My collection showcase - Christmas special

Merry Christmas everybody.  Here's a look at the current state of my painted collection.  I'm only showing what I have painted, but its a lot of stuff.  Hope you enjoy it.

Captain Karlaen Showcase

I finished this guy up last night and am working on the tutorial now... but here's a nice showcase of him.  I painted him mostly unassembled and as I finished different steps did partial assemblies.  This helped get in some of the hard to get areas.  His details are very similar to the space hulk terminators, so I suspect that the same is true for the new blood angels terminators (haven't seen them in person yet).

Captain Karlaen WIP

So I caved to the pressure and picked up a Deathstorm box.  I "needed" the captain special character, and am interested in trying out some Tyranids.  Anyway, I'm doing up Captain Karlaen in the standard colours and will do a video of him when I'm done. It might double as a space hulk how-to since he's decorated to the same sort of level.

Anyway, he's coming along nicely, and I'm past all of the hard bits... I did most of the painting before assembling him, and the pics below show how I've got him currently.

How to paint Sanguinary Guard

Here's an updated tutorial for Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard.  I did one of these in the my old format a long time ago, but here it is in speed painting (2x) format using the current Citadel paints.

The old tutorial (along with pics) can be found here:
http://itslikewatchingpaintdry.blogspot.ca/2012/02/blood-angels-sanguinary-guard.html

Smaug assembly video

Here's a video showing some of the steps and tips for assembling the Smaug model.  Its basically a large forgeworld dragon with all the problems associated with that.  The fit is generally good, but because I need to leave the wings off for painting I needed to spend some extra time on him.

This guy is huge... he doesn't fit on any of my shelves properly, so either the base is going to stick out, or I'm going to have to find somewhere else for him.  Looking forward to painting him, but am not sure how much time I'll have over the holidays (I'm also working on finishing my basement).

Let me know if you have any questions...

Smaug Assembly WIP 2

Here's some more pictures of Smaug showing his size... this model is huge.  I'm still working on getting the wings to fit on perfectly and add magnets so I can paint it easily.  Once I'm done them then I can add the last spikes and start painting.

In other news, I ordered a set of Badger Minitaire Paints and they arrived today.  I hope to get them out shortly and do a review of them as I'm painting Smaug.

Smaug assembly WIP

Here's some pictures of Smaug as I assemble him.  Overall its a fairly straightforward assembly... probably a standard forgeworld type model with some fitting and trimming necessary.  The mold lines are mostly good, with just a few areas that need touching up.  The scale is starting to get impressive... as I get closer to finishing it's going to get huge.

I'm also pretty sure that I'll need to magnetize the wings... I don't think I'd be able to paint the model with them attached, so that'll take a bit of extra work.

I've also noticed some evidence of 3d printing.  There are some areas (where the wings attach) that you can see some small ridges that are left over from printing.  You can see them in the third last pic below.

Smaug Unboxing (pics and video)

I picked up my Smaug at the local GW today (along with the new White Dwarf) and here's the unboxing. I'm going to continue with an assembly walk through and painting video as well... hopefully I'll have enough time over the Christmas holidays.

Anyway, first impressions are good for this model.  There are no visible mold lines, and the casting is pretty much flawless.  We'll see how well the different parts fit, but so far the warnings about expert modeling skills seem over blown... those are needed to fill in bubbles on finecast.

Some size comparison Pics and unboxing video below... 

Smaug sculpted by Michael Perry, comments...

Saw this pop up on my facebook feed.  It looks like Michael Perry digitally sculpted Smaug before they left earlier this year.  Does this mean its the last model in the Hobbit lineup?  I wonder if the comment about plastic is a sign of internal discussions... I mean, why would they go to the trouble of having him do his first digital model if it wasn't intended to be plastic?  My guess would be that the plan was for plastic, but when the Hobbit flopped (from a miniatures sales point of view) they back peddled to forgeworld resin.

Smaug stuck until release date

Well, it looks like GW's awesome policies have struck again... I had my Smaug delivered to my local GW thinking that it would help ensure I got him on time.  Well, he's there now, but I can't have him until Saturday, because that's the release date (so says the single staff member when I called).  Whoever made this policy needs to give their head a shake.  I know its not up to my local manager, he seems like a nice guy.

You already have my money, the guy is sold out, and its just sitting there.  If I had selected home delivery I'd have it by now.  Why do I have to wait?

You won't usually see me gripe about GW here, but this one seems worth noting.

Dark Eldar Archon unboxing and assembly

Here's a quick look at the new Plastic Archon model that came out with the Dark Eldar release... I've wanted to open him up and assemble earlier, but haven't had the time.

I'm not a huge fan of this model due to the statuesque pose, but the detail is pretty cool.  I left his head and trophy rack off for painting, but assembled everything else.  I suppose you could make a case for leaving off his cape, but I didn't want to deal with any gaps on his shoulders.

I'm not sure when this guy will get painted up, but here's a look at him compared to the finecast crap version I painted a little while back.  Unboxing and assembly video after the break.

How to Paint Grukk Face Rippa

And here's the tutorial for Grukk and the other warboss.  I don't show much of the badmoon guy, so I suggest checking out the Badmoon shoota boy tutorial.

Oh, and something screwed up with the audio... sorry about that, I think messed up when I recorded it, so I'll have to fix that for next time.

Nice model, although lacking a little personality I think... There was something missing about this guy when compared to the other recent Ork releases.  Regardless, cool model and fun to paint.

Forecast calls for Smaug

So, I took a gample and put in an order for Smaug.  Its crazy expensive, but hopefully I can recoup some of that through the blog and my youtube channel.  When I saw that it was limited to 200 (for now) I decided to go ahead... unfortunately that was at full Canadian retail... ouch.

Expect me to milk this one... unboxing, assembly, and step by step painting... even though you wont be able to buy one for yourself (unless you got one of the other 199 of them).  I'm thinking that magnetizing the wings will make sense to help avoid it breaking.

Ork Warboss size comparisons

I just finished painting up Grukk Face Rippa from the Stormclaw box, and while I was painting him I also did a Warboss I converted from the Assault on Black Reach box.  Grukk is roughly based on that model, so I thought it would be good to compare sizes, also with Ghazghkull... see below.