Review of Mephiston Red and Carroburg Crimson for Blood Angels

O M G….

These two colours totally blew me away.
Especially Mephiston Red.

As you may know, Citadel/Games Workshop has updated their paint range with new paints.
For many, many years, the colour red has been notoriously hard to paint due to the low amount of pigment.
Since red pigment is generally a bit more expensive, maybe this was a way to bring each pot of paint to bear its own cost.

However, with the last update we saw foundation paints such as Mechrite Red with its better coverage due to higher grade of pigments.
The problem was that the paint wasn’t really close to Blood Red but has a more purple-based tone in it.
So, you had to paint it over with Blood Red which in itself had a very low pigment count.
This all resulted in layers and layers, because if you splashed on Blood Red you got uneven coats which looked really weird.

NO MORE!

The Mephiston Red introduces both a colour more close to Blood Red and it has great coverage as well.
I would say that you need two, maybe three coats of watered down paint to make it cover well.
And you can splash it on as the paint doesn’t give you that uneven coat anymore.
I finally understand what people mean when they talk about speed painting!
It’s a joy to paint red nowadays.

And from a business perspective it makes sense, I think.
Here you will have people not shying away from painting red.
So, this will not hamper any sales that people are maybe thinking of, but stalling because of the difficulty to paint red.
It’s been a pain to paint red.
Not any more.

Carroburg Crimson…
Here you have a mix between Devlan Mud and Baal Red when looking at the colour.
It’s an improvement.
I never used Baal Red as a wash, and Devlan Mud was ok, but I ended up using Badab Black instead to get a good contrast.
With Carroburg Crimson I get a nice shade/wash colour–wise, and I get that nice contrast with the colour red to make a clear distinction between the red armour and the recesses.
The only downside, and I think it is a downside, is that it stains the base paint as it doesn’t flow into the recesses as the old washes did.
This means you need to touch up a bit, but with these nice base paints, who cares?

I loved both the base and the shade.
Soon, I will try the glace Bloodletter and we’ll see what it has to offer.

Meanwhile, go and get yourselves some pots of Mephiston Red and Carroburg Crimson.
‘Cause you’re worth it.

Until next time.

New Citadel Paints

Hi!

I’m back.
I just saw that I haven’t posted anything for over a month.
So – bad boy. I’ll try and improve.

I have a game coming up with a good friend of mine, so I have some painting to do.

Thus, I couldn’t help myself from buying some new paint pots from the new Citadel range.
I am slowly running out of both Mechrite Red and Blood Red, so I figured I’d try the new foundation base Mephiston Red and also try out their new glace – Bloodletter.
I am also going to try out the new wash shade Carroburg Crimson.
The Mephiston Red is suppose to be closer to Blood Red than Mechrite Red is and provide better coverage.
Anything that can decrease time painting red is good.
It has traditionally been a very difficult colour.

Well, we’ll see how that pans out.

Oh, and I couldn’t resist buying the new gold, Bathazar Gold (base).
It’s suppose to have great coverage.
That means I won’t have to fiddle around with a basecoat in brown before applying gold.

And I added Runefang Steel (layer) as my Mithril Silver is drying out.

New Citadel Paints

 

That’s it for now.

Painting Update

Hey all!

So I figured it was time for a painting update.
I’ve been sick for some time but I haven’t been completely idle.

I’ve touched up and restored two of my Land Speeders, but have also continued to finish painting my Vanguard Veterans and Honour Guards.

The Land Speeders were bought somewhere around 2004-2005, when I returned to the hobby from the old Rouge Trader days.
As I have mentioned before, I picked out Blood Angels and Tau as my armies to be.
After that I went on Ebay to find what I was looking for.
In buying most of my Blood Angel army from various sellers, I bought both some Terminators in an army deal, as well as some Land Speeders.

I thought they were gorgeous. Probably because they had paint on them…
Not that I am the world’s best painter or anything, but more because when painting your skill develops.
And as your skill develops, you begin to notice differences in levels of painting skills.
Turns out the Land Speeders and the Terminators may be classed as “table top ready”.

Alright, now to the painting update.

Pics! Pics! Pics!

 

Sanguinary Priest – Work In Progress

WIP - Sanguinary Priest - Front View

I like how the Aquila came out.
A red Aquila is usually difficult, I find.

