Broken Paintbrush

As promised I completed Cypher and posting the pictures, off to a good start on my new goals!

Cypher was a great character in 3rd Edition Chaos that was mysteriously phased out in the following Codex which really is a shame. Though after reading DFG’s rumor roundup it seems like he may be making a comeback!

And here is the full squad together. I am quite aware that I may never be able to play with the squad (except for Apoc of course) but after sitting in my closet for years I figured that Cypher had earned himself a squad.

Well the pictures capture that I haven’t really “completed” the squad as most evident by the lack of a banner. I also haven’t finished clear coating and glossing the models (see the back of the medic for a finished piece there), but it is done enough to post and put on the shelf until the day I decide to add custom banners to models.

Next up will be some Ork Boyz!

Ok so you have a descent camera, a light box, and nice looking models you want to share with world. Now what? Well for me I spend a few minutes to edit each picture before posting it online.

My program of choice:

This is an open source (and free) version of Photoshop that can do way more than I will ever need but it does the things I do need very well.

For this tutorial I will go over cropping and white balance.

Cropping

There may be ways to take the perfect picture so that you don’t need to crop out the extra white space but I find that if I zoom in to the point the model fills the screen the depth of field is too narrow and much of the model is blurry. Below is a pre-cropped image from my light box from my recently finished terminator squad.

This is an easy fix in GIMP: click on the rectangular select tool and drag it so it roughly contains your model. Now there should be a dotted box around your model.

If it doesn’t fit just right you can click inside the box and move your cursor towards the edge you want to move in or out until a box appears on the edge. You can then click and drag this box to move the edge of your selection. Once you have the perfect fit click on Image->Crop to Selection.

Just by removing most of the extra white space around the models they present better and the viewer can focus on the models rather than try to pick them out of the sea of whiteness.

White Balance

Most digital cameras have a way to adjust the white balance of the picture but don’t always work as well as they could (mostly user error in my own case).  White balance is the major contributor of ‘off colors’ in an image assuming the models are lit well with non-yellow bulbs.  GIMP has a great tool that quickly, and usually acuratly, readjusts the white balance so whites really are white and the blacks black. This is found under Colors->Auto->White Balance

This not only makes the contrast between light and dark clearer but also makes the colors more vibrant but is not completely perfect. In the picture above you may notice that the white background has a somewhat blue hue to it. Not a big deal but it does mean that the auto balance didn’t quite get it. To fix this you can manually adjust the white balance using the Levels tool.

In the picture above I reset the auto balance to make the changes more apparent but I’ll often use the auto adjust and then fine tune it with the levels tool. The Levels tool window shows a histogram of the various shades from black to white. As you can see there is a large peak near the upper side that corresponds to the large amount of white in the picture (the poster board) but is not actually at the edge of the graph. To fix this you can click on the eye dropper underneath the gram on the right side. The tool tip will call this the ‘Pick white point’ button. Your cursor will then turn into the tear dropper, click it on your picture where you want to designate to be pure white. Try clicking it in various parts of the models too to get an idea of what it is doing.

You can see that it instantly brightens the picture but may wash out some of the depth. To fix this we may need to adjust the black level. You can try to use the ‘pick black point’ button like the white one above but I find this doesn’t often work as well. Instead try grabbing the small, black triangle under the graph and slide it to the right. You probably won’t need to go to far before seeing the difference. Here it is a mater of balance between showing details in the darker areas, or giving a more realistic shadowing.

You now have a nice, cropped and white balanced picture for others to enjoy. Further steps may include adding a ‘watermark’ to the image or overlaying it into a neat background.

I hope you found this tip helpful and let me know if you have any photo editing tips you would like to share.

Although I’m not sure if I will ever build up a full army, I succumbed to the desire to own a mecha army.  I like the idea and look of the Tau army so I thought I’d try out painting a few before committing.  After buying the codex and spending a few days searching Google Images I decided on the blue suits but wanted a worn and dirty look. I was inspired very much buy this guy on Advanced Tau Tactica.

Although I enjoyed painting this model, the battle suite models (I built another to escort the Shas’O) it is poorly designed and had a bunch of voids that needed filling. Even discarding the minor conversion work, I still needed to use a great deal of green stuff to smooth out the armor.

The armament was chosen more out of looks and “coolness” than perhaps competitiveness. I like the idea of the ion blaster, although (and maybe perhaps because) it is unpredictable and using the droid as the shield generator just looks cool.

Although  I was hoping to finish my bane wolves (which really are as good as they sound!) for this challenge but I haven’t got that far.  The next challenge is for fast attack and elites so I’m hoping to finish both my bane wolves and this fellow’s body guard.

Painting Points for this round:

• Large Model: 2 points
• Hard Challenge: 15 points
• Meeting Deadline: 2 points
• Total: 19 points

Well I was hoping to have finished both this squad as well as the mortar squad for the 4th ToEMP challenge, but alas, I got distracted yet again. The 4th challenge was 60 points of what ever we felt like, as long as we gave a reason why we chose what we did. I picked this squad (and wanted to finish the mortar squad) because they are the “last” troops I need to paint for my traitor guard.  And when I say last, we all know that means: “all I currently have at this time, until I get inspired to buy more plastic crack…”

Any way onto the pictures:

I want my traitor guard to be colorful, but not over the top with mutations and such (the Iron Warriors really don’t like that type of thing).

