How to Make Your Own Iconography and Put It On... Stuff, Pt. 1

This is the start of a series on making iconography for use with fine-scale miniatures - in this case, I'm specifically creating iconography for use with my Warhammer 40K Chaos Space Marine Warband, the Disciples of the Four. Ideally, I'll be covering a number of things:

• How to create an icon in a paint program
• How to transfer a saved icon via a Laser copier/printer
• How to transfer a saved icon image from your computer via an inkjet printer
• How to transfer a saved icon onto other mediums

 For the sake of starting somewhere, I'll assume that anyone reading this is at least computer-savvy (it's posted online, after all) and has access to some sort of image/photo editing/creation software. There's a number of programs out there, from the oft-overlooked MS Paint that comes with Windows, to image editing software available for download from the internet for free/shareware use (GIMP springs to mind, for one), to full-blown (and generally) expensive professional-grade image editing/illustration programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. In the example pics, I'm using Paint Shop Pro 7 - it's quite a few years old now but was more or less comparable to Adobe Photoshop at the time, and the rights are currently owned by Corel with the recent iteration emasculated and stripped down into strictly a photo editing suite. In other words, it doesn't necessarily matter what software you use (old or new), but there's certain things I'm going to be demonstrating and if your own program can't do them you're going to have to either get creative or find some other workaround. If there's any questions about any of my steps, by all means feel free to ask me!

 This is what your own image editing/illustration program ought to be able to do in order to replicate what I'm going to show: use image resolution of higher than 300 pixels per inch, save your images in a higher resolution format, and be able to save your image with actual transparency as opposed to dithering (if you want your final insignia to have uneven shapes w/ crisp edges, that is). Ideally, you'd be able to draw using vectors, multiple layers, and both background and layer transparency (whether via alpha channel or by default) as it makes things much easier and allows for many more options in what you can put in your iconography.


Here is the example I will be using for the remainder of the tutorial:

 The entire image was drawn on a transparent background, as I wanted to use 4 spiked cog shapes to represent the 4 Chaos Powers in 40K that my Chaos Marines worship. I went through quite a few test designs - adjusting the length of the spikes, the shape of the spikes, the size of the circles, their relationship to each other, etc. before finally settling on at least the design of the 4 cogs. My version of Paint Shop Pro allows you to draw images formed out of multiple vector "parts," group them, and then save them altogether as a reuseable "preset shape." Since the shoulder pad color for my Chaos Marine Warband is purple, I wanted to have white iconography - but for the sake of printing on white decal paper, also went with a thin black outline for all the shapes.

 What you can see here is one of the spiked cog shape layers "opened up," showing the component vector parts of the design - a hollow circle and eight evenly spaced triangles. As the "spiked cog" preset shape, though, it's an easy thing to rotate and resize things - so what the rest of the picture shows is that the overall spiked cog design is actually made up of two sets of 4 cogs: one white, which is the actual insignia design; one black, which has each of its spiked cogs centered under a white one and at a slightly larger size. The 45° angled lines in the background on the underlying "Alignment" layer are there for the sake of having the iconography itself aligned evenly, to a certain extent, even though the spikes on the cogs themselves are of different widths, lengths, and overall "balance" - that's how I'm hoping to get across the sense of "chaos" in the imagery although the icon itself is proportionately spaced so as to be "aesthetically pleasing." That's the idea, anyhow.

 It wasn't until I printed out the design and tried cutting it out that I realized that although trimming around all the individual spikes was manageable (for me, anyways, although I'm told I have a higher tolerance for mindless tedium than some), it was going to take so long across an entire army's worth of shoulder pad insignia that it was more trouble than it was worth. Rather than scrap the entire design, as I rather liked it after all the work I put in, I decided instead to add a colored background to fill in some of the space and cut down on the overall "pointiness" of things. I actually was inspired by an image of the Omega/Swan Nebula (M17) that I found on the official Hubble Space Telescope site, which is the "Image" layer after some trimming and tweaking. To put a black edge around the colored area and blend everything together, I used a hollowed-out partially transparent color gradient - the "Shadow" layer.