Base coat – Mechrite Red
Wash – Baal Red or Badab Black
First highlight – Blood Red
Second highlight – Fiery Orange
Extreme highlight – Vomit Brown

 

WIP - Sanguinary Priest

Not wanting to use to many colours, I still opted to add one more – green.
It gives the priest a little bit more personality or character.

 

Vanguard Veteran – Work In Progress

Vanguard Veteran

Vanguard Veteran Jump Pack

 

Terminators – Getting Ready For Some Magnets

Terminators

 

The Terminators is a side project that I have.
It’s nice to have something else to do and magnetizing is about as fun as it gets.
So, these terminators will eventually be able to be used as Assault Terminators once I get bits for them.
I may also see if I can switch heads on the special weapons guy and the Sarge. We’ll see…

Later…

 

 

 

New Tools and Magnets

Hi again!

As I recently bought 30 jump packs from some online bitz site, I began looking at them more closely.
I realized that I needed to invest in not only some files to file down mold lines, but also where the clippers had cut them from the sprues.
In addition to that, I needed to buy some more magnets (3mm x 1mm).

I went to my FLGS and bought the following:

5 Piece Diamond Micro Files: Expert (GF9)

 

Miniature and Model Drill (Army Painter)

 

Magnets - now about 420 pieces

 

I already have drill bits, but I have so far used my fingers as i haven’t had a handle or what ever you would call it.
But it hurts!
So I figured it was about time…

The magnets will be used for both my Blood Angles, and possibly for my Tau army.

 

Until next time…

New Paint Brushes – Raphael 8404 series

Hi again,

I just wanted to tell you that I have just bought me a new set of paint brushes from Jackson’s Art Supplies.
I bought six brushes of the excellent Kolinsky hair Raphael 8404 series for acrylic paint.
These brushes are of high quality and I have tried them before.
They are supposedly equivalent in quality to the Winsor and Newton series, i.e. top quality.

I bought two of each size 0, 2/0, and 3/0.
So, I should be set for awhile.

I like them a lot because they maintain their shape and last a long, long time if you a careful with brush maintenance (such as washing them with paint soap, etc.)
Well, here they are.

Raphael 8404 Kolinsky paint brushes

Painting some Blood Angels are next on the agenda.
I need to finish my DoA army of 2000 pts.
But as I have also bought 30 more jump packs, I will now have some conversion to be done.
I will convert some Tactical Marines and magetize them as usual.
Should be fun to be able to run flexible DoA lists at 2500 pts!

Later.

Old Miniatures From the 80s (Grenadier Miniatures, Bitume, etc.)

Hi again,

Hopefully you have already enjoyed the previous articles about the late 1980s Warhammer (Fantasy and 40k) miniatures, as well as the “Fantasy Armies” range from Prince August Miniatures.
This will be my last installment about diving into my treasure trove of old miniatures that I found stored away while cleaning.

All the way down in the used shoe box, I found the following darlings.
We bought these miniatures for usage in roleplaying games with both fantasy and Sci-fi theme.
The deal was that each player got to pick out and buy his own mini and either painted it himself (yes we had no girlfriends…) or turned it over to me so that they got painted.
I, as the Game Master, got to paint all the up and coming adversaries.

Anyway, enough ranting.
To the minis!

Orcs – From Grenadier Miniatures’ “Fantasy Warrior” range (1987)

Orcs (Blister packs #942 and #949 or M402, M421, M426)

I remember buying these ones a bit later on, maybe in 1990.
The miniature named “Orc with 2 handed weapon” (M402), to the left, has a mark saying Grenadier 1987.
Later on the rights to the “Fantasy Warrior” range were sold to em4miniatures.

For more info about the Grenadier Miniature range of the 1980s, please visit Lost mini’s excellent website.

Sci-fi miniatures (manufacturer unknown)

Judge Dredd miniatures

Thanks to Jason in the comment section, the minis above can now be identified as minis from the Judge Dredd series.  Thanks!
The minis are, in order from left to right, “Citi-Def”, “Security“, and “Citi-Def with Machine Gun“.

 

“Future Shock” range by Bitume

Future Shock (BT5 and BT6)

These were pretty cool and were excellent for Sci-fi and modern roleplaying games such as Mutant or Star Wars.

