The Return of She Who Milks (part 4).

Alright mateys, here is She Who Milks!

After some work mounting her onto the base she was more or less completed. I spotted a few things I chose to touch up on, but after that the model was done.

I added grass tuffs to the base as I wasn't too pleased with how the modeled ground  looked in the end. They add a touch of "reality" and they also help break up the monotony.

After conferring with Da Masta Cheef, we agreed that the model looked more interesting holding the detached tank hatch in her raised claw.

All in all, I am happy with how it turned out and I am keen to paint more Slaaneshi models in this scheme.

Oh, the Hero Bases were a good investment for making your models appear a bit more interesting and part of an environment as opposed to being just a another game piece.

The Return of She Who Milks! (Part 3)

With the main model pretty much finished it was time to work on the base. This is one of the new Hero Bases that I thought would make an impressive pedestal for She Who Milks, my venerable Keeper of Secrets minature.

The first thing I did was basecoat the turret using Graphite which is made by Craftsmart. I pretty much have this color scheme memorized having perfected it around the year 2000, but I still wanted to reference it to be sure. So I dug out one of my Imperial Guard tanks from it's place of storage..

Long lost cousins: a comparison.

I knew that GW retooled the Leman Russ Battle Tank almost a decade ago, but I was unaware that the turret was so radically altered. The design features are all present, with exception to that bit that comes out on the side that I put the smoke launcher on, it's just clearly wider. Now, I realized that this new turret isn't from the actual tank model, it's a base, but it's still very interesting to compare the two.

The original Leman Russ tank.

Another reason to pull out this old tank was to see how I detailed it, what decals I used, etc. I hope to get back to my Imperial Guard at some point and when I do I would like them all to match!

Pewter Grey.

Pewter Grey was washed on to the turret over the Graphite. By washing, what I did was mix the paint 50/50 with water and dab the color on by going from the edges of a given surface toward the center leaving the Graphite exposed in center and around rivets. I then went in an applied thick concentrations of Pewter Grey around the edges.

Country Grey dabbling.

 Using water I thinned down some Apple Barrel Country Grey and dabbed it onto turret. This created a faux blending effect giving the model a faux sense of depth. I then hit the edges with a thicker layer of this paint.

White Scar highlights.

Finally I applied a thick dot of White Scar to all the rivets and bolt head. I next slightly thinned some White Scar for the final highlight.

Next came the insignia on the side of the turret. I wanted it to resemble my finished Russ so I hand painted a red square and after digging through my vast decal collection found a mailed fist holding a sythe that I thought went well with the older Russ.

Badge added.

As I typically do I once again used Microsol to wet the transfer. After that I dry brushed, in very strong strokes, the mud. I wanted it to appear like a splatter effect as if this turret smashed hard into the mud. It's a subtle effect, as I didn't want it to distract too much from the whole model.

Mud splatter.

You'll also notice that I finished the blown out gun barrel. I used Niln oil and Abaddon Black to achieve this look. Bolt Gun metal (the shiney mid- '90s version) was applied to the break points along the barrel.

With that I was done with the turret. Next I figued out where She Who Milks would stand and drilled a hole for her foot peg. After I tore her off of her previous base, I painted a Worm Purple dot on the bottom of her foot to mark where the other pin should go, then quickly placed her on the turret. The wet paint marked exactly where I needed the pinhole to go.

Mounting prep.

Next I drilled and pinned a bit of brass rod into place.

Foot pinned.

 And finally, after a bit of work and some super glue, she was now mounted!

Mounted!

It seems that this post is running long, so I'll reveal her in all her glory in the next post (part 4), so I hope you come back and check out the final model.

Imperial Guard of Neverness

Lacking anything new to show you lot, I will complete something I started over on my other armies page. In fact if you have been to it recently, this might feel like a repeat (because it is!), and if you go to it now, you'll simply find a link back to this blog at the Imperial Guard entry. There are two models that never appeared there before, so scroll down and check out those old school Imperial Psykers.

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The Imperial Guard are an army that I sort of stumbled into. Actually, they are really two armies. One is a Valhalla army that I got a good deal on from a friend many years ago, and the other is my brother's old Cadian army. That army is joined by models he got from The Doctor, and some of those go all the way back to when we started playing in the Rogue Trader days. I am fusing the Valhallans and Cadians into one army by simply giving them the same color scheme. At this point the work I need to do is quite a lot to get them truly battlefield ready, but they are functional enough that I could get them up and running to use them as allies at least.

Storm Troopers (original)

These guys are just great! If you were in the UK and read Action Force comics back in the '80s you were no doubt exposed to the SAS heroes within it. These guys looked just like them, minus the balaclavas. Oh, and if you're still scratching your head about Action Force, it was evolved from Action Man, a UK version of G.i. Joe, based closely on the G.I.Joe 6-inch figure line of the early '80s. Eventually, Action Force evolved into and became the UK version of G.i. Joe using the same characters and toys.

I digress, anyway, these original storm troopers had the SAS look, and were just bad-ass, but were made more so with the 3rd edition models, none of which do I have. Still, I'm proud of these guys and think they have turned out good. And yes, only two are fully painted. I would quickly finish these guys, there isn't much to them, only they remain out of sight in a miniature case most of the time. I would like to get these guys a Valkyrie at some point.

Leman Russ Battletank 

These were originally painted for my brother, I took the paint scheme we had chosen for his Cadians and ran with repeating it on his tanks. At the time the only paint guide available was the section in the 2nd edition book, Codex: Imperial Guard. Technically there were some painting guides for epic too but they weren't as detail focused.

I only ever got this single Leman Russ completed even though he had 2 more plus a Demolisher variant which I now possess.



View of righside and most of the rear.



Chimera

As above with the Leman Russ. Same paint scheme, however we were a lot more dedicated to completing these. Sadly, the two tanks in the rear are not 100% complete and still require decals. He only has one more yet to complete and after I acquired my brother's army, I purchased one of the newer boxes for my more options. I am debating whether to make one into a command vehicle or a dedicated Storm Trooper vehicle.

This single Chimera is a completed paint job. All the other Imperial Guard armored vehicles in my army are based upon this model. I'm quite pleased with it still and I painted it well over 10 years ago!

Imperial Psykers

How is this guy for old school? He came in a two pack of Imperial Psykers (back when Imperial Agents was a real thing) around 1994. He was the 1st one of the pair I painted, and I wanted to go with the garish colors that were commonly shown in White Dwarf at the time (ahem, LOTS OF RED!!!) but I wanted to used muted colors to contrast against the RED, sort of something that might've slipped off of Wayne England's palate around that time. I 'm still pleased with this chap. I imagine this guy was a pompous noble sort of chap one might find in the employ of an Inquisitor or a Governor or perhaps a Rogue Trader. Anyway, despite the striking colors, I still think this guy looks pretty cool over all.

However this other psyker was painted with the role of a Primaris Psyker in mind. More so an active battle field role with the Cadians my brother was going with at the time. This model is noteworthy for the rod which I painted in non-metallic colors as it was my first attempt ever at doing such a thing. And I am still pleased with it, however I find the process time consuming and ultimately would rather just work these things our in metallic paints.

....I just realized, ALL of these models were painted over ten years ago! Jeesh, where does the time go? *sigh*

 I don't have any troopers completed for my guard (yet) but have a small squad on the painting table that is nearing completion. I am holding off on them until the new codex so I can conform the squad structure to the new list.  Stay tuned for those soon!