What The Faux

...or already dead. The bandana hides the true image of one of Lady Justice's most loyal marshals - the Judge.

I entered it in the Rotten Harvest painting contest organised by Wyrd Games and it took 2nd place. This won me a 15$ voucher. The irony of it all is that the shipping cost is... you guessed it - 16$. Still, I can't complain as I was planning to make an order there anyway. Maelstromgames have been lousy with my Malifaux orders so far so I'll have to give the Wyrd store a go. If the pic is too small after clicking on it, try opening it in a new tab.



I stuck to the original color scheme while keeping the model tied to the contest Halloween theme. I added some dirt on the cloak using Vallejo dry pigments but I received many comments praising the bloody look of this element so I guess I unintentionally achieved another thing than I had originally planned. This may be due to the fact that this pigment looks more red than brown on a brighter surface.

I've started working on a few other Malifaux models so stick around to see some WIP shots. To finish things off, here's a nice song by one of the recent youtube sensations - I like the live version more than the studio one. I think it gave her a better chance to really show off how well she acts with her voice. Anyway, I'll leave you with the song and let you be the Judge.

Merry Christmas to all Independent Painters readers! We hope you had a great time with your dearest and got some nice presents - not only hobby-related!

It seems that GW has decided to give us a special treat - pics of new Vampire Counts models. Check these out over at BoLS.

And here's a touch of "Christmas Spirit" in a slightly twisted form.

Another update from Isengard project. Two sets of blisters, Uruk-Hai Scouts and Berserkers. Paintjob is consistent with what you saw in earlier Isengard post.

One month later and I'm more than started on my Sf.Kfz. I managed to put him together in about 90%. The hardest part is the fact that whole interior has to be painted during glueing so it's kinda tricky, though I feel it went really good. There have been some problems with assembling correctly battle compartment due to inconsisten instructions which made it hard (mainly because of whole flamethrowing system).



As for painting I'm going for winter camo, so in order to achieve that I need to start with usual camo. I probably will use Dark Yellow with some brown and green patches. Then hair spray, salt, sugar, tape and masking fluid will come up to the line up to create washed and fatigued effect of winter camo.

Next batch of models related to Isengard pole. As title suggests it involves set of Uruk-Hai (Lurtz, Captain and standard ) being the bad ones, Saruman , being obviously the worse of whole Isengard bunch and additional feature by Gollum which is for sure the ugly one ;)

I had an opportunity to paint Saruman with the Palantir, which by far is my favourite of all of his poses. I decided to go with most movie like scheme of that character. So no great freehands of additional fireworks have been done. Well except maybe the base, which I decided to paint in manner of Orthanc floor - glossy with markings on it.

Blizzard has always been great at making cinematics for their games and this one's no exception, can't wait til it's released!



I know the blog's been badly neglected in the recent weeks but I hope to work on that soon as I may have a bit more time:)

Rangers of Middle Earth are one of my favorite plastic models from the LotR range so I was glad I had another chance to paint these guys. The main challenge was to keep the various shades of brown diversified while still making them look like a coherent unit.
Another thing to bear in mind was that these are rangers, which means they usually travel and scout ahead of the army. That's why I went for the "deep forest old ruins" theme for the bases. To further mark them as those that travel a lot I added weathering to their cloaks and tunics. I also finally had a chance to try a product from the Army Painter - wilderness tuft. It's very easy to use and looks nice and realistic once glued on the base. I tried to use a few different types of flock to achieve a look of deep, humid forest where lots of different types of grass and moss can grow. Now I plan to work on a few Faramir's rangers and then the heroes I showed earlier on.

Lady Justice's Crew was the first one that really drew my attention. First of all, there are the amazing Death Marshals, great sculpts and really interesting characters. Secondly, there's Lady Justice. Fluff is a really important part of Malifaux and I really enjoyed reading the parts which presented this character. Fluff aside, the model is great too. The overall quality of the sculpt is amazing with plenty of details. I like the "justice's blind" pun that's involved too.



