Blackmane's Dwarves: WIP

Hi all

Today I've brought a few pictures of the Dwarf Quarrellers unit that I'm currently working on. They're about half done and are the first unit painted up with the army colour scheme. The previous test of the scheme was on a Thane so I was unsure if It would work well across a whole unit let. However I can now say that it does and I think the whole army will look very good when its all painted up. Zebulon certainly seemed to like them when I spent the day at his on Sunday.

Anyway on with the pictures and see what you think.


Zebulon's Doomwheel WIP


Hi all,

I've finally got my laptop fixed and now I can post properly again! Today I've just got a little update on a Doomwheel I'm doing for my Skaven. Usually I don't like to post WIP's but I'm fairly impressed with how smoothly it's turning out, so I thought a pic or two now couldn't hurt. I've usually shied away from any proper weathering, such as rust and verdigris but being a Skaven player the army sort of demands it.

The basic principal I went with for this was what's vital to the machine, thinking that the Warlock Engineers would be more inclined to look after the more valuable parts and because I'm going for Clan Ektrik and their love of warp lightning, I figured the guns would be the most important! Anyway, to the pictures......

Blackmane's Dark Eldar: Reinforcements

Hi all

Today I bring an update to my Dark Eldar Kabal. There have been a fair few new releases over the past month and I've bought most of them (I would be getting wracks, grotesques and a haemonculi but wayland is cancelling all finecast orders due to a number of flaws they found).

So first up are some pictures of the models I've assembled so far.

Razorwing Jetfighter
I started assembling this the same day I got it I was that excited. I think the model is great. It just looks sleek and deadly, just how it should look. As can be seen from a couple of the pictures below it is notably smaller than a Valkyrie. One thing that isn't clear enough on the photo's is just how much thinner it is compared to the Valkyrie. It really does highlight the difference between the bulky Imperial Craft and the sleek  craft of the Dark Eldar/Eldar.

Blackmane & Zebulon Versus Challenge: The Result

Hi all

So the poll for voting was open for just less than a week and we now have the final result.
Zebulon : 1
Blackmane : 4

So that makes me the winner of the first vs challenge. Ok so there weren't a lot of votes overall but thanks to those people that took the time to have a look. I'd just like to say that I think Zebulon did well with his Chaplain, especially seen as it was very poorly cast.

Even though the poll is now closed please feel free to take a look at the chaplains (Zebulon's http://signoftheaquila.blogspot.com/2011/06/zebulon-blackmane-versus-challenge.html , Blackmane's http://signoftheaquila.blogspot.com/2011/06/blackmane-zebulon-versus-challenge.html) and leave any comments you may have as they are always welcome.

As always thanks for reading and have a good week.

Blackmane

Blackmane & Zebulon Versus Challenge: Voting is Open

Hi all

Just a quick post to say a poll has now been added, top right, to find out the winner of myself and Zebulon's first Vs Challenge. The poll will be open until Sunday the 19th of June. Vote for which of the two Chaplain you like the best and the winner will be announced on Sunday.

Zebulon's Chaplain can be found here:
http://signoftheaquila.blogspot.com/2011/06/zebulon-blackmane-versus-challenge.html

Blackmane's Chaplain can be found here:
http://signoftheaquila.blogspot.com/2011/06/blackmane-zebulon-versus-challenge.html

Thanks for taking the time to look and hopefully vote.

Blackmane

Zebulon & Blackmane Versus Challenge: Zebulons Chaplain

Hey all, today i bring my chaplain which i have been working on over the last week to compete with Blackmane. Was very frustrating to paint as i got a bad cast bt i think i covered most of it fairly well, Ultramarines are renowned for there romanyness so i tried to include a little of that in the wreath and the cloak. Any c&c's are welcome and we're going to do a poll to decide who was the winner, so when its up any votes would be awesome!
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Blackmane & Zebulon Versus Challenge: Blackmane's Chaplain

Hi all.

Today is the day we reveal the Jump Pack Chaplians we've been working on over the past week.

So today I bring pictures of my finished Jump Pack Chaplain for mine and Zebulon's Vs Challenge. I'm very happy with how he's turned out, especially with the wolf pelt I sculpted. I decided to flex my fine detail/free hand muscles and added the little runes on the bottom of the leg and on the jump pack to add to the space wolf feel.

On with the pictures.







Blackmane & Zebulon Versus Challenge: Blackmane Update

Hi all.

If you read the post by Zebulon on Sunday then you'll know that Zebulon and myself are currently involved in a grueling challenge of hobby and painting skill (ok that may be a bit over the top). Anyway this is just a  quick update to keep everyone up to date on my progress with only 3 days left to go.

So far I've made all the modifications, big and small, to my jump pack chaplain model. He's been basecoated and is ready for painting. However I will admit that I had intended to start painting him today but got side tracked, basing 89 models to be exact (more on those another day). That means I'm currently behind my own imposed schedule but I'm hoping to have him pretty much done by tomorrow night. This means I should meet the 5pm deadline on Sunday.

