Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Adventures in Contrast: Star Wars Legion - B1 Battle Droids


Welcome back to Adventures in Contrast, where I show you all sorts of little tricks and techniques that you can do with Citadel Colour's Contrast paint system!

The Clone Wars edition of Star Wars Legion arrived at my house thanks to my friend Dusty recently and I've been working my way through painting it all.

My main objective for this project is to paint the models to a table top standard, without worrying about spending a ton of time on the. Especially since the droids and clones all are pretty simple paint schemes already.

With that in mind, I'm using flexing Contrast paint to my advantage as much as possible.  In this article we will be looking at the B1 Battle Droid, the rank and file of the Separatists army.

Let's take a look!

Saturday, December 7, 2019

Adventures in Contrast: Star Wars Legion - Phase 1 Clone Trooper


Welcome back to Adventures in Contrast, where I show you all sorts of little tricks and techniques that you can do with Citadel Colour's Contrast paint system!

The Clone Wars edition of Star Wars Legion arrived at my house thanks to my friend Dusty recently and I've been working my way through painting it all.

My main objective for this project is to paint the models to a table top standard, without worrying about spending a ton of time on the. Especially since the droids and clones all are pretty simple paint schemes already.

With that in mind, I'm flexing Contrast paint to my advantage as much as possible.  In this article we will be looking at the pride of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Phase 1 Clone Troopers

Let's take a look!

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

Wizardry in Progress: Death Riders of the Steel Legion Conversion Project

Hey kids, it's been too long since I posted anything.

It's been strange times around here. Projects have slowly been getting worked on, but I've had no drive to write. I've felt like anything I had written wasn't well thought out and rushed, so why write if I'm not putting effort into it?

But that changes today.

I am going to change up things and focus on a single project in this post, one that I'm sure you've all seen around the inter-web-highway of social media and has proved to be a fan favorite lately.

The Death Riders of the Steel Legion.

This is a massively fun project that is quickly challenging my skills with green stuff and kitbashing. Let's take a look at it.

Wednesday, August 14, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 8/14/19

Alrighty. It's been a loooong time since I've posted anything, but I am starting to get back into the swing of things around here. In the time since before San Diego ComicCon I've been working on a few different things, but haven't posted anything about them (shame, shame).

So this week I'm going to go over everything that I've worked on (that I can remember), since my last Wizardry in Progress write up.

As Linguini says, let's do this thing!

Friday, July 5, 2019

Adventures in Contrast: Gems


Welcome back to Adventures in Contrast, where I show you all sorts of little tricks and techniques that you can do with Citadel Colour's Contrast paint system!

This time I am going to go over how to paint gems using Contrast. This is basically the same principle as I had shown in my review of the gemstone paint and my tutorial for doing gems with them. But the biggest issue with the gemstone paints is that they are limited to red, blue and green.

Contrast on the other hand comes in a wide range of colors and acts similar to the gemstone paints. Which means we can use them to make all kinds of gemstone colors! From red, to orange, purple and blue and even pink!

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 7/3/19

Work continues on Valdor. This week I managed to finish off his base and have been making steady progress on the gold armor.

Let's take a look.

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 6/26/19

This week has been very busy with the testing of Contrast paints and working on writing articles for my new series, Adventures in Contrast. I'm deep into tests with those paints and will have more on that later.

As for projects that I'm working on, this week I took a break from army painting and used some of the techniques I've developed with Contrast to start painting Constantin Valdor from Forge World. Namely, his base.

Let's take a look!

Monday, June 24, 2019

Adventures in Contrast: White Marble


Welcome back to Adventures in Contrast, where I show you all sorts of little tricks and techniques
that you can do with Citadel Colour's Contrast paint system!

A few days ago I showed you how to paint green marble using Contrast from Citadel Colour. This time, I'll be taking what we learned there and applying it to do white marble instead.

This technique uses a few regular paints to get the proper effect, namely Rhinox Hide and White. But it is still all thanks to Contrast and how these new paints work.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

Adventures in Contrast: Green Marble


Welcome back to Adventures in Contrast, where I show you all sorts of little tricks and techniques that you can do with Citadel Colour's Contrast paint system!