 This is where problems started to crop up. Although I had created everything as vector graphics for transparency and accuracy across multiple formats, when I went to flatten my design to a standard image in normal resolution so as to make it printable on a decal sheet (or other medium) it ended up pixellating things so horribly as to make the end result ugly and useless for anything.
In effect, I went from this:

To this:

 Not so good, obviously. I figured out an easy enough workaround, though, which was simply to save the original 600 pixels/inch resolution vector image at the actual size I created it in (2.117cm x 2.117cm) and then import that into another program where I could not only create a sheet format suitable for decal printing but also resize images as vectors without losing resolution or image quality. For reference's sake, the image format I used to keep layers/transparency and resolution intact was Portable Network Graphics (.png) format and the program I was able to use for accurate resizing and layout was MS Word - I've created an Adobe format for my decal sheet since, but I didn't have access to a .pdf editor at the time. In any case, the important thing when I imported the graphics into Word was to set the Measurement units of the particular document into Millimeters - as seen below, but File Options may vary depending on version and program used:

 At this point, it was just simply a matter of importing in multiple copies of different icon styles I wanted to print out in multiple - some with background, some without, some with a single spiked "cog," etc. - and lay them out as needed, and then use Word itself to adjust the image size to what I needed. As can be seen in the below picture, I settled on a height of slightly larger than 7mm (or 4% the height of my original image) for my particular icon - a perfect fit for the available space on my Chaos Space Marine shoulder pads:

 In the image before, the careful observer will note that I have the sheet labeled "Print as A5" - that was the original size of the white-background decal paper I was able to lay hands on. Ideally, you can lay out the format of your Word (or Adobe) document to suit whatever size you'd be printing to. I ended up moving everything to a "Letter" size 8 1/2" x 11" format for the final version. I saved my finished document file on a flash drive, took it to a copy center, and had it printed in color laser format onto a "Letter" size white-background decal sheet.

 It was several years before I made it to the point where I actually used one of my decals on a finished figure, but this is how the "single spiked cog" variety turned out:

 I hope this was some help to anyone trying to make printable insignia or other items for fine-scale models. As always, comments and feedback are appreciated!

The Disciples of the Four Ride Back Bedraggled!

The following is a Warhammer 40K battle report, so for folks reading who don't play that tabletop game, there's a lot of specific lingo - I'd like to think I wrote things up so they're easy to follow, though.

 So it's been a few weeks since I posted my army list and wrote up about intended plans to conquer and humiliate a friend's Warhammer 40K army in the name of the gods of Chaos using a small no-fuss starter list. I haven't had much time to sit down with a clear mind and write up a battle report, but today's that day, friends!

 Well, the overall result was that the Disciples lost. I don't consider it a sound beating, though, and I'm not going to say that the dice weren't completely unfavorable - it was more a combination of things. (You can see my army list here: The Disciples of the Four Ride Forth Again!) I managed to keep things going (on less and less of a roll as time went on) and my army ended up getting whittled down completely by the end of turn 4.

 My friend fielded a pretty solid list of Space Wolves - a Wolf Guard Battle Leader fronting a small squad of Blood Claws, two small squads of Grey Hunters, and a Dreadnought - not being so familiar with the Space Wolves of 6th Edition 40K, I didn't exactly know what I was up against. We rolled off to see who went first, it ended up being him and me not able to steal initiative. By way of explanation, all I've ever played the few times I've played 40K, it's just been generic "annihilation" missions where I straightforwardly try to cut down the opponent - this time we had decided on claiming table objectives, 4 of them with random properties once discovered. I went with a strategy of "charge in and cut them down" while trying to dispute his objective claiming - it worked (at least initially)!

 In hindsight, I made some bad decisions in planning for a game other than "Annihilation" - I likely could've gone without transports, I could've went with cheaper troops, I should've picked better targets to start with; who knew? My plan was to rush the Rhino troop transports forward, pop smoke grenades for cover, disembark using the Rhinos as cover for my troops, and then charge a good target with my Lord and Berzerkers. The rest of the troops in the other Rhino would do similar so far as using the Rhino for cover, except hold in cover and act as a gunline.

 The first turn, my non-'Zerker Rhino lost a hull point and was immobilized between autocannon shots from the Space Wolf Dreadnought and a Plasma Gun in each group of Grey Hunters. I moved my Rhino full of "choppiness" up and deployed the Lord and Berzerkers with the Rhino for cover. Since I couldn't move right away, we exchanged pot shots and I killed off a Blood Claw or two. I kept the gunline CSM's in the other Rhino within the deployment zone.

