Victory Painting On Instagram

So I set up an Instagram account, where I'll be sharing the odd quick snaps of WIP and the like. Check out what's there at v1ct0ry88, and follow me if your feeling generous.

Cheers

Capt. Tenacity at Heretic Approved

Just a quick link here to a couple of articles by a buddy of mine, Capt. Tenacity, over at Heretic Approved.

The first is on the C'Tan. It's a brilliant read, especially if you're a bit in the dark about Necron lore. Its also pretty damn funny in places!

The second is on The Void Dragon. Now I'm not going to give to much away, I'll leave it to the man himself, but another fascinating read. Spoilers from the Horus Heresy novel Mechanicum inside. This is a really thought provoking article about the whole 40k universe. Brilliant stuff.

So head on over and give these two a read.

Cheers

The Iron Tenth - Slow Progress

Ok, so it's not been a very productive week, but I finally sat down last night, finished the plasticard detailing on the dreads, and tonight, weather permitting, I'll be priming and starting the paint.

I also got this little dude made. Again, more tentacle maker action, this time, I used plastic freezer bag ties rolled the green stuff around them, and the tentaclized them. This means they're quite flexible when dry and still hold their shape when you move them, and they're magnetic. Hope you like him, more pics below.

Cheers

An Early Happy St Patricks Day from Dublin! - Come On You Boyz In Green!

Ok, not boyz in green*, more like green boyz in yellow... but whatever!

This is another post similar to my space wolves one, where i dive into the back of my wardrobe to show off a couple of (relative) oldies - my Bad Moon Orks.

*Actually, the real boyz in green - the Irish Rugby team are playing vs France tomorrow evening, 5pm GMT, to hopefully win the 6 nations, you should all watch it. Seriously. You shouldn't be allowed to celebrate Paddy's Day on Monday if you don't watch this game....

So here's the pics. First up, Big Mek with Kustom Force Field. Based on the AoBR warboss, he's got loads of bitz from the deff dread kit, and large portion of the old gyro copter in metal. Love this guy.

This is a metal Ghazghkull, bit of a pose twist, nothing too fancy. 

Some of da boyz. 

These bike kits are so much fun... Man, I'm thinking about working on orks again now...

Koptas from AoBR. Awesome models too, think the flying bases are long gone, better make some real bases! 

Here's da trukk. Compared to, say, a rhino, this is a helluvah kit!

And finally da wagon. Skrew red, dem yellows go fasta!

I've another wagon and a dakka jet unfinished somewhere... Might have to did them out after that trip down memory lane!

Cheers

Where do Iron Hands Names Come From?

Soooo.... progress on my three Iron Hands dreads has slowed a bit, hoping on getting some work on them done this evening, but no new pics to update you with yet. I have, however, been doing a little research on possible names for them, and of course, my Contemptor. Most Space Marine legions seem to have pretty clear cut origins and inspiration, such as Scandinavia and vikings for Space Wolves, Roman/Greek Ultramarines etc.

Iron Hands, to me, don't seem to follow an obvious pattern. Maybe I'm missing something? The Gorgon, Medusa etc (the Primarch's alias and their homeworld) are Greek of course, but Raukaan, Sorrgol etc.. where do these come from? I read somewhere a suggestion of Turkish origin, but not sure. Anyway, I've decided on a different route. I've basically google translated some Iron Hands related words and phrases into latin (Ferrus Mannus is literally 'Iron Hands' in latin), and from there I'm going to spell and adapt them a bit. So here we have the three I've settled on for these walkers.

English: Forge
Latin Translation: Fornax

English: Iron Wrought
Latin Translation: Ferramenta

English: Iron Clad
Latin Translation: Loricatus

English: Iron Flesh
Latin Translation: Ferrum Carnis

Actually painting these will be another story of course, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it!


I'd love a bit of feedback on these folks. Good idea / bad idea? Cool sounding or total crap? Comments people, comments!


Cheers

The Iron Tenth - Part 4.5

So this is a follow up to the previous post. Decided to try to knock all of these out in one go, so it's going to take a bit longer for the final result but we can see progress on all 3! As I mentioned, I'm working with a Venerable Dread, Ironclad, and the one from the AoBR box set. Let's take a look.

