot of extra work done in the bases.  These nids are also painted in a lot harder way than the old nids, but I am a better painter since then too. heh



I love to paint, if I could do it and make a living I am sure I would love it.   The problem is getting enough people who want to pay your prices to get started, and then to continue with out huge dry spells.  I know if I painted more often and for a reason, or was shown the hidden secret stuff that people who paint use to paint faster, I would be able to do it all easy enough and it would for sure improve my over all painting skills...  anyways, The reason I collect is to improve the gaming experience.  I do a lot role play games everything that is basically cool.  So many of the models I paint are for that, not the game I am playing per say.  An example of this would be me collecting certain models of the same race of a certain line of miniatures so that I can have that type of race or sub-race within my world.  One that I am looking at is the miniature line Otherworld, they have some different sculpts from races that I already have, and they have enough of them to make buying them worth it.  So I cold have another race of Orcs that are not the same orcs I normally use, and could shown that way...  I have some orc miniatures from a Spain company that I bought a while back.  These orcs are shorter, yet strong looking, and have lots of jewelry on them, so I have them painted a different color of skin and ornate, seeing them as some special brand of leadership that is part of a heritage that is smaller but are all elite members of some tribe.  I also have smaller orcs that look barely clothed, and I have them painted to look like a slave race to the main orcs that I have... in truth they were meant to be goblins I am sure, but they are too big for that too.

I do this with all of the main races of fantasy realm monsters and humanoids I have.  I pick a main line of miniatures I want as the core, and then build sub-cultures out from there.  So far I have a lot of miniature for Orcs, Goblins, Ogres, Lizardmen, Dwarfs, and Humans.  I am also sort of doing this with SiFi and mutants in general, but I am farther back on that.


So far I have over 2000 miniatures for DnD type games, but sadly less than that painted, due to me painting for other people... lol  or selling something to them.  I have always worked off of the idea, that if I repaint a miniature that I will like the future paint job better than the first, so if I can replace it and I get a good offer I tend to take the good offer.  I then buy back into the miniatures I sold, and plan to repaint them.  I then take the rest of the money and buy more miniatures for other areas.

I used to have a budding 40k Orc army, I got about 35 miniatures painted and took it to the store, of which I did not return with them, but I did get about 500 dollars worth of stuff ordered, lol,  and enough work to complete the army to pay rent for a month.  I have paid rent twice in my past with miniatures I have sold, once was needed and was totally random, the other was just a nice bonus of money and an easy of use shall I say.



I am working on getting my pictures done right for this portion of the forums, so i am building a picture box with trace paper and a frame, and then back source lighting so that it looks good.  I also am having an issue with my camera, it looks like a lens has slipped out of place and creates a line in my photos, so I need to zoom past it, or crop it out of the picture which means the model is not in the middle when I take a picture.  My camera is pretty cheep, so it has done me well. 




I started painting a horde unit of Ironguts, while putting them together I realized that there was no true bellower for the unit.  yes you could use a bellower arm from the blister pack, and glue a shield on the arm for some armor, but that arm would never be like the others.  You would also have to either be extremely good at modeling with green stuff to remove the extra hand and keep the shape of the hilt/shaft of the great weapon or shorten it by a hand length.  The same could be said about the Standard Bearer for the unit, it looks more like a bull than a IG unit Standard... who should be more battle harden than a normal IG.

I have started the Standard bearer and I will post pictures of that tomorrow while I am at work, but for right now here is my Bellower!  I have always seen a musician as being a special member of the unit, maybe not more marshal than any of the others, but either royalty or he has a bigger set of pipes to create sound.  With that in mind I made him slightly more broad across the chest by extending his shoulders out from their normal points. I wanted him to stand out so I took an idea I from my bull unit, which was to cut away weapons from the sword or clubs they hold and clean them up so they do not look like they are still holding something.

So he basically looks like he is yelling and running at the enemy while a simple strap holds his great weapon to his belt.







This is still a little rough, I am going to clean them up and prime it once I get some more white primer.  I am totally open to any constructive criticism and ideas that you might have about this project.

An interesting idea, and one that i might steal at some point ;P

One issue i have to point out is that the green stuff work isn't as smooth as it could be.  You should try smoothing it out a little so it looks more like skin.

Nice pose... He seems like he prefers smashing his enemy to pulp with his own hands rather than use the giant blade he got.

Good idea indeed !

An interesting idea, and one that i might steal at some point ;P

One issue i have to point out is that the green stuff work isn't as smooth as it could be.  You should try smoothing it out a little so it looks more like skin.

yeah I know I am waiting for it to totally cure before I sand it some with some files I have that are all sorts of shapes.  One of the little adjustments you can see is not making the hands line up as they were once holding a weapon too, not only did I make them wider, I changed their angle slightly.

I am putting in an order for more GW stuff since I am not driving 240 miles to a game store later this week, so I will get some primer and start painting this model.  heh

with the right tools.. you could actually flatten/smoothen the green stuff while curing so you don't have to file too much and risk taking off some of the plastic.  Nice work there though. 

This was the second idea I had for my Ironguts since there was no true standard bearer kit for the Ironguts.  With this one I wanted to make use of his arms and still have a standard and his weapon on his body.  I grant you it is not a major change to the model, or anything with a lot of thought, but it does exactly what  was hoping it would do.










One of the things I do is with these is use a brass tube that is large enough to hold a rod that I use to pin the hilt/shaft of the weapon and standard into tight places.

It looks good, but I have to ask... is he ever going to be able to hold both of those at once? :p IMO you could probably have gotten away with adding a bit of weight to the banner, so that it looked like the banner is his great weapon; the extra weapon on his belt looks good but will probably make him hard to rank up.

this is the nice thing about 40 mm bases.  I also put the weapon on the right side of the model, so that it wold pass on the right side of the model behind him.  After basing dwarfs, which are extremely fat for 20 mm bases, I have learned to keep that in mind.

