Orlando's Dire Avengers Exarch

so, as announced, we've got the first guest post!
this is an eldar Dire Avengers Exarch (1993 circa) painted by my dear friend Orlando! the colour scheme is dominated by the usual blue for the armor and white for the helmet. the crest and the cloth have been painted with the craftworlds Kaelis colours, green and red, as well as the rear side of the flag which displays the craftworld rune, while the front side is painted blue with Avengers' rune. as you might imagine, the flag comes from the Dire Avengers plastic kit. it gives a really oriental feel and recalls the way aspect warriors were painted during the early 40k 2nd edition.

the Diresword has been painted with a really smooth gradient from light yellow to wine red (i guess bad moon yellow to gore red) with lots of washes. as you can see there is plenty of gems on this model, painted in many colours.
in my opinion, Orlando painted this miniature in a really proper way, i mean: the way it could be painted in 1993 and i like it a lot!
so i think this is a really great work, in fact this miniature must have won something in some 40k tournament, like best single miniature.
more to come!

Maybe back (from the warp)!

i'm sorry for this very long hiatus, i had to manage lots of changes in my life. briefly: i changed job and i moved to Switzerland due to this, had to find and furnish a flat, split up with my long term girlfriend and totally changed lifestyle. what a mess!
my new job leaves me a few free time, not enough to keep an acceptable pace of miniature painting so i tought it could be a good idea to host some friends on this blog, just to keep the thing alive and give people the opportunity to show their works and maybe receive a bit of feedback from you guys out there. so, every picture you will see with the label "black/red painting guest" will not belong to me. stay tuned for further update, which will happen soon, i swear!

PS: the fact that i'm pretty busy doesn't mean that i'm going to stop painting :-) don't worry!

Cities of Death campaign map!

Battle for Tcharkov is gonna finish soon so we are planning a new campaign with the Cities of Death expansion, just to make a little change! this is gonna be the new map, from Googlemaps... most of you will not understand why it is so funny, but hey, what a gag!

Gothic DIY scenery WIP part II

do you remember this?
well, i made some changes like removing almost all that ugly ball-textured polystyrene and replacing it with more compact stuff. the parts that still show the old styrene are gonna be treated with some filler in order to make them look like masonry work.
i really like the theme of the stairs because they make me remember the scene of the 1925 movie "The Battleship Potemkin" where the cossacks shoot the sailors, even if these stairs are much shorter. also, i really like how the space marine statue looks in the gable. i'm planning to add some texture, like a wire mesh or something, to the circular window that should be a rose window.
thoughts?

Ruined temple part II, still WIP but with some detail

back to work!
i've added some detail to the temple as you can see. nothing special i know, but i think this extra stuff really contribute to give some personality to this piece of terrain. the space marines statues are 2nd edition miniature that came with the old boxed set 1994, i guess. the skulls on the bases are from skeletons sprues. on the top of the facade there's a simple decoration made with one round base, a winged skull from imperial guard vehicle sprue and some rivets.
any suggestion?

headbutt on the bus windscreen!

hey!
today i broke the windscreen of a bus with my head so no miniatures painting for a while! i can't believe how much hard my head is!
by the way, i'm ok, so don't even worry!

Ruined Temple WIP

 i've officially started to model my Cities of Death scenery in order to start playing as soon as possible at Killteam.
this first piece is nothing special: just styrofoam front with gothic windows and some lancet arches.

i added on the back the big aquila sculpture that i found in the Honoured Imperium box, just to give the place a "holy" feel.

hand made crater. tutorial on the way. soon, i swear!
i feel there are lots of things missing, especially on the frontage so i'm gonna add lots of details. any suggestion?

Kill Team camo scheme part II

 

more Killteam camo scheme! i chose to paint the flak armour grey in combination to the camo scheme of the fatigues just to give this soldier a ww2 feel... just think to Wehrmacht/SS soldiers on the western front in 1944, you couldn't find two men dressed in the same way, so this is what i'm trying to achieve.

the camouflage is done this way:

1. black primer
2. catachan green basecoat
3. bestial brown spots
4. bubonic brown spots
5. black wash
6. 50/50 camo green + catachan green highlight
7. snakebite leather highlight

Kill Team camo scheme

have you ever played the Killteam mission from Battle Missions expansion?
i never did but as soon as i read the rules i totally got into that so i'm planning a new camo scheme for my imperial guard. this time i want something for a temperate enviroment, just for difference sake, it's boring to paint all the time the same camo scheme.
the idea was to recreate something with a Wehrmacht flavour so i chose these colours. i'm not sure about this scheme so i'm making a lot of sketches. let me know what do you think about guys!

