Arabian Knights: Vultures Update

Recently, I managed to find time to finish all three of the vultures. Their riders are yet to arrive; but with the airbrush, I made short work of them. Actually, making the bases took more time than painting the miniatures, go figure :) As with the mounted musicians, I used a variety of basing materials from tufts to lichen and I think the way I'll do the bases for this army is pretty much decided now.

Enjoy...

Birthday Present Like a Boss: Orc Bust

This post will be about something very unorthodox, well, at least for me... You know, I'm a wargamer and a hardcore dwarf fan. If you were to tell me that I'd be painting a greenskin bust a year ago, I'd mock you hard or probably hit you in the face. But times have changed as you can see...

Originally, I was supposed to finish painting it last month, as a bday present for my good buddy Mr. Lee; but my work schedule went bananas, preventing me from making it on time. I only managed to deliver it last weekend, while I was in İstanbul for a work trip again. Better late than never, right?

Some of you would know that Mr. Lee is a greenskin at heart: Goblinkind to be precise, so it seemed like a good idea to give him something that would remind him who is the boss among them greenskins. Since I was not familiar with all this bust business, I didn't know where to look at at the beginning. The search for suitable busts took forever; but in the end I found this guy. The bust you see here is the Orc Bust from Tartar Miniatures, an Italian/Russian company which have a beautiful range of busts made of resin. You should check them out.

The bust is in 1:12 scale, giving it a height of 16cms; not counting the plinth. It was a very good opportunity to really test my skills with the airbrush. Almost all of the work I did with the airbrush, save for the minor touch-ups and highlights here and there.

So, that was the very first bust coming out of my painting desk. I think it has been a nice present for Mr. Lee as you can see from the over-exposing photo. He claims that it already found its spot on his desk at his office beside Leonardo. Now, all he has to do is to enjoy the nickname of "The Oppressor". I believe it will catch on quickly among his unders at work :)

Terrain Attack: Moonscape as Lava Pools

Big news: I bought an airbrush! I know, I know, you are shocked to hear that I didn't have one and that all the beauties you have seen on my blog were done with good old brush work :) Since I have my airbrush now, I thought it was time to practice on how to use it and a couple of terrains were lying around...

The idea is simple: Lava pools would be a nice touch on any chaos themed battlefield. They look even better when you play a Chaos Dwarfs army and have a vast array of fire creatures. Actually, I was planning to finish it earlier for the Artisan's Contest which was held by Chaos Dwarfs Online; but I couldn't make it. The contest was about Chaos Dwarfs themed terrain piece and I thought that it would have been a very good entry for my first contest. Next time I guess...

The craters I used here are from Citadel's Moonscape kit. At first, I was looking to buy Pegasus Hobbies' craters, due to the outrageous price of the Citadel ones; but then I noticed that our local gaming club had some of them waiting to be painted. If you like the idea of lava pools and decide to do yours, I suggest you to consider Pegasus' ones before making a purchase. It would be a decent buy with a good price.

Even though I am a n00b with the airbrush, painting these ones were fairly quick for me. I believe they didn't take more than 2 hours combined. First, I undercoated both of them black, then sprayed the craters yellow. Then did the rocky parts with Vallejo Red Leather. The places where the lava meets the rocks were gradually sprayed with Vallejo Bright Orange First and then I sprayed some blacks to the "cooled" parts. The hottest parts of the lava were done with a yellow+white mix. For finishing, I used some more blacks between the rocks before highlighting the rocks with Red Leather+white mix. Full airbrush work...

Here are some photos, enjoy...