Cultural Learnings of Painting for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Nomads

Let me first say that I think all of you are right. I guess it's a combination of all of those things.

I know that blogpost! :D And yeah, I'm pretty sure it's the brightness of the sword. I started from black and there's probably still too much of it.

Thanks! And yes, the colors that have to reflect the light are kind of difficult. On top of it, I think I would have had to make the other half of the face much darker to sell the effect more.

I'll try darkening the areas away from the blade a bit more and making the blade brighter. Don't want to put too much more effort into her though – I really want to paint something else than Morlocks soon :P

 

Finally I finished the last of the four! Say hello to Maul-lock

Spoiler: All Pictures

Feels good to have another box completed! With him I'm at a healthy total of 5 Morlocks. So that means it's time for another group pic:





Such fun models to paint! But god was I happy to have an airbrush for those coats

 

On it goes with the references. In mother Russia, Nemo finds you:

Spoiler: Single Pictures

I challenged myself with a speedpaint for this one. Really helped to focus. I think I came out at around 4 hours.

 

I'm working on the big one right now, but until then I have one more: My HVT/Warcor. Did another speedpaint on her (4 hours). And I tried something else that was new for me, a double gradient on the dress. I'm pretty happy with it for the time it took me.

Spoiler: Single Pictures

 

Yeah, most of the Dire Foes HVTs are awesome models, and not just for HVTs. I also have the Hazmat, who will be one of my TAG pilots, as well as the Comm-Tech, who makes a great Engineer/Tech-Bee etc.

 

Thanks!

White is notoriously difficult, I agree. For this one I experimented a bit. I used thin layers of Vallejo white over a light grey zenithal undercoat until I was happy with the white, than shaded it with glazes of a greyish green (no idea what the mixture was, I just slapped some colours together that were already on my wet palette). That actually ended up looking well enough for me. You can't really see it on the pictures though.

Long story short: if you don't want pure white, try shading it with a different color than grey. Try greens, blues, reds etc. whatever fits the rest of your color scheme. For this fishy guy, a greyish green did the job of making it look maritime.

 

Guys. I did it. I finished my first TAG! Say hello too Big Lizzie in all her splendid colours:

Spoiler: Higher Res Pictures

I know she's not totally smooth. I know neither the NNM nor the OSL is perfect. I know my edge highlights could be thinner in most parts. And I know I lost the antennae so there are two ugly black holes in the top

But I wanted to finish her before Christmas, together with her pilot (which I hope I can do tomorrow), so that's where I left her. I always try to remind myself that in the end, these are supposed to be tabletop standard.

And to be honest: I freaking like her! :D

 

Thanks! Good to hear it's not just me :) Yeah, the Lizard is my favorite, despite it being so old and dated. Those claw cannons are just so sexy!

Haha, well, I didn't say I screwed her up, just that I know where I could improve ;) And I guess that's true for all of us...

Thank you! The only reason I agree with why people don't like her is that, compared to newer TAGs, she's so small! My Zondmate is as tall as her, and he's supposed to be S5...

Thanks! Says the guy with the incredibly high tabletop standard himself :P

 

I finished the pilot, and with her, the last mini of this year. I really tried to do her (buttocks) justice:

Spoiler: Higher Resolution Pictures

At first I had the Lizard head painted the same way as my actual Lizard. But the orange details and face plate would have been the only orange parts of the mini and taken too much attention away from the pilot. So I decided to paint it black, even though now it's inconsistent. My explanation is that the TAG is in maintenance and the chassis is getting a new paint job atm :P

Holiday Bonus: Intruder HMG Conversion

Since this was my last mini for the year and I am about to make a big group shot, I had one last fix to make: My Intruder should swap his MSR for an HMG. After my Druze conversions I had an HMG left over, and the loadout is much more useful. Also I didn't need a second Intruder and liked the lady much more than the dude anyway. Good thing all nomad weapons look the same from the barrel back, so all I had to do is clip them both and glue the two parts back together.

While I was at it, I also touched up her orange parts. She was my first mini this year where I tried out the orange, and compared to the rest it had come out way too brown. So I fixed that too. Here she is:



Tomorrow I'll post the group shot, and then that will be that from me this year.