Originally, I had planned on doing the next article on Gemstones. But I was just too hyped for this technique. So instead in this article, I will be going over something very, very cool; green marble.

Marble is always something that has eluded me. I've tried doing it before with traditional brushwork and I never liked the results. I've seen folks doing marble with airbrushes, but until recently I didn't have access to one.

Then, along comes Contrast and it hits me, we can use the transparency of this new paint system to make marble in a stupid easy way. Marble wiithout needing to airbrush or hand paint the veins is possible and easier than ever.

All other testing and painting of models halted while I went to work figuring out the technique. The resulting finished product looks like actual marble and thanks to the miracle of cling wrap and sponges we have a true random pattern on the surface.


Thursday, June 20, 2019

Adventures in Contrast: Introduction & Candied Metallic Armor



... and now for something completely different!

On the 15th of June Games Workshop finally released their new Citadel Colour Contrast paint range. I have been very keen to work with them, put them through their paces and see if the hype is real or not.

Excited for this new paint system, I bought the entire range of 36 Contrast colors, both pots and spray cans of Grey Seer and Wraithbone base colors, as well as Contrast Medium. I cracked open the Monolith Conan board game to use as a testing ground and went to work.

My main goal of this series is not so much to review these new paints. With all of the videos and other previews and testimonials floating around I'm sure you've no doubt seen reviews of Contrast already. Especially if you're on this site and in the Warhammer/Miniatures painting community.

Instead, I am going to put these paints to the test and see what we can do with them other than speed painting armies.

Let's see what this stuff can do!

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 6/19/19

It's been a busy week this week!

I was able to build a new HQ unit for the Death Riders project and on Saturday Citadel's new Contrast line of paint came out and I've been hooked on playing with it ever since.

Let's take a look!

Friday, June 14, 2019

The Relic of Smaerd: Fleeing the City

As of last week, the 82nd has obtained the Relic of Smaerd and is now on the run from the Sisters of
Battle as they try to bring it to a secure location.

This week's battle is Running Battle from the Vigilus Defiant campaign. The armies have been built to 1,000 points and are heavy on vehicles in order to capture the feel of a high speed chase through the ruins of the city of Smaerd.

In Running Battle, the models and terrain all slide down the table 6" at the start of each round, after the first. To capture the feel of moving through the city, we started putting more natural looking terrain down at the beginning of turn 3. That way it felt like they had reached the edge of town and were nearly away.

Will the Steel Legion secure the Relic? Or will Celetine's Battle Sisters seize control of it?

Find out below!

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 6/12/19

It's time for this week's progress update! I had originally planned to do a bunch of hobby on Sunday, but was sidelined with sickness. I did manage to do one of the riders, but was so out of it that trying to do all of them was a no go.

The rest of the riders were finished on Monday after I was fully recuperated.

Let's take a look.

Friday, June 7, 2019

The Relic of Smaerd: Obtaining the Relic

Last Wednesday night my friend Daryl and I had a 1,000 point game of Warhammer 40k using my Steel Legion and his new Sisters of Battle army. We played the scenario "The Relic" from the core rulebook and it was a blast.

We started talking about it afterwards and decided to do a narrative rivalry between the two armies over who controls this relic of the Imperium.

I've decided to write up what happened in each game, not so much as a turn by turn battle report but as a journal of events. Keep in mind, that while my army is pretty well assembled and battle ready, his is a deep work in progress and he is still waiting on the new models to release.

As such there some heavy proxying and grey plastic happening in his current army. There's also some on my end too, as I try new units out. But it's all pretty casual and for fun anyway. As we build and paint, it'll all look nicer, but for now it is what it is.

Cool? Cool.

As I mentioned earlier, this week's game was a 1,000 point match and we randomly determined the scenario, which ended up being The Relic. We went with base rulebook scenarios and deployments to keep it simple, since Daryl had never played Sisters before.

Deployments were also chosen from the rulebook and randomly determined. We ended up with the shallow triangle deployment zone, which has each starting area peaked in the middle and 9" from the center of the table.

Let's get to it.

