5 Dwarf Miners in 5 days: Day 5

Well, I got em all done. Had the candles, basing and a few assorted details to finish on them.
 I didn't keep great track of the paint I was using for these guys but it seems pretty self explanatory for the last bits and bobs.
Perhaps you are wondering why there is gold glitter on their bases or why they wear all blue.......Well read on and you shall find out.

Reaching well above the mountains around it, Azure peak stands as an unyielding fortress of stone and earth. 
The Dwarves who reside there are a different breed of Dwarf (according to the other Dwarven kingdoms). Valuing gold and jewels even more than most other Dwarves, they have delved near to the very heart of the world looking for their coveted riches. 
A mere 15 centuries ago, the miners and prospectors opened up a previously hidden Cavern. What they found there was wholly unexpected and mysterious. An ambient blue glow filled the natural hallways and caves for as far as their Dwarven eyes could see. 
In time and through much study, the Dwarves of Azure Peak came to believe that this blue glow was the very essence of their Dwarven ancestry. They believed they had stumbled onto the resting place for countless Millenia of past Dwarven spirits.
Realizing the gravity of this situation, Tagrin Ulthas, Lord of Azure peak, posted an elite guard at every known entrance to the caverns, vowing that these venerable Dwarven spirits never be fouled by any outside corruption. 
To this day, Azure peak is one of the few Dwarven strongholds in the old world to never allow a successful breach of the defenses from below the mountain, though many a foul horde has tried. 

When Going to battle, Azure Peak Dwarves Dress themselves primarily in blue out of deference for their ancestral caverns.  They also bring heaps of gold with them to battle as a good luck charm per-say. Spreading it on the ground around their feet before battle is met will bring them fortune in the coming battle. When the battle is won they retrieve the gold to take home. The Dwarves never pick up the gold of a fallen comrade, as this would be considered terrible luck to bring upon yourself and household. 

Slayers of Azure peak fittingly dye their beards a bright, garish blue rather than the traditional Orange of other clans.
This is a fairly new practice as Azure did not have any slayers to speak of until recent.
So focused and stalwart in their protection of the lower halls, the Azure peak Dwarves became lax on the defense of the front gate to their very fortress. 

A gigantic Orc Waaagh attacked and breached well into the fortress. It took months to repel the invaders and root them out from side tunnels and settlements. 
At the cost of a great many Dwarven lives, the battle was won and the green tide was cast out.
Many Dwarves who lost friends or family took up the slayer oaths in shame for their failures, but in sticking with their clans customs, dyed their beards and hair blue.
High Lord Tagrin Ulthas would never allow such a travesty to fall upon his people again. 
A full battalion of Elite Ironbreakers now stand guard at the front gate, day and night. 
resplendent in the bright lacquered blue armor, it is said that even a fully armed and armored cavalry charge could not break their stalwart ranks.

5 Dwarf Miners in 5 days: Day 4

Today was all about getting the beards highlighted and getting the boots, belts and bags all done.

The beards were line highlighted with GW Codex grey  and very sparse highlights of GW fortress grey.

They were a bit on the rough side, so I threw a VMC grey green wash over them to help even things out.
All the leather for the bootas and straps were basecoated with GW Scorched brown
Two of the Dwarves got highlights with P3 bloodstone and the other three got VGC earth.
Finished up tomorrow!

5 Dwarf miners in 5 days:Day 3

The third day was a fairly large step in getting the Dwarves more complete looking. I laid down the bronze colored metals and base coats for the beards.

GW Tin bitz was used as the base for the bronze. I really use this  any time I will be doing a yellow or orange metallic color, as I think it helps add a nice, rich tone to start with.
I followed up with a slight highlight of VMC copper. Didn't want this layer to be too terribly bright so as to keep the darker look that Miners ought to have.

The beards were based with VMC grey green. As a side note, I really don't understand why they call it grey green, I see no amount of green hue in it myself.
I then went ahead and washed the beards with VMC German grey.
The beards are not finished at this point but this was all the further I got.
I also went ahead and painted the weapon hafts flat black.

5 Dwarf Miners in 5 days: Day 2

On day 2, I moved to the blues. My Dwarven horde is very heavily blue so I needed a fair amount on these guys so they would easily blend. Fortunately, blue is probably the color I enjoy painting the most. (purple is dang close though) 

I started with a base of GW Enchanted blue followed by a GW regal blue wash. Highlighted back up with Enchanted and followed by GW Ice blue.