 Second turn, I was able to charge with my Lord and 'Zerkers - in hindsight I should've went after the Dread and took that out right away between the Melta-bombs and increased Strength on the charge. No, instead I waded into close combat with the Blood Claws and got about 20 hits on them taking out only a few Claws - armor saves were coming out well for his guys in droves... Under the 6th Ed. CSM rules, my Lord has to make Challenges... so then I ran into his Wolf Guard Battle Leader: a guy with a Frost Axe (now an AP2 power axe), a magic necklace so he always hit on a 3+ in CC, magic power armor so he had a 2+ save against all conventional damage, and at least 3 attacks per turn. Needless to say my Lord didn't last so long, but at least his Ichor Blood splattering everywhere when he died killed off a few more Blood Claws. Oh, and my other Rhino was able to move forward and drop a smoke screen - because I moved so far, all I could get was a Meltagun snap shot and a Krak grenade at the Dread, but at least I knocked it down a hull point.

 The third turn, his Dreadnought blew up my assault troops' Rhino in a volley of gunfire and I lost one Berzerker in the blast. Did I mention each of his Grey Hunter squads had a Plasma Gun? Yeah? Well, they blew up the 2nd Rhino with rapid firing before my troops could deploy and I lost a few of them due to failed armor saves. I lost a few more of them from firing from his other Hunter squad and their Plasma Gun overheated - but his Hunter made the armor save. His Wolf Guard Battle Leader moved on from the remains of my Chaos Lord and started chopping down all my remaining Berzerkers with help from the few remaining Blood Claws, starting with the Berzerker Champion who was obligated to make a challenge. I managed to knock his Dread down another hull point with another Meltagun shot as I figgered that it was the most significant threat to my remaining troops, but that was about it.

 Fourth turn? My opponent's Dreadnought turned its full attention to my regular CSM's, who despite moving into cover and getting a better bonus cover save from the claimed objective, basically started dying en masse. Following a hail of fire from both the Grey Hunter squads, the Disciples of the Four ended up as nothing but a mass of corpses on a battlefield.

 Was the game a complete embarrassment? No, I don't think so - we both had fun and since we're both pretty rusty on the rules, we learned a lot about the new 6th Edition's gameplay. Are there some things I should've done differently? Oh, most certainly... targeting the Dreadnought first with a charge instead of the unit with the attached Battle Leader might've been good. Dropping the Chainaxes for some extra points and more troops? Sure. Forgoing vehicles entirely? Quite possibly, as I would've had more guns to fire. Not even using Berzerkers? I like them, but they do cost a fair amount of points and in this small game I probably would've had similar (if not better) results with a lot more regular Chaos Marines and extra close combat weapons.

 Let me know what you readers think! This was my first game in 6th Edition 40K, I have a minimum of models (because, well, I'm more of a display figure painter than an army builder), and I'd say my tactics definitely need work. I did have fun and my friend was a good opponent, so ideally we'd be getting in another game soonish, schedules permitting.

The Disciples of the Four Ride Forth Again!

 I'm planning on playing my first official game of 40K today in about 2 years under the newest 6th Ed. ruleset. A friend and I are only playing a 500pt starter game (as my "finished" model selection is somewhat lacking), but I'm so geeked about tonight!

 It will be my CSM's versus (presumably) vanilla SM's (or possibly Space Wolves) - any play suggestions or gaming tips for a relative newbie would be greatly appreciated!

Here's my army list:

=HQ=
Chaos Lord
- Power flail (power mace, essentially, but my finished Chaos Lord fig has a flail modeled, so...)
- Melta Bombs
- Ichor Blood
- Veteran of the Long War
- Mark of Khorne
105 pts.

=Troops=
8 Chaos Space Marines
- Meltagun
- Veterans of the Long War
Chaos Rhino transport
- extra Combi-bolter
172 pts.

6 Khorne Berzerkers
Skull Champ (couldn't resist, prefer it to Berzerker Champ)
- Power Weapon
- Melta Bombs
- 5 Chainaxes
- Veterans of the Long War
- Icon of Wrath
Chaos Rhino transport
- extra Combi-bolter
220 pts.

Total: 497 pts.

 My thinking is to have the Lord grouped with the Berzerkers, roll them all up in the Rhinos from as far forward as I can field them, and pop smoke grenades for cover.

The next turn, I'll have the Berzerkers and Lord charge into CC against something dangerous. If it ends up being Bjorn the Fell-Handed or something, between the added weapon strength on the charge from the Lord and/or the combination of Melta Bombs, then they ought to crack it open given enough time. Meanwhile, the CSM's deploy out from within 24" using the Rhino or terrain for cover and lay down as much fire as they can (ideally Rapid Fire range) with a Melta for support if anything heavy shows up via Deep Strike or what have you.