As for could he wield both there are two ways to look at it, either A he is part ninja and will not only be able to wield both, but will be able to strike at higher initiative, or B he will post it in his first victim and unleash his hammer of doom.  I am rooting for option B myself! 

Ps Thanks for the input though, stuff like that is easy to forget and what not.

If you ever had trouble ranking them up (with more weapon slung ideas) you could always lash it to his back, then position the model on the front of the base. Also another idea I throught for an IG banner was just to have some length of cloth hanging from the GW shaft. But looking good, I love slinging odd bits to give character or WYSIWYG to my models. I always have problems with making it look like it's attatched instead of just glued on, and the little strap looks quite good, but maybe a little to weedy to hold such a mighty weapon?
TLK 

Heh i was just workin on my BSB before i seen this, think im gonna have to break him up just to put this pose on him haha, pro idea for a banner bearer though

So I went to Valhalla, which is an event hosted by Blue Table Painting, I got to see their studio and where they paint first hand as well as meet all of them.  I have to say that I think they are a good group of people, who enjoy the niche they have crafted for themselves.  Shawn the owner, is a mixed bag imo.  I think he is a fair boss, but a stressed out.  However,  one who has a very improved way of showing it compared to 95% of the bosses I have met in my life.  However, he keeps good people around him, and has good advisors imo.

BTW Valhalla was a lot of fun.  I would rank the first time going there to the first time going to Gen Con, or at least very close 2nd that is...  Gen Con is hard to equal.  While was there I got to play a group game with the owner of Battle Foam (Romeo), and a personality from 40k Radio (Kyle).  It was a group game CSM vs a SM battle group invading CSM space.  It was a lot of fun and CSM squeaked out a win on the last round.

I also played my very old school nids which are all 2nd ed models, heh, against a beautiful army painted by BTP.  It is the Salamander Army that is painted to a level 5/6 level across the board.  I wont go into how much it costs for that, but lets say he could have got something very nice for what he paid for it.  This player also took the Best Space Marine player award for the US or something.  Our game ended on the 7th turn, which is bad for Nids... I was winning turn 5 and turn 6, but I lost steam on turn 7 and could not keep him out of position long enough.

I played my Ogres against BTP's Rainforest Wood Elfs, which if you do not know, doesn't have a single ranked up type troop in the army.  It is all fast cav with bows and two with spears.  It does however, have 2 normal treemen and 1 ancient treeman.  If those three get a combo charge off they will eat the lunch of a smaller unit.  I ended up losing by 500 points, because I could not catch the units that were dancing around.

I played another game with my Nids, this time against  Butt Angels.  WoW they can strip paint off a pole if you know what I mean.  Every model has jump packs including the ones in the raven which also has a dread in it too.  The board did not help me at all, it was covered in trenches, like the lines were being over run and  you are both in the trenches.  But he jumps from area to area keeping away from rough terrain.  I had to pay movement going up and through it...  I lost that fight because he was a tad cheesy, and it was not a good scenario for me, but he was a good sport and was not rude.  He has a youtube channel but I can not think of the channel right now. 

I also played a game with my Cryx it was a huge 50 point game.  It took for ever, and I am an extremely new player to that game.  I was playing against these horde were wolves that teleport around and to each other.  They could turn into ghosts and do a lot of things that were annoying.  However, the player was great, and showed me a lot of what they could do.  After like 4 hours and stopping for dinner for a bit, we stopped at a point when he was going to win, but I had not lost my War Caster yet, and because I lasted so long, I feel I got a morale victory. hehe

My next project I am doing though is taking my Ogre's I have not painted and get them painted to the same level of the ones I have gotten done.  I also want to round out my units the way I want, I have 16 Ironguts painted, I really want two units of 9 painted with full command, and to take that total number of Ironguts to 22 in hopes that they will lift the restrictions on how many Ironguts I can have in a unit.  I also want to get 22 Bulls with hand weapon and fist spike, 22 Bulls with Ogre Clubs and open hand which I have modeled 8 so far.  I want to get all these painted and ready to go.

Then I want to go back and super detail all of them with tatoos, and extra details i might have missed.  I did paint 2500 pts of ogres in 21 days for a GT, so I am sure there is some improvement I can do to them.  Once I get that done, over the next few months I want to continue to add to my Ogres, I want about 6 Maneaters, 2 hunters with kitties, another Butcher which will become a Slaughtermaster, and a Two Weapon Tyrant/Bruiser hoping for a good two weapon magic item in the future book.  As far as units go, the only other think I might look into is getting more Gnoblar Trappers and maybe some Gnoblar Fighters...  I also hear thing about rhinox riders which makes me eager too.

I am also going to wait to see if they do another sculpt for the named models in Ogre Kingdoms, and if they do a Scrappie in Finecast like I hear.  I am pretty sure that by the time I am done buying Ogres I will have nearly 6k in points of Ogres. lol

There is a company in Omaha, NE that sells tokens, templates, and other useful tools to fit exactly what you are wanting to use them for.  I can see me getting a token set for the new spell list, and wound makers so that I can keep track of who has how many wounds done to them.

If anyone has some good techniques on how to paint tattoos  either on video or written I am open to ideas.  I have ideas, but it is an area I have little experience so far, so I am going to research before I do it and practice as well.  Another thing I am interested in is how hard it is to paint pants, I see a lot of us do it, and I am considering some sort of pattern, but I do not want it to take way from the rest of the miniature.

So for the first part of this project I am going to need 1 box of Ironguts and 5 boxes of Bulls after you figure command groups.  I am going to want to run them in two squads or as a death star, who know once the next book comes out, it might be worth running them as two deathstars or as a total of 4 large painful units.  The reason why I am wanting to paint them all together before jumping to another project is the skin is a unique blend of colors that might be hard to repeat in the future.  (blue wash, Yellow dry brush, and Bone White dry brush, and highlights)  Then I am using two reds to make blood splatter, and using both a mat, and a clear gloss finish to give contrast between dry skin and moist splatters of blood.

Anyways, more to come soon.