I stuck to the original color scheme pretty closely as I simply like it and didn't want to change too much. I kept the colors dark and the highlights smooth. Painting her hair was the biggest challenge as they're very long and take up lots of space. In fact, if you look at her from the back that's the first, if not the only thing you notice. I guess when you look at her from the front, most notice also just one thing ;) Anyway, I knew that I'd need to pay extra attention to this element so here's how I did it. I started with basecoating the model black and spraying some brown paint over it for basic highlights. The whole hair area was painted using two thin layers of scorched brown. I followed it by applying a wash of badab black. Two colors were painted using drybrush then - once again scorched brown and bestial brown. After that I highlighted only using thin brush as drybrushing doesn't work well with highlighting small surfaces - the paint gets too evenly distributed over the whole area and all the shades are lost. The successive highlights were painted using: vermin brown, vermin brown mixed with some blazing orange, the same mix with a little bleached bone and pure bleached bone. The key was to keep the paints thinned down with water and apply two very thin layers rather than one thick.
I used a base insert with a tombstone from Wyrd Games in order to tie the model better with the competition I entered it in (The Rotten Harvest). I wasn't successful with this entry but I was with another one, which I will describe in my next post.
As for the choice of music - well, there simply can be no other for this one:

The title of this post may be misleading as there's nothing wrong with this harvest. In fact, it was quite fruitful.



I'm writing about the annual painting contest organized by Wyrd Games. This time I decided to give it a go and entered two pieces. I haven't taken part in any painting contest before so I was more than happy to find out that my entry placed second in one of the categories.
Congratulations to all the winners. There were many great entries so those that were chosen as best are really top notch works. I will write more about the pieces I entered soon so stay tunes. You can see all the entries here.

That's funny name. Try saying it 3 times quickly :) Lately I've decided to take a journey back to my hobbisitc roots, time when I started fun with models overall. Before I was engaged into war games I was wasting my time  with World War II's 1/35 models, mainly tanks and other armoured forces.




Now in depths of my I found  room , kit I've bought couple years ago i.e Dragon's 1/35 German APC by name of Sd.Kfz 251/16 Flammpanzerwagen. It's one of many variations o this 251 type APC which was equipped with flamthrowers (2 of them and third one for use of infrantry mounted onto back doors. It's rather interesting one so it should be fun working with it.

Model itself is really well done (Dragon's standard for yers now). It came in series of models with additional photo-etched , brass and other various components, which are to make it more realistic. Whole moulds are top notch , withhout excesive mould lines , fitted tohether very well, with additional 3 crew members attached.




My choice went to the 116th Panzer Division, also known as the "Greyhound 'Windhund' Division" which took part , among other operations, in Battle of the Bulge in 1944 (also know as battle for Ardens). I think it's project that will take me some time (mainly because I decided to work on it on weekend while at home so I guess 2-3 months will be the lowest estimate time in which I can complete it).

Yes! Today I received something I ordered on ebay last week - Dead Justice set. I already have the original set but I liked this one so much I simply had to get it. It cost me an arm and a leg but it was worth it (and yes, I now it's available now at maelstromgames but I paid a similar price anyway).



The first thing that strikes me is that Lady J (aka Dead Doxy) is much smaller that the original sculpt which towers above the rest of the Crew. That's a big change, maybe she somehow shrunk in the process of resurrection? ;) Other than that, the (Dead?) Death Marshals look amazing and I'm really looking forward to painting them. The sculpts are very dynamic and full of character. The Judge is also top-notch and we finally get to see what he's hiding under the bandanna.
I'm really excited about this project and plan to paint it... this year. I'm currently working on a large number of models from Gondor but that's OK as I like most of those too (the Rangers in particular).

This post is brought to you by One Ring's monthly painting challenge. It did indeed challenge me a bit to come up with something new. Especially since I saw some great entries there.
Kudos guys your minis are top notch. Also due to a fact that I had Arwen (mtd) waiting for her brush time I wanted to make her special. I decided to leave standard purple scheme I used with foot version a while ago. So I asked myself  "What's my second favourite GW colour?".



Dark Angels Green was the anwser. So I build the scheme around that. Also I wanted the mount to be some kind of unique , hence the idea of dots. I think it presents istself rather good though there's always room for improvments. Only thing I'm not totaly found of is the sword. I've choosen to  go with metallics this time, it'll be great but I think I rushed it a bit due to approaching deadline forentries in challenge :D Maybe I'll change it someday :)




Now it's the time to wait and see. I hope it will do good in poll.
For music corner I picked piece that I accidentally found a week ago and been listening to it ever since (yep 7 days...). It's magical :)

Here's the last WM mini I painted a while ago but haven't had time to show it here yet. It's another character jack called Scavenger. Nice model that has all that I like about WM models - exaggerated features so characteristic for the tongue-in-cheek approach to sculpting that the guys from Privateer Press have.







