SHOWCASE: Inquisitor Dias Lastrade

Hello world, it's been a while, since we last spoke I got promoted at work, realised its a lot more work than I thought and then went and got married, but I have finally found some time to actually paint a model! (I know!) Quite some time I built this inquisitor model to go with the 3rd company of my chapter, the keepers of the flame.

First a bit of fluff. Inquisitor Dias Lastrade was picked up by the ordo hereticus during a raid on a suspected cult headquarters. In truth the whole thing had been a set up to lure a puritan inquisitor into a radical's trap. In truth the orphanage was owned by a tiny faction of the ordo malleus. The children collected within the walls of the orphanage were special, each gifted in some way from the day they were born. Dias was a most unusual case, he had been born to everyone's eyes a normal, healthy boy only when he went for his first medical scan did the ordo become aware of him.

Dias had been born the perfect soldier against the warp, his bones, were marked with pentagramic wards, at first they believed it to be a tick, but in truth no surgery had been used, Dias had been born touched by the emperor, marked for some great journey in his name.

The puritan Inquisitor Luther Christos Benadictus, took all of the surviving children into his custody, but as not so kind to the the young inquisitor who had though himself Luther's better. Upon discovering Dias's unique quality, Luther immediately took Dias as one of his interrogators.

Dias Learned quickly and in just 30 years attained the rank of Inquisitor. His first act as an inquisitor was to lead a purge of the Spinica system. A small system overrun with heretics, mutants and daemon worshipers. This crusade was to be the making of Dias's career as an inquisitor, against all odds, at the heart of the system as only he had predicted, Dias found a daemon prince, a foul, unholy beast ruling over his corrupt and savage empire. Ultimately Dias defeated the beast, loosing his left hand and lower arm in the final confrontation. Mere hours later, a detachment of the 8th brotherhood of the Grey Knights arrived to aid in the beasts destruction only to find their work done for them and Inquisitor Lastrade near death.

Seven months had passed by the time Dias awoke aboard the Indomitable Wrath of the Throne. By his side sat Luther, his face ashen with worry. Dias had been saved by the grey knights and rushed back through the torrents of the warp to Imperial space. Emergency surgery had saved his life but the fight with the daemon had left Dias changed, the wards placed upon his bones by the emperor has completely disappeared, their energy expended in the battle.

For days Dias contemplated his future within the inquisition, could he continue, he had always been so sure of his own mind being incorruptible but now, could he be so sure? The question echoed though the psychic interlink of the grey knights still aboard the black ship. It was the grey knights who, after consulting with the council of terror and mars, approached Dias to offer him salvation.

An experimental surgery was performed, designed to emulate the black carapace of the space marines was inserted over Dias's skeleton. Into this carapace, was inscribed the Aegis, a secret held only by the grey knights. To replace his lower arm, lost in battle, the brother justicar gave up his own gauntlet of aegis encrusted power armour. Within this a bionic arm and hand were built and attached to Dias.

After this honour, Dias become one of the most active inquisitors in the ordo, leading crusades into the far reaches of the imperium, reclaiming fallen worlds and defending the worlds of the imperium. His last recorded engagement was on Brachov where he fought alongside the Keepers of the Flame to cleanse a key world of taint.

After this Dias Lastrade disappears from almost all records, only some know his final fate, an un-heroic death at the hands of a fellow Inquisitor's assassin, a crime paid for in blood, reaped by the combined military and political might of the Keepers of the Flame and the Grey Knights.

More Reading on Inquisitor Dias Lastrade - The Brachov Report

So, the model! I always loved this inquisitor model, adding the grey knights hand and sword was easy as this is a joint on the model anyway.

Now, it's been a while since I painted anything, so it's far from perfect, but overall I am very happy with the finished model. The only bit that a really dislike are the grey robes, the highlights are just too harsh.

I'm happy with the red, though a final highlight might have made it pop that little bit more. The white trims and the yellow sash really did test my patience, note to self, don;t paint white a yellow for the first time in months and expect a quick result.) I did however persevere with both and got quite a nice finish.

