They're coming...

The end is nigh, folks...

Word has been spreading across the interwebs like wild fire these last weeks, and it seemed only fair to jump on the bandwagon. As you can see from the picture above, the Necrons are finally getting a much-needed update to their codex. There are tonnes of cool pics floating around the net, and we've managed to find a few of the best ones... all courtesy of Beasts of War and Bell of Lost Souls.

By the sounds of it, there is going to be a complete change of fluff and background, as well as loads of new artwork for the new 'dex, which is slated for a November 5th release. We won't go into the rumours here; the forums at BoLS and Dakka-Dakka have done a good enough job of that. Instead, enjoy the pics, and a few tidbits of info on the new stuff...


Here we have two special characters: Trazyn the Infinite, a history fanatic that collects artefacts from other races, and Imotekh the Stormlord, who apparently has a storm ability like Njal Stormcaller...


Two of the new Necron Overlord models... bigger, meaner versions of the Lords we've been used to!


Two versions of a new transport for Overlords.



Lychguard, a new bodyguard unit. These guys come with +2 strength power weapons, which they can swap for a standard weapon and a shield that gives a 4+ Invun. save, and can even reflect ranged attacks back at the enemy!


Flayed Ones are back, and meaner looking than ever!


A new Necron gunship, the Doomsday Ark. This kit can also be built into a transport, the Ghost Ark.


Deathmarks are a new sniper unit, with an ability to 'mark' an enemy unit for death... in game, they wound that target on a 2+!


Immortals are now in the Troops section.


Another new unit, Triarch Praetorians once acted as a kind of police force for the overall ruler of the Necrons, the Silent King.

Golden Daemon Entry 2011: The Sanguinor

This project ranks amongst one of the most in-depth I have ever done. It all started earlier this year; one of the staff at my local GW decided to try out the "non-metallic metal" painting guide that was printed in White Dwarf for the Blood Angels character The Sanguinor, Exemplar of the Host. It was quite the challenge he set himself, and it raised a lot of interest in-store.
Sadly the resultant model, while pretty good, didn't quite do the job; some of the crueller critics may or may not have mentioned that the gold looked like melted chocolate... but I digress. James, being a good-natured chap, then set me a challenge: To do a better Sanguinor. Having a reputation as a decent painter to uphold, I figured "why not?". Ah, if only I'd known...
I followed the White dwarf guide pretty closely; I can't remember the issue number at the moment, but it's all there if you fancy taking a look! The only change was the sword; the paint mix ratios in the guide look nothing like the pictures, so after a bit of mucking about, I decided to fall back to the crystal technique I used on my Farseer; for details, see below. Needless to say, after hours (and hours) of careful blending, I was starting to worry that I was in fact painting the most in-depth shade of brown to ever grace the Earth! Not only is the technique required crazy-hard, my friends, but it takes a fair knowledge of light theory, which I won't go into here... look it up on-line, if you fancy going quietly mad :)
In the end, though, the finished result was very cool indeed, and it was definitely worth taking the time out to do it. I entered the model into the store painting competition that month (you can find pics of that competition, and more, on Games Workshop: Thurrock's Facebook page!), and came first. And it was around that point that someone suggested that I enter the piece into Golden Daemon this year.
I decided to give it a go. First, though, the Sanguinor needed a new base; just standing on his slottabase, he looked good, but not quite how I envisioned a Golden Daemon entry! After some careful thought, and some help from staff and friends, it was decided that the guy in gold would look good on a semi-scenic base, rising angel-like above a pile of fallen warriors. I invested in a a box of standard Assault Marines, as the legs were in suitably "stretched out" poses, and set about making a new base.
Parts were added to the basic kit from the Chaos Space Marine troop sprue, which my brother had lying around. I decided to have one Blood Angel assault marine with combat shield and power sword, and three Black Legion marines, one normal (or as normal as Chaos gets...), one Khorne Bezerker, and one Plague Marine; the last two had nothing to do with Virus' CSM army at all. Honest. :)
Once the various models were positioned, I set about painting them. The Blood Angel followed parts of the White dwarf guide for painting the Space Hulk terminators, which turned out very nicely. The Black Legion armour was mostly black, with edge highlights of Fenris Grey and then Shadow Grey, before two heavy washes of Badab Black. The hardest part was the metal sections; I realised quickly that the whole thing needed to be non-metallic! The gun metal was easy enough; I just exaggerated the shade used in White Dwarf's silver technique.
The brass, however, was a different animal. I started out, in the end, with a roughly 50/50 mix of Snakebite Leather and Blazing Orange. This was highlighted by adding increasing amounts of Bleached Bone, followed by Skull White for the final highlight. The shad was created by adding increasing amounts of Dark Flesh to the original mix; final shades were 50/50 Dark Flesh and Chaos Black. Some careful freehand was added to the Blood Angel's combat shield, and the base was ready to go!
The Sanguinor was carefully removed from his original base, before being pinned directly through one of the marines on the base. Any damaged paintwork was retouched, and the base was painted Astronomicon Grey. The plinth the model is standing on was found on e-bay for a decent price, and was painted to look like marble; I'll do an article on how to acheive that soon.
Here are some pictures of the finished result... enjoy, and let us know what you think! I'll post the results of the Golden Daemon some time next week.
~MyBlueOblivion

Not dead, just absent...

