Autarch

I have finished another model! I painted an Autarch for my local GW's Finecast painting contest. Here it is:




The red gems don't look right in the photos. They look much better in person.


I tried to make the jump pack look like it's been used, so I dry-brushed a little black on the bottom. It doesn't look that dark in real life.


A top view so you can see the base.

I guess it's not too bad for being only my second completed model. I'm getting the hang of things, but I'm definitely not getting any faster.

I've also started a Dark Angels army. I'm excited to paint my company master. I also bought a librarian in terminator armour that I plan to turn into Belial whenever I get around to buying some terminators.

I apologize for the slow posting. I'm a very slow painter and modeler.

Wraithlord

My light tent came in, so I tested it out by taking a few photos of my incomplete Wraithlord.







They're a bit grainy, so I have some more testing to do. In regards to the Wraithlord, the parts that are painted in Tin Bitz I'm going to paint over again with a silver colour, not sure which yet. I'm not done the sword yet, I still have to paint the gems, I have some touching up to do on the base, and dry-brushing on the wings.

Update

Well, it's been a long time! I've been very busy, and haven't had much time for Warhammer ):

I've pick up a few more things, Striking Scorpions, Jet Bikes, Death Reapers (finecast!), an Autarch (also finecast!), a couple of Wave Serpents, another Wraithlord, and another set of Dire Avengers. I don't have any photos right now because I've ordered a light tent so I can take better pictures, and it's currently stuck in customs in Quebec. My first Wraithlord is almost completely finished, though. I hope to order Eldrad sometime soon because it's such a great looking model.

I grabbed some great swag at my local GW's birthday bash yesterday. I got a poster for Matt (it has Space Marines on it), a krak grenade key chain, a padfolio, and two 40k army list pads. They had some mini games going on that were pretty fun, not to mention hot dogs and cake! One of the staff, Stan, showed me the Forgeworld Avatar he ordered. It's huge! I can't wait to see it when it's done.

I'm starting to run out of room in my case. It's just a tackle box, which has resulted in some Swooping Hawk wings popping off and some bent shuriken pistols. We want to get a Sabol Army Transport case, probably the Division case so Matt and I can share it. It'll be nice to have the foam. I don't want to start painting my metal models until I have a foam case.

Hopefully next post I'll have my Wraithlord finished and my light tent so I can take awesome photos to share :)

Tournament

Hello all! And by "all", I mean all two of you, hahahaha.

I've been convinced to enter a GW tournament. It's called The Hall of Heroes League. It's taking place every second Saturday for four Saturdays, starting May 7th. I was a bit apprehensive at first, since I don't know the rules very well and I'm not anywhere near done painting yet. The guys at GW told me that it's more of a beginner's tournament, and it's okay to not have everything painted yet, but the goal is to have everything painted by the end of the tournament. So I'm going to be power-painting for the next little while to get my army all ready. They're only 600 point games, but I just got Fire Dragons last night, and I still don't have a Wave Serpent, so that's going to set me back a bit.

I also brought my single completed Dire Avenger over to GW for some critiquing and I got a very surprising reaction. They were shocked to hell that it was my first model. Even some random guy in the store said, "What? That's a first model??" I guess most people don't do very well their first try. I was told to clean up my lines a bit, and get some more gradual steps of colour on the helmet. I'm thinking about entering the Armies on Parade for fun. I definitely don't think I'll win, but it'll be cool to see how well I do!

Since I'll be painting a lot, be prepared for more photos!

Colour Scheme

Good evening! I've been a bit busy lately, so I haven't had a ton of time to work on my army. I have, however, completed ONE model. I wanted to figure out my colour scheme, so I did one of my Dire Avengers from start to finish. The Exarches will look a bit different. For example, there will be a small strip of shining gold on the crest as well as the silver and black strips.







I know it looks mostly like the already existing scheme for the Dire Avengers. I didn't pick any specific Craftworld for my army because I didn't like any of their colours. I also don't plan to paint any of my other aspects their proper colour, just variations of this scheme.

Any constructive criticism on my painting is welcome. This is my first time painting, so any advice for improving would be great. :)

First Game

I had my first game yesterday, and won! One of my friends, Brian, who also just started playing had brought his Tyranids, and Matt brought his Space Marines. Brian and I don't have enough models yet for 2000 points, so we joined forces and each fielded 1000, while Matt fielded 2000.


Dire Avengers


Rangers


Swooping Hawks and Wraithlord




Some dirty Space Marines






"Oh noes! It's coming for us!"

As you can see, I've primed my Wraithlord, and one of his capey things fell off. Again. I haven't made a ton of progress; I got the bases finished (minus grass) on my Dire Avengers, and my Swooping Hawks and Rangers built. I also suffered my first hobby-related injury. I drove the hobby drill into my thumb while pinning my Swooping Hawks' wings. According to Matt that means I've been officially initiated into Warhammer. Good to know.

Update

No photos today. I will post some photos on Saturday or Sunday likely. Dragon Age 2 comes out today, so I probably won't make any progress on my models until the weekend ;)

I ended up breaking Baharroth, but a trip to GW, a terminator base, and a quick pinning tutorial fixed him right up!

I picked up a squad of Rangers on Sunday, so now I think I have a good sized army to start playing with. So far I have:

2 10-man Dire Avengers squads
5-man Rangers squad
6-man Swooping Hawks squad
1 Wraithlord
1 Fire Prism
Phoenix Lord Baharroth
Farseer with Warlock Bodyguard

The plan is to get a squad of Fire Dragons and a Wave Serpent for my next purchase. After that I think I want to get Striking Scorpions. Then I'm not sure of what else to get. I don't want Harlequins because I don't want to paint them >:[

Customizing

My Baharroth, Swooping Hawks, and wings came today! There are no photos of Baharroth yet because he was being very disagreeable. (I almost detached him from the metal part that sticks into the base and had to repair with Green Stuff. Now he's drying.) I managed to put the wings onto my Wraithlord with some Green Stuff and am trying to make them look a bit like the ones on the Swooping Hawks.




Swooping Hawks!




One wing on.




Both wings on.










Ew, dirty Space Marine.


I've put more Green Stuff on the wings to make them look more attached. I'm just waiting for it to dry to add some gem-like bits like the ones that are on the Swooping Hawks to make it look more like it belongs. I'll take some more pictures once that's done.

The Beginning!

Back in 2005 my then boyfriend started playing Warhammer 40k. I thought it was ridiculous to pay money for little dudes that came unpainted and unassembled. "I will never pay out that kind of money for something I have to put together myself!" I thought.


So now, six years later, more of my friends are playing and having a good time building and painting together. Last week I bought the first few pieces of my army.





Here is one squad of Dire Avengers. I bought two, but haven't started putting together the second squad yet.





Exarch






The Exarch from another angle. Sorry for the blurriness.






Not very exciting, since they're metal models, but here are my Farseer and Warlock Bodyguard.





My unfinished, blurry Wraithlord. I know he's not very dynamic; he was the first model I put together. He is unfinished because I am waiting for pegasus wings to come in. I'm going with a Swooping Hawk look for my army theme, and it was suggested to me to put the wings on his back to go along with it.





My partially assembled Fire Prism, waiting for a base coat.


With the pegasus wings for my Wraithlord, I am currently waiting for my Swooping Hawks and Baharroth to come in, which should be this week.


I haven't completely planned out my colour scheme yet, but I'm thinking of a blue-grey theme with dark red highlights. I have a lowly Space Marine I'm practicing on ;)