Finding the character of an army

I know I started an army list review compared to what I was taking to tournaments back in fifth but because its Saturday the missus is out with the girls playing bus stop bingo all day (a game that involves carnage) and Liverpool play tomorrow I've got the day free to paint.

I've spent a lot of the week thinking about what I want this Wolf army to be. My last army was a typical baby blue based on snow with some nice shiny gold, they certainly looked like they'd just come off the parade ground but only a parade ground where the Amourer was missing a few fingers and possibly two eyes.

Just before I stopped playing I had painted a few pre heresy models which included a Contemptor with the new airbrush I had had. I based coated them with the normal chaos black spray and then used Vallejo model air German grey to give them an undercoat with a highlight of Vallejo model air light grey. I was really pleased with the results so I'm going to use that basic recipe but take it a step further.

This week I have been really impressed with a couple of videos I've watched the first I had seen before (link here) showed a style of painting Thirteenth company Space Wolves obviously the more pre heresy feel that I want. I really like the way Lester paints I'm taking a lot from this.

The other video I watched and this is the link the to the first part was about weathering a tank by OrcPainterNerd. I really enjoyed watching this video from start to finish. I want these wolves to look embattled, they've been stuck on a planet surrounded for months and had their resources slowly eroded and this shows in their armour. Of course they are Imperial so their armour is in a better state than the Death Guard but its still looking shabby.

I've decided to use some of the techniques from the video mixed with a scheme close to the one in the thirteenth company video so where does that leave me.

My 10 blood claws are all built and pinned to for ease of painting.

I have started off with a coat of Vallejo Satin Varnish because the weathering video suggested that it allowed paint to adhere better. Next step was a coat of chaos black, I would have preferred to undercoat skull white but I don't think it would have had the required effect.

The next stage is to spray around the models especially areas that would get scratched more with a mixture of Vallejo model air gun and aluminium, as in the weathering video this is going to be quite haphazard but as said I'll be concentrating with feet, hands and lightly everywhere else.

After that I'm going to go to work with the Weathering fluid I have bought, a light coat should give the required results.

I think that's as far as I will get today so look out next time for some pictures (I can't promise high quality)

Age of Armies - Month 1: Helldrake - DONE!

Khorne Helldrake - DONE!

It's the end of the first month of 40K Global's Age of Armies Campaign and I'm pleased to say that I completed my commitment to paint a Helldrake and I got my first experience with an airbrush. I've already posted about the technique I used to paint the Helldrake (here) so I thought that I'd give you my first impressions on using the airbrush to accompany the pictures of the finished product.

Quick Tips

There are a couple of tricks which you're not going to be able to get from any research you do before buying an airbrush. Firstly, correctly thinning your paint is not easy and takes a little while to get right ... and then you need to change colours and you have to thin the next one! I will say that I've found the Vallejo Air paints are about the right consistency straight out of the bottle but they do tend to dry fairly quickly in the brush. This causes clogs and will have you cleaning the brush a bit more often than you probably want. Thinning the paint with a drop of water mixed with "Flow Release" 9/1 seems to solve the problem nicely.

Secondly before you blow trigger air through the brush you absolutely must spary onto scrap paper otherwise you'll blow whatever residue is left in the nozzle or on the needle all over your model. I've done this in a few places on the Helldrake and it's bugs the hell out of me!

Give it a Blow

On the whole I really like using the airbrush, it's far more precise a tool than I thought it would be but it also takes exactly as much practice to use well as I thought it would. As such I'm expecting that my next attempt at a Helldrake (a few months down the line) will look noticeably better than this one.

If you're on the fence about getting one I would say that if you do a reasonable amount of painting, and can afford to, it's worth giving it a go. Once you see the results you can get you'll want to use it on as much as you can. I know I do. I'll be painting up two Khorne Bezerker units and a lord on a Juggernaught next month and I'll be using my airbrush at least for base colouring and applying some basic shadows and highlights.

On with the Show

Anyway, enough of that, here are the pictures of the Helldrake, please let me know what you think in the comments below.

Baleflamer detail.

Baby got back!

Flame pattern detail.

Top down.

Parting shot.