My son loves painting rivets just as much as I do

I thought my son was finished with his tiny self-designed mini, but today he was completely clear about what he wanted to do after dinner: Paint until bedtime!

He even painted in the rivets on the shield - black first, and then with metal highlights! And he started painting shade between the fingers on the gloves. Dad approves.

Behold the Pyg Dual Shieldgunner in all his glory:

Left side view

Rear view

Right side view

Painting the crazy bit box models!

There were more bits in the bit box, so we put together some more models.

I am not quite sure what these monstrosities are, but they seem to be both many-armed and well-armed, with as many weapons as we could fit.

More crazy models! 

Painting time!

The kids were really looking forward to painting their self-designed miniatures. I gave them a layer of black spray primer, and then they started painting.

The models get a layer of paint.

After completing the paint job they are ready to go out and "play miniatures". Pretty funny to hear them refer to the WARMACHINE models when they are out playing. I'm pretty sure my son was declaring he was trying to debuff his friend with a Parasite spell just now... :D

Edit: He was not done painting.

Who needs the assembly instructions anyway

My son has a friend visiting today. He thought my WARMACHINE and HORDES models were super cool. I asked if they wanted to paint something, and brought out my box of unused models and bits. I thought they would just pick out some models to assemble and paint, maybe a pirate or something, but of course they had a much, much better idea. Superglue and greenstuff can make anything attach to anything, so here we go...

BEHOLD! Their creations!

The Dire Runt Strangler

Always short, always angry, and always really really hungry, the Dire Runt Strangler goes for the throat, or whatever parts he can reach on his unfortunate victim.

The Dire Runt Strangler

 The Pyg Dual Shieldgunner

Sporting classy twin matching shields, the Pyg Dual Shieldgunner cowers behind his shields until the time has come to strike at point blank range with his single-barreled dual-grip pistol.

The Pyg Dual Shieldgunner

The Cyclone Flightknight

This clumsy knight walked into the Warjack factory one day, fell onto the assembly line, and ended up with slightly fewer arms, twin chain guns, and a rocket pack. He has never been happier as he whizzes through the air, unloading red hot ammo on the enemies of Cygnar.

The Cyclone Flightknight

I can't wait to see how these will be painted...

Edit: now I know. :D

Painting Harlan Versh

One of my favorite WARMACHINE models, Harlan Versh is a mercenary with that classic witch hunter look and a great pose.

The trenchcoat is the most important piece of this model, and I really wanted to give it that right sandy color. The base is a 50/50 mix of ochre and leather. I used this base to do all the shades and highlights. 

Back view

First, I mixed the base with dark brown and painted in hard shadows where different pieces of the trenchcoat met. I also added some of this shade in the recesses on the part that covers the shoulders to make it pop a bit more.

Then, I use base with more leather mixed in to do the shading, and the base with more ochre to do the highlights. Finally, I used ochre with just a small touch of leather to do some extra highlights on the top of the coat, around the brim of the hat, and a few other places.

Front view

I decided to use the contrasting colors green and red on the pants and shirt, repeating the colors on the hat and book. The shirt is bone, mixed in with white for the highlights. I kept the inside of the coat pure black for extra contrast. The gloves are black with dark brown highlights.

Harlan Versh, ready to execute any enemies that have the temerity to use extra magical protection!

Tempest Blazers - Painting Horses for the First Time

Cavalry seems to be the new hotness in WARMACHINE Mk3. I have ordered a box of Storm Lances, but I already had an unassembled box of Tempest Blazers sitting on a shelf at home. I love these minis, they have great dynamic poses, and who doesn't like tricorn hats?

I was aiming for a decent tabletop quality paint job. I downloaded a bunch of horse reference pictures and decided to make each one a different coat. Cygnar Horses seem to be very well endowed, but I thought it better to not download any reference photos for those bits.

Since I haven't painted for years I decided to keep it simple, not do blending, three shades and see how it turned out. Blending would probably give a better result overall with such large and smooth rounded surfaces, but well, maybe next time.

Sideways view. The leader has some extra gold trim and a black horse.

The leader got a black horse. The horse is painted black + very dark blue and has two shades of blue mixed in for the highlights. The mane got a black base and then some very dark brown for the highlights. Hard to see that it's done, but it makes the result a lot less flat than just having it black.

Had a bit of fun adding some spots to this horse

For the gray I found a nice reference photo of a speckled horse. Simple, but gives some variation.

White markings

I made a pale chestnut for this one, with white markings.

Tempest Blazers, soon harassing a flank near you! Don't miss out!

Usually I just add sand to the base, but I picked up some small rocks from the driveway as well. The bases are very big so just having them flat with sand becomes a bit boring.

Well, that's it! I'm looking forward to trying these guys out!