Project: Host of Baron Gunther Hoss

1x General of the Empire (mounted on a warhorse), 3x Captain of the Empire (1x with a greatsword, 1x with a hammer and a pistol, 1x with a warhammer and shield), 2x Wizards (1x wizard of the fire lore, 1x wizard of the shadow lore), 1x Witchhunter

The arrow cut the air with a low, silky whistle before it found it mark and drilled into the skull of the running beast with a sickening crunch. The beastling instantly lost its footing and with a quick screech of pain it tumbled forward on the grass, made a few stifled screams and throbbed with erratic spasms before it died a mere few heartbeats later. The grass was trampled, red from gore and ichor and the entire field was littered with bodies of beasts and man alike. However as far as sir Rodrik Haulster could say, it looked like there is definitely more mutants and chaos spawn rather than his own man in yellow and green. He nodded to himself and patted the young man on his shoulder. “A mighty good shot, lad!” he boomed with a quick grin that made a flickering opening in his silver storm of a beard and colossal whiskers “One day ye’ will be teachin’ the lads like ya’ how to work these bows and blast it, ye’ll be good at tis’.” He added with a content nod – the battle was done and won, and the people of their city will praise the bravery of its soldiers for the few calm nights to come; the scent of fresh blood and defeat will keep the other bands of beastmen away for at least a few good days if not weeks, Rodrik would bet on it.

“Report to yer commander, laddie. Baron Gunther should be already done with his self-proclaimed knights with the beasties and he ain’t one to wait for the reports, ye keen…” he murmured and send the young hunter away, admiring the scene of triumph while curling his moustache, thinking of the next night to come with the roars of the beasts and the grim beat of their wardrums. Soon… For now though, they won themselves a short period of relief. To rearm. To rebuild. To rise new recruits to the rank of true soldiers. To begin again another night like this one.

I always wanted to gather and amass a collection of the Empire. Which, for me, is quite peculiar to say at least as I am not one to pick humans in a fantasy universe, if there is such vast diversity of other species to pick from, like fantastic and brutal orcs or maybe grim and deliciously debauched Dark Elves. Yet, humanity in the grim and grit universe of Warhammer is a great force simply because in this reality there are not ‘good guys’ and the ‘baddies’. The empire is a rather loose federation of self-governed city states and lands with unifying factor of the emperor and of course the almost theocratic rule of the war-priests of Sigmar. And everything is bed and fixed to work for the war effort since war pretty much never end as the empire is surrounded from all sides by enemies. That’s what I liked about the humans in this setting – they are not the pure protectors of all the virtues that stand adamant against the forces of evil, but rather a rotten, diseased bunch of sinners ruled by greed, corruption and war-lust that live in an environment of constant, unending danger.

On the model front however it’s the diversity that I always loved and the /vast/ possibilities of customization. Of course one would say that pretty much every army in the game can be made in your own, unique way. You can make your own dynasty for Tomb Kings, your own clan for Orks or tribe for ogres… But the Empire armies are most likely the most, how to put it – armylike of them all. They have unified regiments with fitting uniforms that proudly show the colors of their banners and the state from where they come from. They carry personal heraldry of their knights, sires, lords and lordlings. They have mercenary troupes that join the battle for coin and glory and show any sigils you can dream of. They have knight chapters with rich histories and tales of glory and even richer spectrum of details that can be used to shown the knight allegiance to the chapter. Forces of the Empire are absolute toy for customization and cutting it to suit your taste on every possible faucet. Not to mention guns – tons of guns. And cannons. And rockets. And tank!

I hope my collection to grow in time, but for now I focused myself on getting all the dramatis persona for the host – all the lords and heroes! As you can see from the model count, I covered almost all of them, lacking, for the moment at least, just a Standard Bearer to show the sigil of the Baron himself. Aside from that… General of the Empire – checked, and will represent the grand boss of the host, Baron Gunther of Hossgard. Three captains of the Empire and Baron trusty lieutenants, each to fulfill a different role; one is the personal bodyguard and a sword-brother, another is a leader and staunch officer of the greatswords and yet another is a second-in-command that lead the line troops into battle. Two mages, for now – Firocrates, magister of the Fire Lore and Ormak Ordon, the elusive master of the Shadows; two of them a lifelong friends that make the spectacular ‘Flames and Smoke’ duo. And messer Gerald the Witchbane, a witchhunter that joined the host to help them deal with the shamans of the beastmens and the heretics.

AK Interactive and Schwarzsonne!

Witam pięknie w ten jakże sympatyczny wieczór. Późny wieczór. Noc nawet. Cóż, o takich to godzinach mam dopiero szansę porządnie wziąć się za hobby i coś niecoś pomalować! Tym razem podarowałem sobie drobny odpoczynek od modeli Games Workshop a wziąłem się za zaczątek mojej brygady pancernej Czarnego Słońca, stacjonującej w Afryce północnej siły Niemców w systemie Dust Warfare. Jako że chciałem również przećwiczyć o wprawić się w używaniu produktów AK Interactive, potrzebowałem model ‘historyczny’ – Heinrich Light Walker co prawda z historią nie ma wspólnego, ale że to nadal druga wojna światowa, to mogę narzucić rygor w kamuflażu i w ten oto sposób mamy klasyczne, germańskie kamo pustyni!