"Make my day punk,"

The model cuts one hell of a pose, simple but, well, a little threatening. I think that theme can be found across the entire model. Simple, minimal even but threatening none the less.

I think I am going to ease myself back into hobby stuff. I have some awesome single miniature projects lined up that should only take a few days each so, watch this space.

By the Blood Of Sanguinius! A Blood Angel Commission

Just a quick post today, first of all, I’m back up and online, just about. The laptop is sort of ok after a bit of technical tlc (every component inside has been swapped out except the hdd and the screen), the screen however is a little erm, speckled!
This commission was actually finished a while back but I never got round to posting it, then the apple juice incident happened and so there has been quite a delay. But, here they are, a full squad of Blood Angel terminators.

As you can see, these are the older, metal miniatures as apposed to the newer plastic ones. They were a mixed bunch, some being the more recent metal incarnations of Tactical Dreadnought armour and some being from the original rogue trader unites.
For this reason, I’ve tried to combine both the new and old paint schemes within the unit, the slightly brighter red and bright yellow flamer barrels are a bit of a blast from the past while the dulled metals and black helms and detailing were brought in in during the newest codex.

I must admit that I really enjoyed this job, red is one of those colours that is just so satisfying to paint, especially on large flat armour plates like these. It has in fact inspired me to try and find something to paint like this, though this may have to wait due to a whole string of half finished projects that I plan to go back to first.
I am hoping to post some more things within the next 5 or 6 days so keep your eyes peeled!

The Lost Child of Ulthwe, Eldrard Ulthran

Greetings, in the words of Ja Ja Binks, "Me'sa back!"

After just over a month I have finally found time to finished off some commission work and post it on here. Today it's the lost child of Ulthwe, Eldrard Ulthran.

Greatest among the seers of the Eldar, Eldrad lead his people through the turmoil of the Great Heresy, even attempting to warn the mon-keigh of their Warmaster's intentions. He lead the Craftworld of Ulthwe through the maelstrom and even into the eye of terror itself. His final act, was the prevention of the destruction of Cadia during the 13th black crusade. From deep within the crystal dome of Ulthwe, surrounded by his long crystallised peers, Eldrad did battle with the machine spirit of Abadon's corrupted blackstone fortress.

Ultimately, Eldrad was successful, but at a high cost. In order to subdue the daemonic spirit of the craft, Eldrad cut all ties to his body and fused himself into the psychometric circitry of the fortress, entering an eternal battle between his own spirit and that of the daemon.

There are those on Ulthwe and beyond, that one day, far from now, the great seer, Eldrad Ulthran, will finaly end the eternal struggle, smiting the daemon and returning to the craftworld to lead the Eldar once again. The signs of this revival can be seen by all who walk the meandering paths of the crystal dome. The emence ghost helm of the seer can still be seen within the crystal tree, it's spirit stones blazing with psychic fury.

As you can see, the client didn't want Eldrad painted in his usual Ulthwe Colours and decided instead for the colours of Yme-Loc. (This is actually the alternative colour scheme to the standard red and grey. Thought the Eldrad model does play to the strengths of the Ulthwe scheme, I think this suits it just as well.

I have to say, I really did enjoy this, having an Eldar army of my own, it's really got me excited about going back and painting up some of the bit I missed out when rushing my army a few years back. (This may develop into some posts some time soon, keep those eyes peeled).

When painting this model, I really had to think about which areas to would go with each other, there are 2 separate sets of robes here and, thought they are usual both black, I didn't want to go with one shade of constant grey. This is why the inner robes are based on Shadow Grey and the outer robe is based upon a Codex Grey and Chaos Black mix.

As I said before, I have an Eldar army of my own so, when it came to painting the bone, I had a pretty firm idea of what I wanted to achieve and how to do it. I used a basecoat of Grave Yard Earth and slowly blended up to Bone White. I then applied a few scarce highlights with a thin Bone White and Dead White mix.