For the fourth challenge I earn:

• Foot sloggers x6: 6 points
• Meeting deadline: 2 points

Total Points: 8

Total to date: 69

Hmm I didn’t really push my self to much for this challenge did I?

One of my many distracts for this last week will probably be part of the next challenge and I give a sneak peak here:

I finished these a few days back but haven’t had a chance to post until today. These are two more sentinels for my traitor guard army but scout versions armed (currently) with missile launchers.

the biggest conversion done on these is removing the roll bar and adding some spiky bitz. The banner is from the WFB flagellants from the Empire range.

The missile launchers are magnetized in case I decide multi-lasers or auto cannons are a better choice. I doubt I will mount lascannons as I have 6 of these on heavy weapon squads and having only bs 3 I would rather have multiple shots or blast weapons.

This also completes the current ToEMP challenge (I didn’t count the two armoured sentinels as I started them before the challenge was announced). Althogh I finished painting these a few days back I’m not counting these as complete until I post them here. For painting points this gives me:

• Walkers x2 5 points each: 10 points
• Lenses 1 point per model: 2 points
• Walker details 5 points each: 10 points
• Meeting Deadline: 2 points
• Bonus points for detailed bases: 5 points

Total for Challenge 3: 29 points

Total Overall: 61 Points

I have only two heavy weapon teams left for my traitor guard to paint but I just dunked a bunch of my old Iron Warriors into a Simple Green bath so they may be up next on the painting desk.

I finished the last touches on my armoured sentinels a few days ago but haven’t had a chance to post the pictures yet. Although one of the options for the current ToEMP challenge is a fast attack, I’m not going to count these as I had them nearly finished before the challenge was announced. I have two scout sentinels that are coming along that I am using for the third challenge and should be posting wip shots soon.

I used the same weathering on these guys as I did on my russ. The sentinel on the right also has some more chaos goo coming out the window. I needed to do something to fill the gap because after gluing on the upper plates I realized they were the wrong ones and the top plate doesn’t sit flush like it does with the one on the left.  So magic green stuff to the rescue!

I’m not so sure about my attempt to create a glowing effect from the plasma cannon. It does mean that if I put a different weapon on these guys (the gun in magnetized) it will look funny with the green on the main armour. Oh well, can’t go wrong with plasma cannons right?

As I said above: on my painting table is the scout versions of these guys armed with missile launchers. I am also taking a bunch of pictures as I paint them so I can try to do a step by step for both the vehicle as well as the drivers (which are painted like my foot sloggers). This are due on the 6th for ToEMP (a full week away!) so if I finish them up in a short time I may break out one of my many special characters from Chaos and repaint them (Fabius, Abaddon, Chypher?)

So in celebration of finishing my Leman Russ and Armoured Sentinels (need to post finished pictures of them…) I thought I should post a group shot of my Traitor Guard army. I also needed to put together an official army list for the army for the painting competition on Sunday as well. As you can see they came a long way from just two months ago.

My company commander with his horde as his back drop and the two sentinels looming in the distance.

I am still needing to paint two more heavy weapon squads and two scout sentinels to finish what I currently have built. I also have another platoon worth of troops from a friend at the store but they may have to wait for some tanks to bolster the line first.

The Army List using only what is painted:

• HQ: Company Command Squad 137 pts
  • Company Commander with bolt pistol, power weapon and melta bombs
  • Veterans with regimental standard, medi-pack, plasmagun, vox, krak grenades
• Troop: Platoon #1 352
  • Platoon Commander with bolt pistol, power weapon, melta bomb; standard, 2x grenade launchers, vox 77pts
  • 2x squads with vox, flamer, power weapon, melta bomb , krak grenades 85 pnts each
  • Heavy Weapon Squad with 3x lascannons 105 pnts
• Troop: Platoon #2 352
  • Platoon Commander with bolt pistol, power weapon, melta bomb; standard, 2x grenade launchers, vox 77pts
  • 2x squads with vox, flamer, power weapon, melta bomb, krak grenades 85 pnts each
  • Heavy Weapon Squad with 3x lascannons 105 pnts
• Fast Attack: Armoured Sentinels x2 with plasma cannons 150 pnts
• Heavy Support: Leman Russ with lascannon, heavy bolters 185 pnts

Total: 1176

Although I was hoping to have had a head start on the second challenge for 73rd’s A Tale of Even More Painters with my sentinels, I came back from my work trip to find the challenge was to paint an elites choice, and if none were available then a heavy support could be painted instead. I had neither choice planned for the short term for my traitor guard and didn’t even have any models I could put together for it, but luckily I had one of my brothers old Leman Russ tanks in the back of my closet. With his permission I have relinquished the tank from those who worship the corpse and added it to my growing horde.