Plastic Toy Cowboys

Plastic Toy Cowboys

I painted these ones in maybe 1990, or perhaps 1991, as I had improved my painting skills of highlighting and I wanted something else to paint besides fantasy or Sci-fi miniatures of the 32mm size.
So, I figured, hey, why not paint these boring-looking blue, red, and yellow plastic cowboys and bring them to life!
They were “Made in Korea”, I believe, as these was prior to China establishing themselves as a manufacturing country to be reckoned with.
I kind of like them, as they are so different from what you’d expect.

Beast of Nurgle (scratch built)

Beast of Nurgle

These model was scratch built by me in around 1988, I think.
It was the first one, and the only one, I built from scratch.
We were going to play the introductory adventure in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying (WFRP) game that could be found in the 1st edition.
The adventure is called the Oldenhaller Contract and it ended up with the adventurers having to fight a Beast of Nurgle.

Since there were no models available of a Beast of Nurgle, I ended up building one.
I only had the descriptions from the Beastiary in the rule book to use as a frame of reference.
The miniature was built using regular pipe cleaners as its tentacle.
The body was modified and made from a tool used to apply ski wax for cross-county skis during the 1980s!

I remember to this day the joy to see my fellow players’ eyes glittering when I presented Beast of Nurgle.
And best of all, they won the battle in an epic way by having one of the characters slay the monster in one blow (multiple 6s, in the 2nd ed. it was called something like The Strength of Ulric or something).
Good times!

Well folks, that’s it!
My shoe box is empty, and I now put the miniatures back and store it away in the attic for the time being.
I’d love to hear comments if you remember any of the miniatures from this installment or if you have your own memories of old minis.

Stay tuned for more Blood Angels.
Later.

Old Miniatures From Prince August Miniatures (PAM)

Hi again!

In order to continue my ride down on memory lane, I will now post some pictures of minis that my gaming group bought during the late 80s.

These minis come from Prince August Miniatures which used to be a Swedish company competing against mainly Citadel Miniatures for the ever growing market of minis in the 80s.
Prince August Miniatures released a number of fantasy miniatures in their “Fantasy Armies” range.
In conjunction with blister packs of individual miniatures, they also sold “Fantasy Armies Casting Kits” which were block sets made out of some kind of rubber so that you could actually mold your own miniatures.

I remember having a poster of miniatures from Prince August Miniatures and luckily I found it (or parts of it) on the internet.
Here we go:

Fantasy Armies - Prince August Poster_1

Fantasy Armies - Prince August Poster_2

Fantasy Armies - Prince August Poster_3

 

Fantasy Armies - Prince August Poster_4

And here are some of the miniatures that we bought and I have saved
Note that all miniatures were bought and painted at around 1986-1989.
Reference (and origins of pictures of poster): Lost minis

 

Barbarians

Barbarians (BA1, BA3)

Characters

Characters (CH2, CH5, CH6, CH11/12, CH16, CH23, CH24, CH25a, CH27a, CH28b)

Fighters

Fighters (FG8, FG10)

Goblins

Goblins (GB1, GB2, GB3)

Monsters

Monsters (MS4)

Orcs

Orcs (OR4, OR6, OR9, OR10, OR11, OR12)

Skeletons

Skeletons (SK5, SK6, SK7)

Undead

Undead (UN4, UN5)

Undead (UN7d, UN7e, UN7f)

Villagers

Villagers (VL2)

 

Well, that’s it for now.

Stay tuned for the next, and last, posting about old miniatures!

Old Warhammer Miniatures (OOP) by Citadel Miniatures (1988-)

Hi again!

It’s been awhile since last posting.
Been sick for some time, but I’ve been painting some for the past couple of weeks.

But the other day, I began something similar to a Springtime cleaning.
And I found my old miniature box with minis from when I began enjoying the hobby in the good ol’ Rouge Trader days.

Basically, we were a bunch of kids looking at various beatiful miniature models from a company called Citadel.
They were connected to a tabletop game called “Warhammer 40000 – Rouge Trader”.
The rules came out in 1987 at our friendly local gaming store called “Lasses Leksaker” (Eskilstuna, Sweden). When opportunity arose, we would go to Stockholm and visit “Tradition”, the largest gaming store in Sweden during the late 1980s, and marvel at all the games that existed (and buy some).

During the late 1980s, we were playing Swedish roleplaying games such as “Drakar och Demoner” (Dragons and Demons) which was based on a licence of the Chaosium Basic Roleplaing Game.
The Swedish company Äventyrspel (now Riotminds) aquired the licence and released “Drakar och Demoner” in 1982 which became a huge success which sold in over 100 000 copies.

