6th Edition coming 23-June

Just come across an official confirmation on GamesWorkshop WNT (whats new today) YouTube site confirming with a teaser the 6th Edition Rules will be announced or our in shops on 23-June-2012.

Painting Fire

Been spending past few days on the final four Orks Boyz from Battlereach, leaving a final two Boyz with Big Shootas to complete the set. To break up the static position of sitting painting and neck ache I tend to read various sites for further painting techniques. In particular I come across another nice approach to rust and of particular interest was a very well done painting of fire article by Hot-Lead. What makes the fire article so good, was the initial pages on theory of fire and how it should look. Covering image analysis of fires point of combustion through to how objects are shown when heated and cooled. He then proceeds to run through a step by step example of applying this theory to painting an elemental miniature (see Hot-Lead finished example left).

Black Reach Painting - Day 11

Not posted for few days due to work, but I finally managed to get the second pair of Ork Boyz done with new paint scheme mentioned in my last post.  Below are a few shots of the latest scheme for legs, boots and leather straps.


I still notice I am catching the paint on boots and buckles and therefore rubbing it off back to the plastic.  Frustrating and need to be more careful, hopefully my new paint stick made from the top of an old broom and some blutak should help.  If you have any good tips on preventing this issue please comment.

Black Reach Painting - Day 8/9

Its been a slow week for me painting due to work and late hours, but I managed to find some time to finish of the first pair from new half squad or Ork Boyz.  I decided to try out some new scheme changes to the Orks skin, new teething, boots and belts and new highlighting.  

For skin I continued with a Knarloc Green base layer, but covered with the new Biel-Tan Green shade, which I feel created a more realistic skin tone and depth the the previous Devalun Mud.  I then added a dry brush of Underhive Ash to bring out some highlights early, which I then re-washed with the Biel-Tan Green again.  This worked really well and brought out much more detail in the faces and arms than previously with the last half squad.  Next was a coat of milk consistency lighter Knarloc/Snot Green mixed 2:3:3 careful to only apply like a wide highlight.  Lastly the skin had finer highlights applied of Snot Green/Knarloc mixed 4:1:3.

The boots, belts and pockets had a new Citadel colour of Rhinox Hide.  The next layer was another new colour of Doombull Brown with little Rhinox Hide to tone it down mixed 4:2:3 which brought out the detail nicley.  Finally a highlight mix Doombull Brown/Calthan Brown and Rhinox Hide mixed 2:2:1:3 to create fine highlighting edges.

Below is a couple of early shots be the final basing, touchup and battle damage is added.
[images coming soon]

Beginners Day 7

Another great day at Games Workshop with quite a few new folk turning up.  Maybe this was the glorious UK raining summer or maybe a lot of new folk getting into tabletop gaming, was good to see some new faces attending.  Due to this we had a large battle with two groups of five a side, each with squad each, ranging from Tau, Orks, Necrons, Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines.  The battle was going well with us Orks doing some great damage to the enemy, by turn 3 we thought we were into a good position with our Necron allies covering the range attacks.  In the last few turns though it went to wall and we lost badly, particularly down to me be able to consistently rolls ones.  It seems I need to learn some skill in rolling that small size sided object called a die.

New Necrons Inbound Q2 2012

Whilst scouring the latest news on sites I came across a post on Warseer of some new Necrons in an upcoming White Dwarf magazine.  Some snippets from the grabs below, but check the full details over at Warseer and BeastsofWar.

The new Tomb Raider with selection of weaponry looks pretty cool to, but for now I will stay with my Orks.  Less money spent that way.

Beginners Day 6

Another good Beginners Day this week with a plan to purchase some of the new Citadel Paints to make good the feedback I received on my recent Ork Boyz images. The feedback was around the boots being the same colour as the leather pants of the Ork, which to be honest I never really liked them all the same colour. So I read came up with using Rinox Hide as a base with Doombull Brown for the mid tones, highlighting with be a mix of both with some Bleach Bone to lighten. Back to the beginners day and the big Ork battle which ensued with 20 Ork Boyz and Space Marines challenging the another 20 Orks and Chaos Marines. The main aim here was to further teach us to start to remember the stats of our models and weapons. Something which seem to be taking me longer, but I put that down to old age :)

Black Reach Painting - Day 7

After a good initial read through my new book I felt it time I based up my first 10x Ork Boyz and take some decent photos of the most recent trio finished, to highlight all I have learnt from the initial ones.  I decided to go for Calthan Brown base edges with mainly sand base and a few tuffs of grass.

I then proceeded to setup my Nikon D300, lightbox and flashes to to attempt to get some decent images to better show them off, below is the result.  Feel free to comment on thoughts or critic on how to improve further.