An example of a group of miniatures I want to expand on model wise and create sub-groups for, is the Tomb King army and the minions army for Hordes.  For the Hordes side, I am looking at racial models that match the main groups of the Tomb King special models.  Mostly the Dog, Bird, and Crocodile headed models, there are some nice matches in the Hordes line.  I know the mythical history about these avatars, but I would use them differently in my RPG game.

I would treat them as avatars to 3 siblings, that come from an ancient race of humanoids, that were there when magic was raw and  without controls.  I would make the Bird be the older brother, who was exiled from the family for theft and an uncontrolled greed.  I would give him the bird head, and require any of follows with intellect to have a need to scavenge, and to horde objects they find in layers with a view to the sky.  I would also say that say that he still keeps a watchful eye on his siblings to this day, though they do not enjoy his presence and actively kill any of his follows.

I would make the Dog be the loyal sister who has a false since of honor when it comes to protecting the idea of a perfect family, and has gone estranged taking on a belief that is far crazier than any of the other siblings.  This idea could be that living creatures take part in their lives, and emotion change opinions from day to day.  Thus one day your friend might want the very best for you, and the next day plot against you, so her answer is to find when someone is filled with an emotion that either she shares or believe is the honest emotion that they feel, and then she has that person killed and turned into a creature of intellect or if it was a failed processes into a mindless undead so they would not have to suffer anymore.   Perfection is in the dead, could be her motto, if one were to look deep into her sick belief system that has become twisted over the many years.

Lastly is could be a step brother, who was from another mother out of wedlock.  He would not have a family centre care for any of this, and would have huge raging issues with anyone from this time.  He would rather be left a lone and tend to his own fantasy of not existing as he did and does to this day.  He would have broken the family a part and driven a great wedge into those who survived, and could be a large part of why the ancient race fell from the graces of those who gave them power.  He would be actively be seeking them out still, with crocodiles searching water ways to a way into their life so he can wreck that aspect once he is there.


The way I would use these great powers is like this, imagine if you will, 3 sociopaths that have large amounts of magical powers and no confines on how to use it.   after hundreds of years, they turned on each other, and destroyed the races that was always really small for no real gain or power grab.  They went at each other so hard that it was the main reason for the destruction of all magic on this plane.  That those who bless this planet with magic stopped giving that blessing, and it was many years later and another story lol before Humans rediscovered magic.

... So some day I will have a small Tomb King army with several of the special choices with the animal features, and a fairly big minions army from Hordes to help group each of the su-bgroups I have kind of set plans for in my home made game world I have designed.


[edit] It crossed my mind after I wrote this.  Yes in my fantasy world I do have some symbols that are not by mistake, you might of seen a back story between these three major evils in my world.  I am talking about the 7 major sins in most religions, so here they all are: (Greed) is the eldest brother, (Pride) is the protective sister, (envy) is the Step Brother, (Lust) is a Vampire who is trying to control political world and leads a shadow council, (Wrath) is a ancient dragon that wakes ever 700 years or so to try and kill every dwarf she can find, (glut) is the earth bound god of the Orcs who literally lives within the Grand Orc Chieftain, and  (Sloth) is a disease ridden mortal who can not die, and has a cult that believes in blessings of disease.

All the Otherworld miniatures I've bought so far have been fantastic, they make some cool stuff.

You were at Valhalla? I've watched the vids on YouTube, looks like great fun!

Here's an easy little guide to painting tattoos: http://www.wiltrichs.com/tutorials/painting-tattoos/

All the Otherworld miniatures I've bought so far have been fantastic, they make some cool stuff.

You were at Valhalla? I've watched the vids on YouTube, looks like great fun!

Here's an easy little guide to painting tattoos: http://www.wiltrichs.com/tutorials/painting-tattoos/

Yeah I was the cryx player, and the Ogre player if you watch them all from that time.

Thanks for the link I am going to look at that now.

Xoan
It was cool to see you there at Valhalla.  I was the guy who just came up on the Saturday for a little bit of the afternoon.   We talked ogres for a little while.  You're army looked great in person, I hope you get some pictures on here to show off your Ogres.

Xoan
It was cool to see you there at Valhalla.  I was the guy who just came up on the Saturday for a little bit of the afternoon.   We talked ogres for a little while.  You're army looked great in person, I hope you get some pictures on here to show off your Ogres.

That is very cool, I wish I would have known that at that point.    I am still working on getting nice pictures done on my ogres.  I bought some goose-neck lamps, and I am starting a photo box with either trace paper on the box or between the light source and the miniature.  Glare is annoying me, and holding my pictures back imo.  Another thing that is holding my pictures back is the very good for the price cannon camera I bought a few years back.  The issue is one of the lens has slipped and puts a line across my pictures when I am at a certain zoom... or really unless I am totally zoomed out.  I normally use normal zoom and make sure the line is not on the miniature and then crop it out, but that is not giving me the pictures I want either.

My goal is to get a new camera soon so I do not have this hassle. Anyways, here are some pictures from Valhalla and some of my army early on and to the midway point.   I am going to do some tattoos on them before I consider them finished.

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Sorry if these seem a little whited out, the room was fairly dark and would randomly dim... I believe the 10 sources of a light switch has that problem and they were set to save energy.























I will start getting some better pictures of my army soon, but my next post will have some from the work I have already done.

This is what I have Painted so far...
2   Bull Champions
2   Bull Bellowers
1   Bull Standard
6   Bulls with Fist Weapon and Hand Weapon
1   Irongut Champion
14 Ironguts
2   Gorgers
1   Scrappy
2   Butcher/Slaughtermasters
1   BSB
1   Bruiser/Tyrant
8   Gnoblar Trappers

Left to Paint, but owned...
8   Leadbelchters
10 Bulls with Ogre Club and Open Hand
1   Bull Standards
1   Irongut Champion
1   Irongut Standard (almost done)
1   Irongut Bellower (almost done)
3   Ironguts



here is a picture when I first got my army and starting basing it all.  If you look closely you will see two standard bearers in the Ironguts units... that was before I made special models for the Ironguts that look like they use 2 handed weapons.