The orange, often mistaken as a tricky colour, was probably the simplest part of the whole model. Those who know me will know I actual have a Space Marine army painted up in bright orange and as such have picked up a few tricks and cheats from various people.

On This occasion, I opted for a pastel orange, not wanting to over power the grey tones in the rest of the miniature. Starting from a basecoat of Mecharius Solar Orange, I applied 2 Sepia washes before re-aplying the Solar Orange. I then added successive highlights of a Solar Orange and White
 mix (adding more white with each highlight).

So, there we have it, another commission down, 2 more to finish in the next week so more posts very very soon. As always, keep an eye on the blog for any updates and remember to sign up to my email feed.

Until next time,

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A Little Background

Back again, as you can see posts are getting a bit more regular again now, hopefully this will remain the case from now on as i have quite a few commissions lined up for the next few weeks, plus a few new projects myself.

Anyway, nothing new as such today but a bit of change. When photographing my miniatures I tend to use a standard white background, nothing wrong with it, nice and simple, nice a quick. However for a while now I have been thinking about trying something different and now, I finally am. Below are a few miniatures i have posted in the past with new backgrounds, I would greatly appreciate any feedback anyone has as this is something I plan on working on over the next few posts.



Before



After



This darker background is in fact the inverted version of the original. I'm not sure, but i think it may be a little too dark? what do you all think?



After



Before



This picture itself was a bit shiny, before i started using dulcote again. The background is quite balanced I feel, offsetting the miniature rather well.



Before



After








The Longbeard logo was a bit of experiment, I think I will design a watermark to go behind the main image.




So, what do you all think? This, in theory at least, will be the new look of Longbeard Painting and Modelling. I also hope to bring in some themed backgrounds with some of my work, attempt one will be made with part three of the high elf commission.

Until then, thoughts ideas, anyone?

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High Elf Commission Part Two: "Rally to me brothers!" BSB

At the centre of any army stands the battle standard bearer, boldly leading the men onwards hold aloft the glorious banner under which the army marches. These men inspire the greatest feats of heroism in their followers and also act as a rally point for a glorious final stand. Not to mention they look awesome while doing these things!

This banner bearer is one of the standard high elf commander boxed set models, nothing too special, but a pretty nice model none the less.

Note: The photography is better, but still not quite right, I think I may need some new lights.

I stuck with the same basic pallet as I used for the Dragon Princes in part one. I did however increase the amount of white and decrease the amount of blue. I felt it just gave the model a little more gravitas.

The white as with before is simply Graveyard Earth blended up to White.

The banner itself contained a strong oriental theme and I chose to play up to this, using the rising sun banner as inspiration. The black pyramid of course represents the shadow of the dark kindred while the Phoenix is the symbol of the great Phoenix King of Caledor, rising from the ashes of the great betrayal victorious.

Though this picture doesn't quite capture it, I am very pleased with the blending on the cloak, as well as the rear of the banner. It's rare I get the chance to paint large areas of white so this was quite a test.

More to follow in a few days as the final part of the commission is unveiled.

Something Smelly This Way Comes: Nurgle Beast Lord

Greetings and welcome back to Karak-Paint Pot. I hope you all enjoyed the extra day off on Friday, and hope that not too many of you were forced to endure five and a half hours of the most boring television ever aired (I most certainly was). However, with that out of the way I managed to get a Nurgle Beast Lord done and start some orkyness as well.

The Beast Lord is an awesome model and really doesn't show its age. I've had the model kicking about for years and just never did anything with it. However, a good old clear out has prompted me to paint up some minis and flog them on ebay.

So, without any more idle chat, I give you Nurgles Chosen Champion.



Nurgle Beast Lord

 As I am selling this guy I didn't want to do anything to army specific and so stuff to a neutral pallet. I also chose to keep the skin fairly human looking, though I did add several mixes of grey into the flesh tones to add that slightly dead nurgleth look as well as several green and purple washes.



