Send in the clowns

I finally borrowed Agnès's camera for a decent picture of the Masque of Joyful Lament, part 1. Yes, at the back is an avatar, painted by our own Manu about twenty years back if I remember correctly. One day, when the Masque is fully assembled and I can develop allied formations, I'll set up a barebones Craftworld CAD to use the Avatar (and have objective secured), and possibly a Dark Eldar CAD to have Raiders (because they're gorgeous and can carry ten harlies at a time). But for now, I'm waiting for my second set of murderclowns, somewhere in the mail...

Happy holidays!

Clown Cars

So, painting vehicles has always scared me. Back in old times, vehicles cost a LOT, and they were half-ton lumps of metal that could crush your other minis if they fell on them. As a result, I never really painted vehicles, except for a war walker that was basically a bigger infantry mini.

But then I checked out this video, and that's the one responsible for making me want to paint (and play) harlequins again. So I used its technique and went ahead. This was also the first time I ever used an airbrush and by God it is so much fun!

So onwards with pictures.

Step 1: cut out 1cm*1cm diamonds from a strip of masking tape.

Not shown: stick the little masking tape diamonds to your models, trying to make a symmletrical pattern.

Step 2: airbrush the un-diamoned parts of the models.

Step 3: airbrush a first layer over the diamonded parts

Step 4: start the blend with a second, darker, layer

Step 5: finish the blend with a third layer

Then comes the fun part: carefully peeling off the little diamonds of masking tape, to reveal the white undercoat. It is CRUCIAL you do this after a long while, to make sure the airbrush paint is absolutely dry and solid. Man, Harlequins teach you patience.

Then put on the bits you'd taken out and brush-painted beforehand (riders, jet engines, weapons etc.) It's still missing a couple of highlights and transfers, but this is what you get for a fairly easy day's work:

Colours: Tamiya White (spray), Prince August Air Electric Blue, Magic Blue, Imperial Blue (airbrush). Details: Citadel Genestealer Purple.

Starring roles

The Funeral Page, Death Jester

(a better picture than the previous version).

Exeunt Stage Right, Shadowseer

(I'm still not certain about the ribbons, as I played with paint consistencies to get weird patterns. I might just redo them entirely into a linear blend of purples).

The Lone Chorister, Twilight Troupe Master and Warlord of the Masque

(This one was taken from the Voidweaver's gunner, but I decided only Troupe Masters should have long coats and his was the longest, therefore the best)

Eldrad Ulthran, High Farseer of Ulthwe

(also a well-known dick).

No Solitaire yet, but it will come. Oh yes... it will come.

The Fab Four

Ca fait un bout de temps non?

Bonjour à tous.


J'ai des souci pour avancer sur mes fiers Death Guard, à mon avis une baisse de motivation passagère, nul doute que la flamme ( flemme ?) va revenir.

Pour garder le blog  sur la bonne voie ( merci Gaël),voici un petit point d'étape  qui illustre parfaitement  bien ma faiblesse sur- naturelle envers GW.....


J'ai craqué.....


Pour du Blooooooood Booooooooowl! (oui je suis faible).

La boite de Skaven ohhhh qu'elle est belle.


Et je vais avoir le plaisir de vous faire un pas a pas de Skaven.

D'abord voici le contenu de la grappe. Du très beau,  les figs sont très dynamiques. On regrettera éventuellement le fait qu'il n'y ait qu'une pose de coureur des égouts et une pose de vermine de choc.

En plus des figs de très très bonne qualité, il y a des token des ballons spécifiques pour chaque équipe! C'est épique non?



Ensuite, quand on monte des figs avec GW il y a besoin de  (tout) ça.

De bas en haut. Limes, une paire de pinces coupante, colle plastique, cutter, trucs pour ebarber.

Et bien.... les figs GW sur blood bowl sont TELLEMENT bien faites qu'on a besoin uniquement de la pince coupante et du cutter pour enlever les ptit bitognos.

Les pièce s'ajustent toute seule entre elles, pas besoin de colle ce qui est un vrai plus pour l'étape suivante.

Photo pourrie prise pour montrer l'équipe. Oui 4 coureur des égouts.

La peinture (enfin la sous couche déjà).