This is what it all looked like before I even opened my paint.  The bases were a fair bit of work by themselves compared to the normal sand and static grass imo.  I stippled on sealing cock to create a mud effect, and pushed into the still wet sealant the cork stones so that the mud went up around the rock like it might look in nature.  This is most of what I have now, there are some I got after, and my tyrant which was in greenstuff when I took this picture.

I think I want to take a tell a story with each type of model or group of models, and do some progression pictures a long the way, so I will have those in future pictures once I get some tattoos done.

This is probably one of the most refreshing blogs I've read on here for a while. I like the balance between picture posts and text, and I honestly cannot wait for more

JJ

@ Just-Josh  Thanks you, I try to talk about why I do things.  I find it is just as much for me as it is for those who read it...  speaking for myself years down the line that is.  every once in a while I find a video I made of a video game I played, when I was in the peek of doing something right and it makes me smile and remember possible a better time.


Anyways, lol let me show my picture setup, tell me what you all think.  I am using two lights currently with trace paper over the bulb area, so you do not get direct light that can change colors and ad something that is not.  I am still using my camera which takes good pictures all the way zoomed out, or not zoomed at all which I find both do not work with miniatures very well.  That means that I have to crop the miniatures, so that there isn't this line running through them, as you might see in some of my broad picture shots.  I am going to get a camera soon, I just want to look around so I can use the same stuff I am currently using for the pictures and power source.

I know my August Pledge does not have a Dwarf in it, but I have a miniature I bought a long time ago for the look of it on the website.  I have wanted to paint it for a while, but I did not want to do an injustice so I waited on it.  This week I could not get it out of my mind, I started to think about the colors I wanted to use, the techniques I wanted to use, what each layer of the paint would be... so I painted a Dwarf. heh

If I have not said yet in this blog, my Dwarf army is the largest army I have hands down.  I have over 400 miniatures for GW Dwarfs which sort of makes me want to cry a little as I think how much that cost to buy. Dwarfs are the worse dollar wise imo in the game to get into.  Either war machines cost you 35 a pop, or 25 man units of the important dwarfs cost 140 dollars and that is for a small size unit imo.  I love them though... I just need to get them painted, heh


Here is the Dwarf Lord I was talking about.








Looking at it, the trace paper seems to turned it very brown almost though... I am not sure I am done figuring this all out yet.     Well I will redo the pictures tomorrow without the paper and see what looks better.

Do you know what those Construct things in the photos are? They look pretty awesome, I'd like to see if I can get some. I imagine he was using them as Treemen?

Do you know what those Construct things in the photos are? They look pretty awesome, I'd like to see if I can get some. I imagine he was using them as Treemen?

Those are from Hordes with slight alterations to them.

I just made an order through GW webstore since  sadly I live so far away from a real game store.  Here is what I got though.

White Primer (always need more it seems)
OK Thundertusk/Stonehorn
OK Firebelly
OK Mournfang Cav
X2 OK Scrappy (new model)
OK Rule Book (Hellas YeaH)
OK Magic Deck

you are limited to 5 fine cast per order, so I went with 1 of the main new stuff, and two of a sure thing being the scrappy.  Now my very nicely painted metal scrappy I have with sit in a vault never to be touched again... lol  ... mostly so it wont break again.

I am sure this wont ship until the 3, but that is ok, I got lots to paint until then.

Ok I found out where the brown lighting was coming from, it is the bulbs I am using, they give off a strange slight brown lighting.  I am going to see about better lighting in a bit, and I will get it back to my setup rather than my normal spot which has too much glare when I use gloss sealant.

Here is some better pictures of my Dwarf though, and a sneak peek at my Irongut Bellower with some paint on, I had a thought when I got to about 80% done painting it, so I have added in a dwarf head and beard basically as a trophy.  The greenstuff is now dry, so I am going to finish painting him.  Also there is a nice look at some simple Tattoos I have done on him as well.











I am not the best when it comes to greenstuff, I have shied away from it in the past, so it is pretty new to me too fyi.  I am getting better though each time I use it.   

I am still sorting out the light issue with my pictures, so I am taking some pictures that will work find, but due to glare on gloss covered models I am waiting to take some pictures.  Ogres and my new mini-project should be fine until I get this sorted, but I will be posting pictures of my Warmachine Cryx army once I get it sorted.  I am painting all the Thralls and Mechinthralls with a brush paint gloss on the skin giving it a slimy look to it.  more on that laters though!

I fubbed up though, so I do not have my finished Ogres in photobucket tonight, those pictures are sitting in a file on my desktop at home sadly, I forgot to upload them before I went to work.  I have both my repositioned Standard Bearer and Bellower for my Ironguts unit done, and they look pretty bad ass imo.

I am also several days out to get my new Ogre Kingdom book, and I want to look at the tattoos they have in there before I start painting tattoos on the rest of my army.  That means I need to keep painting something, and I have a lot to paint.  I talked a bit ago about playing a lot of DnD, and the miniatures I buy are for that in mind, well I have a lot that I have passed on painting because I wanted either a better than I could do at that time paint job, or because I didn't have time to put onto that project.

My Dragon Ogre Shaggoth is one that I had not had a chance to paint yet.  Back when I was getting ready for a 'Ard Boyz semi finals, I was at a cross roads with my dwarfs I had.  They had just made some changes to dwarfs that made them less playable, and pissed me off once again about yoking the Dwarfs over the barrel they were bending them over by their beards.  So I was looking at other armies, and I had played against Beastmen in the past, and thought that might be random enough to give me a chance, and I knew how to play against Beastmen so I knew what to look out for with them.  When I play Fantasy I look at it like a chess game, and try and figure out the reasoning for why someone does something, and look to see how it works out for them.

