I'M BACK!!!

Hello everyone I'm back, I am actually still alive and able to paint. Sorry for the huge absence, last year was fairly shitty and since then I've completely re-launched my life, new job and new home at the other end of the country, I'm now based in sunny Newcastle. I haven't done a huge amount of painting so far so it won't be a glorious return with hundreds of painted mini's but I do have a few to show off so I'll get cracking:

I think this is a Ral Partha Wraith of some description, I went for a green ghostly scheme this time mostly using the Vallejo fluorescent paints

I've no idea who manufactured this fella but he's a great little knight, he came as part of a large lot of random ebay wins a long time ago. If it helps anyone identify him he came with his mace as a separate weapon.

Great old Citadel knight, I went for a different approach on the white jerkin, watered down sky blue over the base white.

Second old Citadel knight, I've tried to give him a glowing sword but I'm not really sure how it's turned out I think it needs more white highlighting.

A third Citadel Knight, and below here he is in the middle of the top row.

Here's a little solid base Gnome or Dwarf assassin that I can't seem to find on the stuff of legends site but I know he's there somewhere.
Lastly on the painted front is my Blood Bowl Team, that I'm putting together for a mini League me my brother and a couple of other people are trying to start up. I've gone for the classic old school Orcs and I have a couple of plastic Black Orcs waiting a coat of paint to add to the team

I've also decided to make my own 3D dugout for the team, it still needs a ton of detailing, Orcish shields little stretchers etc but it's getting there.

40k Orc Painboy drafted in as my team Apothecary

On the great find front I picked this up from the reduced section in TK maxx I think it's supposed to hold spices and other kitchen items but works perfectly for mini's. The section on the right hand side slides underneath the main section perfectly and should paint up quite nice as a display stand.

Anyway that's enough for my first post in over a year, I've got to pace myself. Give me a shout if you have any questions.

CITADEL SOLID BASE C28 GIANT

Unfortunately I've not made any progress with the terrain that I started last week, so instead here's a mostly Giant based update.

Just finished painting one of the Early Citadel C28 Giants, the ones with the separate weapons and heads, the one highlighted below:

There's some more pics of the various parts up on the collecting citadel mini's wiki:
http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/index.php/Giants_-_C28_(solid_base)

I nabbed him on ebay for a couple of pounds awhile back as I think he was listed as an unknown wargame troll or something along those lines which was lucky as these early figures seem to go for silly money.

Here he is again this time with a flash:

I'm not 100% sure on the colour of his clothing as I don't think it contrasts enough with his skin tone, I should have gone with a similar colour to his belt or a more earthy blue.
And here he is with the small orc warband I've got going,

NEW ADDITIONS THIS WEEK:

This week I've added this lot to the lead pile:

He's one of these guys, sculpted by Nick Biddy and released in 1987:

He's a little on the flat side detail wise with not much in the way of definition but should hopefully look good alongside the other giant once he's painted up.

Along with the fella above I got these two guys:

The first of the two is the Citadel Giant Hill Troll sculpted by Kev Adams. Ever since I saw him on the amazing Somewhere the Tea's getting cold blog (http://teasgettingcold.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/mane-attraction.html) I've wanted to add him to the collection. He has such a dopey looking face and should fit right in with the Orc warband. The second figure is one of the amazing Jes Goodwin Ogres (http://www.solegends.com/citc/c23ogres.htm).

Also managed to nab the old citadel Zombie Dragon along with an early Citadel Creeping Young Dragon for £12.

They turned up as a buy it now for them both and as people seem to be asking for £30-50 buy it now for just the Zombie dragon I went for it. The Zombie Dragon needs a little more cleaning up and sorting out as there a ton of really deep recess's clogged with paint and I seem to be missing the very tip of the tail along with the neck being broken in half. It should hopefully be easy to sort out with a little pinning and some greenstuff.

Also nabbed a couple of the dwarf Lords of legend for a future dwarf warband.