Nurgle Beast Lord

 For the fur I opted for something quite complicated, working from orkhide shade right up to rotting flesh in layers of wetbrushing and drybrushing. I also threw in a few green, purple, yellow and blue washes for good measure. This gave a really dead and lank quality to the fur that I feel suits a champion of Grandfather Nurgle.



Nurgle Beast Lord

The leather armour is heavily discoloured with washes, inks and stippling. It began life as dark flesh, blended up to dwarf flesh + rotting flesh 50/50. I then gave it a few sepia washes, followed by devlan mud, thrakka green, purple, watered down scorched brown and more green! After a while this gave the leather to horrid rotten look you see before you.



Nurgle Beast Lord

Finally, the base was simply painted Catchan Green then drybrushed Graveyard Earth and then Rotting Flesh. Plus the simple addition of some scorched grass basing gave the model a really suitable finish.

This model is available for sale on ebay as of tonight! Auction starts at just 99p, grab it before it's gone!

Click HERE to go to the ebay auction now.

So, there's my nurgle beast lord done and out the way, a fun project it somewhat tiresome, soooo many washes! I can honestly say I wouldn't do a whole army myself though I think I will paint the odd chaos bit using this colour scheme in the future.

Now for something different.


Alongside my beast lord I have started painting the ork army I bought on their release day, yeah I know that was over two years ago, I guess I dropped the ball there. I love painting orks, everything about them screams comic book alien and so I do my best to help them live up to that persona.

Tank Hammers, possibly the greatest ork invention ever!

Now, this is very much a work in progress. The skin has to be taken right up to rotting flesh and the leathers need touching up, plus the metals need highlighting. Oh and the base needs doing, and the eyes, teeth and... so yeah a bit more to do yet.

I thin these will be another paint and sell. I love painting orcs but prefer to play using armies that do something that at least vaguely resembles what you tell them to!

That's about it for this post. As always comments are welcome!

PS, if you have any interest in Roleplaying, scroll down to the RPG Tavern banner at the bottom of the page and check us out! We are always looking for new blog authors to write interesting posts on any roleplaying game.

Lady Justice: Malifaux Gang Part Two

Greetings, sorry for my absence. However, I have not be too idle, (that said, I've not exactly done much!) Those of you who have been following for a while will know that I posted the beginning of my Malifaux gang up a long while ago, painted one death marshal and then they kind of disappeared. Well, they are back!

First a small explanation as to why they are back. I stopped painting them because I very quickly realised when i moved house that I had no one to play Malofaux with. However, soon I am moving back to Swindon and have heard from several people saying they are going to look into starting it, well that's all the inspiration I needed to get these back out.

So, here she is, the Lady Justice, commander of the Death Marshals, head of the anti-resurectionist faction of The Guild.



Lady Justice

The Lady Justice is the only member of the death marshals to be seemingly unaffected by powers they utilise against the reserectionists threat. Most marshals suffer from a ghoulish appearance, gaunt almost white flesh and dark sunken eyes are the earliest signs of these effects. The cause is believe to be the magical powers used by the marshals to capture and 'bury' reserectionists.

In terms of painting I had already decided that I want colour kept to a minimum, Lady Justice and The Judge being the only two exceptions. For this reason, I painted all his clothing as black leather, this some what suits both the model and idea of her out at night, hunting down the undead creations of the insane resurectionists. For this, I simply washed Chaos Black with Badab Black and that's what it done, the shine was natural, no varnish required.

The red gloves were a tricky one. I wanted them to stand out, but not like she was some kind of children's clown. For this reason i went for a similar red as to the one I use on my Custodes. Dark Flesh mixed slowly into Gory Red, washed with Baal Red. I then used the Vallejo Game Varnish (gloss) to help them stand out from the rest of the model's leather work.

The next big section to tackle was her hair. This was probably the single biggest part of the model and wasn't one I was all that sure about to start with. In all the source art she is a fiery red head and I really didn't want to change this, but had only every painted red hair on dwarf slayers which were a very extreme orange and so not really suitable for this. In the end, after a few bad test models, i came up with a fairly simple by effective way of painting almost realistic red/ginger hair.