Mon équipe s'appellera la XIIIème ( et pas la croix trois batonsième).
Bientôt ,la peinture de la figurine test.

Drumroll, please

Ladies and Gentlemen, for one night only on your battlefield, coming from the faraway Black Library, the stupendous, the amazing, the world-famous Masque of Joyful Lament!

Day Troupe, led by the Beast of the Dust Palace

Night Troupe, led by the Silent Herald

The Funeral Page

Main colours: Tamiya White, Game Color (Vallejo) Electric Blue, Citadel Genestealer Purple, Citadel Waystone Green.

Main wash: diluted Prince August Transparent Blue. Main drybrush lighting: Game Color Pallid Blue.

Now on to vehicles...

Legging it

After some base-coating and painting, it was time for real-conditions test for the varnish stamp technique. Here are the early results. I had not assembled the minis themselves, as to apply the stamp, you really want to have as much room to maneuver around your piece as you can; even so, you can't always reach all of it. I have not yet decided what to do with the spaces the stamp won't reach. Freehand them? Leave them be? After all, the holo-field on a harlequin's suit doesn't have to cover every inch, does it?

So, when it works (like the thighs of the bottom-left and middle legs), it *really* works. In a couple of seconds you get a beautiful, neat, geometric pattern. When it doesn't (everywhere else), it looks miserable and you might as well repaint the whole area. 

In this first batch I had to repaint most of the lower legs and sometimes all of the legs. Overall, about 2 out of 6 legs were good on the first go, which is not bad for a first "real" attempt.

At this point, I'm thinking I just need to practice and try again until it looks good. Stamping is a particular knack. It has to be done quickly and smoothly, with no corrections mid-stroke (although you can correct a little afterwards with a thin brush and paint or varnish, depending on the area). I figure once I get it down, it will make things considerably easier, quicker and neater. At least that's the hope.

Choix des armes: harlequins

So, a little about me. When we were all young and stupid and playing 40k because miniatures were less complicated than girls, I was by far the worst painter of our little bunch. I mean, I was not a good player by any stretch either, but that was far outpaced by my atrocious painting. Manu was always good, and Dimitri progressed fast, but I was the one who basically slathered my minis in thick coats of shiny stuff and it had to do.

Now it's twenty years later. I haven't played 40k for decades. I haven't painted a mini since I did a small lizardman Blood Bowl team five years ago. And as I said, I was never that good to begin with.

So what do I go for? Of course when the bug bit me again I would go for THE hardest to paint army in the whole game: Eldar Harlequins.

This was basically suicide. But then my partner, Agnès, came up with an idea. Now Agnès can do anything. I mean, anything. She has mastered sewing, tatting, crochet, papier mâché, nail art, felt-making, and above all, polymer clay (check her out here  and here ). She excels at taking a technique developed for a medium and applying it to another.

So when I told her about the harlequins' notorious freehand patterning, after she took a pitying look at me, she said: "you know nail art people do this all the time, right?".

And indeed, there is a method called stamping which seems like it would work. Of course, it's designed for flatter surfaces than your basic harlequin, but it looks very promising. So you'll see me try to apply it on this blog.

To tide you over, here are a few (low-quality) pictures:

Some tests for the patterns. I ended up choosing the Briar Wood polish, from a-england, along with a triangular/square pattern.

Jim-Bob, my first test subject. An old pewter mini, stripped and repainted as a test before I move on to the plastic Death Masque set.

Jim-Bob's legs demonstrating early tests of stamp applications.

See you soon for the next step - I just bought my Tamiya base-coat spray.

Too many irons in the fire...

So... yeah, I might have a slight ADHD problem.

It has much to do with having way too many minis, really. So many fun stuff that I'd like to paint and use. It's not my fault :P.

For example, I've been fiddling about with some Chaos Space Marines:

...but that's kind of a side project, as I've finally actually started to play In Her Majesty's Name using 40k models. We tried the system out with the following "bands":

A small group of Vostroyan Firstborns that I painted years and years ago (using the regular british company rules, with the addition of a flamethrower guy because I had two painted), and...

...a Genestealer Cult revolutionary cell, as everyone and his uncle is doing this days :P.