I continued the Red/Orange/Yellow theme onto this tank to keep the army color scheme together. This is actually my first tank with “painted” armor, all my other tanks are silver for my Iron Warriors. This gave me the opportunity to apply paint scratches and wear.

The skull motif and XIV are unified across all of my tanks, linking them to the 14th Grand Company. The icon is from the dark elf warrior box, but works great for my tanks.

The process of pulling this tank together in just a few short days was helped by the fact my brother had this mostly built already. I simply had to add the tracks, remove those darn Aquilas and add some chaos flavor. Modifications were kept simple overall, some spikes were added to each sponsoon and around the top hatch.  Chaos star icons were also added to the back of each sponsoon (those plates fit perfectly into that spot!).

I also felt the cargo hold on the back needed some filling up. I debated on adding actual cargo, a blood sacrifice pool or some gnarly chaos goo. I decided to go with a gnarly chaos sacrifice goo with a victim pleading for help.  I continued this goo theme out the front viewing hatch of the tank (as well as on one of the sentinels).

I have yet to name this tank, I think I’ll leave that honor to my brother who was great enough to hand this tank off to me! (thanks Sean!)

For the ToEMP challenge this earns me:

• Vehicle: 10 points
• Icon/Symbols: 1 point
• Eyes: 1 point (This is the only guy I’ve done the eyes on and he is dieing!)
• Vehicle Details: 5 points
• Meeting deadline: 2 points
• beating deadline by 24 hours:  2 points
• Game points: 185 (just shy of earning another assault card!)

Total for this tank: 21

Total so far: 32

Platoon two has been finished right on schedule. This marks the fastest I’ve ever painted this many models for 40k (Fantasy seems a bit easier to paint large groups). I also am not completely done with the platoon as a whole, as I have two heavy weapon squads that still need to be painted, but I figured I needed to at least get the core of the troop choice finished.  As I had mentioned before, I am trying to enter this army in my local GW’s monthly painting competition. This months requirement is for a legal 1k point army. Finishing this platoon gives me my two troop choices so now all that is left to make it legal is paint the company command squad and see if I can squeeze out 1,000 points. If not, well I have 4 sentinels and 6 heavy weapon teams to paint. If all else fails I have my three Basilisk I could pull out to complete the army, but as they don’t completely fit the theme I’ve built it would fell a little cheap.

Here is the full platoon squeezing into my light box.

The platoon command Squad. I haven’t thought up any fluff like I did for the other platoon. Once my painting flurry is over I’ll have to think about some stories fitting for the Iron Army.

Platoon Squad One

Platoon Squad Two

Another thing I tried with this batch of pictures is add a water mark in the lower corner. I’ve been noticing a great deal of bloggers re-posting pictures but failing to give credit. It was a simple thing to add and if anyone is interested I may put a tutorial together on how to do it.

Next up is my company command squad which I hope to finish this week.

I have finished painting the 82nd Platoon of the Iron Army of the 14th Grand Company. Some of you BoLS viewers may recognize the command squad as it was entered in their hobby challenge. Thanks for those who did vote for me, really I just entered the challenge to give an example of what is possible with the great plastic kits GW produces and to get any feedback from the community their.

Part of the Command Squad Hobby Challenge was to come up with a few lines of fluff for the squad. Getting a bit of inspiration from the Flagellant model heads I submitted:

This is the 82nd platoon command of the Iron Army of the 14th Grand Company led by Tiresias the Lost. Tisesias was a small boy when the 14th conquered his world and as the Warsmith strode upon the field of victory, Tisesias was brave (or foolish) enough to not look down. The Warsmith had him immediately blinded and promoted to the lead the 82nd platoon. He is accompanied by Niles the Unspoken, who is required to be gagged or else will continue to scream blasphemies until he passes out.

These are the two troop squads with a basic setup of a vox, flamer and Sargentwith a power weapon. I like the imaginary of the Sargentwhipping his subordinates into action with his flail.  I know there are some major gaps on the Catachan models between the torso and the arms but since I’m going for the full look of the army, I’m not too worried about some of the “floating arms.” Maybe in the future I’ll go back and putty the joint and repaint it, but at this point I’d rather spend my energy painting the other platoon, company command and the many other things I need to add to this army.

Two lascannon squads as my anti-tank support, and don’t fret, the heavy weapon teams in platoon two are missiles and mortars, I just decided to paint the lascannon teams first. The heavy weapon teams are not completely done, I still need to finish the base and a few minor highlights but I had the camera out and want to get the pictures up.

My light box is not large enough to fit the full platoon so I am going to have to wait until I bring them in the FLGS to get some in-action pictures.

Next up is to build the four sentinels that came in the mail a few weeks back then paint platoon two. Repainted my Khorne Berserkers may jump in line though, as there is another 1500 pt tournament at the GW store and they were the only squad that wasn’t painted well.

~Update: So I just realized that instead of posting the second lascannon squad I posted the first one twice!