Beginners Day 5

I have been looking forward to this weeks beginners day for a couple of reasons, firstly I get to pick-up my pre-order of Citadels latest How to Paint Miniatures Book (inc. DVD).  It has a hefty 135 page guide to painting miniatures with clear step by step guides on cleaning/prepping models before painting and airbrushing, layering techniques, colour schemes to try out using the new paints, full army painting guides for different areas such as skin, fur, face, hair and cloaks.  The second reason was because I have been reading far to much on planning my Ork army and tactics when playing with Orks, starting with the Orks Codex, DakkaDakka forums and various other blogs . So much information I needed to discuss with Dean at Games Workshop who runs the day, to clarify my understanding of benefits each unit I had come up with and a technique to help me plan my army.


This led to other half of my time of the beginners day playing a game against Orks to get a better feel for the gaming rules and using the codex to review the stats during play.  This helped a lot to understand in practice how the Orks play out and what units will benefit my army for the style of play I was trying.  One of the nicest parts of this game was being able to use my first 10x Orks Boyz I completed (images coming soon).

Black Reach Painting - Day 6

Spent a few hours this evening finishing of 9/10th pair of Ork Boyz with their highlighting and battle damage.  Really liking the new rust technique I tried on the weapons with these guys, maybe a touch to much on the guns, but the axe really came out better than expected.  I'm still not keeping my hand as steady as would like when highlighting and in particular the battle damage but I'm hoping it will improve over time.  Hope to base the first 10 Orks Boyz tomorrow and setup my light-box using my photography experience and get some much better images to show progress through the pairs I have painted.

Beginners Day 4

This weeks beginners day was interesting in that I went excited to pick-up the new How to Paint Miniatures by Games Workshop which now includes a DVD which mirrors the book, but I forgot it was Easter Sunday and hence arrived to a closed shop. Since I was in the mood for some hours of painting I spent the day completing my 7/8th Ork Boyz and tried the new line highlighted technique.  Sadly the new highlighting felt to bright on the edges for Orks so I added a Devlun Mud wash to specific areas to lower the tone of the highlights. I then proceeded to add the new war damage technique I started with my previous pair to proceed with the battle torn army.  Once I was happy with the 7/8th pair of moved on to the new pair of Ork Boyz, bumping up to 8 completed and 12 to go.  With this pair I also continued my new approach to base painting Orks as follows:

• Ork base colours Knarlock Green, Iyaden Darksun, Mechrite Red and Calthan Brown to corresponding areas
• Weapon base metal colours Boltgun Metal, Tin Bits and touches of Iyaden Darksun to mirror the armour on the Ork Boyz
• Jewellery colours of Chainmail for rings or hoops through noses/ears and Tin Bits for buckles
• Completed the base painting with a Devlun Mud wash carefully moving the wash to key locations such as the bolts, teeth gaps, gun metal join points and cracks in armour

Black Reach Painting - Day 4/5

Spent the last few days researching better techniques for my gun painting such as wearing, rust and chipped paint.  This led me to a number of new tutorials and the find of a couple of great sites The Painting Corps (TPC) and From The Warp (FTW) which both have extensive list of tutorials for particular techniques.  FTW quick and easy soot effect for guns is proving useful for my Orks Boyz guns, as now starting to apply a spent ammo wear to the end of the barrels.  TPC have a number of good tutorials for weathering and battle damage of which I found the Rust in Two Colors and Painting Battle Damage for tanks.

I also spent some time learning about highlighting and come across FTW tutorial for teaching how to complete Line Highlighting which is something I have yet to master, but slowly improving on.  TPC have a nice simple technique for Eldar Tank Armour Lining for creating clean lines in those armour plate creases.

Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium no longer an MMO

I have been checking my daily news sites and today found this post by THQ stating the upcoming Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium will no longer be and MMO title.  THQ should off its latest trailer at E3 last year and it showed real promise.  However this is no longer to be as the new plans are to make the game a single player game with multi-player.

New Citadel Paint Conversion charts

Whilst looking around the various blogs for new techniques of painting I came across a great post on From the Warp blog for converting the new Citadel Paints to various others including the old Citadel Paints, Vallejo, Racham and hex codes for each.

Beginners Day 4

Attended our 4th beginners day today, with only daughter son illness.  I took the opportunity to discuss some techniques with Dean the store manager, covering brushes and why Citadel range are not numbered like other art brushes. I also asked Dean to confirm I was not getting confused with fantasy Orks with Space Orks gear, such as the Azhag the Slaughterer which Dean confirmed I was and it from the fantasy gear.  The Space Orks boss like vehicles are such items as the Ork Trukk and the Ork Battlewagon.  What was also interesting was our discussion around the ForgeWorld Orks gear which is made with Game-Workshop approval but only certain items have the seal of having valid attributes for use in the table top games.
As for painting I managed to complete my next pair of Ork Boyz and also finally took the risk of adding battle damage I learnt from Girl Paintings tutorial video at 4m 49s by use of three simple colours.  Base of the highlight colour, Undercoat Black inner leaving thin outline of the highlight colour and finally a Chainmail inner leaving thin outline of the black.