The game went really well (MVP was certainly the flamer guy, which turned the tide almost by himself), and it turns out that the Firstborn are in dire need of repairs to the paintjob... and actually finishing them, if we're being honest about it.

OTOH, I did a test paintjob of a CSM Chosen with the paint scheme I want to use for the rest:

So... yeah, too many irons ^_^

Right on time.

Well, there is still 52 minutes of september left as I start writing this post. Right on time !
As the goal was to start something in september, it's certainly been reached, and I will shamelessly congratulate myself for it.
Yeah, that was merely undercoat and a quick splash of olive drab. So ? Bring it on, october !

Close-ups are ruthless.

Three shades of Olive Drab

There's an hint about the selected chapter somewhere on this picture

First test model

Well, last saturday I did a small test to see how difficult would be to paint the Deathwatch in a way similar to the official:

Then I fiddled a bit with him and did some weathering:

I'd still need to clean him up a bit and the like, but it's looking good enough I think.

Albertorius out.

A New Challenger

Hi everyone, my name is Alberto and I'm an old 40k deckhand from Spain :)

So, it seems I've been drafted into Dimitri's "Paint something already, you damn hack" painting blog/contest, and as the last I've assembled has been some Deathwatch Space Marines and they look very spiffy indeed (...and I might actually even use them for an In the Emperor's Name game, to boot), I've decided to go with them.

The new Deatwatch veterans sprue is chock full of interesting stuff to use. For example, these are some of the minis I've assembled with it:

Out of the five, only the middle one is actually a body from the DW veterans sprue, whereas the rest are made with weapons and bits from it, but with other SM bodies I had lying around.

The squad I'm going to start painting, though, is the one made with the actual DW bodies, armed with very regular bolter/power weapon combos. I've just primed them today and took a very, very rough pic:

Now, I need to actually, you know... paint the damn things ^_^.

Albertorius out.

SALAMANDER 30K arme lourde escouade tactique

Après le sergent, le porteur d'arme lourde :)

Armée SALAMANDER (choix des armes)

Bonjour à tous,

Pour commencer ce choix des armes je poste un sergent d'escouade tactique.
Bon il n'est pas encore fini, il manque les décalcos...

Sergent Salamanders

Random bits

So... It's been a bit, yeah.

I haven't been completely idle, and doing too many things at once, first of all, if you're looking for a good, useful undercoat spray, stay away from Vallejo sprays.

It's as rough as it looks...

That's two Shermans wasted.

On the bright side, I'm happy it's only two Shermans wasted, I have a few spare anyway, I would have been considerably more annoyed if it was my Abrams instead.

Oh yeah, feel the freedom

They'll get painted. Soon.™

Last, and definitely not best, just so I could say I did something 40K, I've finished a Carnifex I had lying on the desk for a while.
So, what happens when the hive mind messes up ? Well, you get a Fubarnifex.
It's likely the sprues didn't have time to cool properly since the shell and vents didn't fit at all, and the legs joints are warped, making for a very unbalanced, awkward pose. It looks the part from afar though, and should be the perfect expendable paint training piece.

Note how the hooves don't fit flat on the base. They're not even remotely parallel, either.

The vents are completely misaligned, and you can see how the back shell profile is different from the rest of the body

Death Guard 30K - Première Salve.

Bonjour@ tous.

Mister. A. se fera un "plaisir" de traduire.
(oui, qu'il doit me maudire).

Mais en même temps J'ai pooooostéééé.

Le projet comporte la peinture de 5 figs 30K pour Septembre.
J'ai jeté mon dévolu sur la Death Guard et je commencerai donc avec 5 Terminators Cataphracti.
Ces termi font très 30K et son encore plus blindés que l'armure termi de base. C'est dire.
On commence donc pas des vues de détail du travail commencé.

Gantelet Energetique, appelé amoureusement " la moufle".

Le travail sur l'armure est bien avancé, le travail sur le cuivre et l'oxydation également. Les lanières de cuir ont reçu un aplat noir.

Vue de détail du Gorgerin et du torse.

Le torse et le Gorgerin on tous les deux recus leur lot d'oxydation. Le vert et le noir ont reçu la couche de base.

Voila pour aujourd'hui.
n'hésitez pas à laisser des commentaires .

Ca motive.

