Affiliates and other Goblins

January 7, 2020January 7, 2020 DebbieForster3 Comments

A couple of points I want to make today.

I have set up an affiliates link page on the blog, http://www.blackhandmarines.com/afiliates, and I am looking to add to the list. If you are interested in adding yourself to the page, please get in touch and I shall do so. Please only give me one option to start with, this may change in the future, but for now I think one per person is enough. I hope to create a reference place for other hobby blogs and maybe even generate some traffic. Who knows, it might even work.

In other news, I have finished painting somem squig hoppers and I am pleased with how they have turned out:

Not only were they a lot of fun to work on, but I used the airbrush for the base coats and that gave me some practice as finer detail work. Hopefully, they will find a new home soon!

New Airbrush!

January 3, 2020January 2, 2020 DebbieForster3 Comments

I was lucky enough to get a new Airbrush for Christmas and today, I tried it out for the first time. I have only been using airbrushes for about six months, and find them to be a useful tool when it comes to base coating. The one I have been using, the Harder and Steenback Ultra has been brilliant when it comes to learning and is a great piece of kit, I have done a lot with it since I started as well.

When I went on the painting course in August, the model of airbrush used as the Harder and Steenbeck Evolution AL Plus. It’s made of aluminium and is less than half the weight of the other one at 56g. It might not seem like a big deal, however I use the airbrush for extended periods of time and I also have carpel tunnel syndrome in my right wrist. I don’t want to make the condition worse and although this is a small thing, it will make a big difference. This is the one I am now using!

First thing I did was take it apart, which was easy – there were instructions to follow which helped. Once it was back together again and connected up, I had a go at some scenary to check the flow of the airbrush itself and see what it could do:

The paint flowed well, and the coverage was even. It’s not perfect but then my skills are still being refined. Patchiness in the paint work is down to my lack of ability rather than the airbrush itself. I was pleased with how these sections turned out and I want to try and do some fine detail work with the airbrush another time to see exactly how small an area I can cover.

This airbrush is a quality piece of kit. It has finer control of the trigger; I need less pressure to activate it and it fits in the hand better than the Ultra does. It’s more refined and suited to someone who has had practice with an airbrush and wants to move on to something a little more sophisticated.

I also base coated a tank, which is the first commission of the year:

I am very pleased with it so far, and look forward to being able to refine my skill with the airbrush as the year progresses.

figures · hobby · miniatures.

What’s on the table?

June 21, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I have a few projects I want to wrok on over the next week or so and I thought I would lay them out here so I have a bit of focus and a list to wrok through.

Nagash:

Not new Nagash, I love that mini and have it in a box somewhere, but I have always wanted the old Nagash. My first ever miniatures were undead, in about 1997, but I never had the opportunity to have old Nagash. So when I was presented with him, I was thrilled. He does however need some work:

His base, and he, will be stripped, reassembled and completely redone – watch this space for this project!

The Warpsmith:

This was a give away prize I did ages ago that I really need to just get on with – I want to start him today.

Mephiston:

This is a present for a friend’s birthday. I want to get him done this weekend at least.

The Stormcast:

This is the other half of Soul Wars and shall be painted for sale. I am not enthused by the miniatures as yet, but I am sure I will find passion for them by the end. I do not think they will be as thrilling as the Night Haunts, but that might be because I love undead things.

The Warp Talons:

I have no idea what to do with these miniatures as yet. I picked them up at the Warboot for a very good price. I have no idea whether to make them Night Lords, or Black Legion, or what I am going to do with them.

And then there are other projects I hvae that need to be finished off, like my Kill Team, the Mini Reaver’s base and maybe even assembling some of the other miniatures that I have kicking about.

Either way, I certainly have a lot to be getting on with!

40K · hobby · miniatures.

Freehand Friday

June 14, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

The title is a lie, I spent most of this week looking at freehand work. I wanted to share them all in one place however and ‘show off’ what I have done. Freehand was not something I had ever really considered before, however I was prompted to try things other than another galaxy cape. I have a full sized Chaos Reaver Titan here and I want to do the (not so) miniature justice. I want to have amazing looking frescoes painted on it as it stomps its way over the battle field. In order to achieve this, I need to get good at freehand work.