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 6/5/19

Another light week over here as I relax a bit and recenter, before jumping back into projects.

This week I decided to paint up the converted Death Korps of Krieg Death Rider biker and see how he looks fully painted! It really tied him together and he looks like he belongs like this, that's always a good thing.

Let's check it out.

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 5/29/19

I've dialed back the miniature painting a little bit this week, the plan is to slow down the work load and take a bit of a break from painting as much. I've been painting non-stop since before Adepticon and have finished almost an entire army in the time since.

I'm not going to stop completely, but as of now the plan is to paint on Monday nights, and do other things in my free time for a bit.

This week, I painted and finished two models. One was a new commander for the Steel Legion, while the other was a Chaplain in Terminator Armor.

Let's check them out!

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 5/22/19

This week was all about getting the Valkyrie finished. I feels like I've been working on this thing for ages (even though it's only been about a week).

This baby is covered in freehand and fanciness.

Let's check it out.

Monday, May 20, 2019

Miniature Monday: Mortis Dreadnought


If you're unfortunate enough to need to be interred in a dreadnought chassis, and can't manage to find a relic Deredeo chassis to get stuck in, your next best option for your artillery loving self is a Mortis Dreadnought.

This fella was a fun project, as it let me do a tiny bit of converting and I played around with some freehand after he was finished. He was originally the fastest dreadnought I painted, and probably still is even after the freehand was done.

I'd say he's up there on my list of favorite models in my army. 

Let's check him out.

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 5/15/19

It's been a busy week around here! It feels like I didn't do a lot this week, but in actuality I did!

This week I painted the last Chimera, the Veteran squad's Platoon Commander and started on a Valkyrie. I also went to a pottery shop and we painted ceramics, where I painted up a cute little panda bear.

Let's take a look.

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

Miniature Monday: Deredeo Dreadnought


If you're a space marine with a taste for artillery and are severely wounded, look no further than getting yourself interred in a Deredeo Dreadnought.

I mean look at this bad boy, heavy support never had it so good.

Dual Lascannons and a Missile Pod, plus some Storm Bolters for good measure. Mm Hmmmm, tasty.

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 5/8/19

Are you bored of Steel Legion yet? Well... work continues on the Steel Legion this week!

While I didn't get much hobby time in this week, because of Jeep and house repairs, I did manage a few things. This week, I painted a second Chimera and assembled another one. I also built a new Platoon Commander to go along with my Veterans.

Let's check it out!

Monday, May 6, 2019

Miniature Monday: Leviathan Dreadnought


The Leviathan Dreadnought, pride of the Imperium (probably) and the favorite of many a Warhammer 40k and Horus Heresy player. These hulking behemoths of metal are death incarnate and one of the most feared Dreadnoughts in a Space Marines player's arsenal.

I mean, just look at it. It's a beaut.

This model was my first venture into buying Forge World models, and boy and I glad I picked him up. It is a very nice piece! It also led me to build my all Dreadnought army, which ended up going undefeated at Adepticon.

Let's take a look at him.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 5/1/19

The Legion continues to grow. This week I worked on just one squad of Death Korps of Krieg Engineers. I'll be using them as Veterans in my Steel Legion army and they will be played as paratroopers and supporting my main force with Valkyries.

Other than that, on Monday night I started building a new terrain piece, based off of a sketch I made of a small two story house.

Let's check it out!

Thursday, April 25, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 4/25/19

We're a day late, but we're still here!

This week was all about getting my second and third infantry squads painted, for what I had hoped would be a game on Wednesday night. But my Jeep decided that it wanted some attention, in the form of ABS system maintenance... woohoo!

Let's take a look at what happened this week!

Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 4/17/19

It's been a busy week of hobby in the studio, this week I built and painted a Taurox to use as a command vehicle, I also built a Wyvern for some artillary support and tossed together a bit of plastic and scraps for a new terrain piece!

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 4/10/19

I have returned from Adepticon on a hobby high! In previous years I'd spend the following month working on nothing of substance and playing video games or something. This year, I rolled right into working on a new army!

Steel Legion of Armageddon!

I spent the week leading up to Adepticon working on some infantry and a chimera, and I've spent the past week building and painting Leman Russ tanks!

