Conversion plog: Halflings, p6 29/06/14

[Shteve0]

Sounds daunting, and I don't expect to achieve results anything like JT-Y's, but I'll give it a try - thanks guys. I've been using thinning medium a lot recently as it happens, I find the thinner paint gives me a lot smoother flow (I assumed I'm using that word correctly!) than paint straight out of GW/Vallejo pots, though of course the biggest factor is practice. That said, I'd recently started to feel like I was losing my way with what techniques I should be working towards being able to pass off, and you've given me that direction - cheers

In the meantime I've been cutting bits of plastic and resin up and gluing them back together - along with my first forays into greenstuffing. Here are some more Orcs (including my now obligatory "pointing guy"), along with some bitzbox reroll counters:




Added to this, my Dreadball set arrived - YAY! - and I've been mucking around with the models. First up, I'm planning to slowly expand the Gnarl'em Globerotters franchise to include miniatures for Nurgle and Necro options. Here I've de-tailed a pair of dreadball veer-myn strikers to use as the team's werewolves. They'll get new tails as soon as I can track down something more lupine!



Next, though it means inevitable redundancy, I couldn't resist combining parts from the excellent Avatars of War Dwarf Berserker set with Dreadball Forge Fathers to make options to field them as either Dwarfs or Chaos Dwarfs. I have no idea what to use as hobgoblins for these guys, or for a colour scheme - if anyone has any suggestions I'd really appreciate them! I'm trying to avoid clashing with any of my previous projects, and can't quite reach a solid conclusion on what direction to take them in...

Linemen


Slayers


Blitzers


Runners


Finally, a little fella for 2013's TFF legacy team. I don't own any actual halfling miniatures, so I decided to make one... it's early days, but I feel like he's coming along well enough! The lighting isn't showing it off much (particularly the mouth and extra chins), he'll look better coloured in, I've no doubt



Cheers!

[Axtklinge]

What a handful of great addictions!

I do like you Orc conversions, but what did caught my eye were the new "Ava-Tic" mix!
Those are very cool sculpts (from both companies) and together seem to add a fantastic new range of possibilities for our teams.
(I stopped there for a second thinking about how much the sci-fi look of dreadball models would keep them away from BB tabletops, but honestly that never kept me from turning 40k stuff into BB teams, so I suppose we'll be seeing them out there quite a few times for sure).

(...) Here I've de-tailed a pair of dreadball veer-myn strikers to use as the team's werewolves. They'll get new tails as soon as I can track down something more lupine! (...)

How about a piece of wire (or a bit of paper clip) possibly pinned on the spot and then a bit of green stuff?
That way you can simply as long, fluffy and dynamic as you want, without being stuck to whatever bits you might find/have.

(...) I couldn't resist combining parts from the excellent Avatars of War Dwarf Berserker set with Dreadball Forge Fathers to make options to field them as either Dwarfs or Chaos Dwarfs. (...)

Oh boy... those Forge F's look soooo cool!
Short, mean and armored, just like we fluff them.
I wont be of much help here, as they will look amazing no matter what good/evil faction you choose (but I might go 'good', because there's another mantic range out there with very cool sculpts for the bad side of it. Just sayin'. ).
As for the hobs, no clue.
There's a few other threads for the aforementioned 'bad' gays, and a few options have been mentioned. Might be worth checking.

Oh, and looking forward to see you halfling painted!


Cheers!
A.

[richy376]

You've put some excellent teams together in your log, but those dwarfs are superb, you've got an excellent eye for what parts go together there. The poses are all brilliant, especially on the positionals. Its good to see dwarf models with some movement and not just a round beard with feet underneath.

I can't help to much with suggestions for your colour scheme, but in terms of what you were saying about thinning your paints, I think that is definitely the way to go. Quite a simple thing to do with highlights is to use a highlight lighter than you want the end result, and then use a darker wash to tone it down a bit. This can also add a bit of depth to your darker areas. Although to be fair, your painting is looking really good already - you could just keep doing what you are doing!

[Shteve0]

Cheers guys! Your kind words are very much appreciated

As it happens, I've had no further progress on the Dwarf/Chaos Dwarf hybrid team, partly because I can't come up with a colour scheme I'm happy with (or at least one that doesn't clash with an existing team) and partly because I felt I needed to complete an existing project before I started another one. So, here but for a few finishing touches, is Borca Juniors. There's no Troll or BOBs on this team as I already own the miniatures I want to use and they're in storage, so these lads are pretty much there until late 2013.

Linemen:

Blitzers:

Throwers:

Borca Juniors!:


I didn't put too much into new techniques with these guys, but it's interesting (to me, at least) how much you can see the changing colour on the lineorcs as I tried new things; on the left is my last batch, starting with a very light green and going darker with washes; second left is from the second batch, starting with a mid green and adding wash before coming up to the brightest level with highlighting; and the middle one is my first attempt, starting dark and working up.

Next up, I tried to apply some of the tonal techniques you guys advised in both my contribution to the TFF legacy team, the halfling "Lineman Sam"; and my entry into this month's golden football, a Slann wizard from future project the "Croakland Waders".