 

Thank you! And thanks for accompanying me on that progress.

It's time for the big group shot. Unfortunately, my phone, while being semi-decent for close-ups, is completely useless for long range shots, and my setup was suboptimal as well. So, well, the groupshot didn't turn out the prettiest. Here it is anyway:







Looking back at it now, I would have made a couple things different of course. Having multiple base designs, while looking cool on their own, brings a lot of visual clutter to the army as a whole. I really understand the meaning of the saying now: The simpler the base the better.

The color scheme on the other hand, while laborious, really allowed me to give all those different units a unique flair. They sure are a colorful bunch now, but that was my intention from the start and really fits what I believe the nomads to be. I just know that whenever I will start a new faction, I will sure as hell use a simpler one. I know I could easily cut my paint time in two (or even four) with an easier scheme.

The thing I would change the most is to buy an airbrush right from the start. It speeds things up so much!

Summary: While this is less than half of the nomad models I own by now (it was a very purchas-y year :D) I'm still happy I came out with a decent, playable vanilla army. I have almost everything I need to play pretty much any list, with some proxies and some additions next year (Jaguars, Puppetactica, Zondnautica, Salyuts) to round out my options.

But what about Tunguska! you say. Yeah, right. This whole thread right now is mostly clickbait without any actual Tunguska to show for it. I know I want to paint that sectorial too, it's just too cool not to. I pretty much have every model here assembled and primed. I just know how much work it will be with my current color scheme, and I'm afraid I might simply need a break from my nomads sometime next year to start a fresh new (and hopefully quicker) project (I already have one in mind). That doesn't mean Tunguska won't (slowly) get added to the mix, first with stuff I need for vanilla, and eventually the sectorial specific units, too. I will just take some time and won't be as straightforward as I thought.

Now it's time to wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year! Thanks for all your likes, comments, constructive criticism and helpful advice! I'm excited for all the miniatures I get to paint next year.

Until then, so long!

 

Alright, it's a new year. Let's kick it off with a project I have been working on for the last couple of months and that I finally managed to finish over the holidays. My custom built showcase:



Kind of a Christmas present I made myself. Or should I say my dad made me, since he helped me out big time. I'm much better with small stuff than woodworking, while he could be a professional cabinet maker (if he wanted to).

This setup is the first out of two I have planned with a total of 8 showcases. Now I finally have a place to showcase my old LotR projects that were wasting away in transport boxes for the last seven years as well as my new infinity stuff.





The whole thing is made out of spruce which was glazed after assembly. The lighting of the showcases is connected to the mount through pressure contact only, meaning there are no cables in the mount. You just hang the cases on the mount and their two metal contacts are pressed against the two aluminum rails in the mount, which are again connected to the outlet at the bottom.

The second setup will be finished some time this year.

Spoiler: Close-ups and background to the LotR stuff

I know we're leaving Infinity terrain, so I'm putting the rest of the pics in a spoiler for those who are interested.

Easterlings on Wheels

From all the enemies in the LotR movies and books, I always found the Easterlings the most fascinating. Tolkien lost very few words on them, but compared to the rest of Saurons army, they were disciplined, well armed and formidable. On top of it, the movie designs were simply gorgeous. But GW only released some models and units I liked and others that I found truly ugly.

So I decided to build my own. With a king and his guard, chariots, skirmishers and "Easterlings with axes", as they are mentioned in the books.
Which means this army is heavily converted, mostly made up and not found anywhere in the rules. But since I don't play the system anymore, who cares? I had written house rules for them back in the day but never played them. Oh well. Now they look pretty at least.






Gondor

This was originally my brother's army. When GW released the War of the Ring and I decided to build my Easterling army up to the necessary size, I felt like it needed a worthy enemy and so bought some stuff to boost Gondor too, only for the two of us to give up the whole hobby soon after.

There are therefore quite a few models missing here. Now that I have the showcase though, I'll try to add them over the course of the year. My inner completionist has been re-activated.






The Shire / The Fellowship / The Wilderness

These are just minis that I got because I liked them or they had accumulated over time with other buys.






Finally, I also have a small army of dwarves, but they'll have to wait until the second showcase is finished.