So I setup to buy some Dragon Ogre Shaggoths, and I was running two in my army, and it was a very important part of the army.  So when only one came in, and I was short one, I bought one at the store I was going to, and used that one... so I had 3 Dragon Ogre Shaggoths.  I thought to myself as a way to rationalize it, well the Beastmen army book was the next one to come out, I will just use them there, and I am sure they will get a named one, so I will modify it into that...  Sadly the new beastmen book did not have Dragon Ogre Shaggoths. lol

So once again either through trade or mistakenly buying them, I am slowly building a Warriors of Chaos Army.  I have several of the heroes and wizards, and now I have both Dogs of War Ogres, and Dragon Ogre Shaggotsh, I basically need troops to finish the army.

The thing about Dragon Ogre Shaggoths is that they come with great weapons, and in 7th ed the Warriors' one was far weaker than the Beastmen one.  The Beastmen traded a point of strength for a point of toughness.  I would gladly trade wounding on 2+ and a -5 on the armor save for wounding on 2+ and a -4 on the armor save, if it meant that all those models out there that were strength 4 needed 6s to wound me rather than 5s.  In 8th it is not as important since you can buff toughness, but it still was a thing to me.  I did not see a reason to run a higher initiative model like the Dragon Ogre Shaggoth with a great weapon when he was base strength 6, it seems like a waste to me so I wanted to take the two weapon option so that he could attack one more time, and be at initiative.

So I took one of the Dragon Ogre Shaggoth great weapons and cut the axe head off the weapon.  My thoughts on that was to turn it into the Stormlord Shaggoth that is a named guy in WoC, but I  never got around to it sadly, I did turn it into a Jabbersclythe for my Beastmen army, I will show pictures of that too in this post.  The two weapon Dragon Ogre Shaggoth sat in a miniature case for nearly 2 years,  until I unpackaged it before I went to Valhalla and thought man I really want to get that painted some day.

Which leads us to this post, I am taking some pictures of it bare metal, and I will keep a photo log of each step a long the way, and discuss it as I go.  I have a Youtube Channel as well, and I want to do a V-Blog about painting it as well, but those videos might take a bit to get up.  My desktop is not working properly and my Laptop which is a mac doesn't want to run PMB files.  So I need to find away around this issue.


Anyways, here is my Draggon Ogre Shaggoth...










Ok a Jabbersclythe for those who have not read the Beastmen or played against them in the past, is described as a many armed fiend, with a 12 inch ranged attack (its tongue), it has a Aura of Insanity, it has flight, and is a large Daemon.  There is no model for it sadly, and not even a sketch of it, so I had to go totally off it description to make this model.










It is completely solid btw, and weighs about 5lbs, lol, you can also pick it up by its wings or what ever.  This was one of my very first attempts to use Greenstuff, and it was not a small process.  The base model is a Dragon Ogre Shaggoth, the wings an the arms are from an older game I used to play called Chronopia, the model was in the Devout army, and the model was called a Soulflayer, and the other bits are from Tyranids. 


I will post more as I go, I hope you enjoyed these pictures, and what not I know it was a trip down memory lane for me. hehe

I completely agree on the point of Dwarves being the worst army cash/model ratio, and can be a killer to get an army together. But, I do believe there are few armies who look better when arrayed on a gaming table.

The Dwarf Lord is very well painted, and the second set of photos do him justice. He is very well shaded, and he has a real sense of gritty, dark, and grim determination. Nice model

The Jabberslythe is brilliant, and is a model that I've been wanting to convert up for pretty much since the book came out, but have never had the inspiration. Yours is brilliantly executed, and I think it perfectly matches the books description.

JJ

Ok cool this is my slightly customized Irongut Standard Bearer and Bellower.  I used Irongut arms, and the normal Ogre model, and then took their weapons, replaced the haft or hilt and made them into some semi unique looking models.

These look awesome next to the horde of Ironguts I have painted so far, and once I get the new book I will paint the tattoos on them, and post the pictures.  When I went to the GT I used a Bull Standard Bearer, but I did not like the look of it, even though it was just fine.  I like that standard in a Bull unit, but without armor it doesn't look right to me.  The bellower was simply a Irongut that was roaring, and it looked ok, but I got the idea of the putting the weapon the side and thrusting both fists into the air roaring was too cool to pass up.  The funny thing is like I was saying before when I got to about 80% done, I saw one hand was lower than the other, and knew he should be holding something. 

I have several Easter Eggs throughout the army, and I want to keep it Dwarf themed, I even have a Dwarf cowering from a Butcher or Slaughtermaster.  I am sure the new models I am going to paint will also continue this theme.


Here is my Irongut Standard Bearer, the tattoos are hand painted btw...















This is my Bellower for the Ironguts, I made his chest wider since I thought he should be slightly larger...








I debated on using OSL on the dwarf head lamp... I went with it, but I am not sure how I feel about it...

The jabberslythe does look like something with an aura of insanity. Nice job.

My thoughts so far on the new Ogre book...

Well I think they have increased our utility and made us a force to deal with. I expect to see many more Ogre players out there in the near future, and having the older metal miniatures will be the difference between a fan-boy and an Ogre Player.


I also think that everything costs so much that you are limited to a portion of the book if you are playing less than 5,000 game.  There are very good models in each area, but time will prove who is the best imo.  Ogres can now have nice shooting due to Lead Beltchers, Ironblasters, Scrappies, Thundertusks, and all the different Ogres now with Ogre Pistols.  They can have groups of very fast kitties bounding a head and around our units if they have or have not Hunters in them, we can now take the Lore of Beasts which would very nicely with them.  Our Bulls which are now Ogres are cheaper than they used to be, so simply spammin units of Ogres is truly sick.   Giving us Lore of Death is awesome, and a Fire belly with überhexen (Superior Spells) is also sick.


So what it comes down to imo, is there will be a few play styles, and then there will be key units that go in it.  There will also be awesome units that other armies would love to have, that wont fall in those areas and probably will be never played.   One of those areas is Maneaters... which are totally sick, and they cost a lot, but we have so many other units that hit hard and have lots of attacks that why would pay to take those.

