Camera! Lights! Action!

I normally take photos of my minis with my phone. This has two main reasons :

1. I can upload them easily via the blogger app
2. Because I actually think the macro on the iPhone 4 camera is pretty good.

Today, however,  I experimented a bit with my "real" camera (a Canon Powershot S95). It´s still just a compact camera so the difference isn´t that big but combined with some Photoshop work the pics came out pretty good.
The question is if the quality difference is big enough to motivate all the extra work...

Brown is the new black

Work is progressing fast on chainsaw guy.

Historically I always work from a black undercoat, but from the results of this experiment I can see a lot of brown in my future. It feels more natural in some way - its a more neutral basecolour to work up from. That makes it easier to get smooth, subtle blends and avoid the overly hard contrasts you sometimes get painting on black.

Anyhoo... Enough colour theory. On to the pics.

Out cold

I've sorta been out of it this week - therefore the lack of updates. The flu I have managed to dodge all winter finally caught up with me...

I have managed to finish converting "Cleetus" though and he's been given a brown basecoat. Time to break out the brushes...

To get away from the inquisition for a bit I also started converting a big mek with a kustom force field for my Deffstarz Bloodaxes. He's sort of a companion piece for a shokk attack gun mek I did a while ago.

Leatherface

There's no way around it - converting is more fun than painting. I've got loads of finished models to paint up, but the bitz box keep calling out to me...

Here's the latest result. A rather sinister looking chainsaw-maniac sort of character. Ork torso and cultist legs with a terminator arm and a healthy dose of plasticard purity seals to cover up the join.

I think I'll call him "Cleetus".
You can't shake the feeling he's from a family with a rather limited genepool, if you catch my drift...

Crusader captain

Haven't had much time for painting this weekend but here's the crusader with his shiny new head. He works a lot better now methinks.

I'm calling this one done!

Off with his head!

I made a crusader a while back out of a scout with marine arms and the bare head from the cadian guard kit.
Now even though I kind of like the fig in general I:

a) Sort of botched the paintjob on his face
b) Never really felt the head suited him anyway. It makes him look more like an acolyte or inquisitor, not a crusader

So, off with it! I'm replacing it with a helmeted head from the empire great-swords I just got in the mail from a bits store. I think we have a winner here...

Witchhunter finished

Well. More or less finished at least... There's always a few minor last touches left, but for the moment I call this one done.

Slow, but steady progress...

Work continues on the Witchhunter. His face came out with a bit to much of a healthy santaesque glow, so l'll have to adress that.

Meanwhile the tech-wraith is starting to come together. It's been a lot of fun playing around with this kit - I really like GWs new plastic characters. Hope they do a ork warboss soon...

Brief, bearded, intermission.

I let the wraith and witchunter rest a while and instead quickly painted up a conversion that had been standing on my desk. Nothing fancy - body from a chaos cultist, arms from cadian command squad and a flagellant head. But then he's just a cannonfodder for my GK-army.

Two things to be learned from this model:

1. The chaos cultists are a suberb base for conversions.

2. Plasma pistols are, even by 40k standards, ridiculously oversized.

Tech-wraith update

Got some work done on the... whatever this guy is supposed to be. Techno-magi-mystic-floaty-thing of some sort or another.

Kinda like how he's turning out though...

Wraith of Khan

It seems like every inquisitior modeler with an ounce of self respect must do a conversion of the plastic warhammer wraith.
So without further ado here's the beginning of my take on the subject:

Witchhunter WIP

Started to slap some paint on the witchhunter. Going for a gritty, Blanchean, look for this one.

Revised him a bit as well before that though - he got a new base, a servoskull buddy to keep him company and I removed the sword and gave him another arm.

On the slab

Here's whats currently in the works - a puritan Ordo Malleus inquisutor, a crusader and a witchhunter.
The witchhunter and crusader are based on high elf archer legs with inperial guard torsos. The Malleus has his legs nicked from a chaos cultist, torso from a marine scout. I find the scout models are perfect for inquisitor conversions - theyre a bit bigger than a guard (hence more imoposing) but not marine-big.