Lastly but by no means least I finally managed to get hold a copy of Slaves To Darkness for a decent price (under £40) which seems crazy as there are still copies being bid on that are over the £50 mark, all I need now is a copy of Warhammer Armies and the Siege book and I'll be completely Oldhammered.

CHRISTMAS CAME EARLY

Today was a good day, a very good day, I received a hefty box of goods from Germany purchased from 'Cherno' on the Lead adventure forums, this lot will keep me going for eons:

 

Various resin pieces, mushrooms, tavern, bookcase etc

AD&D Gargoyles, ral Partha Rat Swarms etc

Fire Demon, Black Dragon, Chimera etc

Blood Troll, various Wraiths, Xorn, worm corpse thing

Various Mages, a bed, a thief, I think these are all Ral Partha

Bar Staff and some fighters

Various Fighters and robed people

Some Undead and a little gargoyle thing

More Fighters

Ilithid and some unknown creatures. 

Confrontation Ogre wearing an elephant head as a hat and Rogon The Balrog Dragon.

You may be asking how I was able to afford all this as I still have all my kidneys, but this huge haul was only £37, I have no idea what I'll do with most of it but I'm all set for lead for awhile :)

On a less cheery note, please can someone have a look a the two pics below and let me know if the blotching in the two images is the dreaded lead rot (you can click the images for larger views).

I've never really seen the dreaded rot in person so I'm not sure and any advice would be much appreciated. It only seems to be affecting the the main body of Rogon and not the other parts of the kit. I gave the affected areas a scrub with a copper brush and it seems to have removed whatever it was and brought up the model in a nice shine.

Anyway moving on from the doom and gloom, I finished of a couple more old school orcs:

Also here's a little sneak peek at what I've been making this week, the start of a petrified forest/lookout tower.

Hopefully should have some more progress to show you towards the end of the week.

ORC FLESH PAINTING GUIDE

I was asked by Orlygg form the ever wonderful Realm of Chaos 80's blog (http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.co.uk/) if I could put up an orc flesh painting guide, so here goes, as always you can click on any of the pics for a bigger view.

Here's all the paints that will be used in some fashion in this guide,

I'm a bit behind on the current paints so some of these will more than likely be called something different now .
I mostly used the following:
Paints:
Catachan Green, Snot Green, Goblin Green, Camo Green, Sunburst Yellow, Emperors Children
Washes / Glazes:
Nuln Oil, Thrakka Green, Lamenters Yellow, Baal Red

The first thing you need to do is undercoat your orcs in your usual fashion. I generally undercoat all my mini's in codex grey and then give them a black ink wash as I find it provides the best base for most colours and you don't have the problem you do with black in that some colours don't cover.

First up give all the exposed flesh of your orcs a coat of Catachan green.

Once this is dry give them a liberal wash of Thrakka Green when this is dry give them a coat Nuln Oil. I try to have a few different groups of mini's on the go at once so I can be working an earlier step whilst waiting for the washes to dry.

Next step is to begin the highlighting, the first layer being snot green

Followed next by Goblin Green,

Once this is dry gave the whole thing a coat of Lamenters Yellow Glaze. I hate using this phrase but I think it helps everything 'pop' and blends together the previous layers of green and gives the green a 'healthy' glow.

Next up once the glaze is dry is to do some more highlighting, I use camo green for this step. I'm not sure if it's meant to be like this but my pot of camo green is very watery and tends to separate a lot in the pot and go on very translucent so you  may need to water yours down slightly. 

Onto the last level of highlighting, for this step I  just pick out the very highest points on the skin (nose, cheekbones, elbows etc) with a tiny bit of Sunburst Yellow.

That's pretty much it for the skin, for the protruding bottom lip I just highlight it with some Emperors Children pink and give it a once over with some red wash. Once that's dry I add some detail in with evenly spaced tiny dashes of Blood Red, as you can see in the image below:

That's it for this tutorial for now as that's all I've painted :)

If any of the above wasn't clear give me a shout