Another is a Hunter on a Stonehorn, that costs a ton to get, and takes up a lot of your hero slot for points, so your army is weak on magic and that wont work.  So it probably wont be played a lot, but it is sick, and the normal version might be if people pass on the other super awesome Ironblaster or slightly nerfed yet buffed Scrappy.

Mournfangs are stupid powerful, and cost a lot, but I am for no other reason that DnD going to buy 4 more so I have 6 and can have a command squad if I want or have Ogres mounted or not mounted killing fools.   BTW why do they have Ogre Wounds and Mount wounds... can an ogre live if you kill the mount or is that an error?

Everybody else seems to like the new Maneaters a lot so I definitely think we will see them. Compared to an Irongut the Maneater gets quite a lot for the extra points.

Regarding the Mournfangs, read up on the Monstrous Cavalry rules and it will all make sense.

Everybody else seems to like the new Maneaters a lot so I definitely think we will see them. Compared to an Irongut the Maneater gets quite a lot for the extra points.

Regarding the Mournfangs, read up on the Monstrous Cavalry rules and it will all make sense.

Maneaters with Heavy Armor and Great Weapon cost 32.5 Skaven Slaves as I saw used before, I like that ogres are measured in Skaven Slaves. heh  That means that for about the same price you if you took 5 Maneaters with a hero, you cold take 8 Ironguts with a hero.  The hero costing the same of course.  Yes you get two nice abilities that are unique to that Maneater unit, but is that worth the difference?

You also get one extra attack across the front rank since we are limited to 3 attacks for supporting ranks, and if you take 3 Maneaters it will be shot to nothingness probably since it is a small powerful unit.  Also with the new rules for supporting ranks, Ogres benefit way more from having more ranks than they did in 6th or 7th.


I did have a have another idea though, what if we did a Death Star with Mournfangs?  With the Eternal Flame magic standard you could run 20 Mounfangs, have full command,  Heavy Armor, and Great Weapons for 750 Skaven Slaves which would fit in a 'Ard Boyz list...

... Then run a Deat Star of Ironguts around 500 Skaven Slaves worth, with one more gnoblar unit for a 3rd rank and file unit which could be horded up since they are so cheap.  The rest of the points could go into a Slaughter Master probably.  The weakest part would be the Gnoblars but they are horded and probably 75 to 100 models big, so it is not fun either.  dunno if it would work, but it would be fast fun games for sure.

Ok here is my Dragon Ogre Shaggoth Pictures I was telling you about.













The skin was a glaze of scorched brown, with progressive oranges and blending of the brown to tie it together yet bring it to a more orange color.  The hair on the DOS was a wet blend of black and scorched brown.  I like that it stands out and looks pretty unique to other WoC colors, so if I ever field them I will have a nice contrast on the battle field.

I was reading the new Know your enemy portion of the thread, and a newer guy named Masters was talking about a way he or his friend came up with to deal with Teclis.  I believe he is right, but in a boarder since than he was first thinking.  The thought was to take 4 to 6 Maneaters give them Sniper, and Vanguard so they get a move  before the game starts, give them the Eternal Flame banner for cheap points and single out Teclis.


IMO this works with more than Teclis alone, it works for any caster, and most hero choices like a bsb.  Basically if you have this unit and someone is not paying attention than you have a strong possibly to wound or kill an important model turn one.  If they do know this move than you have a strong position since they will tend to try and hide it so they keep it a live.  However, simply keeping a model a live diminishes its worth overall.


IMO you win either by having them play differently or by them losing an important model early.

I have made a video and posted it on youtube in my channel I have which is PaintingXoan, it is on the new model Firebelly, which I have come to love this model even though it doesn't fit style wise with the rest of my Ogres.  It is slightly more musclier in its legs, and a lot less fat over all.  It also doesn't have the same style of tattoos that other Ogres have, it is kind of like a good version of Old One Eye from the 40k range, and how its armor and color scheme doesn't match anyone else's army.

If you want to check out this video or others I have done here is the link for it.
http://youtu.be/_R_hgaDyOoM













I had to paint it fast, so there is still room for improvement in the future.  Does anyone find it takes more paint to cover finecast if you thin it out, than the normal three materials?

The OSL turned out well.
The one thing I think should be changed is the green in the mask. With the orange OSL across the face the silver of the mask is pretty well hidden, and it makes the mask look like skin (because of the green. Is there another highlight color you could use?

That is a fair point, the only reason why I painted it that color I think is because I just got done paint a 70 point army of Cryx. lol  which is funny because I have only played two games of warmachine so far... 


It might be tricky to go back now and do the inlay, but what if I took a brilliant color that was not on the model anywhere else like a lich purple or a enchanted blue, they are both dark enough to be in the etching and different enough to no be confused with another color on the model.

I like your painting style, It's a million miles from my own style but I like the OSL and blood effects you do.
Firebelly looks great.

I have to say your IG bellower makes me smile as he looks as though he's calling somebody a w___r ! 

I like your painting style, It's a million miles from my own style but I like the OSL and blood effects you do.
Firebelly looks great.

I have to say your IG bellower makes me smile as he looks as though he's calling somebody a w___r ! 

hehe a million miles away how?  good/bad or just totally different style? 

It might be tricky to go back now and do the inlay, but what if I took a brilliant color that was not on the model anywhere else like a lich purple or a enchanted blue, they are both dark enough to be in the etching and different enough to no be confused with another color on the model.

I'd go with enchanted blue. Lich Purple is pretty dark, and you want those swirls to show up. Plus (if I remember correctly) Lich Purple is a red based purple, and that will blend in with the fire.