Here are the results from this week’s painting:

Ahriman’s cloak of stars is always a good starting point!

There are plenty of ares for improvement with these pieces of freehand. Blending could be a bit mroe subtle in places, the skull shape needs working on, but for first attempts on something a little less forgiving than a galaxy, I can say I am proud of what I have done so far.

Items for sale:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/heretic_deb?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

Most of the miniatures I have painted lately are up for sale here, including Eisenhorn and Slambo. I am also open to reasonable offers.

As always, commissions are open, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

40K · figures · fine detail · hobby · horus heresy · miniatures. · painting · Warhammer 40000 · Warhammer 40k

Sevatar.

May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

Finally, I am able to post my thoughts and comments on painting this amazing miniature. You all get to find out who won and which mini belonged to who.

First off, congratulations to Office, who was entry A. He was judged the winner.

I’m going to post the pictures of my efforts again as a reminder and then talk about what I learned:

This is the first time I have done layered blending like this. I used a lot of thin, very thin, coats of paint to gradually build up the lighting on the ceramite. You can see it in the bottom picture clearly on his leg and shoulder. This counted on me knowing where the light hit the armour and was a challenge for me to make consistent over the entire mini. There are spaces where I could have been more consistent with it, but now I know how to do this, I can refine the technique when painting other miniatures to a higher standard.

I am exceptionally pleased with the lightning, I think that looks neat. The metallic bronze of his armour trim worked well too, though I am not convinced the game colour paints are as good as I first thought. I’m going to try a few others out and see if they are better.

The base of the miniature looks dark, which is something the judges have indicated to me in their feedback. I agree with them. The colours blend together and the detail is lost in this case. If I were to do this again, I would change the steps from silver to dirty bronze and maybe change the pipe colours as well.

This does not mean I am displeased with the result. This is by far the best miniature I have ever painted – that includes the multitude of Ahriman/Ahrimen and I’ve learned a great deal as well. It was a massively positive experience and I would do do again.

Sevatar is now going to go and cause some trouble in the cabinet with the Ultramarines along with a couple of his Night Lord buddies that I have also painted up.

This leaves me with one question. Office, Game for a rematch?

40K · blue · hobby · miniatures. · Warhammer 40000 · Warhammer 40k · Wh40K

Lieutenant Amulius

May 16, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

Everyone loves a Primaris Lieutenant right? RIGHT? I picked this one up at Games Day because I thought it would be rude not to. I do like painting Primaris. I’m not going to lie, power armour in general is a favourite of mine but Primaris came out right when I started painting again so they’re always going to hold a spot.

When I got this guy, I wanted to try out one of the techniques that Gary suggested I do for edge highlighting. I had done something similar before but not how he said. The only colour I used for his power armour is Caledor Sky and white. I thinned it down to help it flow better and then had a go at the edge highlights. I am pleased with the results.

I am also pleased with how his face turned out. Skin is not an easy thing to tackle I have found and a badly painted face would not look right. I have seen it ruin otherwise good models. In this case, I think I did alright!

40K · Age of Sigmar · hobby · horus heresy · miniatures.

Games Day!

May 12, 2019 DebbieForster3 Comments

Today, I went to Games Day. I did not enter the Golden Daemon contest as my diorama would not have been finished in time – the competition was exceptional and there were some amazing miniatures on display. It was good to see them.

There was a lot to see and get involved ith that it is difficult to know where to begin. I’ll try and keep this focused… Contrast paints. These have the ability to revolutionize the painting aspect of the hobby. They allow anyone to create decently painted miniatures in next to no time at all. After applying a special smooth undercoat, these paints are quite literally slapped onto a miniature and the rest of the work is done. I managed to paint two Brimstone Horrors in under 2 minutes.

All these miniatures were painted using Contrast paints. There will be lots of experimentation going on in the future that much is certain. It will cater to those who do not like painting!

I did a speed paint! In twenty minutes I painted a Storm Cast to what I think was a good standard. I challenged Caitlyn, who spent a good deal of it screaming! Meet Erik:

There was a lot of people dressed in cosplay as well, the costumes were amazing. I took several pictures, got shot by a Kreiger and watched as another friend was captured and slaughtered for heresy!