Black Reach Painting - Day 3

Today I spent few hours reading and watching videos on blending techniques.  Wet blending seems to be one of the easier, but advanced techniques as you apply unwatered paint on the area in question with at least two shades.  Then carefully use a wet brush to gently blend one colour into another as shown in this Thunder Hammer tutorial.  I will try this technique when I have more experience, but for now the simpler technique of blending a colour by starting at a single point and then thinning it to the area you wish it to fade too.  A good example tutorial of this is shown in this Blending Blood Angels video.
I also worked on the next pair of Ork Boyz by completing their base coat layer and first wash of Devlun Mud.  Finishing off tonight with some touching up of the edges where paint has overlapped due to my not so still hands during painting with the base colours.  The trickiest part of this is the new helmet not seen until now which has a fur edge and proving a required skill to make it look good.

Beginners Day 3

Attended our 3rd beginners day at Games Workshop in Northampton and continued to paint up our Black Reach models.  Completed my first couple of Ork Meks which I learnt a lot in regard of shading/blending (see Thrushbralls Blog for great tips) and how I might improve on the next couple.  One of my key learnings from the first painting experience was to use a simple layering technique of primer, base coat, midtone and highlight layers.  This allowed me to realise the need when mixing of colour to create the correct shades for the layers you really need to have the right colour shades to mix with.  This led to me purchase 3 more paints Golden Yellow, Bleached Bone and Blood Red.
Son has also completed his first 2 Space Marines and 1 Terminator which have turned out great for his first attempt.  He has gone for a similar scheme of Salamanders but added a blue camo to the mix which looks pretty good.  He will look at using more layers in his next couple of paint jobs.

Now I have the images taken and up I have noticed numerous painting over spills need tidying up, missed the metal teeth of orks boots.  Something for son and I to work on over the next set of models and go back to these with those refinements in the detail.

Black Reach Painting - Day 2

Another late night this time learning another important lesson - paint all your base colours before applying your first wash.  Luckily I learnt this from watching another Ork painting tutorial video of GirlPainting and proceeded to paint my base colours on the rest of the miniature.  I then proceeded with a Develun Mud Wash being careful to remove  from the open areas and ensure all shadow areas contained the main wash.
Once the the wash had dried I proceeded to work through each colour for its mid tone painting.  I found the following a good strategy to follow as my first experience in producing a matching mid tone of the same colour:

• Mid-tone of Knarlock Green/Snot Green/Water 3:1:2 on Knarlock Green base/wash
• Mid-tone of Mechrite Red/Iyaden Darksun/Water 3:1:2 on Mechrite Red base/wash
• Mid-tone of Iyaden Darksun/Skull White/Water 4:1:2 on Iyaden Darksun base/wash
• Mid-tone of Calthan Brown/Tallarn Flesh/Water 3:2:2 on  Calthan Brown base/wash

I applied the mid-tone for each area by focusing rough painting on the main non-shadow areas, the final result was the images below, just pending the final highlight layer and tidying up the detail edges. After taking the images its highlighted to me how messy the painting job is and under the spot lights in the kitchen they don't highlight the miniatures detail when painting. I'm now seriously looking at a descent Daylight Table Lamp to help show better definition of the miniature during painting.

Black Reach Painting Starts - Day 1

We opened our Black Reach set tonight and started our painting of the miniature. Started at 8:30pm and didn't stop due to forgetting time until 11:30pm, was great fun and learn't an important lesson. What ever you do don't try painting miniatures under ceiling down-lights as they create far to much reflective shine on the models while painting. So I am now looking for a good hobby or daylight desk light, any recommendations please post a comment.

Beginners Day 2 and Ork Painter Tryouts

Attended our second beginners day at the Games Workshop and attempted to test out the marine 2 colour scheme which after a planned 4hrs ended up at 6hrs and still not quite finished.  Once the  marine 2 colour scheme paint job is complete I will post a pic.  

This second day enforced our addiction further and I purchased Black Reach set for son and I to paint up and play.  As my son decided on the Space Marines for his paint job, I am left with Orks and hence worked on the Ork Painter to tryout palette schemes using a Games Workshop Colour Sheet reference (see Useful Resources) and below is my decided palette using the Games Workshop Hobby Starter Paint Set colours.

Spacemarine Painter Tryouts

Spent the evening reading up on colour wheels and palette combinations from a great site called How To Paint Miniatures.  This sent me looking for an on-line test painter app which lets your try out colours schemes on your Warhammer models.  The site The Bolter & Chainsword  had a great little tool (see Useful Sites) for trying palette's on Space Marines, some schemes I liked and may give a go are shown.  What I really like about the tool is being able to click a link after editing a palette scheme and displaying an image of my Space Marine with a list of the closest Games Workshop colours required.

Marine 1 Paints Required	Marine 2 Paints Required

Beginners Day Update

Awesome first beginners day, as we painted our 2nd model and tried out new wash and highlighting techniques.  Enjoyed it so much I spent the week reading up on minature painting techniques and starter requirements for getting into Warhammer 40k world of painting an table top gaming.

1st Day Wargaming

Took my son to Games Workshop this Saturday for a look around and ended up paint our first Space Marines.  We both enjoyed it so much we already booked our FREE Beginners day for Sunday, will let you know how it goes.