 This is a variation of a list I fielded in 5th Edition at a gaming shop again some random guy, where I had a Slaaneshi Lord with a generic Daemon Weapon paired up with my Berzerkers - first charge against my opponent's troops, I had something like 19-20 attacks and chopped up most of his Space Wolves into tiny pieces. He had also fielded Bjorn the Fell-Handed and I ended up immobilizing him before engaging in close combat, but it turned out my opponent was a bit of a poor sport and insisted that despite being immobilized, his Dread was still able to turn to face my troops from any side where they couldn't dent his armor and so I eventually moved off opposite a hill out of LoS of Bjorn with my remaining troops, so the game was pretty much a and he complained about how I should've stayed and fought. (I afterwards read the 5th Ed. rulebook more specifically and realized he actually was playing unfair with Bjorn so far as immobilization and facing, and this same immobilized Dread rule carries forward into 6th Ed.)

 In any case, I added extra Melta Bombs on the Lord and a +Strength weapon to make sure that doesn't happen again, and I'm hoping that anything the Berzerker crew can't take care of, the remaining CSM gunline can with support from the double-bolstered Rhinos (if they survive).

 Like I said, comments and any suggestions on the tentative army would be great, and I'm trying to get my painting mojo back so I can finish up the CoC figures I have pending (from previous posts) - the customer said there's no rush on them and I've been busy with work and family
(and "painter's block"), but despite that I want to be respectable and get his commission done as quickly and as well as I can.

Inducted Space Wolves Berzerker (and a Friend)

I kicked around a couple of ideas for the Aquila color on the inducted Space Wolves Berzerker, and in the end decided I'd see what would happen with taking one of my usual bone basecoat color and adding metallic medium to it. A little bit of highlighting, a wash or two of the same blood colors I'm using for the Berzerker armor, basecoating the brass trim, and some tidying/clarifying of the beard brings things to this point:

Specifically, I used 1:1 GW Vomit Brown/VMC Metallic Medium as a basecoat for the SW chest decoration, shaded a bit with GW Gryphonne Sepia, and then brushed on a few shading washes of the dried blood color I'm using on the non-grey parts of his armor.

The other Berzerker has his armor painted (not highlighted) and the basecoat applied on the brass trim. I'd ideally like to do something for the clawed hand along the color of this guy's face: http://www.coolminiornot.com/202765

I'm having a hard time trying to figure out the actual colors of the face on the Bloodletter CMON link I posted - it's an older paintjob, so I'm assuming some sort of grey/Bleached Bone mixture highlighted up to white. If I were to replicate it, maybe GW Dheneb Stone/grey highlighted up through Bleached Bone > Skull White, or do you all suppose that would that look a little wonky?

Wow... A Work-In-Progress Converted Khorne Berzerker

 Well, I've been out of the hobby awhile. Lack of motivation, poor mental outlook, a lot of personal stuff going on, etc. I've not painted any figures from my Chaos Warband since, oh, October? One big thing contributing to my general lack of motivation was my belief that I had my Kroot Hound (the one that won Honorable Mention at the 2008 Chicago GD) stolen from a Military & Historical Collectible show in November of last year that I took some figures to when I went along with a local painting club - turns out I found it last week buried in an underlying area of my figure case... restored some of my faith in painting/humanity.

 I put brush to figure last night with one Khorne Berzerker conversion I had the sudden urge to paint - my painting area's been in disarray since a basement renovation but I decided to ignore the clutter and take a stab at painting again. Man, I feel rusty and out of practice!

 The color looks quite a bit off compared to the figure on my end, unfortunately, because my photo setup is dismantled and I need to get things back together. I also forgot how I used to edit and balance my photos, it's been so long... I was aiming for a lighter Space Wolves Chapter color scheme, like the near-white they used to use way back when (1992 or so?). I settled on a halfway point between the current primarily GW Shadow Grey scheme and a mixture of GW Space Wolves Grey and GW Skull White.

 I'm not sure what color to paint the decoration on the chest armor - gold? copper? bronze? Suggestions would be appreciated, because I'm not sure what the current standard is (this is a 3rd Ed. chest piece and I don't see any of this style in the recent Codex). Thanks!

