Diesel DM

Cygnar Sentinel, shield guarding your Warcasters

With the most recent errata having change Shield Guard to be more useful, I wanted to get the Sentinel painted up, ready for use with the low-ARM casters like Kara and Caine.  Not too much to discuss regarding the painting here, pretty standard for my Cygnar techniques, except for the top of the chassis.  For me, painting the circular highlights on the top of the shoulders is insanely difficult, to the point where I can’t seem to accomplish it.  I certainly made attempts with both the Charger and Lancer and I made multiple attempts on this one.  Without much success I instead turned the problem upside down.  Rather than base-coating with the mid-tone (Cygnar Blue Base), I base coated with the highest highlight (a mix of Cygnar Blue Highlight and Frostbite).  Then I layered all the darker colors up to it instead, as shading around a circle is much easier than highlighting out from one.  I can’t really explain why that is, but there you have.  This was a big experiment for me and I had my doubts, but it turned out great.  The only thing I would change is to have based with straight Frostbite instead, to give it an even brighter highlight.

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eEiryss, ready for action

In my continuing effort to field fully-painted armies I’ve been targeting solos that either are or should be in many of my lists.  eEiryss seemed like an excellent choice, though I don’t play her as often as I should, now that she’s painted there’s no excuse.  I really enjoyed painting this model.  Some nice details but not too cluttered.  Hard to tell by the pictures, but I even went to the extent of putting some purple eyeshadow on her.  I used some Midlund Flesh to tone down Beaten Purple for the eyeshadow and I think it subtly helps the eyes pop more.  They eyes I painted first try, which is always a spectacular win in my book.  To go complete her makeup I used Murderous Magenta, again toned down with some Midlund Flesh, for lipstick on the bottom lip. (more…)

Before and After: from bare metal to border legion

It was a long month and I put in a lot of hours and late nights, but I managed to pull off a victory.  I know have a fully painted 35-pt 5th Border Legion army.  Check out Nog’s Painting Cave for a full story on how everyone did.

My painting speed definitely increased as I progressed through this challenge.  The last model completed, the Spriggan, took very little time but still came out look good and matching the rest of the army.  How this speed increase will apply to my regular painting remains to be seen, but hopefully it has a positive impact allowing me to get more painted models to the table.  I have quite the Cygnar backlog of baremetal minis, so I hope to make a serious dent in that.  Once you play a few fully painted games it gets more and more irritating to place unpainted models on the field.  Especially alongside the Stormwall that I painted up, it’s such a focal point that looks so good, bare metal really jumps out next to it.

The painting challenge was a lot of fun and I’m glad I participated.  It will probably be some time before I recuperate enough to take up another such challenge, but the results of this one speak for themselves.  It will be good to try out this crazy force on the table.

For now it’s back to Cygnar, I’ve got some metals laid down on a Sentinel for Kara Sloan’s army.  I’ve only played one game with him, expecting him to take some Shield Guard damage, but instead he took out quite a swath of Risen, so I’d like to keep trying him out in her (and eventually Caine’s) army.  But it needs to be painted!  After that I need to get the Stormsmith’s painted up for use with the Stormwall.

The Butcher’s pent up rage erupted in an almost palpable wave of heat. The Doom Reavers let loose an eery howl as their fell blades began to cut faster and deeper. They moved through the last of the ‘jacks to meet the knights head on, cutting through them to the last. The Savage moved into the next group of bane knights, swinging with abandon as they dropped around him. (more…)