First up the AoBR standard dread. Neat little model, slightly smaller than a stock dreadnought but nothing major. There's also a bit of detail lost due to the way it's cast, but again not a huge deal. All of my dreads arms are magnetised and interchangeable, here we've got an assault cannon and missile launcher.



Need to clean up the arm joins, add some more cabling and plasticard details still. Same goes for this next guy.

This is the venerable base model. I've used the cool powerfist from the Ironclad, and you can see some of the cabling detain in the arm join. Again, more fine details to be added to bring up to par with the happy fellow at the bottom of this post.



Finally, this is our friend from the previous post, now with extra plasticard! Pretty pleased with this guy, looking forward to painting him up.



Still wish I could manage a servo arm for one of these, think that would be really nice, but might have to wait for the next one. Thanks for looking, more to come.

Cheers.

The Iron Tenth - Part 4

This is a quick WIP post of what i'm working on right now, a few more dreads. Again, rules and what they'll actually play as are not high on my list of whats important for these guys - just cool models. I basically have an ironclad, venerable and the one from the assault on black reach kit. So I'm trying to mix and match a bit from these and my bitz box to make a few cool looking walkers. So here's the first so far.

The arms will be interchangeable with others, the right arm weapons can just slide in and out of the shoulder which is really handy. I've angle that right shoulder a bit, still need to neaten that up with some cabling and stuff to make it look strong. The bit of brass is from the 40k basing kit which is suitable iron hands-y, and the plasticard arrow is to represent that this guy was a tactical sergeant or something.

The hip was altered slightly by cutting away some of the joint an cables, the I used my trusty tentacle maker to make green stuff replacements, and a couple of others too to add a bit of detail. I'm running out of iron hands brass icons, so might have to freehand the chapter symbol when painting. Haven't decided on the sarcophagus yet either, might swap that. Any thoughts out there on alternative 'faces' for this dread? My time is at a premium at the moment with work and life etc, hopefully I can keep these guys on the move.

Cheers

My 'First' Army - Space Wolves

After being out of the hobby for 6 or 7 years, I was just browsing in a local newsagent when I came across that month's White Dwarf. It was the month of the Space Wolves re-release, and I was sold on the spot. It's kinda funny looking at it now, but that release, the grey hunter/blood claw box and the terminators seemed to pave the way for some of the incredible new breed of plastic kits. Anyway this was the first 'complete' army I've collected.

There's two of things that are maybe a bit unique about this army. First is the shoulder pads. I made green stuff molds of a wolf's head and used this to create my take on Bran Redmaw's great company. This was, over the course of 60-80ish shoulders, a nightmare. Also, looking back now, I think they kinda look crap the way I painted them, but we live and learn! Secondly, there is nothing metallic in the army. At all. no NMM either. This was a very conscious decision, because I just didn't like all the brass, gold, bronze and silver all mixed in together on the GW models, but again kinda became a pain towards the end. I actually didn't realise until I was taking these pics how many small fiddly bits I've left to finish. Have to finish them off now!

Anyway lets take a look at some of them.

Here are my two rune priests. First is the stock model, a really great model too. The second is a Coteaz conversion, just a head swap and a couple of trinkets. I know he doesn't have a backpack and stuff... but screw it he looks killer.

Wolf guard next, just a couple of the ones I'm most happy with. These are pretty much straight out of the box.


Here's the best, or at least my favourite, of my Grey Hunters. There supposed to be four distinct pack markings, one for each unit, not sure they all feature here though.

This is a great kit, loads of great bits that I've used in all kinds of other projects. There were a few conversions here and there, mostly kitbashing I guess from various space marine kits.


Long Fangs here, I ebay'd myself a few missile launchers, raided old models and even made a couple from vehicle accessory sprues for these guys. Particularly like the pack leader. Too many unfinished shoulder pads....


These tanks were the first two I ever properly painted. I find painting vehicles quite daunting, but once you get stuck in it's not too bad really.




... and finally, my dreads. Absolutely love these models, wish they were better in the game! Hopefully the Iron Hands chapter tactics will aid in that sense once that army is up and running.




So there you go, first 'real' army of mine, hope you like them. Better go back and finish off those shoulder pads...

Cheers.