Let's take a look!

Monday, April 8, 2019

Miniature Monday: Severina Raine

A few weeks or a month ago Games Workshop celebrated the anniversary of the Black Library with a new female commissar model, Severina Raine.

When I saw her I knew that I needed to pick her up. Luckily, the game shop I hang out at got plenty of them on hand and I was able to snag one from them. She sat on my desk for a few days, and then I decided to get to work on her.

I decided that instead of painting her normally, I'd convert her into a counts-as Commissar Yarrick! She turned out really well too and has gotten a lot of compliments.

Let's take a look!

Monday, March 25, 2019

Miniature Monday: Captain Barbossa


Avast ye scurvy dogs! Tis time for Minature Monday! This here post be all about the greatest of pirate captains, Captain Hector Barbossa.

Read on, ye bilge rats...

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 3/20/19

With Adepticon prep pretty much finished, its time for fun projects until I leave.

This week, I finished up Captain Barbossa and got started on some new Steel Legion models. I'm planning on bringing the Steel Legion dudes to Adepticon as well for Kill Team and pick up games. So far, it's looking promising that I'll have everything done in time.

I also used some spare parts to make a motorcycle riding Steel Legion Commander. He turned out really rad.

Let's check out this week's progress!

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Miniature Monday: Adepticon 2019 Display Board


Adepticon is a week and a half away, so it only seems fitting that today's Miniature Monday is all about the display board I built for the Warhammer 40,000 Friendly tournament.

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 3/13/19

It's time for this week's Wizardry in Progress! This week is mostly all about the Adepticon display board for the Friendly tournament. Other than that, I started painting the converted Commissar Severina Raine too.

Let's check it out.

Monday, March 11, 2019

Miniature Monday - Yellow Kastelan Robot


The final Kastelan Robot, so far, this guy's look eluded me for quite a bit before I finally settled on something that was fun and a bit tongue-in-cheek. For this robo, I decided to paint him up with yellow armor, but I wasn't sure what to do for his accent color.

Finally I had the wise idea of making a Star Wars reference with him and gave him a red arm, like our boy C-3PO from the Force Awakens.

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 3/6/19

There's been a flurry of activity around here this week as I continue prep for Adepticon!

This week I focused most of my efforts on the display board for the dreadnought army. I also painted up a Primaris Lieutenant from Warhammer 40,000 Conquest and did some minor conversion work on some easy build Intercessors. 

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 2/27/19

Another week gone by and we are now at the end of February! This week I did some major work on the Adepticon display board for the Dreadnoughts army. I also built a few new models and painted up the heroes for Resident Evil 2.

Let's check it out.

Monday, February 25, 2019

Miniature Monday: Chaplain Venerable Dreadnought


For this week's Miniature Monday I have the HQ of my Dreadnought army. He's a Forge World Chaplain Venerable Dreadnought, who I bought off of my friend Greg while at Adepticon 2018.

He was originally on a large fancy base, but due to issues with it and my display board for the Friendly at Adepticon I had to ditch it and come up with a different solution.

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 2/20/19

It was a fairly light week this week, as I was only able to really work on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights. But, I was able to knock down some more of the pile, in prep for Adepticon.

Let's take a look!

Monday, February 18, 2019

Miniature Monday - Deathwatch Intercessors


The backbone of my Deathwatch force is the Primaris Intercessors Fortis Kill Team. These guys will eventually be going to battle mixed with some Primaris Hellblasters and Aggressors and armed withe assault weapons so I can keep my mobility up. But, for now, they run alone in two squads of 5 as that is what I needed for U-Con and teaching games.

I'm super pleased with all of them. Let's take a look!

Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 2/13/19

This week was all about BEASTS OF CHAOS!

I did do some painting of Barbossa as well, but mostly it was all about putting little plastic goatmen together. Two full boxes of Start Collecting: Beasts of Chaos, that is. As well as a couple boxes of Gors.

Let's check it out.