I have been slacking in this portion of my posting sorry.  I am slowly moving to 2nd shift so that I can continue to train at work so I can move toward a AGM in 5 or 6 months or so.  That is the goal anyways that my GM and I have set.  I have been painting though, not as much as I want too, but switching from 3rd shift to 2nd shift in the same week can take it out of you.  Normally I do the Night Audit... which is basically recording history, and a lot of paper work. heh

I have been doing a picture slde show for each of the models I have been painting though, so that is cool, I have posted them on my youtube channel.  I thought the Thundertusk would have gotten more views by now, but he is still gaining views.  The out of the box and unpainted version of him is the most watched video I have, and the painted growing at a slightly higher than average pace. heh  I will post some pictures here though for ya.

This is without the riders or the trophy stand that is magnetized, so it will fit in a shorter foam tray.


Here you can see the riders and trophy stand


Here it is all together


The ice and snow effects is to show the aura of cold that this model has


I used the same blue on the lips and mouth region




One of the things I wanted to show was that this model did not have any new wounds per say, and that it was a the wounds it did have were not well treated.  That they hide had dried out to a leathery attachment, and that as the creature moves forward the ground freezes below it's feet/pads/semi-clawed nubs.

I also want to add that those pictures were some from the slideshow that is done in progression, so that areas like the mouth have been touched up before it was finished.  The white was a challenge to me, I do not like stark white on models when it takes up a sizable portion of the model.  So I build a depth to it with a watered down yellow, followed by a dry brushing of bleach bone and spotted dry brushing of fortress grey to give textures to the fur.  I then covered the whole thing in a 50/50 mix of bleach bone and pure white, and then spot dry brushed pure white on areas I thought should be whiter than other areas.

I have so many models to paint before Oct 8th when I got to a GT styled tournament in Wichita, KS that going to be fairly small I am sure.  I have not put a huge amount of thought into this, since I can not play where I live, and I have not even seen the new ogres played yet. lol   Sure I watch batreps on youtube, but that is not the same really.

Here is my Mournfangs, I have got only 2 so far, but they look good.  I probably will grow this unit to 6 total models, but I am not wanting to do that until I play with them first.  The models are very easy to paint imo, compared to some of the other newer models.  I spent a fair amount of time on them, but in truth I spent more time on the mounts than I ddi on the Ogres riding them. lol

Their fur starts out white primed, than I water way down a black to fill any holes or pits in the fur with black.  I then follow that with a watered down scorched brown, and a dry brush of vermin brown.  I then did a wet blend of a brown and black wash to get it the texture it has now.  The under belly was down the same way as the Thundertusk was done.

This is one of the two riders on the mount


Here is the other one


The rider can come off like the Thundertusk for traveling purposes.


This is a close up of a rider before the wet effects were put on the blood and the tattoos were painted on.


I will have two Iron Blasters done here pretty soon, I am about 30% of the way through the first one, and they look like they are not going to be too bad.  I have them in a few pieces before I start painting them, so I would not go nutz trying to paint everything while it was glued together.

Sadly none of these pictures really show off their eyes, which came out super clear and with attitude....


I am working toward getting me a new camera, I have plans to start a better gallery for my Ogres, I will still post pictures here, but I am thinking broader than my Ogres with this.  I want to have ally my DnD miniatures painted at some point too, and I would love to see those on my facebook page where I have gaming stuff which is separate than the one with my name in it.  Paintingxoan is my gaming face book, as well as my youtube channel fyi.

I like the idea of the blue frost painted onto the base for thundertusk, looks very cool!

And the paint scheme means you can switch out between stonehorn and thundertusk, I may have to steal it

look forward to future pictures, maybe a bit more light would help.

is it normal the monster has no teeth?

oh and i love the frost idea... very nice... so is the paint in general.

thanks guys,

The way I got the ice to look the way I did was this.  I placed my cork board as it is seen, than I covered it with thick layers of Elmer's Glue, I let it dry and covered it again, and again.  I made sure that the stopping points with the glue were at different levels, so that it would not look square, or chiseled as if by hand.  The way I saw this power being used is sort of a wave after wave pulsing from the creature of sub-zero temp.  I wanted the ice to look like it was more than one layer pulsing out, and I did not want my cork board to show through the painting of the ice.

Once it was primed I put a layer of watered down Enchanted Blue down, than I followed it up with 50/50 Enchanted blue and Ice Blue I used dry brushing to give natural high lights and pockets of deep ice.  I then used straight Ice Blue stippling it on.  I followed that up with Stippling on a 50/50 mix of white and Ice Blue.  The last layer helps blend in the snow flock with the blue, that way the blue parts look like deep ice beneath the frosted top of snow.


Here you can see the ice before I put the snow flock on it.



One last thing, the cork board sucks up a lot of glue before it stops, I could of even put more on the board imo.  I am also considering doing a ice world theme for something, like Riddick's home after the first movie, before he entered the chronicle of his life.    One of the effects I think I want to explore more is the edge where the cork board stops and the glue drips down the side creating interesting affects.

And the paint scheme means you can switch out between stonehorn and thundertusk, I may have to steal it

I just remembered something on this topic.  The two main differences between a Stonehorn and a Thundertusks other than color are Stonehorns use one seat not two, and the head, but those are fixable I believe.  The seats are able to magnetized and there are three options for the outer edges of the saddles.  However, you would have to model up the middle of the 3rd seat if you chose to do so, that probably works anyways, since having something you built would probably sit nice on there with part of the two seat rigs on the model.  The other part is the head, which is a very minor issue, there are both enough parts for both heads and the way it sits on it is friendly to being magnetized. 

I talk about this a little bit on either my out of the box video or my video I did on painting it.

I did very well at the tournament in Wichita, KS, I ended up winning all three of my games and winning the tournament.  I am not sure if it is because the new ogres are so much stronger, or if people are not used to them yet, so they do not build lists with that possibility in mind.  I am not sure.

I played Ogres, than VC, than Empire.  IMO if you are going to split your deathstar in two halves, you needed ranged weapons, and enough shooting to weaken another super hoard, or larger monstrous infantry hoard coming at you.  The guy I played Ogres v Ogres with shot my other stuff, and could not stop my deathstar of Ironguts.  I also think that a deathstar of Ironguts with the new Dragon Hide banner and a Firebelly is almost too killy.