Drakar och Demoner

We also played various other swedish roleplaying games such as Mutant, Mutant2, Chock, and Drakar och Demoner Expert.

In 1986, Games Workshop released “Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game” (WFRP) which was the first english roleplaying game that we bought and played.
This game emphasized the usage of miniatures to represent the characters and monsters fighting it out in the game.
Thus, we were on the hunt for good looking minis.

During my early Springtime cleaning I looked through the box where I have my old miniatures. Instead of storing them up in the attic, I figured I’d take some time examining them a bit more closely and see if I could make some nice finds on the Internet regarding the origins of the miniatures I have. Some of them were bought by myself and some by friends. As I was the acting Game Master (GM) in WFRP, I usually painted at least the adversaries (as they were secret representing upcoming encounters in the game).

Here are my finds.
All miniatures were painted by me at around 1988-1991.
After that I took up the hobby again in around 2004.

Astropath Korm
Released in March 1988 as part of the “Adventurers” line.

Astropath Korm (1988)

Astropath Yerl
Released in March 1988 as part of the “Adventurers” line.

Astropath Yerl (1988)

Imperial Assassin
Released in March 1988 as part of the “Adventurers” line.

Imperial Assassin (1988)

Eldar Trader
Released in March 1988 as part of the “Adventurers” line.

Eldar Trader (1988)

And here they are from an ad in White Dwarf #99.

Adventurers for Warhammer 40000 – Rouge Trader

Eldar Jetbike
In October 1988, in the issue of White Dwarf #106, the following model was featured.

Eldar Jet bike (1988)

Eldar Jet bike (1988)

Eldar Jet bike (1988)

And here is the article from White Dwarf #106:

Eldar Jetbike – White Dwarf Article (#106, p40)

Squat Warrior
From 1989 (?), we have the following miniature model.

Squat Warrior (1989)

Imperial Ogryn
And here is the Squat’s big brother, an Imperial Ogryn, from 1991 (?).

Ogryn1 (1991)

These two models were featured in catalogs by Games Workshop:

Squats (1989?)

Imperial Ogryns (1991?)

Alright.
That was all of the old Warhammer 40000 models I have.

Now, let’s move on to some of the old Warhammer Fantasy models I have in my collection.

The Realm of Chaos range of Warhammer Fantasy

Chaos Beastman (#07, 1988)

Chaos Beastman (#14, 1988)

Realm of Chaos – Beastmen (Picture 1, 1988)

Chaos Beastman (#15, 1988)

Realm of Chaos – Beastmen (Picture 2, 1988)

Chaos Beastman (#16, 1988)

Realm of Chaos – Beastmen (Picture 3, 1988)

Chaos Champion (#01, 1988)

Realm of Chaos – Champions (1988)

The Monster range of Warhammer Fantasy

Ogre (#13a, 1988)

Ogre (#13b, 1988)

Monsters – Ogres (1988)

 

Finally we have the mini “Count Urlik Skarsol” from the Michael Moorcock’s Eternal Champion box set.

This is a mini that I didn’t know the name of. Thanks to a comment by “Liam” below, it has now found its rightful place. Thank you so much, Liam.

According to The Stuff of Legends, the sculptor was no other than Jes Goodwin.

Underneath the plastic base it says “G W 1984”, and I haven’t bothered pulling the pewter model from its base to see the engraving on its base.

Here it is.

Count Urlik Skarsol – Eternal Champion box set

 

 

 

 

That’s it!

Hope you had a nice ride down on memory lane.
I sure did.

Stay tuned for more minis.
Next up, from the miniature range “Fantasy Armies” from Prince August Miniatures. 

Blood Angels Vanguard Veteran Lightning Claws

Hi again,

This time I’m just updating with some Lightning Claws that I just painted.
These will go on the Vanguard Veteran Sergeants.

I feel I am taking a lot of time painting so we are not talking spped painting here.
Nevertheless, that is the way I like to paint it – no compromising, and thus, improving with everything I do.
I feel my brush control is a lot better now. Also, I feel more comfortable in choosing colours as well as understanding the importance of contrast.
Let me tell you what I mean with contrast. If I am edge highlighting using a light colour, I try to make sure that there is some kind of darkness next to it. If not, I may darken the base colour next to the edge highlight just to make it pop a bit more.

Anyway, now for some pics.

