Black Legion Teaser

Ok, Black Legion is going to be my project for next month (as long as I do not get sidetracked by Lord of the Rings miniatures) so I thought I would post some pictures of my Abaddon conversion I did several years ago. This guy is going to be my captain in terminator armor.

Not sure what got into me in order to actually do this conversion but it is an Abaddon body with Dragon Ogre arms and an old metal head from a bloodletter I had hanging out in the bitz box.

51 Norkers

Well here it is 51 Norkers completely finished. I can not decide if they look more like crack head clowns or baboons that have learned to walk on their hands backwards. Some really ugly buggers for sure.

These are described in the 2nd edition monstrous compendium as having grey or brown skin color, yellow teeth, yellow eyes, and either red or blue noses.

I painted all of them grey just because I figured it would contrast better with the base color and it would be quicker to do them all one color. So having finished them in two days I probably could have taken an extra hour or two to make some brown.

If you do not get the baboon comment please see the last picture!!!!!

For those of you who do not know these miniatures are from the official range of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons miniatures made in 1985 by Citadel. It was a very cool line because they would take a single pose and then make multiple variations of this figure. Makes it a nice little miniature line to collect and try and get all of the different figures.

Below is pictures all of the different variants of the three basic types that I have.

Lord of the Rings Shade and Spider Swarms

Well I am almost finished with the 51 Norkers, probably be done tonight or tomorrow. But I got a little bored of painting the same figure over and over and over again..... 51 pretty much the same miniature is a killer.

So while I was working on that I decided to do some more Lord of the Rings Miniatures. So here are a shade and a spider swarm I finished. Both are quick to paint.

The spider swarm was painted with an off white color. The shade was a little more complicated. I started by painting the entire model with GW shadow grey and then giving this a wash of Ral Partha 77-723 Purple. The wash took about 45 minutes to dry at which point I mixed shadow grey with Ral Partha 77-817 Light Blue and dry brushed this over the model increasing the amount of light blue as I went. Last touch was a little yellow for the eyes.

If you do not count waiting for the wash to dry this model took about 15 minutes to paint. Quick and looks pretty good. The only problem I had was the the purple I used is about 20 years old and ended up drying a little "gritty". Not a problem but I would use another purple if I do another model like this.

Lord of the Rings Riders of the Dead

Well a little late but here are the Riders of the Dead.

Ok so these are a little but greener than the other ones but it is still hard to tell from the picture. What I did this time was use a tank brush for the final three levels of dry brushing. This kept more of the green showing.

Still not exactly what I think would look best. If I had to do it all over again I would probably use three different colors of green ink. I would use the snot green, a medium green, and probably something that is really between green and yellow. I think this would give a much more otherworldly color scheme.

But as this is all about getting large amount of miniatures painted quickly and decently this will have to wait until I have more time.

Empire Pikemen

Some Empire spearmen I converted to hold pikes. A nice 8x5 block. Hopefully I will have these painted by the end of March.

This is not a very hard conversion but rather time consuming. I used the old Empire spearmen. I think they are 5th edition models. I used 18 gauge floral stem wire. You can get this from a craft store like Michael's (in the USA anyway). I then drilled out the hands of the spearmen and slid the floral wire right in. Drilled out the top of the spear a little bit and glued it to the end of the floral wire and was finished.

And I will never do this conversion again. Using a pin drill by hand that much was actually painful (and I do mean literally).

Rogue Trader Ambulls

These have been sitting around the house for the better part of a decade and a half so I thought it might be a good idea to finish them up and see how they turned out.

Empire Outriders

I finished these while watching the Packers lose their playoff game this weekend (what a crock). But football aside I really hate painting horses. But at least the armor makes it quick I suppose.

I actually prefer many of the old Empire models as compared to the newer ones that have come out over the last few years. This will most likely lead me to do a real landsknecht army eventually but that is a few years down the road.

Lord of the Rings Army of the Dead

These are the first miniatures I finished for 2010. This is 1 King of the Dead (1st picture) with 21 more warriors of the dead. All by GW.

This was another very easy paint job to pull off. They look a lot more green tinged in person but the light washed it out of the pictures a little. Anyway, if you want to paint yours like this just follow these easy instructions.

First I primed them black. Then I took a medium color grey (neutral grey by Americana) and put a heavy dry brush on the model. Next I added some white to the this color and dry brushed again (not as heavily this time). The last step before washing it is to dry brush a light coating of white on your model. After this step I watered down some snot green and used this to wash the model.

Let your models dry for a day and then go over the steps again starting with your grey and ending with your white.

It should go without saying that you do not need to reprime your miniature or wash it again.

Eldar Wraithguard

I actually finished these in December but thought I would post them because I like how they turned out.

They are actually pretty easy to paint. I primed them white with Color Place interior / exterior fast dry spray paint. Then I washed them with burnt umber (the same as scorched brown from GW). Then I touched up the white, painted the guns with a thinned down suede color, and finished off by painting the green parts with snot green.

The first one.....

Well I thought I would finally start up a blog to track my painting. I recently started keeping track of all the miniatures I paint to help me paint more. It helps me to stay motivated if I have a written goal. So below is what I want to paint this year:

Unplanned Miniatures

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4 Lord of the Rings Barrow Wights (Finished)

13 Stands of Trees (Finished)

4 Stands of Rough Terrain (Finished)

3 Stands of 40k Ruins (Finished)

1 40k Iron Hand Space Marine with Lascannon (Finished)

25 out of 25 painted

January

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51 Citadel AD&D Norkers (Finished)

21 Lord of the Rings Army of the Dead (Finished)

1 Lord of the Rings King of the Dead (Finished)

8 Lord of the Rings Riders of the Dead (Finished)

6 Warhammer Empire Outriders (Finished)

8 Warhammer Empire Halberdiers

6 Lord of the Rings Arnor Knights (Converted)

11 Renegade Legion Space Ships

1 Lord of the Rings Shade (Finished)

1 Lord of the Rings Spider Swarm (Finished)

3 Rogue Trader Ambulls (Finished)

92 out of 117 Painted

February

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40 Black Legion Tactical Marines (Finished)

9 Black Legion Chosen (Finished)

1 Black Legion Lord (Finished)

20 Black Legion Havocs (Finished)

10 Black Legion Raptors (Finished)

1 Black Legion Dreadnought

80 out of 81 Painted

March

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40 Warhammer Empire Pikemen

40 Warhammer Empire Flagellants

10 Warhammer Empire Knights of the White Wolf

10 Warhammer Empire Knights of the Blazing Sun

10 Warhammer Empire Crossbowmen

1 Limited Edition Sergeant Centurius (Finished)

12 Rogue Trader Iron Warriors Terminators (Finished)

5 Renegade Legion Centurion Aeneas Light Tank (Finished)

1 Renegade Legion Centurion Deliverer Heavy Tank (Finished)

12 Renegade Legion Centurion Horatius Medium Tank (Finished)

6 Renegade Legion Centurion Liberator Medium Tank (Finished)

3 Renegade Legion Centurion Romulus APC (Finished)

6 Renegade Legion Centurion Spartius APC (Finished)

2 Renegade Legion Centurion Tajan Heavy Tank (Finished)

3 Renegade Legion Centurion Viper Light Tank (Finished)

51 out of 161 Painted

April

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5 40k Renegade Militia Command

15 Battlefleet Gothic Ships

48 40k World Eaters

1 World Eaters Dreadnought

2 World Eaters Terminators

0 out of 71 Painted

May

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60 Warlord Early Imperial Roman Legionnaires

20 Warlord Early Imperial Roman Praetorians

10 40k Red Scorpions

0 out of 90 Painted

June

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30 Warlord Early Imperial Roman Veterans

40 Warlord Early Imperial Roman Auxilliaries

12 Warlord Numidian Cavalry

0 out of 82 Painted

July

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32 Ral Partha Grimlocks

10 Wargames Foundry Pirates

1 Black Scorpion Mad Jim Jones

10 Warhammer Empire Knights of the Blazing Sun

4 40k Inquisitor Lord Hector Rex and Retinue

1 Ral Partha Firbolg

1 40k Tech Servitor

2 40k Renegade Apostate Preachers of Nurgle

0 out of 61 Painted

August

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30 Warlord Early Imperial Roman Legionnaires

30 Warlord Early Imperial Roman Auxilliaries

25 Crusader Norman Infantry

8 Crusader Norman Knights

6 Perry Norman Infantry

6 Perry Norman Crossbowmen

0 out of 105 Painted

September

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40 40k Tactical Marines

10 40k Assault Marines

10 40k Devastators

0 out of 60 Painted

October

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5 40k Marines on Riding Lizards

2 40k Marine Attack Bikes

1 40k Chaplain on Bike

1 40k Apothecary on Bike

5 40k Marines on Bikes

48 Lord of the Rings Easterlings

0 out of 62 Painted

November

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40 40k Dark Angels Tactical Marines

20 40k Dark Angels Devastators

12 40k Dark Angels Command Squad Marines

1 40k Dark Angels Captain

1 40k Dark Angels Chaplain

5 40k Dark Angels Assault Marines

2 40k Dark Angels Dreadnoughts

0 out of 81 Painted

December

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20 Warhammer Dwarf Slayers

2 Otherworld Ogres

1 Ral Partha Lauranna

1 Ral Partha Raistlin

1 Ral Partha Caramon

0 out of 25 Painted

Grand Total

248 out of 1001 Painted