You see by the time my Firebelly got his 7 kills, which is slightly above average against t3. plus my 6 impact hits at strength 6, and then all 36 attacks +1 for the champion who are using the Dragon Hide Banner and great weapons.  This means that I need 4s to hit, and I get to reroll at my 1s on my to hit and to wound.  This means that 2s and 3s miss outright, but that I need only 2s to wound.  So I did another 30 wounds out of 36 attack.  I also did 5 wounds via impact hits, and another 3 stomp wounds.  That gives me 45 wounds to a 39 tomb guard unit with a level 4 wizard in it that just suffered all that CR and exploded.

After this last Tournament I have come to the decision that I want the Dragon Hide Banner in my IG horde every time, so I need to model up at least a model for it.  It could e a lot of fun imo.  I am thinking blue dragon since it is a cold based breathe weapon, and that will look nice against the more green to yellow skin my army has, and contrast nicely against my super dark reds I use for pants.  This also means I need a new Bellower too  I am thinking of making this one stand there with a Greatsword stuck in the ground with the hilt standing up near the head.  I am putting that in front of the mode, and then shaving his back a little to have him lean back, and away like his is Chuck in the UFC knocking out Tito.

I also have a single metal Maneater, so I want to do him up differently... it is the pay master one with the long coat and chests if you use it that way.  I am going to make him a Hunter I think, with the stuff I have left over from the Thundertusk, it would be nice to have one for my Stonehorn when ever I have the time to model one up, and he gets knocked to the ground.   I am debating on the Great Spear or the Blood Vulture in the right hand.  left hand naturally is placed on his hand weapon, so I am not sure.  A Blood Vulture is cool model wise, but the amount of time a Stonehorn stays away from combat is not a benefit, so it sounds counter productive to me.

The Next two Conversions beyond this are, a Butcher or SM with Great Weapon, a Firebelly without a great weapon.  I have some of the conversions on those in mind already, but I am working on the other three models first.  The reason why I am looking at a Firebelly without a Great Weapon is this, the weapon is flaming, so if I want all my Great Weapons to pierce regeneration than I need to go first.   Also a super good tactic used against me, and now by me is a potion of speed for 5 pts, so we use out breathe weapon at initiative 5.

Heya guys, I have one of my Ironblasters done, but I am waiting to do a video on it until I get the 2nd one done.  However, I am also doing a conversion, and it has caught my eye, so I am doing it first.   It is a Maneater the Pay master model, that I have that is metal... I want all of the Maneaters to be Finecast in the unit I may build some day, so I am going to use him for something else.

I thought about making him into a Hunter, and then getting the Finecast model and shape it some so it sits on the saddle of the Stonehorn.  That way I can make one with a Blood Vulture, one with the Harpoon Launcher, and one with the Great Spear.  Which is how I would probably do my Hunter since I will not want hold that many points back from crashing their lines.  The nice thing is that he looks like a Hunter sort of already with a nice leather and fur coat that has a nearly perfect split up the back to straddle a saddle.   

I am going to do a video on this model too for sure, and I am going to do one on the Stonehorn as well, so it will be a bit before it comes out.  I will need to get a Stonehorn and the Finecast Pay Master before I can start it. hehe  I think it is going to look awesome though since he can be knocked off his mount with a few lucky shots.








It is funny to me that I can see some small problems in the pictures on the model, like a glob, and a small finger print on the arm where I touched it.  I am getting better though, so it looks better than my Bellower. lol

Great idea that belly plate and nice hunter conversion!

I am working on a way to present my pictures better too, here is my thought, I want to take several pictures that show  aspects that I think show the model(s) properly.   I know in pictures it is easy to crop and hide certain negatives that make the model look better, but that is not my goal with this.  I want a realistic picture of what the model looks like good/bad in a single miniatures.  I am going to do a sample of this with red squares as an example below.




This is still pretty rough, but this is the general idea anyways.  What do you all think?

Looks good, perhaps make the front view more prominent as that what most people will be looking for.

yeah I could put it on the top and have everything else fall behind it.  I am using CS3 to make it, so I can really manipulate it if I need too.  It is all done in layers, so it is as simple as changing the order of them, and then adjusting them left to right as needed.

One of the things I want to be able to do, is get a new camera that takes high quality pictures, and has a nice zoom and is super clear.  They cost about 300 to 500 dollars for what I want.   I have stopped using my camera I spend 89 dollars on 4 years ago, and I am now using a 4S iPhone.  It has super picture and video quality but it's unable to zoom at all.  So if I want to keep the picture about the same size I have to crop it then blow it up, and that is not an exact science if you know what I mean.


However, the other issue I was having was compatibility, you see the Sony Blogie MP5,  and Cannon Cameras do not work on mac computers in any way.  Their software clashes, even flip4mac, and other programs will not breach the divide.   However, the 4s iPhone is made by the same company, so no issues, which makes me happy!

My Hunter is painted btw, I will post him in the next post after I do some tweaking to the order of the pictures.

Ok looking at this I see a few things that I could do to improve it, I am thinking of making certain pictures bigger, and others smaller to hint at importance.  I am concerned that could be too much though, and cause people to wonder what I am trying to hide too though.



lol I had to modify because I forget to put the picture in there.

Heya guys, I turned the process I did with my Hunter into a video, I have been waiting to make it since I entered that miniature into a small painting contest.  I ended up winning the contest, but there was not a lot of entries though some of them were pretty good imo.


I hope you like it!

http://www.youtube.com/user/PaintingXoan?feature=mhsn#p/u/1/y7nTIQgQvQQ

I just want to thank you all who watch my videos, and who have subscribed to them.  One of the goals I had when I started was to be recognized for the ad program, and as of today I am now on it, the best part was that they asked me.  This means a fair amount to me, I do not expect that I will make a lot, or really any money on it.  It is just the sense that I went to do something, I achieved it, and now I might get some reward for it now.


Thanks again!