difisher's Gnoblog

Figured I'd start a Gnoblog to keep track of my progress with August's painting challenge (and if it goes well subsequent months too).  I'm not a fast modeller or painter (much to the chagrin of my gaming mates!) so don't expect rapid progress.  The reason I gave myself a target on the monthly challenge was to see if I could motivate myself to get on with things a bit quicker.  Bear in mind I bought the Army box for Ogres when they came out and yet I still don't have a single ogre finished (though to be fair that's because not long after that we started playing Warmachine instead and I do have finished Cryx minis, after that it was Malifaux and I do have finished Redemptionists minis, but now it's back to Warhammer and I need to get some Ogres built and painted!).

So August's challenge was to get my Tyrant and BSB conversions built and primed.  So far it's going pretty well - though I'll lose a week when I get sent to Sweden with work next weekend!  Anyway, progress so far:



Both models cleaned up, tacked together (still some gap filling to do) and based (BSB still drying!).  Tyrant is built pretty much as standard, though I've modded the weapon arm for multiple weapon options (still need to build those).  May add a curved spike to the shoulder pad too, but I'm undecided.  BSB conversion has a repositioned right arm from the great weapon ready to hold the standard and the gnoblar removed from the left shoulder.  Need to do a lot of gap filling and resculpt the chainmail.  I'm also hacking up the BSB's gutplate (removed the ridiculously undersized sword - honestly, check out the hilt and the size of an ogre's hand) and resculpting part of that, so it's still missing.

Other progress:



Banner pole bits and bobs ready to be added to the banner arm once everything has set and been cleaned up.  Hacked up the Irongut banner top - after a while you get tired of GW's penchant for added skulls to everything - and had to resculpt some teeth, the edges and add some rivets.

Will post more progress when there's something to post...

Quick update on progess:



Standard bearer is fully built - just needs some gap covering and minor sculpting of the wrappings to hide where the metal currently meets plasti-rod.  Then he's ready for priming.

Decided to add the spike to the Tyrant shoulder.  I've also removed the small cups for the back banners and smoothed/resculpted his back (can't see that in this photo, but I'll take multiple angles when they're primed).  Still need to complete the weapon options for the tyrant.

Hoping to get everything finished sculpting and building-wise this week so that all I have to do when I get back a week later is get them primed.

That's a really great standard. Are you planning any sort of free hand inside the mouth? It'd be weirdly plain painted as bare metal.

Thanks Reg06.  I'm not sure yet about the mouth part.  The flash on the camera makes the space look bigger and more obvious than it is - once they're primed I'll set up the light box to take better pics and you'll see how shaded the area is by the upper teeth.  Once it's primed I'll have a better idea myself of if it needs extra detailing.

BSB is done - primed ready for painting (which means I just need to get the tyrant done in a week to meet the challenge deadline).  He's too big for my normal photo set-up, so he's a bit dark and the pictures aren't great, but they'll have to do for now:

Cathayan Longswords not being in the new book was a bit of a bummer, but a big sword is still a nice looking weapon - and I did pledge it would be one of the weapon options - so here's the work in progress so far:



Not a lot of time to get it finished (along with the other - thankfully simpler - weapon options) before the deadline though!  Still got the lower jaw, all the teeth and probably some horns to add to make a full guard...

Finished up the sword this evening.  Still need to finish priming everything to meet tomorrow's deadline, but it'll have to wait whilst everything finishes curing.

Attached the sword to the tyrant so you can get a better idea of scale.  Tyrant (as you can see) is primed, so it's just the weapons that'll need doing tomorrow.  It's been pretty hectic getting it all finished in time - glad I signed up for the challenge though as it's making me focus!  Think I'll pledge getting some painting done next month though.

Beautiful work on the sword. Is the blade a little warped near the tip or is it just the photo?

Thanks for the comments Anton.  I think it's mostly a trick of the light.  There is a slight amount of deformation towards the tip where it gets thinner (it tapers from the back to the front to form a sharp blade).  But mostly this is sanded down pretty flat.  The angle of the light is highlighting the slight ridge that's still visible - so I may need to go over it again just to tidy that up.

