Showcase: Chapter Master Lazerian

This is one of my older projects, an Imperial Fists Chapter Master. Lazerian was done as a commission piece, one of several done for the Tempus Fugitives 'Age of Apostacy' campaign weekend a few years back. The Fugitives were operating out of our local GW at the time (a few of them still are), and when the campaign weekend went into its planning stages it was decided that they wanted a set of special character models that could be used at different points during the weekend. Some of the veterans at the store were asked if they would like to model and paint these characters, and I was lucky enough to be asked to do two of them; Chapter Master Lazerian, of the Imperial Fists chapter, and Gaius Walkenen, commander of the Dimmamar PDF... I may post pics of him at a later date.
As a base for the model, I used the gorgeous Captain Lysander model... it's one of those hero models that's just a joy to paint. To the basic kit I added a banner and power fist from the plastic terminator kit, and a ForgeWorld rhino door (with appropriate logo, obviously!).
Now, this was painted in the pre-foundation paints era, so approaching the yellow armour was something of a challenge for me (it's not an easy colour, I wanted it to look as good as possible). I tried a technique I found in GW's How To Paint Citadel Miniatures... basically, you water down the paint with ink instead of water. This allows you to thin the paint, while not losing any of the pigmentation. I started with Golden Yellow, mixed with red and yellow inks, before highlighting with first Golden Yellow/Yellow Ink, then Sunburst Yellow/Yellow Ink. Bleached Bone was added for the later highlight stages.
The marble effect on the shield is tricky, but with practice has become one of my signiature painting effects. I start with Fortress Grey, then paint over this in four or five stages, adding more Skull White with each layer, until the mix is almost pure Skull White... start with thick bands, leaving thinner stripes of Fortress Grey in between, then highlight each of those thicker segments of colour in increasingly narrow strips (if that makes sense?). Once that's done, I add very thin 'veins', running in roughly the same direction as the striping; these are a mixture of Fortress Grey and Enchanted Blue. Finally, a very thin glaze of Skull White is applied to the whole surface. There are probably much easier ways, but it works for me!
Enjoy the pics, any and all comments are welcome!
~MyBlueOblivion

Dark Elf showcase: Black Dragon

Hi guys!
Here we have another showcase article from Virus' extensive Dark Elf army, this time a converted Lord on Black Dragon.
When the latest edition of High Elf dragon kit hit the shelves, Virus couldn't help himself... he just had to have one. And, in typical FlashGitz style, he's converted the kit extensively. The pics here (the only legible ones from the batch we took - ~Blue) show the work done quite well, we think.
Every part of this comes from the original kit; that is to say, nothing extra was added to make it more 'Dark Elf'-ish. The pillar of rock that the beast is perched on was the first thing to get changed, with expert application of a hobby saw and some green stuff for filler. The dragon itself was then repositioned; every 1/2 inch or so the main body was cut, from neck to tail. The body was bent forward to the desired position, then the gaps were filled, again with green stuff.
The a standard cigarette lighter was used to heat the wings, allowing them to bent inward and into a more 'swooping' position; be very careful if you try to do this kind of thing at home. Fire's dangerous to start with, and plastic will melt very quickly if you get it too hot!
Virus used parts from the Dragon Mage and Lord segments of the kit to make his rider, cutting and changing axe to make it look more menacing. Then, he used spare bits to make the dead Swordmaster on the base... very grim indeed.
On the painting front, Virus decided to go with a dark blue colour, rather than the more traditional black/grey that GW tends to go with... nonetheless, the finished article is striking, and looks terrific on the tabletop. Virus doesn't use it very often, preferring to use a Lord either on a Cold One or a chariot, and instead only rolls out the dragon for larger games.
Hope you enjoy the pics... more coming soon!
~The FlashGitz