Now this kind of post would normally warrant a few nice WIP pictures. However, Zebulon and myself agreed not to post any in order to keep the final models a suprise for ourselves and all you out there. So with that there really isn't much more I can say as I don;t wish to give anything away.

As always thanks for reading and please drop by on Sunday to see the end results of mine and Zebulons week of toil and hardship (over the toip again isn't it?).

Blackmane

Blackmane & Zebulon Versus Challenge: Jump Pack Chaplain


Myself and Blackmane were chatting (as we tend to do) and we both had the desire for the Jump Pack Chaplain, for Blackmanes Sky Claws and for my up coming game im taking a 10 man Assault Squad and I thought a chaplain would be a handy addition.

Coincidentaly we both suggested about doing a kind of versus challenge, we've given ourselves 1 week and both the same Finecast model to make them as different and as army themed as possible. The official start time is 5pm GMT today and the finish post is the same time next Sunday.

This will hopefully be the first in a series of these to showcase our painting and let us paint the stuff we think is awesome but dont have any real gaming use for, I know Blackmane wants us to do the Khorne Lord on Juggernaut next lol.

So we're under starters orders...
Zebulon
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Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.0

Blackmane's Thoughts: Metal Vs Finecast

Hi all

Today I thought I'd talk a bit about GW's new Finecast and do a bit of a comparrison between Finecast and metal. Now I know there's been a lot of talk about this already but I thought a bit of a comparrison between the metal and finecast versions of a model could be interesting.

So the models I have chosen to compare are the Incubi. I got hold of a box of the new Finecast versions on Saturday and later the same day went back to the shop and bought one of the old metal boxes of Incubi. Now one of the reasons for this is I could have a full 10 man squad without having to buy another Finecast box and therefore save myself some money. It was then I decided to have a go at a comparrison.

So up first I want to talk about the detail. As far as I can tell GW have made this a big selling point with this fact constantly repeated.

Personally I'm not sure the difference is as great as GW has been making out. While I agree the little details are sharper, I don't think it makes a lot of difference to the other area's of the model. For example the armour plates on the Incubi are pretty much the same quality on both the Finecast and Metal. While the Finecast model has slightly sharper edges to it I personally don't think it really adds anything to the model. Maybe this will change when its painted but for now I don't think its anything major.

Next I want to talk about assembly. This really is where Finecast is way ahead of Metal. As I'm sure you all know assembling metal models can sometimes be a real pain, especially those little tiny pieces. Today I manged to assemble all 5 Finecast Incubi. They went together way better than any metal model does. A small amount of superglue, put the parts together and within a very short time its stuck. Now thats good. I can see that been really useful for those bigger models. Not having to hold the parts together for a long time while the glue dries will make them so much easier to assemble.
As you can see I didn't get the metal ones finished. This was just due to time rather than because they are difficult to assemble.

What I want to talk about next is a drawback of the Finecast models. Now I'm hoping that I just had some bad luck and picked a bad box. I say that because there are so many little bits and pieces that are miscast on my models. 4/5 of them have the armour on the back of their right arms missing, its just a mess of resin rather than the nice pointed armour the dark eldar have. The cloth wrapped around thier arms on 3/5 of them has barely any texture on them and the cloth that hanges from the waist has either holes or not cast quite right on 4/5 of them.  The holes for the arms to attach were all pretty much not deep enough with them only been 1 or 2mm into the surface and the points where the back vanes attach usually needed deepening on the left hand side. On the very first one I actually found a piece of rubber embedded in the collar of the Incubi's armour. There are other other little bits and pieces but I'm not going to go through them all. The metal versions though have very few defects. A few bent swords, which were easily straightened, and the odd rough patch that was easily removed with a knife or file. There's no detail missing like with the Finecast ones. So like I said I'm hoping this was just bad luck on my part as I would love to have some of the new Wracks and will no doubt get a box. But if they turn out like these I may give getting more than that a miss.

On to the cost. The metal box was £18.50 and the new Finecast box £23. Thats £4.50 more. Are they worth the increased price? I'm not sure they are. Sure they're easier to work with, lighter, better fine details, etc but they are same models. There's nothing new. Options for a Klaivex would have been great or maybe make it a box of 10 for £25-£28. That would have made it worth it. But for a box containing no new pieces, just the same models in a new material, I don't think it is.

So my final comments. While I was hesitant about the switch to Finecast I have to admit I think its a step in the right direction for GW. While I like the metal models, probably one of the few people who does, I think the new Finecast stuff will really open possibilities in the future in terms of what GW will be able to put out there. I just hope that the overall quality of these new models is better than the ones I got as it would be a shame if the amount of miscasting I got on mine is common place. Hopefully it is just teething problems with the new material that will be improved as time goes on.

Well thats my thoughts on Finecast. Please feel free to tell me what you think in the comments and let me know if you've found lots of little faults as I did as I'm curious to to if its a common problem or just unluckiness on my part.

As always thanks for reading.

Blackmane