Operation End Times no15 Neferata Mortarch of Blood part 2

After several grueling hours of painting I've finally finished painting Neferata.  As with Arkhan, and I expect Mannfred, the dread abyssal took an age to paint.  However unlike Arkhan, Neferata herself took a long time to paint.  Being a lady she has a lot of fine features about her not to mention she's a lot more opulent than Arkhan.  For a comparison to Arkhan you can find him here http://necrothrallshallsofthedamned.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/operation-end-times-no7-arkhan-mortarch.html

Well here she is, the first vampire in all her glory.

 I put a bit of water effects on the jewels to make them sparkle

 I posed Nagadron so that it was pawing like a cat.  I little nod to the Nehekaran Egyptian influence.

I deliberately didn't add any gravestones for two reasons.  Firstly the spirits ended up being lower down than Arkhan's so the base would look a wee bit cluttered.  And secondly as a lady who finds the fresher dead and ghouls loathsome she wouldn't be hanging out in a cemetery, she expects certain hygiene standards from her associates.

New building added to Gotham

I recently won Sarissa Precision's first newsletter give away (does the happy dance).  I won a £20 pound voucher (woot), which I put towards the town hall from their gaslamp alley range.  Its a rather spectacular piece, and a tall one too.  It dominates all my other buildings.  Anyway here it is (the grey splotch is an unpainted chaos marine added for scale).

Each floor separates and has fully detailed floor boards.  I doubt I'll be doing this.  Most sane people lock their doors when the see the Joker in the streets.  Now to use this in a game.

Operation End Times no 14 Who you gonna call?

Guess what? It's more ethereals, this time in the guise of spirit hosts. 

group shot

first host

second host

third host

The plastic spirit hosts look so much better than the old metal bed sheet ones.  Although they look cool they are a pain in the arse to paint.  They're clumped quite close together, which makes it quite hard to get the brush in amongst them.  Unfortunately there's nothing you can do to stop it, they're designed to fit together and that way only.  Also there's no variation in the box other than which base the wee gravestones go on. Even so I'm tempted to get another box.

The Red Planets

Just finished my Martian Dreadball Team. 

First up the blockers

The blockers are the more heavily armoured martians aesthetically at least.  They aren't actually more armoured in game.

Now the Jacks

The jacks are the real strength of the team.  The martians are decidedly average players and are fragile.  However the jacks make up for this by cheating.  Jacks carry hidden weapons.  They can knife their opponents... or shoot them mwu hahahahahahahahaha!

Now the strikers

There have skin tight body suits, no helmets and smaller air tanks, all of which I presume makes them more agile.

Now the prone guys

 Remember I said the martians were fragile? Well that's what these guys are... smush.  They've been split open, had limbs severed and have been de-helmeted.  They're dead Jim.  Also the pva attaching them to the base hasn't dried hence the white blob.

All in all these were pretty fun to paint, although attaching the helmets was a bit of a pain.  Can't wait to take these guys to the pitch.

Expanding Gotham a little bit at a time

I've taken it upon myself to paint a bit more of my Batman terrain.  Having acquired the crates and shipping container sets by Knight Models I decided they needed a lick of paint.  First up are the holdings of Queen Industries.

A couple of crates.

And a shipping container complete with graffiti.  These are supposed to open, this one doesn't, I broke one of the hinges.

Next time the Wayne enterprises version.

Operation End Times no 13 How I paint Ethereals

It occurred to me that I've been painting a lot of ethereals lately and thought I'd share how I do it.  This will be my first tutorial so go easy on me.

Stage 1 gather your materials

first you'll need some ethereal miniatures primed black.  I've got some classic wraiths here.

These are the paints I used.  If you can't find these exact ones try and find something similar.

Stage 2 the cloak

First paint the entire cloak fenris grey.

Next over brush the cloak with space wolves grey leaving the fenris grey showing in the deepest folds.

Finally give the cloak a heavy wash of thrakka green and let it dry... watch a bit of Netflix or something while you wait.

Stage 3 The Bone

Paint the bones earth.

Now over brush the bones ushabti bone.

Next give the bones a wash of agrax earthshade.  You should also paint the weapon blades and armour with rhinox hide while you're waiting.

Stage 4 details

Here I've dry brushed the scythe blades with boltgun metal.  I've also painted the skull holding wraith's ring and I've painted the scythe blades black.

The wraiths are more or less finished.  Now the only need to be varnished and based.  Job's a good 'n.

 Here's a few close ups to finish.