Sooo... it's been how long since we posted here? Forever? Yep, sounds about right...
Sadly, that vile troll called Real Life has taken its toll this last year or so. But, we're back; or at least, as much as time allows :) The FlashGitz have been busy in between all those real-life shenanigans; we've done some interesting projects, from Warhammer Storm of Magic beasties, to spider-centaurs, to the Sanguinor... and it's been good fun!
Perhaps the biggest deal for us is coming up ths weekend, in the form of Games Day UK. It's a first time for my brother and I, but more importantly perhaps, it's going to be the first time one of us will be entering Golden Daemon! More on that in a minute, though.
Here's to more hobby than you can shake a gnoblar at!
~MyBlueOblivion

Showcase: Farseer

Another showcase from my growing Eldar army today, in the shape of my farseer. Of the several different makes of farseer that GW make, this one has got to be my favourite. The pose and flow of the model is just plain gorgeous, and it was a real treat to paint.
In particular, I wanted to try to refine my blending techniques, and to try out a technique for painting crystal weapons that I found in White Dwarf a few months ago. Here's a brief rundown on painting the model, starting from a black basecoat:
The white sections of the robe started with a coat of Astronomican Grey, followed by a thinned down wash of Badab Black. This was then highlighted with a layer of Fortress Grey, before two thin coats of Skull White were applied. The red waistband and wrist banding were painted in Red Gore, then highlighted in four stages by adding increasing amounts of Elf Flesh to the first colour. This was then finished with a wash of Leviathan Purple, to add depth to the colour, and a good deep set of shading.
The black sections were highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Codex Grey and Chaos Black around the edges, followed by Codex Grey, then Fortress Grey, each stage getting progressively thinner. These sections were then given a coat of Badab Black, to combine the highlights.
The green cloak was tricky. I started with a coat of thrakka Green, to get a nice deep shade in the cloak recesses. I then layered on Dark Angels Green, then blended on about seven more layers, through steadily lighter mixes of Dark Angels and Snot Green, until the most raised edges were highlighted in pure Snot Green. A fun tip for blending is to tie the layers together visually by going slightly lighter than you normally would, then tying the whole shebang together with a wash of the darkest colour, very VERY thinned down into a glaze... foundation paints aren't great for this, though, so the glaze was Dark Angels Green.
The crystal blade technique is fairly tricky, but soooo worth the effort... it goes something like this: start with a coat of 50/50 Hawk Turquoise and Space Wolf Grey. Each time the object you are painting changes aspect or facet, the colour will alternate between light and dark... see the photos below for an idea on what I mean. So pick where the 'light' on your model is coming from, and highlight accordingly. For the dark sections, add a small amount of Regal Blue to the original mix, and blend it toward the centre of the dark sections. With each stage, add more Regal, until you get pure Regal Blue in the very centres of each 'lowlight'.
For the light sections, first start by increasing the amount of Space Wolves Grey, until you have pure Space Wolves Grey; use this to hard-edge highlight the very edges of the item you are painting, too. Then start highlighting further, adding small amounts of Skull White each time, until the final highlight is pure Skull White. Finally, add small reflective stripes to the dark sections of the item; again, see the pics below... they aren't amazing, but as always they're the best of a bad bunch :)
All comments are welcome, as ever. Hope you like the pics.
~MyBlueOblivion

Showcase: Avatar of Khaine

Second in my Eldar showcase is my Avatar of Khaine. Almost as soon as Forgeworld released this larger, updated version, I knew I had to have one; it's a gorgeous remake of a classic model. Having one to hand for my army is also very thematic, as Biel-tan seem to field these combat monsters as a matter of course.
First things first, I decided that such a gorgeous model needed a bit more work on its base than I'd normally go for... that said, I'm taking the Eldar up to what I call 'showcase standard', so its geting a lot more work than a normal playing army overall. After building the Avatar, I first added one of the small Isha statuettes from the Dire Avengers kit. This looked a bit odd standing on its own, so I struck on the idea of it being part of a larger ruin. Some carefully applied Green Stuff later, and I'd sculpted a kind of ruined 'step' onto one side of the base. It looks a little like the Avatar just stepped down from it, so maybe it's the edge of a part-ruined webway portal... or something like that! I then added a resin Space Wolf icon from the scenic basing kit - those kits are brilliant, and for the price you pay contain a tonne of bits - and I couldn't help having a dig at my brother's Wolves :).
The paint scheme was started from a white basecoat, which is a bit unusual for me as I prefer starting with Chaos Black. The cracks and rents over the model's body were painted first, starting with Blazing Orange, blending upward through Golden Yellow to Sunburst Yellow, then to Skull White in the deepest parts of the model... kind of 'reverse highlighting'.
The raised sections of armour started with a coat of Scab Red, then was blended through Red Gore to Blood Red towards the plate edges. A fine line of Blazing Orange was then added to the edges of each plate, before a thinned down wash in 50/50 Baal Red and Devlan Mud.
Originally, the Wailing Doom (the beasty's sword) was painted in a Charadon Granite-based scheme. Just recently, though, while painting my army's Farseer, I came across a fun painting article in White Dwarf... it's in the Beastmen release article, if you fancy a look. I liked the effect on the Farseer so much, that I decided to try it out on the Avatar. The end result is striking, and actually lightens up the colour scheme of the model.
Lastly, the hieroglyphic markings on the Avatar's - Horns? Antlers? - and the glyphs on his loincloth were painted on freehand. Again, it's advisable to mark out where your icon is going, to make it easier to keep the symbol neat; myself, I just go for it. In the end, go with whatever you feel most comfortable with, but don't be afraid to push the envelope... you won't know what you can do until you try!
~MyBlueOblivion