Can I Have A Free Hand?

With added free hand company shoulder pad.

Welcome back to the Folly of War, this week I want to talk about free hand painting on models. There was once a time when I used to love transfers. Back when I was a lad (before I had even glued my first space marine), I used to make airfix models. I can remember the constant battle with my parents to find somewhere to paint as airfix used oil based paints and God help me if I got any on the carpet. Once the plane was assembled and painted, I would go through the process of cutting the tiny transfers from the sheet and placing them in a bowl of water. Then repeating this step again and again because the transfer would split, folded or more commonly stick to (my mum often wondered why I was suddenly tattooed with RAF and German Iron Cross symbols). As soon as I hit making Space Marines my use of transfers stopped dead. I will always remember the frustration of trying to apply the Blood Angels symbol to a curved shoulder pad, followed by the inevitable teenage tantrum and finally ritual using of the transfer sheet as a paint pallet just so I felt better. Now what has this got to do with free hand painting I hear your cry....

Well let me tell you. I have always loved the iconography of 40k and squad markations of battle groups in WW2 so leaving models without squad numbers and symbols is just a no go for me. It wasn't until, I started working with Animatronica that I became interested at adding free hand detailed on my miniatures. He had painted a fantastic Baneblade Tank to go with his Chaos Alpha Legion just around the time when the Apocalypse rules came out. He named the Tank The Tower of Snakes (if you wish to see some of his work click on the blog of the same name) and had painted an amazing hydra down the side of the of the armoured tracks. It was stunning and I asked him how he achieved such an amazing results. He explained that you must always draw out your design, this gives you a base to work from and then build up the colours as you would for normal highlighting.

Devastator Sgt with Tycho's personal banner.

So starting small I started on some campaign badges for my Black Templars. This was easy enough, a simple shield shape with a red stripe. From then on nothing could stop me I moved on to chapter badges and then finally banners. I can have the most fun with the banners because you record your own victories and also historical battles. One of my Marshals has a banner of Helsreach Spire. Free hand painting takes time but with practise the results can be superb. I began to develop my own styles and techniques which suited my designs. One such technique I use now is to block out the design in silhouette with black and then build up block colours. I have had a lot of fun with painting my Blood Angels and I have increased the amount of free hand work on the marines. I hope that some where out there in Internet land you have a go too. Before I go I will leave you with some more Blood Angels goodness. Captain Tycho is almost finished with non traditional colour scheme. I'm leaving the gold armour behind for red. Personally I feel that the gold armour is far to garish and I want to tone him down.  Next week I plan to cover the 6th edition release so stay tuned.

Devastators with added light effect on the plasma cannons.

Captain Erasmus Tycho of the 3rd Company (work in progress).

Nurgle's Rot




Assault Marines as promised.

 

A very short post this week, due to an unfortunate case of Nurgle's Rot (stomach virus probably picked up from work). This has given me another opportunity to think about new projects and  existing projects. The Blood Angels are coming on and I have now moved on to painting a unit of devastators and the army is filling out nicely. Why the sudden interest in 40K? Well a certain 6th edition of a certain round based game is (rumour has it) only two weeks away. There is a lot of murmurs all over the Internet and all I can say I just can't wait. It got me thinking how my armies are going to be effected by rules changes. In the last edition my Templars changed radically and I feel this is going to happen again. Whether this is for better or worse only time will tell? Illness leaves you with a lot of thinking time. Is starting a new army now a good idea? Should I have waited...Nah even with drastic sweeping changes armies can be built, modified, tested and modified again. An army is a living thing and it should be allowed to grow and change.  If you have opinions about this please feel free to leave a comment.




My painting table in all its glory.

 

Finally before I go to pass another nurgling here is something that has keep me sane during the low points of my illness. So in the light of all this euro 2012...

 



Storm Ravens (It doesn't matter how hard that pilot flaps his arms it ain't taking off!)

The Storm Brick!

Power down the warp drives, seal those bulkheads damn it! Welcome aboard The Folly of War having only just made it out of Warp Space in one piece (Derbyshire). With no communication relay or astropathic choir I have been a drift in that god forsaken place known as the Eye of Terror AKA The Peak District. As we all know time flows mysteriously in the north and my painting hands have not been idle. My Blood Angel Army is taking shape and after calming down about not being able to take a storm talon I took the plunge and brought its bigger cousin the storm raven. Its a good job I got one too, as the price increased by a whopping 25% last week and only I missed the price hike by a matter of days. 

Que Damnbusters Music!!

Love it or loath it the storm raven is a huge kit but to me has the aerodynamic finesse of brick with go faster stripes painted on it. It was time for a quick refit. Now I'm not saying that my conversion work has turned this model into something as sophisticated as a euro fighter but it is a damn sight more believable than what it was like. First thing to go was the tail and with the help of Jose' in Heroes and Legends I extended it to give it a more helicopter look. Secondly, I added stabiliser fins to the nose so that it would give the front more lift therefore not ploughing into the ground as soon as it took off. These were made from the unused tail wing. Finally, I removed that awful turret from the top and placed the las cannons under the wings. Now I know that in game I should have the turret but the aesthetics of the model needed addressing (in games I will just measure from where the turret used to be). I mean, why can't you save the galaxy from the alien and the heretic and look good at the same time?

Note the tail has been completely
reworked using plasticard.

I have also built and painted a assault squad. Pictures next week as I want to base them before I unleash them on the world. Whilst up north I also managed to make a quick visit to Warhammer World and pick up some MK 5 Heresy Armour. I am a MASSIVE fan of forge world and the new (old) armour that they are producing. Mixing these with the MK 3 Iron Armour I have I'm going to use them as Sternguard. I especially love the alternate pattern bolters I got as the have chain bayonets Wooo!

Right then, off to make repairs to the ship and hopefully I'll have her up and running by next week. Till then May the Emperor Protect.