Just completed them in time - don't think I ever want to try and sculpt something that requires symmetry ever again (particularly if a blade sits between the two sides making it almost impossible to look at both sides at the same time!).  Not too bad for one of my first scuplting efforts though.

The BSB is a nightmare to photograph due to the height - I'll make sure next month only has 'normal'-sized minis to make progress updates easier!

The sword came out great. Nice job.

Thanks Reg.  Was stressing out about getting it done in time, but I think it was worth the effort in the end.

This month I've pledged finishing my test bull ogre and then painting up 5 of his mates all to 'gaming standard'.  I'm going for a limited palette across the army of blues and browns (the Gnoblars have a turquoise-ish skin tone that ties them in with the verdigris on the bronze, with brown clothes tying them in with the Ogre skin for example - I'll post my test trapper if I remember).

I've managed to get the test bull done:



Couple of things to bear in mind.  Firstly, he was the victim of the dreaded fuzzy varnish problem 
Wasn't solved with a second coat, so I had to scrub him in white spirit and repair the damage.  Managed to get most of it sorted, but there are still a couple of rough bits that show through when I painted over them.

Secondly, he's only gaming standard, so I know he could do with another layer of highlights (especially the skin which looks a bit flat - worse in these photos than real life, but still he does look a bit flat).  The plan is to get everything to this standard and then once the army is done, go back over and add warpaint and the extra highlights at that stage.

Now a question for anyone reading:  I have to paint up the rest of his mates, but I'm unsure of whether to go with the same colour on all the pants.  They'll all be blue, but I'm not sure if I should mix up the shades.  I've gone with the same gutplate on all my bulls ogres (different ones for the leadies and guts and so forth) as well as the same IF to give them all a cohesive, uniform look.  Can't decide if identical pants will be too much uniformity...  What do you think?

Your skin is very good so don't worry about that. If you add tattoos or warpaint it will be really impressive.

I think your idea with different shades of blue on the pants will work. If you tell a hundred gnoblars to make blue pants, you're going to end up with a lot of variation after all. It should still look cohesive enough.

The verdigris on the armour is very well done too.

Thanks for the comments Anton.

I think you're right - going for different shades of blue is probably the way to go.  The minor drawback is the inability to paint production line style (not that I've ever been good at sticking that!), but I can always start pairs with the same basecoat.  The bonus being I don't need to worry about maintaining and matching the highlights all through the army, as any minor differences will look intentional.

Not as much going on with the painting as there was with the converting, so WIPs will be few and far between (not a big fan of showing part painted minis!).  Figured I'd put this up so people can see I am working on this month's challenge!



That's just basecoats and shading done so far.  Everything needs highlights, and the metals need corrosion.  As you can probably see, I went with 3 blues for the trousers (no idea why I called them 'pants' before!  Damn Yanks messing with my language  ).

What is your metal recipe? It looks like Tin Bitz with a drybrush of Brazen Brass and a turquoise glaze.

Hi Reg.  If you mean on the test model - it's hard to say   I went through several iterations of colours until I was roughly happy.  Still a bit too yellow for my liking, but I think I've solved that for his mates...

For the remaining minis, so far they've had a basecoat of 50:50 VGC Tinny Tin (Vallejo equivalent of tin Bitz) and VMC Bronze (which is more gold than GWs Bronzes) and a wash of Devlan mud.   

They'll get a light drybrush with VMC Bronze.  Then get hit with VMC Verdigris Glaze and a wash with VMC Dark Sea Blue.  After that I'll hit the verdigris again but with a bit of VGC Turquoise (equivalent to GW Hawk Turquoise) and finally some edge highlights with 50:50 Bronze and silver.

Then depending on how well the test figure matches up, I may need to modify the test figure - easier to do that if I'm happy with his 5 mates than spend an age matching the test figure!

Well the bulls ogres are still part finished - I'll work on them as and when I get time.  But as I signed up to get my casters built/converted in this month's challenge I'll be spending the rest of the month working on them.

Progress so far:



Need to do all the gap filling and sculpting now (plus some bits are just blu-tacked on for this shot).