Side View of Lightning Claws

Inside View of Lightning Claws

Jump Packs From Above

 

Please note, that only jump packs and Lightning Claws are done. The bodies and occasional weapons are not.

Well, that’s it for now.

 

Stay tuned for more.

Blood Angel Jump Pack Painted

Hi again,

I has been a long time since I posted.
I have done some painting since my last time.

Usually, I play 40k games  with a good friend of mine.
After the last time we played, I felt the need of finishing painting my army.
He has got a rather nice looking army (Nids) and so I feel I should really contribute to the aesthetics of the game…

Anyway, I’ve done some painting recently that I want to share.

Jump Pack - Top View

Jump Pack - Back View

I used the following recipes:

Jump pack
Base coat – Lightly watered-down GW Mechrite Red (you want it to cover, but not to lose any details).
Main coat – Heavily watered-down GW Blood Red (it really works great and dries almost as fast as you layer it on).
Shading – At first I used GW Devlan Mud, but to really get the contrasts up I went with GW Badab Black (carefully add to recesses to shape forms).
1st Highlight – I tried mixing GW Blazing Orange and  GW Blood Red, but that was to modest. I continued with adding pure GW Blazing Orange (almost straight from the pot) on to edges of the jump pack and then a bit further in.
2nd Highlight – I highlighted edges with GW Vomit Brown.
Extreme highlight – Finally I added small dots of a mix of GW Vomit Brown and GW Skull White to the corner edges to make it pop even more.

Feathers
Base coat – Lightly watered-down mix of GW Astronomican Grey, GW Codex Grey, and a small amount of GW Enchanting Blue (you want it to cover, but not to lose any details).
Shading Wash – Watered-down mix of GW Codex Grey and a small amount of GW Enchanting Blue.
Deep shading – In the very deepest recesses, I added a mix of watered-down GW Chaos Black to the shading wash of above.
Main coat – Sightly watered-down GW Astronomican Grey.
Highlight – A mix of watered-down GW Astronomican Grey and GW Skull White was added to part of the individual feathers.
Extreme highlight – Finally I added pure GW Skull White to the edges of the feathers to make it pop even more.
The bone – The feathers hang on the wing bone, and this I painted with pure GW Skull White.

Ceremonial Rope
Base coat – Lightly watered-down GW Snakebite Leather (here, I should have watered it down even further as details are easily lost).
Shading Wash – GW Badab Black.
Deep shading – On the red jump pack, just over and under the rope, I added two layers of GW Badab Black so as to increase the contrast and thus, make it pop even more.
Highlight – GW Vomit Brown straight from the pot on to the outer edges of the rope (no dry brushing).
Extreme highlight – Finally I added small dots of a mix of GW Vomit Brown and GW Skull White to the top of the edges to make it pop even more and to emphasize the zenithal lighting.

Skull (on the jump pack)
Base coat – Lightly watered-down mix of GW Astronomican Grey
Shading Wash – GW Devlan Mud. I didn’t like using GW Gryphonne Sepia.
Deep shading – In the very deepest recesses, like the eye sockets, I added watered-down GW Chaos Black. I also used GW Badab Black to distinguish the skull emblem from the jump pack. It makes the white pop a bit more.
Main coat – Sightly watered-down GW Astronomican Grey.
Highlight – A mix of watered-down GW Astronomican Grey and GW Skull White was added.
Extreme highlight – Finally I added pure GW Skull White to the edges to make it pop even more.

Metal tubes
Base coat – Lightly watered-down GW Boltgun Metal.
Shading Wash – GW Badab Black.
Deep shading – To paint faster, I added some watered-down GW Chaos Black.
1st Highlight – A mix of equal parts of GW Boltgun Metal and GW Mithrill Silver (on top of the tubes where the sun shines).
2nd Highlight – Finally I added small dots of GW Mithrill Silver to metal pins, and to highlight the metal tubes.

Yellow droplet
Base coat – Lightly watered-down GW Vomit brown.
Main coat – GW Sunburst Yellow.
1st Highlight – A mix of equal parts of GW Sunburst Yellow and GW Skull White (made it a bit too white, I think).
2nd Highlight – I added pure GW Skull White to the side of the gem to create light reflecting directly from the surface (however, this one should be pure yellow as it is not a jewel. Also doesn’t work unless the main coat is darker).

Well, that’s it for now.
Now that I have the recipes and all, I hope painting goes a lot faster.

Stay tuned.