I placed this one on a much taller base. I thought it would suit this one and add to the slightly comical effect of thin-legged robot with torn wings. I also paid more attention to the bone parts, using two different colors for its jaws and teeth, trying to make them look ancient. I also worked a little more with washes and glazes on the metallic parts. I finished the mini off with more colorful types of flock that will keep this one in the theme I chose for the army.






As for the choice of music, there's only one song that comes to my mind:

I put some of the Gondor heroes on the new forest bases. I needed to slightly alter them so that these guys fit better but overall I'm really pleased with the effect.

They look more dynamic and will definitely pop out among the rest of rangers.
I put some of the LotR heroes on the forest-themed bas Here's a quick pic to show them next to regular rangers. I used pieces from old LotR ruin set (not sure if it's still available. I plan on adding more static grass and different types of forest flock to make it look as it they were scouting in the forest among some old ruins.
I also finally had a chance to use GW tools from the new Cleanup kit. I really like the mouldline scraping tool. It's got blunt edges and removes the mold lines easily both from plastic and metal models. The fact that it's blunt is a big advantage as I cannot even recall how many times I've managed to cut myself while working with Citadel hobby knife. The handle is made of rubber so it's comfortable to hold too. The other one, a flash brush, is something that I still have to find good use for. So far it seems like a really unnecessary tool. I've also tried the Liquid GS and it seems very promising but I'll write more once I've worked with it a bit more.

I've recently bought a few 25 mm round forest bases produced by Micro Art Studio. |I've worked with their products before but never mentioned them on the blog. I thought I'd take this opportunity and write a few words. First of all, the quality is amazing. I've used many other resin bases and in each case I had to deal with numerous bubbles (the ones that are left in a resin base/model after casting) that needed to be removed. Here there are just a few tiny ones, as you can see in the picture below.



Apart from the quality of cast, the level of detail is amazing. The texture of these trunks looks really great and the shape of each one is different. I plan to use them for Gondor characters (such as Faramir, Arathorn, etc.) so you can expect an update soon.
I bought mine at maelstromgames but if anyone's interested in MAS's products, you can check out their website. And to finish this post off, here's an example of a MAS base that I painted a while ago. The scales on the back were sculpted (not by myself, I bought this one slightly converted) and the snow flock was added after painting.
With long weekend ahead (four days off in total) I plan to do some painting and catch up with blog backlog so you can expect a new post tomorrow. For now that's all and I'll leave you with a nice song.

Here are a few pics of LotR dwarves I painted a while ago that haven't been posted yet. First off, Gimli - version in cloak. Very nice mini with lots of details. His face is particularly well sculpted which is an achievement given the scale. I followed the classic red color scheme. I also wanted the cloak to look worn and dirty and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The axe looks bad in the pics but I worked on it later on to smooth out the highlights. Of course, I forgot to take the pics.


And here's another one - dwarven captain. I really like the "come get some" pose of this model. I positioned it differently that it normally is as I thought it gives him more dynamism. I use Andrea red set so often that it's hard for me to imagine working with this color using different paints now.






And finally, a quick shot of the Iron Guard. The pic is really bad as the lighting was very uneven but it gives a very general idea of how they look like. Maybe I'll have better pictures in the future ;)

I've started as usual with main parts of mini , which in this case is armor. Only difference is that this time I decided to use airbrush to do whole thing. I must say that I'm really pleased with the effect. Of course there are some parts that are in need of remaking and I think that I should take now some dark colours like Regal Blue to emphasis shades even more but in the end...4-5 h of painting instead of two weeks.
Who wouldn't like that deal, plus transitions are far smoother than any I could create with standard brush. Now to finishing touches on armor like creating shades on plates and in deepest parts which couldn't be done with airbrush. I must say that it would be shame to damage those pieces with scratches and rust but all in all that's what's supposed to be done to them so It's not my call :) I'm sure that they will look amazing. Also I must decide which parts will be repainted as metal plates, I think I'll choose them randomly for each model to add some more personal feel to it. Also squad and individual numbers will be given to each one to customise them even more (as usual). In the end it has been very, very productive day. I leave the results up to your judgment. As always any comments and critisism is deeply apprecieted.    
And for music corner (yep our little tradition), music piece by Kaisers Orchestra , very dark and full of climax, and with history that's really adequate. I'm posting live version since it's a lot better plus mentioned background of that composition is explained. I think it suits Terminators theme very well.