The big question for this (obviously very WIP) next pic is; how can I improve the white cloth? It's giving me hell right now, and some pointers on bringing it from this to a good quality finish (bearing in mind I have two apoths and a coach still to do) would be extremely gratefully received!



Cheers guys, thanks for all the support so far!

S

[the solitaire]

1) Mix a little light blue with a lot of white to get an off white
2) Trace the white areas with the off white, leaving outlines using the black shade already on the model
3) highlight the off white with pure white

That´s what I would do.

[Norse]

LOVING those Forge fathers.. the crests on the Blitzer helms are gorgeous - nice use of two kits (one sci-fi, one fantasy) to get a great look..

[Shteve0]

Thanks Solitaire - I'll try that out!

Norse - glad you like them! Here's a sneak peak at what's following the Dwarf project...



And the inspiration (and likely colour scheme)



Cheers!

S

[Shteve0]

Progress!

After struggling for a while with a colour scheme for my new Dorfs, I've decided not to stray too far from my original Kayseri Erikssonspor concept and instead paint them as an up-to-date version of my original rabble. And so here are the first two painted minis from the new incarnation, presenting the mighty (1-1-8 TT record, 2509 season) KE's new kit for an as-yet-unspecified future season!




A quick note on the dreadball minis; I don't know what they're made of, but it seems to be some sort of plastic-resin blend. It's funny stuff; trimming the mold lines off is a nightmare (the material 'catches' on the blade and rides up), and filing has to be done very carefully indeed to prevent loss of detail. Sticking it together requires superglue; my attempts with polycement had no discernable effect. It's not the easiest to saw, either, but can be cut really easily if you soak it in warm water for a while first. This latter property is the strangest thing about it; if you warm it in water, you can reposition the model really easily, but left to its own devices it'll (incredibly slowly) revert part way towards it's original position.

I also used some of Mantic's zombies in my Undead team at the start of this plog, and really had no issues with the material (a traditional hard plastic). Given the success of the kickstarter I assumed that mantic would be buying in some machining to produce the DB kits in house in the same material, with perhaps resin stars; but this new material is totally different.

Anyway, here are the boys again, this time alongside their predecessors to give you an idea of scale:


In other news, some more progress on the Legacy team halfling;


and the Croakland Waders wizard I plan to enter into this month's Golden Football:


Any feedback and/or tips for further improvement?

[nonumber]

Okay so I may have to steal that Dwarf idea.

[Shteve0]

Sweet, knock yourself out. The dreadball team is easy enough to come by at the moment (a seven man 'team' is available for £13.49 on ebay here), though bear in mind that there are alt poses coming out later this year before you commit to a full squad. The AoW berserkers you probably need to split with a mate or two - the £20 box (link) contains five sprues and a command upgrade, whereas I've only really used one sprue to convert the team so far, with a second held back for bull centaurs.

On that note, if you (or anyone else!) have two of the new mantic bulls to trade, I'll happily bung a sprue your way!

[nonumber]

'fraid not.

But that's interesting that there's alternative poses coming out. I've got to get my Skaven team together first anyway!

[Shteve0]

Been a long time, so I won't overdo it... I was looking for a job, and I found a job, and heaven knows it eats into my modelling time now! Between that and a vacation over the last fortnight, progress has been slow!

So it's out with the brown and in with the purple... and my Dwarf/Chaos Dwarf squad is rebranding as the Zzkhargo Boars. Hope you like!

[Shteve0]

A new season of the NZCBBL kicked off this month and, despite my plans to dust off the Wellington Skellintons and play out a season with the Khemri, I decided a the last minute to switch to Chaos Pact after lithophile and I won and auction for a pair of 5th ed human teams.

Two games in here are the boys as they stand (troll and ogre not pictured - they haven't arrived yet!):


And here's the direct link to the roster as it stands. I've added a few skills to bases already; blue for block and (c) for leader, with the two heads goblin and +ST marauder spelled out.
http://nzcbbl.obblm.com/index.php?secti ... &obj_id=25

[axiom]

Wow! I love those subtle head swaps - where are the heads from? Suitably manic looking. Nice colours too

[Shteve0]

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MaxMini-conve ... 51a777e6e0

Thanks man! The heads are from Maxmini.eu - they're called Ash Junker Heads and come in a pack of 10. I might have a few spares going - if you're interested PM me, I'm sending you a package soon anyway

Update time already, and I'm very glad I took that photo of the team when I did. Attempts to varnish with 100% Tamiya XF-86 (matt varnish) - normally so trustworthy - have ended with the purple tones melting, resulting in the miniatures looking almost exactly as if I'd spend 20-30 hours carefully painting them up and them slapped a purple wash on them over the top. I tried again on one of the miniatures that missed the first varnish run with a XF-86 and X-20A (acrylic thinner) mix in 50:50; with almost identical results.

So, I'm furious and frustrated. Early indications are that I can probably save the skin areas, with the possible exception of the dark elf, but the armour on all the figs is a write-off. I have three models unvarnished that I'll give a GW purity seal coat instead; hopefully that will yield better results.