Hobby Tip - Night Lords' Lightning Effect

 I haven't had time to do much in the way of hobby stuff lately, but I've been wanting to try painting this for weeks now and I'm curious what you all think:

Here's how I painted the Night Lords lightning effect:

• First I painted a thinned color for an overall appearance of "electrical haze" or "glow." I used GW Enchanted Blue thinned down to a 1:4 paint/thinner consistency and applied this with a 2/0 brush so as it have a "backdrop" color to paint everything else on. I didn't want this to look solid (hence the translucent paint) but I did want it to serve as an overall "outline" for the two subsequent colors.
• Secondly I went back with thinned Electric Blue (in a 1:4 paint/thinner ratio again) - it's an old, old color so a good substitute would be 1:1 Enchanted Blue/Ice Blue, I dare say. With this step I used a fine (#0000) point brush and more or less stippled a random, crackling line within the previous haze color. I intentionally kept it patchy and wavy while still trying to follow a more or less continuous arcing path - the next and last color I would say is the most important, as it's the "heart" of the electrical effect.
• Lastly, I applied fine stippling with thinned GW Ice Blue (1:4 paint/thinner ratio again) and just tried to make it look like crackling electricity - I didn't necessarily keep to the exact center of the previous two colors laid down, but I didn't stray outside of them. I made a few passes with just tiny dots of the brush, until I got to the point where it looked like a fine (if fuzzy) line with a few patchy gaps here and there. Done!

A Little Night Lords Freehand

 It's been a busy past month or so, what with colds, computer troubles, and a lot of other distractions. I had some free time the other day, though, and decided to do a little freehand on the inducted Night Lords Chaos Marine for my warband:

 I wasn't really happy with the finished result at first, since I'm always noticing areas where I could touch things up or improve on mistakes. Barring a little tidying up of the teeth so things are a hair more centered, though, I think my first stab at freehand in a long while came out reasonably well.

 The base color for the skull was P3 'Jack Bone and I added in some Vallejo Model Air Burnt Umber for shading around the edges, since I already had some on my palette from work on a historical 54mm Mexican War figure I'm taking a stab at. I went back and did extra shading and glazing with GW's Badab Black Wash, which I think makes an excellent color for tidying up once you wick away most of the liquid. Not really visible here is the left side of the Mk. VI Space Marine helmet, where I had to get a little creative with the bone color of the helmet since it intersected a number of vertical vents modeled on the helm.

 I'm curious what people think of the overall look, between the now-painted skull and the decayed bat wings on the helmet that I took from a Grave Guard figure out of GW's Fantasy line - does he look sufficiently "Night Lords"-ish, barring missing shoulderpads and backpack, and the eventual obligatory painted lightning?


[Edit] I tidied up the freehand a bit, especially in the lower part of the skull design, because I just wasn't happy with the overall centering of it on the helmet. From feedback of it looking three-dimensional on the figure (I'm sure most of that was the angled front view, but still...) I figgered I'd run with that a little bit more, so I increased the contrast by adding extra highlights where they would naturally fall on a sculpted skull and deepening the false shading a bit moreso.

 Here is a picture from a different angle to show off the design more as it sits on the helmet, and with hopefully a little bit less glare from my photo box lighting reflecting off the currently glossy finish of the paint:

 The feedback (and views) are definitely appreciated - it's nice to know people are getting something out of my little corner of the internet here. [/Edit]

A Bloodgor Packmaster (WIP?)

 I've more or less finished my conversion of a 40K Chaos Beastman as the Packmaster for a herd of Bloodgor (read: Khorne-worshipping Beastmen) to be allied with my CSM army at some point down the line. This 40K guy is one that I want to paint up for competiton and eventually use as a "leader" in my 40K force, but I'll likely be subbing him for a Khorne Berzerker until such time as I can model up his friends - it might be years with the time I've got to do hobby stuff nowadays.

 One thing I don't like is how far forward the stock figure pose itself leans, especially with swapping out the chest armor, but I can't really change that without changing the whole dynamic of the figure - it wasn't originally meant to be that involved a conversion. I tried to limit that some by leaning him back a little on the base, and I'll just fill in under his raised feet with rubble when it comes time to basing him. The chest armor itself is meant to look like the midsection was cut out roughly after it was taken from its original wearer, so as to allow this guy to put it on. The shoulder pad is theoretically strapped on - or however SM's mount them to their separate shoulder armor. I wanted both to look rugged, like this guy's been through years of fighting and doesn't much care about keeping his armor in top condition. (I generally do weathering and battle damage on my miniatures prior to painting, as I like the realistic texture.)

 Any and all feedback would be great! I'm wondering whether he looks good enough now or whether I ought to be adding "more decoration" since he's ideally the Packmaster of a Bloodgor horde by dominance and skill at fighting - at least that's how I'd imagine they'd determine rank. There's a skull on a chain dangling from his waist in the back that isn't too visible in this picture - does he need more "trophies" or is the "appropriated" Space Marine armor and (Old School™) Imperial Guard gear sufficient? I'd considered putting studs on the back of the plate on his pistol hand, since it originally came from a SM - I filed down the finger ridges so it looks like it could be flesh, but do I need to differentiate the hand any more from its original source? (I'm going to paint it metallic rather than the same color as the SM gear, whatever that turns out to be.)

