torsdag den 28. januar 2010

Pictures of the painted hawk


Those are some snapshots of the first hawk painted of the army. As you can see the colors chosen were not the typical ones. Blue is the base color for this model, and the highlights are turquoise, but I chose a darker color scheme for it.













The grid on the helmet is orange so it gives the impression of a beak.












lørdag den 16. januar 2010

Making myself a Introduction picture part 2.

Finally got my warlock scanned and i got photoshop started up! Thrilled to get started i looked at photoshop and realized i couldn't remember how to operate it.... I started looking for tutorials on youtube and found this really nice video to get started on the colors and shadowing and highlighting.

At first it went really slow and tiresome. I worked very slow with the mouse and trying to remember the quick-keys. But after half a day it started going faster and faster. I started picking up alot of speed and my precision with the money went up alot(thank god). So after deciding on colors i started putting them on, this is what i ended up with in the end.



So far so good! Now for the highlighting and the shading. After a few tries it started to look decent. The important thing about getting started to make your own artwork with photoshop is definitely patience. So keep going!




My finished warlock with everything done. Now i just have the incorperate him into a banner for the blog and resize him to moviemaker so he covers the whole screen and i need to do the distortion on his hand.

onsdag den 13. januar 2010

Making myself a Introduction picture part 1.

I had my youtube account for some time now. I think i had it for at least 4 months, where i been posting videos roughly weekly. But... i allways was abit irritated that i didn't have a logo or as i liked to think of it, a introduction picture. So without more rambling, i sent myself on a journey for the holy grail.. ermm i mean.. introduction picture!

I knew i wanted to have either a Farseer, Autarch or a warlock in the foreground. After browsing the Internet looking for pictures or graphic art to see, how the armor looked like in detail. I finally decided on a warlock. I started searching for anything related to warlock armor and weapons. I looked at models from many editions, fan art, dawn of war art and so on and after a while of very roughly sketching, i had a good idea how my warlock was gonna look like.

Sadly i got so carried away so i forgot to take pictures of the early stages of my drawing up, but i took some pictures of the final stage of the pencil detailing.

Now i got my warlock sorted with pencil, i can go to inking. I do realize the hand is abit odd looking at this stage, but i am gonna make a kinda vortex over his hand so it will look distorted, so hopefully it will look like hes hand is getting charged up for some serious business.

Now some people might ask: why is he holding a staff in his hand? Well this is my version of a singing spear, a mix of the old edition warlock spears and abit of my own.

The belt i took from a highelf belt, since they don't normally wear belts but rather robe tied around their waste to hold in their robes . But i felt like it completed the look better and suited the warlock more. I mean they are not friars for crying out loud hehe.

The rest of the warlock is simply copying the rough sketch down to more detailed and precise armor parts. I also added some gemstones here and there Oh year and they raised arm is me free styling some, while still trying to be true to the typical Armor that the eldar wear.

and next step is the more satisfying work. the inking!

Here is how the final step looks like. I erased the pencil lines and the drawing is now ready to get scanned, so i can start playing with it in photoshop. But i have to wait for tomorrow for my girlfriend to take it to her university, since i don't own a scanner anymore.... cause i broke it.. doh!

Next part will properly take a few days so ill do a few other stuff for the blog while i finish it. Art should never be rushed!

tirsdag den 12. januar 2010

The Rangers. Stats and theory


"We use to think of them as wandering vagrants. Well, does vagrants held up my whole platoon for five days." -Lieutenants Pharaik on Eldar Rangers.

I Finally Finished my first Squad of troop choice for my Saim Hann Army, the Rangers! From the very start i knew that i would have to paint a squad of these. Not only do i like their looks and abilities, but also the options you get with these die hard scouts.


Lets look at their abilities.

Rangers:
- Counts as troop choice
- costs 19 pr. model and can be upgraded to Pathfinders for an additional 5 points pr. model.

Fleet of foot:

Fleet gives the unit the ability to run AND assualt in the same turn.

Mastery of stealth:

Rangers have the infiltration rule, move through cover and stealth speciel rules.

Pathfinders:

Rangers have the option of getting upgraded to pathfinders, which means. They may ignore difficult terrain. They will have the scouts special rule. Any cover save they take will get +2 instead of the normal +1 from conferred by the stealth rule

Wargear

Ranger long sniperrifle:
Rangers are equipped with these beauties with the following stats:
Range 36 | S= x | AP= 6 Heavy 1, sniper, pinning.

The Plan is ill use these guys to hang in the back, intering a place with cover. If its an objective match, ill put an objective in the back in cover, so my rangers can score it. With the possibility of a +2 Coversave(if i upgrade em to pathfinders), these guys will be almost unkillable(unless im very unlucky with dice rolls). Ill try and slow advancing units down with the pinning ability of theres.

Getting outflanked or deepstriked: Incase i get a outflank or deeptriked from my opponent to take out the rangers, ill divert another unit back to help the rangers. As im playing a heavy skimmer army, in teory it should be okey.

Another option is to use em offensive. Ill infiltrate my rangers some where near a unit, that i have chances on pinning and eat abit of every turn. Preferly in one of the sides of the board, so i can swing the rest of my army in the other direction to take em out meanwhile having a dangerous unit slowed long enuff(hopefully) for it to do its thing. In this case, i would for certain upgrade em to Pathfinders to be able to take that extra beating.

Abit about my colors choice and the models:
Now some people might say that rangers are surpose to be camocolored as they have their camelioncoats on. Yes, yes i know, but if what camo? jungle camo.. hmm but what if they are hiding in ruins of a city with no trees? or i paint them same camo and they hide in the trees..? Yeah, i wanted them to look as they are. Vagrants, outcast, a hardy people, who roames the galaxy in the shadow. The brown worn coats are my way of trying to symbolise this.

The red armour, white and black is Saim Hanns colors and while its not very hidden, i wanted to show, that they are from that specific crafworld.

If you have experiances with Rangers feel free to share them. Would be very nice to get a debate going as i know, that some people are a big fan of them and uses them frequently while others consider them a poor troop choice.