Tuesday, February 12, 2019

Miniature Monday: Olive Green Kastelan Robot


Alrighty, let's get this Miniature Monday stuff started back up! It's been awhile and there's so much to show off. We're going to start this off with the Olive Green Kastelan Robot. This guy is also the last of the custom headed robots and the first of the running pose robos.

Wednesday, February 6, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 2/6/19

Whew, what a week. So much stuff happened!

This past week, we had a major cold snap hit us and were faced with wind chills deep into the -30s. Which meant there wasn't much leaving the house happening. Which also meant I was able to sit at the painting desk for hours on end!

This week I completed all the dreadnoughts for my Adepticon list and got started on a bust of Captain Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Monday, February 4, 2019

Miniature Monday - Kommander Sorscha Bust


Ever since Privateer Press started doing busts I'd wanted to get my hands on one of them an give bust painting a shot. 2018 was the year of the bust and I was able to pick up Kommander Sorscha at Adepticon that year.

I took her with me to St. Louis and painted her over the course of two days at a gaming convention down there, while recording video of her for Let's Paint.

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 1/30/19

This week I made some solid progress on the Dreadnought army, thanks to a snow day at work and a decent amount of free time. I also was able to get the display board laid out and prepped for next steps.

Let's take a look!

Monday, January 28, 2019

Miniature Monday - Blood Angels Army


Roughly this time last year I started on a commission for a friend of mine that would last me the entire year. Not so much because it was that intense or anything like that, but due to a multitude of other factors, such as convention prep, it took forever to get through.

It is now complete though and it's time to share!

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 1/23/19

This week I finally finished the Blood Angels commission! Yay, sweet sweet freedom. Now I can get back to work on other projects and start my Adepticon prep in earnest. So far, I've primed the bust of Captain Barbosa and started work on the Leviathan dreadnought.

Let's take a look.

Monday, January 21, 2019

MIniature Monday - Takata


Today's Miniature Monday features Takata from MidKnight Heroes!

I painted his fella up for the Golden Kobold miniatures painting competition at GenCon 2018, where he took bronze. He was featured on my YouTube channel's Let's Paint series. He's a super cool future ninja, and was a blast to paint.

Let's take a look!

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 1/16/19

Welcome to Wizardry in Progress, my weekly recap of all of the hobby happenings that have gone of in the previous week!

This week I spent quite a bit of time finishing up Blood Angels models. I completed the Terminator Squad and got started (nearly finished) a tactical squad. I started painting a load of Dreadnoughts and a Drop Pod for my Deathwatch and I modified a sweet resin base for the Chaplain Dreadnought.

Let's check it out.

Monday, January 14, 2019

Miniature Monday - Deathwatch Primaris Librarian


For today's Miniature Monday, I have the Deathwatch Primaris Librarian, who is my main HQ for my current Deathwatch army. I painted this fella in prep for the U-Con gaming convention in November 2018, where Dan of the Lonely Havocs and I taught folks how to play Warhammer 40k.

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 1/9/19

It's time for Wizardry in Progress!

This week didn't see a whole lot of work done on projects, mainly because I spent the Thursday through the weekend out of town. I did manage a bit more progress on the Terminator squad, and built a few models.

Let's check it out!

Monday, January 7, 2019

Miniature Monday - Deathwatch Redemptor Dreadnought


Today we're going to be taking a look at a big boy. The newest Dreadnought in the playground, the Primaris Redemptor Dreadnought.

This guy was the first model of my Deathwatch to be painted, other than a test model from a while back. For being a large model he painted up really quickly. The same can't be said for build time though. This model is the standard version and oh holy hell is it an intricate build.

Let's take a look!

Friday, January 4, 2019

The Brush Wizard now Supports Living Arts

Art is a big deal to me. It acts as a relaxing agent, it helps me express myself, it brings people together.

As you may have heard on Twitter or noticed the shop tab up above, I've started a Teespring store and I am leveraging it to help support Living Arts of Detroit, Michigan.

Read on, my fellow humans.

Wednesday, January 2, 2019

Wizardry in Progress 1/2/19

It's a new year and its time for the first Wizardry in Progress of 2019! This week I played with terrain, got some new Admech models assembled and put some red paint down on the Blood Angels Terminators.

Let's check it out.