 I'm also trying to figure out what color to paint the Marine armor, since I'd ideally like a good contrast between any blood and filth painted on it; Imperial Fists, maybe, or perhaps White Scars? Anyone have any Marine Chapters they really don't like and would want to see "defiled?"

More (unpainted) Khorne Berzerkers?

 Trying to take advantage of the "forced" motivation from a soon-to-start painting competition over at the Relicnews Painting & Modeling Forum, I'm putting up my long-untouched Berzerkers on the block as an entry to try and get them done. Most are glued and have the detail work finished (scars, scratches, chipped armor, etc.), but a few are just held together with putty for posing purposes and still need some love.

The rogue's gallery in question:

 They are a mixed bunch, with one inducted former Space Wolf (wolf-head backpack not pictured) and the stand-in for my Skull Champ w/ Power Fist (he'll be demoted eventually, when I finish a planned conversion, but does nicely for right now) - the rest are more or less straight-up "vanilla" Berzerkers aside from some conversion and reposing. With these guys done, that'll be a full squad in play for my Disciples of the Four, with the Slanneshi Chaos Lord from the last update leading them at the front.

Slaanesh Chaos Lord, leading the Disciples of the Four

Here's pictures of my finished GW Chaos Lord w/ Mark of Slaanesh and "Blissgiver" Daemon Weapon:

 For starters, I'm glad I was able to repair damage from my first attempt at using waterslide decals on a figure - his hood, specifically. It turned out a little wonky texture-wise from all the stripped paint, but I painted up the rough patches to look like more warts and scarring along the lines of the rest of the figure. (Guess this means I can now go and finish up a way-old tutorial on making custom decals/insignia, yay!)

 I painted the Daemon Weapon with a slight purple tinge, with the metal going up to a white metallic color - same as the round decorative insignia pieces on his torso. I figgered since it's supposed to be a "Blissgiver," some exotic coloration was called for (outside of the grip, which I tried to paint up as being made from tanned human leather).

 With the hood I had a hard time settling on a color scheme - I was originally going to paint it white/pale, but that was just too heavy with negative connotations in my mind (think Southeastern US white supremacist group-esque) and so I ended going with pale pink. That later changed with washes and such to more of an appropriate (in my mind) fleshy color, so I'm going with fluff that the hood is made also out of tanned human leather.

 I painted the grip of his scourge and the holster of the bolter to look like tanned human leather as well, since the orangey-reddish base balances out the other colors in theory. I'm curious to hear how folks think they turned out.

 I've been painting this guy up in fits and starts for a long while now in trying to drag my way out of a depression and a whole lot of being overwhelmed with life in general. I'm not quite there yet, but at least I've got a finished figure to show for it!

 Overall, I'd say I put the most difference in contrast in this figure compared to anything else I've yet painted - a lot of areas go from near-white (or even pure white) for highlights to near-black colors for shading. Again, I'm curious as to how folks think that turned out. He's going to be the (current) centerpiece of my tabletop CSM army-in-progress, so I figgered I'd give him some extra attention over the rank 'n' file - probably make him one big shooting magnet, but c'est la vie! (Props to Secret Weapon Miniatures, too, since I think the converted base from the older Urban Streets line turned out nicely.)

Feedback - the more detailed the better - would be appreciated!

My First Finished Berzerkers

 I finished these last night to serve as part of the advance guard of my Chaos Space Marine Warband (I also finished a "vanilla" Ultramarine Missile Launcher trooper from the Macragge set, but he was taken out back by these guys and shot or something).

 The first one is an inducted Ultramarine, and so I'm using a split scheme where he still has defiled Ultramarine colors, gear in the accent color of my Disciples of the Four Warband, and red armor that's been overpainted on his original coloration so as to signify his role as a Berzerker.

 The second is an outright Khorne Berzerker, but I decided I wanted to go with a darker blood-red coloration than the brighter red that many seem fond of using. Posing-wise, there's no conversion - about the main difference between this and any other trooper (aside from the stock Berzerker signifiers) is the shoulder pad panels painted with a background in the accent color of my Warband.


 I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions on these guys, as I'm making a definite attempt to paint to more of a "tabletop" painting standard than a "display" standard as is my usual:

   

 

Chainsword or Power Weapon?

I'm not going to lie and say it's a deep moral quandary keeping me up at night - although technically it's 3am and I've woken up for no good reason, so I figgered I'd make it worthwhile.

