Grudges, Waaagh and Valhalla

It has been a ridiculously busy month here, but I made the target. Alongside this I have started several other projects, so much for sticking to the plan and not diverting my time elsewhere. I even took note of the pointers made in the group forum about posting a bitmore and with 6 posts this month I have exceeded my highest total post count for a month so far.
First up the completed 14 Miners.

I completed the 22 Longbeards late today. Just in time to meet the target for the months end.

Earlier in the month I completed the Master engineer as an extra and posted the pictures for that, and some vikings that were additional to the target.

As I mentioned earlier I got distracted and have done several other figures. First up the startof the WAAAAAAAGH! These are the start of my youngest Sons goblin and Orc army, He chose the colour of the spider and has given me a list to paint the other 29 spiders. These will be unusual as a 4 year old has some weird ideas.





Finally Vikings, a new warlord and standard bearer, as a friend needed a few figures for a saga warband and I donated the previous warlord and standard bearer to his army.

I then set about expanding my options for my warband and have added another 2 points of hearthguard this time with axes. This takes my force too 5 points now.

And as if that lot was not enough I have prepared another 2 points of Hearthguard and a point of levy archers.

A few extras.

I have been doing a couple of other bits alongside the Dwarfs this month, and have completed another 4 Viking Hearthguards for my Saga points, this brings my total painted force up to 3 points. Its likely that next month will be spent painting Vikings so I can make the club Tournament in November.

I originally intended to do an all Hearthguard and Beserker force using just 25 figures total, but I really have a thing about Vikings and have decided to build up my options and include warriors and levies in the points force.. more on that next month

So here are the last 4 Heartguards for now at least.

Painting Dwarf Longbeards

For those that dont know Dwarf Longbeards are the oldest battle hardened Dwarfs in the core lists. The main feature of these Dwarves is their grey beards, as symbol of great age and wisdom.

The first step is to prime the figure, I dont use spray prefering to paint my undercoat on by hand, ensuring I dont lose any details.

The next step for me is to block in the main colours this can involve several coats of paint to acheive an even coverage (especially for yellow) when covering the black base. The armour and weapon are painted with vallejo gunmetal grey, the flesh is given a coat of GW scorched brown, then GW dark flesh, the horns on the helmet are GW scorched brown, the shield outer and motif GW tin bitz the body of the shield is red gore. The mail coat outer is GWregal blue and the sleeves in this case are Vallejo game colour scrofulous brown, the amulet if GW dwarf bronze.All leather is scorched brown.

Next up is adding the next level of detail.
Armour and weapon are highlighted with GW chainmail. the helmet horns Vallejo buff.
Shield outer and motif dwarf bronze, leather vallejo mid brown, sleeves GW golden yellow 2 coats, mail coat outer GW enchanted blue, sheild inner GW blood red. Beard in this case GW codex grey, Eyes are now put on GW skull white and the flesh is highlighted with GW tanned flesh.

The final stages are up next.

Hands and faces are highlighted first with GW dwarf flesh, then finished with pin highlights of GW elf flesh. the pupils are placed with GW enchanted blue. The beard is highlighted with fortress grey.

The shield outer and motif  and amulet have GW burnished gold applied and the shield inner GW blazing orange.The mail coat outer is highlighted with GW ice blue. The leather is highlighted vallejo biege brown. The horns Vallejo off white. The sleeves are given 2 coats of sunburst yellow.

All my longbeards are being painted using a theme of Green, Blue and Yellow clothing the Red shield is being applied throughout the unit to tie them all together.

Revised September Target

Thanks to the head start I got at the weekend and me changing how I schedule my workload during the day I have made extra painting time for the month and progress on the miners is good. So i have decided to increase the pressure and up the model count by adding a unit of 22 longbeards to the months target.

Last night I set about getting the basic colours applied to the entire unit, I have chosen a mix of yellow blue and green for these and I will have the unit scheme tied together with a red shield for all.

Having stared at the flame on the miners for a couple of days I decided that I needed to change it something looked wrong but I dont know what. So now I have reversed the colours and it looks easier on the eye to me now.

While working on the Miners and the Longbeards I completed another character figure and here he is.

Out of the Darkness

I have been lucky and while my wife was watching the rubbish served up last night on the idiots lantern they call musical talent I decided to make a start on the Miners.

I want to keep these looking darker than my other units not to dark but as they are meant to be hard working miners, but these should not be as bright as my other units. For the 1st unit I have settled on a colour scheme of Purple, Green and Blue all to be highlighted in my usual three shades but with only subtle changes between the tones.



Overall a good session for me last night and half the unit is base painted.

I like to get at least one figure completed to gauge the overall finished look it also serves as a great guide to completing the rest of the figures. Iwould normally use 5 steps for the flesh but have reduced it to 4 for these as it makes the skin look a little dirtier. I am not to sure about the candle flame yet and if after staring at it for a couple of days that opinion does not change then i will be repainting it.





Septembers Target

I recently did a trade with Kelly, which will result in me assisting him in the design and manufacture of a new table for his gaming. In return I got several additions to my Dwarven Army, 2 units of miners, both 14 figures strong with a unit filler to make them 20 figure units. A unit of warriors that i need to add a command set too and carry out some conversion work, 2 grudge throwers although 1 has missing parts and needs some modelling to fix it, 4 characters (two of which I painted as extras last month) an organ gun and two cannon all with crew and The Anvil of Doom.

So this month sees me working on Dwarves, Im going to start on a unit of miners as again this month my time is limited due to the club terrain putting my normal workload about 5 weeks behind.

So here they are at the start of the month.

Im going with a paint theme that will eventually allow me the option of using the units independantly or as a large unit. The bases wont be changed at this stage as I am still designing the style of the final scheme that I will apply to the whole army.