Translation by Mister A. :
Nope. The power gloves have been called "mittens", just to be cute. Other than that, just look at the pics.

Presentation du projet 30k Death Guard

Bonjour @ tous et bienvenus sur ce Blog.

Mister A. fera la traduction j'en suis certain.
("Mister A. will do the translation, I'm certain of that". Yeah, sure. Well, ok, I'll sum it up at the bottom)

Pour ce Cda ( Choix Des Armes) dédié a l'univers des Nains de Jard... ah.... on me fait signe dans mon oreillette que ce CDA est dédié en fait en grande partie,à l'univers de Warhammer 30K.


J'ai choisi de  peindre des Space Marine de la XIVème Légion: la Death Guard.

Pourquoi?

Je pourrais répondre mon habituel pourquoi pas? Mais parce que y a des gens nouveaux et sympas qui vont passer je vais développer les raisons de ce choix.

Tout d'abord, j'aime 30K et j'aime Nathaniel Garro. "La fuite de l'Eisenstein" est un excellent livre et je me suis plu à découvrir la vision de la Deathguard de l'auteur.

Ensuite j'aime pouvoir peindre une légion rebelle ( renégate?) alors qu'elle n'est pas ( encore) corrompue par la puissance de la ruine. Le schéma de couleur n'est pas le plus facile, je ne suis pas sur qu'il rende bien, mais si j'avais voulu faire simple j'aurai peint de l'Iron Warrior ou du Blood Angel.



Enfin, revenons au coté fluff. J'aime la Death Guard car ce sont de gros bâtards cyniques, pragmatiques, machiavéliques, qui feront absolument TOUT pour la victoire, aussi dégueulasse soit elle.

Ce qui, soit dit en passant, résume superbement ma doctrine de jeu.

Death Guard donc, mais si je ne suis pas convaincu par le schéma de peinture initial. Je vais pas un peu m'ennuyer?

Pas sur, car la Death Guard (DG par la suite hein?) à un sacré coté à part des autres légions de space marines. La DG n'est pas du genre à mettre des fioritures comme des honneurs ou des insignes de bataille.





Elle garde en revanche en haute estime les éraflures sur les armures qui sont autant d'honneurs et d'insigne pour un membre de la DG qu'un parchemin rempli d’âneries pour les Dark Angels. Je vais donc devoir prêter une attention aux Battle Damages pour mes figurines ce qui va être une première puisque je ne suis pas un habitué de la chose (exception faite des Orks).

Je vais donc commencer avec 5 ou 6 figurines de la boite Betrayal at Calth. Je vais essayer de vous poster cela de manière régulière.
Septembre arrivant vite, je me mets déjà en condition en préparant les figs.


TLWT; (Too Long, Won't Translate)
So, why the Death Guard ? Why not ? I'd like to paint a renegade legion before it's actually corrupt.
I quite enjoyed "Flight of the Eisenstein", great book, and liked how the author's view of the Death Guard.
The scheme isn't as simple or easy as Iron Warriors or Blood Angels, but allows for a grimy, worn look with lots of apparent damage. That should be fun to try.
That, and the Death Guard are a bunch of nasty, pragmatic mofos that'll do anything for victory, no matter how dirty. Just how I like my tactics.

Rise and shine !

Dernier article publié le 18 avril 2015 ?
Le temps passe aussi vite qu'un A-Wing...

Histoire de relancer les choses, un nouveau choix des armes (CDA) sera lancé d'ici septembre, sur la thématique "Hérésie d'Horus". Ou sur du bon vieux Marines période 40K. Ou n'importe quoi venant de 40K. Ou de l'Infinity. Du Flames of War. Des nains de ja... Non, quand même, y'a des limites.
Donc, ouais, un CDA sur la thématique "Arrête de glander, et peint quelque chose".

Ce CDA étant ouvert à l'étranger, voici la version anglophone :

Last article published on april 15th 2015 ?
Time flies like an A-Wing...

To jump starts things a bit, we'll be starting a painting challenge around september, themed around the Horus Heresy.
Or regular 40K Marines if you can't make it. Or anything 40K. Or Infinity. Or Flames of War. Or garden gno... Ok, not those.
So, yeah, a painting challenge themed around "get some painting done you lazy bum !".