The "moral dilemma," then: Chainsword or Power Weapon? You decide!

I'm also curious what people think of the weathering on the chain blade "housing" (the formerly white part of his, er, former hand) - I'm trying out a new technique of sorts that I previously only used for bone.

Hobby Tip - Painting 40K Shoulder Pads

 Now I'm not sure about anyone else (mainly because I don't know many other painters), but I prefer to paint and prime the shoulder pads (and backpacks) separate from the figure, primarily because I like to make sure the figure itself gets as much paint and primer coverage right from the get go. Maybe I'm finicky, but it kind of bothers me if I know that I don't have at least a shade coat in the areas that aren't very visible - since I don't use black primer, this is maybe more relevant, because white primer glinting out brightly from crevices is a little jarring.

 Anyways, I paint shoulder pads separately, and a while back I settled on a good way to paint the pads after priming without them touching or resting on anything and thus not getting good coverage themselves. When priming, I use two-sided masking tape and stick them to a paper plate on an angle. It lets me turn the plate 360° and get the pads from all sides, and get both bottom and back edges after a quick flip over once the first coat's dry.

For applying actual paint, I use the following method:


 I attach the back of the pads to a coffee stirrer or something similar with poster putty (in the case of the image, they're stuck to the end of plungers from the 1mL syringes I use for measuring out paint ratios, using UHU-Tac reuseable putty) so that way I get 360° access to them when I'm painting, and can simply set the whole thing down to dry - post, pad, and all, when I'm done applying a color. I can do a bunch of 'em assembly-line style, as they don't take up a lot of room, and by the time I get done applying color to the end of the row, the ones from the beginning of the row will be dry. Two of these will be going on the Berzerker from my Disciples of the Four warband, as seen in the top-right of the picture, while the other two are saved for his friend, the inducted Ultramarine Berzerker I showed some while back - they're both nearly done, and should be getting pictures posted "soonish".

The Seductively Aggressive Berzerker of Khorne

 Apparently there was some problem with the HTML coding in my painting website which caused everyone viewing it with MS Internet Explorer to see the news blog on the main page in only a 2-inch band or so. I trimmed out a few things and it seems to be working properly now. On that happy note, here's a figure I prepped and glued together last night who has a personal inquiry:

"Do you want some candy?"

One Lonely Khorne Berzerker Revisited

 I first posted a picture of the solid-color Berzerker in a post last week. Well, I've started in on outright painting, mostly because I'm using this guy as a color test for another commission figure. The red armor is partially shaded at this point, and the brass is simply basecoated with a shade color. (Man, I wish metallics covered better, but I guess I can't complain with only two thinned coats of a brass-brown mixture doing the job.)

Here he is in all his blood red Berzerker glory:

 I'm aiming for more of a dried blood color with the Berzerkers in my warband, just because everything else is likely going to be bright colors (like inducted Loyalists) or faded and/or pastel colored (like any generic "Lesser Daemons," maybe, one of which my recently-posted Plaguebearer might eventually become).

One Lonely Khorne Berzerker

 This was only supposed to be just a picture of the inducted Ultramarine Berzerker in my Disciples of the Four Chaos warband, but in true 'zerker style a friend muscled his way into the photo shoot:

 I'm hoping I've got the red down reasonably well - I'm a little ambivalent about a slog through the reds-into-oranges on these guys (all future 'zerkers included) as I've been there before with an all-red squad (Vior'la Tau), but the biggest part of the work was taken care of with the airbrush. Now I just need to add highlights and details.

 The red look about right? (It's roughly an accurate match from my monitor to my figures this time around, surprisingly!) I'm not necessarily aiming for a garish bright red, but more for the color of blood. I used a mixture of Red Gore, Scorched Brown, and Mechrite Red to try and get good coverage - I figger it should be somewhat of a darker mid-range basecoat color.

Plaguebearer WIP [Update 4/26/2010]

 Well, I figger I'm about done with this guy. I went for dirtier bandages - weeping wounds underneath and stuff like that would be a bit much effort, I think, since I'm just painting this guy up as a color test for a commission piece I'm working on simultaneously. I tried painting actual brass for the first time on this guy using an actual brass-colored paint (P3 Brass Balls! Woo!) - my Golden Demon Skaven Warlord brass areas had a make-do attempt using a mixture of Dwarf Bronze and Black, but I think I like the lighter, more gold-toned version here better since I was actually able to dirty it down and get better contrast between the edges and the main color, I think.