I also added a bit of a red wash to the Dwarves noses and cheeks to give them the proper ale drinking, lush look, as well as bring a little life to them.
More tomorrow!

5 Dwarf Miners in 5 days: Day 1

With the various armies I have collected over the years, I have ended up with a rather large amount of figures.
Most of which, unfortunately, are still unpainted.
The best way to deal with such things is Assembly line painting. Is it fun? Not really. Does it yield pretty quick results? Absolutely!
So, I thought I'd start a segment showing you how I go through a small group of grunt style soldiers relatively quickly.
They are not the prettiest things, but in the massive blocks and formations of infantry grunts they should look just fine.
Here is the initial picture before the painting and the very first step in the painting.

Basically, I am going for a basecoat, one shade, re-basecoat and then one highlight. Simple and effective.
First was metallics  with a basecoat of GW Boltgun Metal, followed by a black wash, Bolt gun again and a highlight of GW Chainmail.
Skin was Dwarf flesh (fitting no?) followed by a Gryphon sepia wash, Re layer with Dwarf flesh and finish with an Elf flesh Highlight.
All in all, about 20 minutes, not including drying time. 
More tomorrow. ;)

Memory lane: Dwarf Lord

This guy is a relatively recent piece. Recent as in, he's only been collecting dust on my shelf for a few years now, rather than just shy of a decade.

I tried a lot of new things on this guy. He was one where I felt like I broke through on some new techniques. Zenithal Highlighting and learning how to shade and highlight metallics properly were the things I really tried to push with him.
I am still very pleased with how he turned out. i think this Dwarf will go down in history as my all time favorite GW sculpt, he's just got such a bad ass "Bring it on, I aint afraid" type of vibe going on.

More Silos and a full day of games

Finished up a couple more silos since I was so pleased with the look of the first one. They were then used in a game of Dark Age and I think they really helped set a cool atmosphere for the board. I'm excited to get working on  few more factory style pieces so I can theme an entire board.
I'm going to have to make some that look suitably Cryxian to help tie in the whole set for our Warmahordes games. 

Also snapped a few pics of Yesterdays gaming goodness. For some reason the cosmos must have aligned just so, and a few of us got passes to go game for the ENTIRE day!
At noon, we started with a game of Warhammer Fantasy,  with some Warmachine and Hordes taking place as well.  Unfortunately , Warhammer games are few and far between these days as seems to be the case all over from what I see on the interwebs.
This was my first game of eighth, and really my first game since the very earliest days of 7th edition so we kept the game small(1500pts) 
I took an infantry heavy Dwarf army and was met on the field by a pretty standard High Elf army.
The game was really a lot of fun, and was surprisingly close until a rather volatile magic phase saw the demise of my entire block of Ironbreakers! The MVP for the game had to be my Gyrocopter. He buzzed around, harassing and steaming Elves with reckless abandon. 2nd turn saw him blasting a 14 man unit of Swordmasters, killing most of them , and then watching them panic off the field, which I must say I was very glad for as I really did not want to see them in combat.
By the end of the game, I had a Demon slayer and Gyrocopter left to his bolt thrower. Lion chariot, and very heavily depleted unit of Spearmen who held that blasted level 4 Mage.

After the Warhammer was at an end we had a planned Super Dungeon Explore Demo to jump right into. I only got pics from the very outset of the game because we all became so engrossed after that, that I totally spaced taking any more pics of the action.
We had the max number of heroes playing in the demo, so the game took quite some time. It was also slowed a bit by having a bunch of headstrong nerds arguing amongst themselves the whole time on the best course of action for every round.
If you have not had the opportunity to try this game out I would highly recommend you try to get involved in a demo. The demo we played  was a blast and the game in general is simple enough that my 6 year old could understand it but engaging enough to keep an entire game store full of grown men hanging on every dice roll.
Props to my Buddy Grim for running a great demo and weathering a hail of verbal abuse throughout.

After the SDE demo we all ran for grub and then finished the day off with our usual, monthly paint night which had a great turnout this month. What an awesome day!
 May have to make it a quarterly tradition..........

To War!

Well, these guys are not necessarily a new paint job but the reason I am putting them up here is that I finally got one unit of my massive Dwarven horde completely equipped with painted shields. You may be thinking Whoopty doo, but this is actually quite a milestone for me.
For some strange reason I have no problem painting up the rank and file soldiers, 5 or even 10 at a time. I always forgo the shields though. I know they make the unit look much better and helps with WYSIWYG but I still tend to ignore them completely.

So, now my Ironbreakers may charge forth into battle, fully equipped and armored.