Basecoat the hair Gory Red
Wash with Devlan Mud (Very Very Heavy)
Drybrush Gory Red over the hair (Heavy)
Drybrush Hot Orange over hair (Heavy-Medium)
Drybrush Hot Orange/Orange Fire 75/25 (Medium)
Drybrush Hot Orange/Orange Fire 50/50 (Light)

After that it was really just a case of painting in the brown leather in my usual way then picking out all the little metal bits and bobs. Then finally, came the base.

Most of the base was done as before, a basic red brick effect across the paving stones, this time with a small inlaid metal grill for the drain. Then for the fun bit, the water!

Now when I say fun... Water is one of those things I find it extremely difficult to paint. However, I decided not to just after putting so much effort into her that i didn't want to let the models down on the base. So I mixed up slowly from Story Blue through Magic Blue and Lightning Blue and up to White throwing in a wash every few layers to help add some depth. Over all I'm not unhappy with it, but there is definite room for improvement.

Well, that's about all for this one. As always comments, critique and suggestions are more than welcome, we only learn through others.

Until next time, if you do see a roaming zombie or ghoul in your area do attempt to deal with it yourself! Lock your doors, bar your windows and call for The Guild!

Making Room For Your Hobby

For as long as there has been a hobby, be it model trains wargames miniatures or anything else, there has been an argument over space. If the hobbyist gets their way, entire rooms all over the country would be converted to model storage and display rooms. However, generally the non-hobbyist side of the relationship curves this to a corner of a room or, the shed. (This isn't so much a bad thing as it stops us getting too carried away with our little plastic men.)

So, now we know we can't have a whole room, (except those lucky few), we settle for a desk somewhere in the house. I thought i would just give you a run down of what I think makes a good hobby space and why I like mine.

First of all, do you buy a desk? I didn't! I decided to build one to fit what I needed rather than have to just deal with a normal desk. Sounds a big job I know, but it really isn't. I opted for a very simple no thrills build. A cheap £12  shelf book case on the left and a sheet of MDF on the right. Top that with another sheet of MDF and you done. I then bought one of the nice wooden painting stations before GW released their new plastic ones. (This was about 5 or 6 years ago now).



There is some more space to the left of the painting station, but that is occupied by a potted tree. So, I now have a clear work area (not in the picture but you get the idea), I chose to add some square place mats so I could move piles of stuff quickly. (Laziness is the mother of invention.)


Lighting


Rear/Corner Spot Lights



Next up, lighting. This is so often over looked and it is really important. I am very lucky and have my desk right in front of a window that spans the length of the desk. However, this won't cut it at night or on cloudy days. For this reason I use a 3 light set up. 1 directly above the desk pointing down towards the middle. Then one on each of the 2 back corners of the painting station.



Flood/High Light



I use a very non-eco friendly 100W bulb in the flood light to get a good bright light that covers most of the desk. The rear spots can then be used to highlight specific areas as required. I often use them during the photographing of models a get an even light from all angles. (More on photography in another post.)

So we have the space and the light, now for the tools.

It is said that only a poor craftsman blames his tools, this is utter rubbish. No matter how good you are, no matter how much talent you have, the total can only ever equal the sum of its component parts. So the tools of the hobby, brushes, paints, glues, thinners, filler, putties, files, knives, clippers e.t.c.

Brushes

Over the years I've used a variety of brushes and have found that a mixture a styles and makes makes for a nice set. I use Citadel Miniature brushes, combined with Vallejo Toray, Reeves bristle, Royal white and Pebeo among others. This variation of brushes means there is nothing that isn't covered.

A quick note, I own well over 100 brushes and use some of them maybe only once of twice a year. For this reason I have a selection of 18 on my desk at any one time. These are my all purpose set made up of a Citadel brush set, a Vallejo half set and a few Reeves. This selection covers almost everything I do on a regular basis.

