The Alpha Legion…

January 26, 2020 DebbieForster2 Comments

As we all know, the Alpha Legion like to sneak into other legions in order to learn their secrets and steal them. It worked rather well during the Heresy and I suppose they are still up to their sneaking about in the 40K universe.

A while ago, at a Warboot, I picked up two Alpha Legion miniatures simply because they looked cool and were cheap. I want them to go in the Black Legion but decided to try a technique out to make them still look a bit Alpha Legion. I will show you the pictures and you can see what I mean:

As well as freehanding a Chaos Star over the Alpha Legion symbol – it is supposed to look a bit rubbish, I wanted to show chips of black paint. Under these I wanted the Alpha Legion sea green and I think I managed to get that to look alright. I painted on silver spots, painted the spots Aethermatic Blue and then edge highlighted them with both the dark grey and light grey to try to give that worn effect.

I have another Alpha Legion ‘specialist’ to go with this one so I will be trying the technique again and refining it as I learn.

Not bad for a first attempt I think1

Basing – Water Effects.

January 15, 2020January 15, 2020 DebbieForster3 Comments

A long time ago, I was once told that what makes a miniature look great is ‘bases and faces’. I always remembered this, maybe because it rhymes, so I have set aside some time to really think about how I am going to improve creating bases. For basic miniatures, I am happy to stick to using texture paints, however I want to stretch myself and try new things as well.

I have recently started collecting Ioneth Deepkin – so new that I have only assembled twelve of the miniatures, and have been thinking about a theme for them. I love water effects but wanted to look at something a bit different than just have them as a generic sea based force. I thought about different biomes within the water and settled upon a swamp theme. I shall be using greens and browns for the force themselves but more of that when I get to them.

I began by using water effects paint and seeing what it looked like over sand:

I also used plastic from the blister packs to try and create waves and splashes. They look ok, not great, and not very swampy. Alright for a first play around though.

I then thought about what a swamp looks like, and used Pinterest to do some research. I discovered that swamps have a lot of reeds and plants in them and have a green and brown look to the water as well. So I painted some bases, put different materials on for land. This is how they turned out:

I think the little plants and the reeds look good. I also really like the sand and the dark brown mud texture paint. I think the green on the bottm of the base it too green though. To me, it looks more like slime than the sludge at the bottom of a swamp. I want to try this again with a browner paint. I also want to try and see if I can add swamp weed into the water. This will take more than one layer of the texture paint however and might be reserved for the character bases.

It is a good start however, and I have a lot of ways forward to explore.

miniatures.

Fossil finding!

September 14, 2019September 14, 2019 DebbieForsterLeave a comment

Time for something different! Today, we headed out of Hull to the ‘dinosaur coast’ to look for fossils. The weather was warm, the day clear and so off we went. Robin Hood’s bay is just south of Whitby and features some picturesque countryside and views. Car parking is at the top of the hill, and you have to walk down a considerably steep incline to get to the beach.

Walking along the firm sand was a lovely experience, and we searched for fossils. They can be found in the cliffs, which are made from a crumbly slate-like rock.

We walked for a good hour but we didn’t find any fossils. I did find egg rock, a flat rock and a rock with red in it though. They have been added to the rock collection in front of the fire place and I had a really good day. The walk back up the hill was less fun, but all in all, it was great fun.