The Sons are ready

The Marauders are now finished. I wanted to get them done for the Northern Wasters monthly painting challenge. While the deadline for that is next week I know I won’t have much time to get them done with work coming up! I am happy with how they came out. The cloaks could have been better. My sculpting skills are not really that good yet and while the painting made up for it a little I still think I could have done better. I do want to add some ivy to the bases here and there, but that can wait until after this tournament. As the ivy is expensive I will have to reserve it for the front ranks and sides as there is little point in having it buried deep in a regiment where nobody can see it. I might look for some ferns too as they would really add a good undergrowth feel to the bases.

The army has garnered a lot more attention on the Warhammer Forum than my stuff usually does, so that’s nice. I intend only putting up finished work there rather than the work in progress shots. I will use this blog for that. I also intend having all the photographs up here first so blog followers get a preview!

Now that the Sons of the Bear are finished I have started on the Keepers of Truth. These represent a southern cult that now accompanies the army. I have wanted to paint these models since they were released. I really think that they are quite characterful. I am keeping the robes as dark as possible while maintaining the pale skin. The reason for the dark robes will be the regiment wide object source lighting effects. As four of the models carry fire brands, well one guy has his head on fire, I want to do some OSL. My first attempts with the hounds were poor so this is still going to be a steep learning curve. I hope that by making the robes dark I can more easily make them appear to brighten due to the glow of the fire.

At the moment I am attempting to figure out a nice way to paint the fire. I thought it would be easier than it has proved. Looking at a lot of guides on the internet has just proven that everybody does it a little differently! I am having a major problem in getting the fire to look dark as otherwise the entire regiment will need to be lighted. The achievement of the darkness of the fire is hampered by the fact that the flames are massive. I have left my test to dry overnight so hopefully when I check tomorrow it will have begun to look nice.

I will be beginning work in my new position on Monday. I am pretty excited and a little overwhelmed. Hopefully all goes well. I got the grand tour of the office yesterday. It was nice to see how these games get developed. My hours will be quite flexible so if it suits I might still catch some daylight for painting. I will know after a few weeks. I had better stay searching for those lamps I think. My tournament preparation continues. Resurgence 09 is only a week away. I have the entire army based but not painted. Hopefully I will still qualify for some of the painting points that way. It is far from ideal but all I can manage at the moment. The lists have been submitted and it seems every Elf army has a dragon. I haven’t really played against large flying beasts much so hopefully I can avoid draws against these players. At least there are no Daemons or Lizardmen armies present so I am a little happier. They are two armies I don’t want to face. We are just awaiting a ‘hardness’ rating for each of the armies and then they will be drawn against each other based upon that rating. An interesting system that will hopefully have the true nastiness facing each other as much as possible!

Here is a nice shot of the sunset behind my house just as I am typing this!