As you can see, not every tool need to be expensive, an old baked bean tin acts as a great brush holder. I also use it to store the odd file.

Paints
The paint you use on a model is always going to effect the outcome and I'm not just talking colour scheme. Every brand of paint is going to give you a different level of pigmentation, and different shade or texture, the same colour in a different range can give a completely different finish.

Once again, i advocate a mixture of brands. I used Citadel (GW) miniature paints including foundations and washes combined with Vallejo Game Colour and P3. I find this mix gives great coverage, depth and tone. The massive pigmentation of the Vallejo paints create some really nice full colours.

Reference Material
One of the most useful things to have while painting is reference material. The Internet is a great tool, either through blogs like this or google images etc. But you can also have good old fashioned paper based reference. The obvious choice is White Dwarf, the monthly games-workshop hobby magazine.

I keep a stack of useful ones under the desk all the time, plus a big white box of painting notes and guides from over the years. Also a great place to keep bits boxes for current projects and a couple of spray cans.

So that's my hobby desk and the tools I use on it. If you have an interesting hobby space or a suggestion on tools use etc send it to thelongbeard2010@gmail.com and it can join the file for the Ultimate Hobby Guide.

Guest Blog Goes Live!

Today marks an exciting moment for the Longbeard. The first post in a series of guest blogs goes live at Warhammer39999. The blog will be posted every 2 weeks and will detail my new space marine project.

http://www.warhammer39999.com/2011/01/greetingsthe-road-ahead/

The project sees the return of the Keepers of the Flame chapter. The first post is quite info heavy, with a painting guide and project goals. But give it a look and follow the series. Any comments on the army would be great.

This is not a total change! I will still be posting here with things like the custodes project, the vikings and many other things. So don't worry, I'm not killing this off at all.

To wet your apatite a bit, here is the first of the chapter to be finished bar his base.



I know, very orange right. Any way, I hope you all follow and enjoy the series maybe it might even inspire people to start some new 40K armies.

So, go over to the blog and see what you think!

http://www.warhammer39999.com/2011/01/greetingsthe-road-ahead/

Caution: Threat of Viking Invasion

"Full they were of fighters and flashing shield-boards, western war-lances and wound-blades Frankish; cried then the bersarks, carnage they had thoughts of, wailed then the wolf-coated and weapons brandished." Haraldskvaeði

For a while now I've wanted to work on some more historical miniatures and seeing some on the new perry miniatures really inspired me to get on with it. Under my desk I found 2 boxes of Wargames Foundry vikings 1 box of Hirdmen and 1 box of Bondi.

So, as I had some time on my hands, out they came. The models are mostly one or two part miniatures and are supplied with standard MDF laser cut bases. This i think is a major reason why their models are so cheap. They however, of a great standard, easily as good as anything made by other miniature companies.



Viking Hirdman



I had a look online for painting guides and was shocked to find the standard of painting guide so low. The only things I found look terrible, using sky blue for clothes and bright yellow for hair. So, I decided the best plan was to collect some images from the Internet of history shows and work from those.

I quickly realised that as i had so many of these to paint the scheme would need to be quick, easy and yet authentic. I decided to go for an earthy pallet of browns and muted colours. Below are the first few test models to roll of the work line.





I am pleased with these as bulk troops. When finished they will stand in units of 45 and so I'm not going to spend long periods of time highlighting etc.

The keys stages are:

• Dry brushed armour and weapons
• Leather - Dark Flesh and Devlan Mud wash
• Skin - Tallarn Flesh and Devlan Mud wash
• Wood - Bestial Brown and Devlan Mud wash

Keeping these simple allows me to batch paint them in between painting other projects. This project will take a side line now to my Custodes, but will receive a few posts every now and then when something new gets started or finished.

Before i go, my new guest post at Warhammer39999.com goes live tomorrow, check it out with the link below.

http://www.warhammer39999.com/

I will be posted every 2 weeks as part of a space marine project I am starting. For more details, check it out tomorrow. I will post a blog here on this tomorrow.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.