Imperial guard progress

we are slowly progressing... eheh. what do you think i should do next? i'm planning to remove rough riders because on the latest faq it came out that furious charge doesn't stack with hunting lance bonus so...

Chimera 4A1

so, the famous stretched Chimera is finally done!
it took me a lot of time to model ad decide how it should look (also because of my laziness) but now it's over.

the camo scheme is the usual one: classic stripes with urban colours. the checker pattern is the designation of command tank (sometimes the company command squad rides this tank, depending on the mission), painted just to make it easier to distinguish (for the opponent) where the squad with different equipment is. the red dragon badge, on the left, indicates the squadron (platoon A). the roman numeral VI indicates the company.

the same on this side. check out the wooden boxes! il like them a lot! on the top i modeled a camo net with some bandage kept hard with PVA glue.

artistic shot I: tank commander

artistic shot II: 1st passenger

artistic shot III: 2nd passenger

which chimera do you like more?

Catachan tank commander

more catachans!
this is the Leman Russ Exterminator tank commander that came with the old kit (1999). it belongs to Teo and his name his J.A. Tiger (ahah, very A-Team)! obviously counts as knight commander Pask!
personally i'm pretty proud of the aquila sign on the helmet and the specs. do you like it, guys?

Catachan testpaint over!

this is the final result, i'm pretty satisfied with it. quite similar with GW's Catachan scheme but with more personality in my opinion.
if you are wondering from where this miniature is coming from, well, it came together with a tank commander in the old Leman Russ Exterminator kit (1999). yes, with the 3rd edition codex you could deploy that tank but it was far less powerful than now. it is a leman russ passenger, and should look like this:

how nice! the tank commander is the next!

Catachan testpaint part II

so this time we've got to think about the lasgun's camo scheme. which is better? black + snot green (above) or black + camo green (below)?

please, let us know!

Catachan testpaint

new testpaint, do you like it? it isn't finished i know but just look at the camo!

Limited edition Valhallan tank riders

do you remember these guys? they came for free with che old Chimera kit (1996 circa) with another tank commander (that i don't own)... below, the one on the right. it is still available from GW mailorder while the passengers are gone but i think you can find them on Ebay.

so, i added those guys on my streched chimera and painted it as my command tank

i'll post the whole model as soon as i finish it!

Chimera 4A2

another tank is done! i'm getting ready for a tournament on sunday.
this is a pretty plain chimera without much conversions. i've armed this apc with a hull mounted heavy flamer and added an old fuel cylinder under that. i've also painted some scorches on the flamer barrel.

i added to the turret a targeting box taken from the old leman russ kit, which fits perfectly the new chimera turret. the roman numeral "IV" represents the company icon (4th company, infantry, 34th valhallan regiment).

as usual the camo scheme has been painted with vallejo german grey and codex grey for the light tone and black and german grey for the dark tone. on the turret the number "4A2" indicates that this tank belongs to the 4th company, infantry platoon A, 2nd squad. the red dragon icon on white background is the squadron (platoon) designation, in the same way of leman russ squadrons. on the rear you can see the army badge.

rear ramp, with tank number and regimental designation.

plastic tank commander from the chimera kit with a Pig Iron head. please notice the wooden casing of the bolt pistol and the extra armour on the turret.

valhallan passenger: that's just a classic metal trooper painted and glued on a support inside the tank.

steel legion passenger: i think it fits well in a valhallan army... and i really like the way i painted the power sword. looks like he is barking some orders :-)

do you like it? more chimeras to come!

Guess what is coming...

it's not hard to tell...

This is a great day...

because i've just bought this

Guess what? Vendetta complete!

finally, another mission is complete! what a satisfaction!
as i already said this model has been a pain to paint but in the end the result is wonderful, at least in my opinion. let me tell you something about this model. first of all there are no conversions except the weapons (check them out here and here).
second: i've also painted the machinegunners but the hatches got somehow glued by the paint while it was drying so i couldn't put them in place but i will for sure, even if i don't pay them.

the colour scheme and the labels layout is clearly borrowed from ww2 aircrafts.

i thought that a white underbelly scheme could be a good idea to disguise the aircraft, preventing enemy AA batteries to hit it.

also, a low visibility identification number on the rear ramp should be useful. on this model there is no standard lettering like on my Leman Russ, because of concealment needs.

Aquila signs on both wings to identify the aircraft as a loyalist vehicle.

scorches and wear on engines and fuselage... and another low visibility identification number.

from left to right: company designation (8th company, recon), killcount, squadron designation (5th squadron).

cockpit.
do you like it?