 I also highlighted up the wounds, but they looked too awkward and stood out too much - a glaze of green over the figure and into the depressions again seems to have evened things out. I'm not about to go back and highlight the entire figure, since I really just want this guy at tabletop level or so (although there's been a few more steps involved, I don't think I'll be repeating this scheme on any of the other 9 Plaguebearers I now own.)

 I'm curious to hear what you all think of the maggot coming out of his mouth. Staring at a reference picture of a pile of 'em trying to get the colors right was a little awkward, especially since my wife is squeamish about them and caught sight of the color picture sitting on the printer before I took it down to my painting den quick-like. (She gives her thanks, folks! Heh.)

  Anyone have an opinion on basing color for him? I'm thinking a neutral cooler color of some sort (like flat brown dirt, maybe?) or something along those lines. I want him to be standing on something like urban ruins, wreckage, debris, or exploded earth - a 40K battlefield appearance to go along with the rest of my Chaos force, in other words. Painting concrete my usual way would make his base as underlying red as this guy already is (but he's got a lot of green over the top of that, so I dunno). I really don't want him overwhelmingly green/red, so I'm open to suggestions... maybe blacktop, which I painted the basing of my first Chaos Space Marine to resemble? Again, I dunno.

The Disciples of the Four, Revised

I've kinda settled on a 1,000pt. tentative Chaos Space Marine army list making some revisions to my last army layout - I've gotten 2 games under my belt now under the new Edition and played polar opposite 500 pt. armies: an all-Warrior Tyranid list and a Space Wolves force fielding Bjorn, an Iron Priest, and squads of Long Fangs. My battle with the 'Nids was one-sided in their favor, but I ended up playing a draw against the Wolves and there were some stupid things I did (or didn't do, just as likely) in both games that I shouldn't repeat.

=HQ=
Undivided Chaos Lord
- Daemon Weapon
- Combi-melta
140 pts.

=Troops=
6 Khorne Berzerkers
- Skull Champion
-- Power Fist
Rhino w/ twin-linked bolter
201 pts.

10 Chaos Marines
- Icon of Chaos Glory
- Meltagun
- Meltagun
180 pts.

=Heavy Support=
5 Havocs
- 4 Missile Launchers
Rhino w/ twin-linked bolter
- Havoc Launcher
205 pts.

Defiler
- 2 Extra close combat arms
150 pts.

=Fast Attack=
3 Chaos Spawn
120 pts.

Total: 996 pts.

I'd really appreciate feedback on the list, especially if you could give some of the reasoning behind your suggestions. (I'm trying to pick up as much knowledge here about army list composition as I can, since I don't have a lot of actual playing experience - 5 games total so far.)

My Army Challenge, Pt. 2

 Well, it's not much of an army and it's got a few stand-ins because I didn't have enough time to finish putting together the conversions (and my wife came home for lunch from work, and it would've been in trouble to not be social) - but it's mine:

 I noticed that I went over in terms of Berzerkers needed points-wise and I need to finagle an Icon of Chaos Glory bearer for the regular CSM's, but assuming I proxy the Vindicator for a plain ol' Rhino, I should be good to go.

My Army Challenge

 Doing the math, I figger it's been about 5 years as of round about this time since I got back into the miniature painting hobby - right off the bat I was painting Warhammer 40K stuff (I started with a Blood Angel and moved right on into some other difficult-to-paint colors, working myself into a corner of display figure painting and a few Demon awards to show for it). I've taken a stab at about 4 armies, most of them still works-in-progress.

 I think it's about time I actually had an army of my own I could use to play the game. I need to quit farting around and actually stick some pieces together, temporary or no, and get sufficient points' worth of plastic bodies to be able to field a starting force - a few vehicles thrown in for variety. The one I've made the most progress on is my Chaos Space Marines - I've got an army list, a tentative tactical plan for how I'm going to deploy my troops, and, more importantly, the expectation that there's going to be a group getting together at a hobby store about 35 minutes away from my house this evening composed of folks I may or may not know from the old now-closed Games Workshop store I used to frequent. (I'd rather attend the supposed Saturday gathering, but I'm going to some seminars/a convention this weekend with my wife, so that's out for this week.)

 The challenge: I'm going to have 500 points assembled by 5:00pm EST this evening. I have no idea what time anyone else is going to be at this gaming store, or even if I'll actually get to play, but I don't care - I'm on a mission... I'll be taking my assembled "beginner" Disciples of the Four CSM army with me when I leave later today.

 The forces of Chaos and their quest for ruin oppose me:

[Edit] (Somebody asked for a screenshot...) [/Edit]