A warm greetings in this lovely evening. Late evening. Night, even. Well, only in such hours I finally grasp a chance to really sit down and put some effort into hobby, painting stuff! For this sessions however I gave myself a break from the Games Workshop miniatures and began working on the very first models for my panzer team of the Black Sun, an axis force that station in north Africa in the universe of Dust Warfare. As I also wanted to practice and get used to AK Interactive weathering products I needed a ‘historical’ model – Heirich Light Walker, in fact, have little do to with history, but alternative or not it is still Second World War so I can put a more strict rigor on the camouflage – and so I decided to make it an Afrikakorps division with classic German desert camo!

Oczywiście nadal mamy do czynienia ze wczesnym etapem malowania, ale ja taki niecierpliwy jestem, że lubię sobie czasem dopieścić kawałek, by zadowolić moje estetyczne wymogi. Tym razem wziąłem nogę mojej machiny wojennej jako ofiarę moich malarskich eksperymentów starając się sprawdzić do jakiego efektu będę dążyć i w jakim stopniu jestem w stanie opanować łosze AK, pigmenty i całe to stado dodatków. Ogólnie jestem umiarkowanie zadowolony z efektu – sam przyznam, że cudów nie ma, ale detal przynajmniej jest ostry, krawędzing cieniutki a blend, dzięki boskiej mocy białego spiritisu, całkiem gładziutki – nad rdzą jeszcze muszę popracować, ale krawędziowanie metalowych elementów ołówkowym grafitem to strzał w dziesiątkę; na zdjęciu światło ostro się od tego odbija, ale efekt na żywo jest naprawdę apetyczny.

Of course this is still an early step of the entire painting process but I am quite impatient and prefer to find a spot to really put some effort in, to feed my aesthetic demands. For this time I picked my war machine leg as a victim for my painting experiments doing my best to check and see for what final effect I would try to achieve and to what degree I would be able to control AK Interactive washes, pigments and all that additional stuff. All in all I am mildly content from the outcome – I admit, it is hardly amazing, but at the very least details are sharp, highlights are thin and thanks to the glorious white spirit the blending between two washes is smooth like never before. I still have to work on the rust on the metal parts but I have to say that using the pencil lead to highlight the metal parts edges is a fantastic solution; on a photo light pretty much bounce of the surface but the effect of it in life is really neat.

Rapid Response: First Kroot and Commander

Wakacje się skończyły, pora się wziąć porządnie za codzienne malowanie - modele, było nie było, same się farbą nie ochlapią! Na rozgrzewkę wziąłem się poważnie za pierwszy model Kroota do mojej kadry Tau. Już jakiś czas temu nakreśliłem cały plan schematu kolorystycznego, który będzie pasował do pół-pustynnej planety, a Krooci są swoista inwersją tego schematu; kremowa, ziemista skóra, żółty odzień na dzióbku i w okolicach kolczastych narośli oraz odrobinka złamania koloru przez gradient z zieleni do czerwieni na 'włosach'. Broń będzie kontrastowo ciemna, wykonana z brązu i ciemnych metali zaś punktem spotowym będzie naramiennik z jaskrawym żółtym, głównym kolorem rozpoznawczym mojej kadry.

Vacations are over, it is finally time to get into some daily painting - after all model will not splash paints on them by themselves! For a warming up I seriously picked up on my Kroot from my Tau cadre. It was some time ago that I developed an entire plan for my color scheme that would suit to a half-desert planet envirnoment, and Kroots are somehow an inversion of that scheme; cream and earthy skin, yellowish tint on the beak and the places where the spikes portrude from their flesh and a tiny break in contrast on the hair with the green to red gradient glaze. Weaponry is painted in dark metallics and bronze, where the spot point of the figure would be it's pauldron, stark yellow - the main color of my cadre.

Jak widzicie nareszcie zacząłem testować mój nowy aparat - niestety, na obiektyw makro wciąż czekam, stąd póki co na tak wysuniętej lunecie mojej 24-70 ciężko uzyskać ostrość całego planu i dzięki temu rozmazuje wszystko poza punktem nastawienia ostrości, nieważne jak się spinam... tak czy siak fotki nareszcie pokazują model ostro, jasno i wyraźnie (*aż za bardzo!*).

As you can see I finally got a hold and tested my new, fancy photocamera - sadly I am still waiting for my macro lens and so far on my 24-70 on maximum zoom it is pretty much impossible to make every field of depth sharp and therefore aside from the focus point everything is a bit blurry, no matter what I try... Still, at least the photos are bright, sharp and clear like expected from a good photo camera (*even too much!*).