"Gods know why I continue to work for this madman," mumbled Heinrich. "Always has me fetching tools but never using them. If the ol' bastard wasn't such a genius, what with enchanting that rubbish into his Shackle Actuating Whirler or his Concentrated Fragmentation Spheres, I'd have left his workshop long ago." 

Suddenly, Heinrich heard an angry shout "I said bring me the damned hammer!" "Yes professor, right away!" responded Heinrich as he scurried to bring the hammer to his mentor.

Curtis Fell at Ramshackle Games was kind enough to send us Yanks quite a few of the Oldhammer Priests he sculpted for the various Oldhammer events around the world this year. It's a pretty simple model, and yet it's also a pretty great model.

I've painted this one up in a red robe with a black and white checkerboard pattern on the sleeves. I also gave him pretty pale skin to look like he spends many hours hunched over his work  desk.

My goal is to get multiple uses out of him. He, in this color scheme, works as a a low level Adeptus Mechanicus priest; one who has not yet risen high enough to to begin replacing his weak flesh with pure machine.

But I also intend to use him as an apprentice in Frostgrave. I have a yet unpainted enchanter to which he shall follow. I'll be using the old Citadel Chainsaw Wizard as the enchanter and this model looks like the perfect brow-beaten apprentice to follow around such a crazy sorcerer. 

The Horus Heresy Series has been one of the highlights of Modern-Hammer for me. Particularly the first three novels of the series, which focus heavily on the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus in a way that makes many of the legionnaires relatable. Even as the legion falls from the Emperor during the course of the three novels, it is easy to empathize some of their choices. I've oft told myself that if I ever start a Horus Heresy army it would be the Sons of Horus or the Luna Wolves. The above reason is one, the other being that I feel if I'm going to paint Heresy era marines, I want to paint them in a scheme that doesn't exist by the 40th millennia, otherwise what's the point? I might as well just paint 40k marines. 

So when it came time to paint this Tartaros pattern Terminator, since I'd already painted a Luna Wolf, why not paint this as a Son of Horus?

The XVI legion is usually described as being one of the first in to battle and where the fighting is at its thickest. So I knew I wanted him to look battle-worn. I also knew I didn't feel like mixing all the complex mixes some other's have used on the Sons of Horus so I stuck with the Forgeworld paints as a base.

I began by airbrushing metallic primer, to which I applied several washes in spots to simulate dirt, rust, and heat. Then I applied some Ammo by Mig Heavy Chipping Medium, also with an airbrush. After that dried for about 5 minutes, I then applied the three Forgeworld paints with my airbrush, with each layer being applied more zenithally than the last. After that was done, then I scratched up the model with a variety of damp brushes to create the chips. I'm not terribly happy with the size of some of the chips, as they are too large and not spread enough over the model. After that, I painted the brass and the black chest emblem before returning to the armor. I reapplied Sons of Horus green around the edges, and then mixed in a 50:50 mix of Dawnstone Grey and Sotek Green for a few more highlights. I also applied the highlight below the larger scratches and Nocturne Green above them to emphasize the damage. After that, I knocked out the remaining stuff like the eyes and the stormbolter. I'm pretty happy with the results, I think he looks as if he's surveying the battle during a momentary lull to see where he should head next.

As I mentioned in a previous post about the Realms of Chaos Warband, I actually rolled up 3 beastmen, not 3 hobgoblins. So it was time to finally paint the beastmen. I believe that these are all Bob Olley sculpts and they were great fun to paint. I went with the standard brown beastman scheme and tried to keep the accoutrements in as many natural colors as I could; it's not like beastmen would possess the industry to make their own or with complex dyes or the skills to maintain such that they'd looted. I also followed the same metallic methods I used with the orcs. 

Additionally, this was my first attempt at painting oldhammer style faces on the shields. I used James Taylor's excellent tutorial on the subject. The only modification I'd make to his instructions is to do some outlining with a darker version of the base after the ink wash. That made it much easier for a non-artist like myself the visualize the face to be painted. But these were a blast to try. I've held off of attempting these for a long time because I'm very uncomfortable with freehand. But for anyone who hasn't, I highly recommend giving it a go!

Anyway, here are the 3 beastmen individually: 

And as a group:

And finally, a better view of the shields:

And comments or critiques (especially critiques on the shields) would be more than welcome!

I've been painting a lot of robots lately. Some for me, some on a commission for Orclord at Stuff of Legends. I've previously painted a fan sculpt for Orclord (here) and myself (here). I've also painted two Rogue Trader robots, a Castellan and a Colossus class, for Orclord, but I didn't take any pictures and he's yet to get any pictures either. 

The next two robots I've painted are also split, one Rogue Trader Cataphract class robot for Orclord and one from Ramshackle Games for myself. For these, I wanted to paint them yellow, it's a color I don't get to paint enough, and I wanted to them to look much rougher than the previous ones I'd painted for Orclord.

For Orclord's robot, I went with a brighter yellow, something that was likely to be a battlefield livery of sorts while simultaneously paying homage to the original (garish) studio paint-job. For those who didn't click the link the studio paint job was quartered, with a yellow field with black hearts in one set of quarters and a red and blue check pattern in the other. 

I worked a heart into the iconography on the model's left side, next to the view port. The quartering and check pattern was imitated on the over-the-shoulder lascannon. I would like to say I went with pink and purple because it's more harmonious than red and blue, but the reality is that I was looking at the picture on my phone, and it looked purple and magenta on my screen! 

As far as the painting process went, I began by airbrushing a pre-shade with a rust color, followed by a slightly zenithial highlight of a mustard brown. From there, I mixed in sunburst yellow, applying more and more zenithially. Then I painted on the red, followed by sponged damage. After that was the metallics, begining with tin bitz, then bolt gun metal, then a 50:50 mix of boltgun metal and iron breaker. Finally, I reapplied sunburst yellow with a brush, and then began highlights by mixing in bleached bone. Afterwards, I applied a layer of Lamenter's Yellow to brighten up the yellow. Then I completed a few rogue items like guns and lenses. Finally, pigments were applied to simulate dirt and carbon buildup. I'm very happy with the way it came out; it looks like it has been through a warzone and back again. I can also say that these robots have been the first commission I've ever done where I was sad to give the models to their owner as I'd rather keep them for myself!