My favourite part of these events is chatting to the design teams. I got to meet the people who created my personal favourites: Ahriman and Abaddon, and enthused with them. I saw concept sketches and had in depths conversations about how they work and design the models we all love so well. I then got chatting to one of the artists about the Dark Angels Legion. The artwork was spectacular, however the chat about how the legion is differently organised was also interesting.

They have different heraldry depending on who they are. Their squads can be compromised of multiple marines from different specialities and it is a lot more fluid than any other Legion. In the same squad, there might be different individuals who have fought in different areas – the squads are not fixed. So, there might be a guy who fought against orks, a guy who fought genestealers, a seige specialist etc, and each of them will have different runes, while they all share squad, chapter heraldry as well. I think this makes each miniature in a squad an individual rather than a batch painted one and that is awesome!

Finally, there are some shots of the Chaos Knights. Beautiful miniatures they are indeed. They did have a copy of the codex, but it was behind glass and locked – no-one was allowed to look at it, not even the staff!

What an amazing day it was! Exhausting, but a lot of fun! I am sure there will be more posts about this in the near future as I remember things, but for now, this is all I have.

40K · hobby · miniatures. · Wh40K

Digby: Master of Possession!

May 8, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I did my second stream on twitch today, which went rather well. I have changed the camera around so you can see what I am doing properly. I bodged it together using a spare lamp to hand the camera on and it worked. I also switched to using Streamlabs OBS which I found pretty easy. I even managed to set up a layout image which worked well. It still needs work but it was a step in the right direction. It will be a work in progress for some time I think.

Speaking of work in progress, I did manage to get Digby, the Night Lord Master of Possession finished off, which was an achievement. If nothing else, streaming makes hobby time vastly more productive.

Here he is in all his horrific glory:

The lightning looks OK. Not amazing. I think it needs to be a lot sharper and I feel I need some more practice at this before I tackle Sevatar. He will be started next week – yikes.

I do like the skin cloak he is wearing. I like how that turned out and think the blending of the colours works. I will be using that mix again,

Tomorrow, I plan to build the tech-priest. He is made of fine cast however so expect lots of ranting and moaning about how rubbish that material is to work with. I am undecided whether I am going to stream as yet, we shall see! I have enjoyed it so far, so it is quite likely I will.

40K · hobby · Uncategorized

Hobby Update!

May 6, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

I have been out of teaching for a few weeks now and after the initial amazement of having visitors and catching up with my sleep, I have begun to turn my thoughts to what I am going to do next.

It’s not an easy thing, my focus was teaching for at least seven years and had always floated in the back of my mind. I’ve been in some sort of limbo, which has been strange. Fortunately, I have the support and encouragement of good friends around me who have helped keep my head clear.

What I truly want to do, is commission paint miniatures. I have a few avenues to explore to make this happen and I am in the process of doing so. One of them is streaming on Twitch. I plan to make this happen a few times a week after the success of the Paint-a-thon. Other plans will be announced when there are more solid details to announce.

If you are interested in commmissioning me, here is the link. Feel free to get in touch.

https://blackhandmarines.com/commissions/

Other hobby news:

The diorama is not going to get finished in time, to the standard I want it to be done, before Golden Demon on Sunday. I have decided to keep working on it but it won’t be entered this time around. I will not be participating this time, however I will enter it into the next contest, should I be able to do so.

And so, my next major task is Sevatar. I have great plans for him, great ones indeed. No spoilers, this contest is all hush. I don’t want to give away any advantage after all – this is a high pressure contest.

I have a warp smith to paint for someone who won it a month or so ago.

I have also been asked to paint the Master of Possession in the Black Legion colours.

There is no shortage of tasks to keep me going, I just hope that everything I want works out. It won’t be for lack of trying, that much is certain.

Charity · hobby · painting

Paint-a-thon 2019!

May 3, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

Tomorrow! It’s tomorrow. Jenn and I paint for 12 hours without stopping to raise money for Cancer sufferers.

We have a range of minis and a lot of plans to get through them. It’s going to be an awesome day. We plan to stream it as well so there will be plenty of ways to get involved.

Here are some of the minis I did last time: