My old pictures of those GZG resin hovercrafts languished with no interested on Bartertown. Within 48 hours of placing the new pictures of those resin tanks, I've got the money in my PayPal account. Hmmmmm... I will be using this money to buy the 40k main rules (with a little left over), which complete my attempt to trade a headless, worthless figure for the 40k rules. Only took me over a year...
Okay. Well. I recently complained about how much I hated photography. I have taken some good pictures in the past, it's just always been a huge hassle-- set up a light tent, remember all the friggin' settings on my camera, muck about with lighting, loading each picture in some complicated program like GIMP, etc... It just wasn't worth it to me. However, reading that post from Wee Toy Soldiers, I really thought he made it sound manageable, so I took another crack at it-- and was suitably impressed. It's still a bit of a hassle, but something I'm willing to manage to get pictures that look like this. I think the key thing I brought away from the article was using Picasa. It was simple and had all the tools I needed ready and easily available, as well as letting me have quick access to all my different photographs. Win! So, I went ahead and took pictures of my Orlock Necromunda gang, something I've been wanting to do for a while.
First, here are the Goliaths and Ratskin brave again, in much better presentation. You can even see the eyes!
And now, on to my Orlocks. These guys have been painted over the span of 14-15 years or so, ever since Necromunda first came out. Thus, they are painted in a variety of styles.
The Ratskin Scouts.
The oldish (new at the time) metal Catachans made EXCELLENT Orlocks, many without any conversions!
The Heavies. The rocket launcher is a converted Catachan loader.
The Leaders. The Catachan officer was a later addition, with a lot of milliput work. He has rat skull insignia on his shoulder pads.
The Juves.
Close combat specialists.
Whew! The guy on the right needs some touching up.
Shooters. If I recall correctly, the boltgun on the right used to be a lasgun.
More Catachans.
Bounty Hunter, Scummer and a Warmaster Necromancer as a Weird. If you look, his shoulderpads are Scaly hands, and each skull is from a Scaly, including the little children Scaly skulls. I mean, this guys really hates Scalies.
Finished up some more figures I have been working on tonight-- some Necromunda figures and Pulp Figures U.S. Rocket Corps. I have also decided that I detest miniature photography more than anything else on the planet. I couldn't take a decent picture to save my life.
First up are some Necromunda figures I received in the process of trading up for the Warhammer: Legends of the Old West. Well, I admit it, I cheated on this after finding a cheapish copy on eBay. I don't know what I'll do with these figures. I've never liked the Goliaths...until I started painting them. These are really cool figures! Plus, they have the best eyes I have ever painted ever. When I sat down, it had been so long since I'd painted eyes, I couldn't even remember how I used to do it. Then the magic happened-- all in proportion, all fixed in the same direction, only a little touch up.
To Dr. Methuselah's Chronozeppelin-- and beyond! I've had most of these Rocket Corpsmen painted for a while now, but just got around to getting the last four off the painting table.
I got these 25mm Ground Zero Games Stargrunt vehicles in trade a while back. I had intended to trade them up for the 40k rules, but procrastinated-- a good thing, since the new version was coming out. Anyway, the main reason I held off painting them is because I just don't paint vehicles. I've never been any good at it, and was frankly hesitant to do it. I took them as a challenge, and I think that the results of my attempt are good. See for yourself how I did it.
First, I cleaned the vehicle and primed it. I actually dabbled with priming white or black, but the spray paint I used covered so well that I couldn't tell any difference. Thus, most are just primered white.
Next, I spray painted the vehicle a sold color-- in this case, Testor Model Master's Afrika Mustard. I then masked off large, irregular areas with torn pieces of card stock. Some are white and new, others have already been used and are thus olive drab.
With the masks applied, I painted the entire vehicle Testor Model Master's Olive Drab.
Here's what it looks like with the masks removed. Pretty nice!
Next, I hand painted additional details, like the hover skirt and the gun barrel.
I washed the entire vehicle with Games Workshop's Gryphonne Sepia wash. It was a fairly thick wash, and glazed the entire paint job quite nicely.
After drying, I finished up with some light drybrushing of tan for weathering and scratches, and viola!
More pictures. I just really need to set the light tent up permanently and use it to take pictures, I'm having a hard time taking decent pictures. It is not anything that has ever been easy for me!
Trying to get some better pictures of the Dwarf Hammerers up for trade.
Silver Age Sentinals Robot Army (Iron Walkers):
And the latest 40mm Sash & Saber Indians.
Note that one Indian is Caucasian. From White Devil by Brumwell, "...that most feared and loathed product of the colonial American frontier-- the 'white Indian' who treated his countrymen worse than did the 'savages' themselves."
Okay, I traded off the Old Glory 49er in exchange for a Warhammer Fantasy Dwarf Hammerer Command blister pack, trying to work my way up to the Legends of the Old West rulebook. I have the Dwarves painted now, and up for trade.
Some pictures of what I've been painting lately.
First off, a bunch of Reaper figures I've had for ages and finally got around to painted. These were basically me trying out the new "Velas" technique I've been talking about. I thought they turned out pretty nice! I put them up on TMP to sell and sold the Cthulhu and the troll pretty quickly. The rhino centaur is still available, I'll probably post him again on TMP on Monday.
Several of my friends have 40k armies, and I have enough figures for the 400 point armies of the "Combat Patrol," or 40k in 40 minutes, scenario. So I've been talking to them about playing this. I really didn't want to go out and buy the $50 rulebook, though. I thought about the guy who, through a series of trades, traded a red paperclip for a house. I decided I would do the same thing, trading some worthless miniature up to the 40k rulebook. Mik suggest this headless trollop-- he had used the head in a conversion, and the body has been sitting on my painting table for several months. So, I painted her up like a ghost! It turned out pretty well, and it looks like I got quite a significant first trade-- three GZG SG2 vehicles. So not only will I be working my way up to the 40k rulebook, it will also stretch my painting muscles, as vehicles are not something I'm particularly good at.
Here are some mummies from Reaper. I like all of Reapers Egyptian themed figures, and have many of them, but have never painted any up! I pulled these out to paint to sell...but I'm torn. I like them. I could probably use them. I may not sell them after all.
This is the first Old Glory Army figure from their second series, cowboys. I have a few cowboys, but it's not a big thing with me, so I wasn't crazy about this guy. I am looking at Legends of the Old West for FIW. I bought a copy on eBay, but the sale is falling apart (guy had a good rating, but didn't respond for 2 weeks, then said he had e-mail problem and the book had already been sold. He offered a refund but I haven't seen it yet...sigh). SO, anyway, assuming that I end up needing another copy of LotOW, I will "trade up" this figure like the strumpet for it. This is fun. Updated: The money was refunded, and this figure is available.
Here are those two Sash & Saber FIW Indians I painted up (as well as the Trident AWI preacher). I thought they turned out really well. The one with the shirt has only a separate head, but the other figure has a separate torso as well as head. I didn't do any fancy modeling on them-- I didn't even prefit them-- I just slapped them together with epoxy. This gave a few of them long necks, but I think they all look pretty good. And for $2, you just can't beat it.
Some Old Glory ghostly pirates I bought at GenCon-- the first to use the "Velas" technique on.
