"Frankenstation" my new painting desk

This is my new painting station, made from 90% recycled and scrap wood. It's pretty hideous up close and would make a real carpenter throw up in their mouth a little, but hey it's my monster.

Here it is with just the lights installed. They are painted pvc pipes, also recycled. 

The pipe up close.

And here it is naked during the build phase, when I originally was going to try to stain it.

Now to actually start painting miniatures with it. 

Thanks for looking,

Papa Spanky 

Deadzone Plauge and Mauraders

I finished up some of my Deadzone models pile the other day. All of the Plague are done...

as well as a few of the Marauders. I re-positioned the dancing Goblin to make it look like he is displacing from his hide in a rapid fashion. The cloak is still not finished on the leader; it will be finished with all the little unattached bits I have to paint separately.  

Thanks for looking, comments welcome!

Papa Spanky

Gray Haven board and building progress

I've been brought low with a nice summer cold the past few days so I thought I would take some time to do some much needed progress updates. 

An aerial shot of all three boards together. From here you can see all the drains, sewers and weeds I added, as well as the no parking zones.  

A closer look at the grass median. The trees are real branches and the bushes are Woodland Scenics HO trees. The grass itself is fake rabbit, or teddy bear fur, first seen here . I finished it off with Silflor grass clumps for weeds and fall colored scatter from Woodland Scenics.

Jones and a PT Cruiser face off. My money is not on the Cruiser.  

Another view of the median, I like this shot.

A detail shot of the median, and one of the original drains that made it onto the board. 

Damn Porsche drivers think they can park anywhere...

Just because.

And now its onto the buildings. 

Here is the Post Office, almost finished. I'm waiting on some acetate for the windows and door. It has a decent interior, I'll show it off when its final. 

Progress shots of the police and fire stations. I made the roof of the PD with watercolor paper. 

The back of the PD and FD. I attached a plasticville firehouse to the back of the police station to give it a little more depth. The garage doors will be used as the sally-port for the prisoners. 

 An overview of everything as it is so far. The area behind the PD/ FD will be an open fenced area with maybe a radio tower in it or parking. The other areas are still open for building suggestions. Obviously a gun store is a must. I was also thinking of a small market or convenience  store. I will show off the Hydracorp building at the top later. 

Thanks for looking, questions and comments always welcome!

Papa Spanky

Grass made from skinned Easter Bunny

No not really. (My kids would never forgive me) I have been experimenting with a technique I have seen on other sites using fake rabbit fur to make grass. I tried it, with pretty good results.

Here are four test swaths I messed around with.
A. I shaved the hair with a 1/4" electric razor and painted it with dark greens and light browns for a fall, winter grass effect.
B. unshaven, painted green with light green highlights.
C. shaved, 1/8" this time, light greens and browns with yellow-green highlights, lightly sprinkled with med. green static grass
D. same colors as C, 1/4" shave and no static grass

I wanted grass that looked like a maintained lawn, so B was out. But I loved the way it looks for long grass and will be using it in the future.

My favorite was C:

The static grass was just enough to hide the matted fur look. Right now this is where I'm going to use the grass in Gray Haven. I do feel a cemetery board addition coming in the future.

Un- shiney new cars

A little update on my town-
I added a few cars to populate the streets of Gray Haven.
The regular cars were weathered and sealed with matte clearcoat. For me the matte finish seems to go better with the scale.
The police cars were total repaints with custom rub on star transfers. They say Gray Haven Police, but it didnt photo well. The humvees were just re coated after the star was applied.

All for now,
Papa Spanky

Winter Fire Warriors

I finished up My first full squad of Fire Warriors last night, and they sport the winter camoflage of my meager army. I know it seems timely painting winter themes and all, but this poor army has been sitting on my paint shelf since the Tau frst invaded the 40k universe.

I didn't like the blue skin the studio painters use, so I went with a paint scheme more on par with the movie Alien Nation. (Old Shatterhands uses a similar scheme, Probably where I got the idea.)

Anyway, enjoy till next time,

PapaSpanky

Chapter Changing

So I've decided to change about 3000 pts of space marines from my current "made up" chapter to the Mortifactors chapter. Mine (the one on the left) wasn't too far off from Mortifactors anyway, so I didn't have to strip or reprime. Even the my chapter marking was a maltise cross with a skull in it, so all I need to do is paint over the cross. I though it turned out pretty decent.

I plan on using several chaplain models for actual chaplains, librarians and maybe even veteran sgt. for vet squads or sternguard.

Questions, comments welcome.

If Orks went to school in the fall...

This would be their big yellow bus!



Ok, It would probably be a battlewagon, but since I didn't just finish one of those I guess this will have to do.
Anyway, HURRAY! I finished it! Its magnetized pretty extensively so a lot of parts are poseable, I have his CC arm in a casual position in the above picture.





Here I moved it into more of a guard position.




And here is the WAAAAAGH! or attack position.



these are the structure point markers I made, painted to look like fire and smoke. As I said before in an earlier post, I think these will come in handy when the bullets start flying...


The three rockets, since they are a one shot weapon, simply remove one when you fire it, so its easy to keep track of your shots.



All of these parts are magnetized, making storage a little easier.
This was a great model to build, I had a lot of fun with it. Its size caused far more painting procrastination than I anticipated, but I got through it.
What I didn't do:
Grots- I left them off, just a personal preference (da mekboy has uver plans for dems anyway)
modifications- just the eyes really, this model didn't need much.

What I wish I'd done:
Magnetize the shoulder big shooter.
Make the back door open with hinges and a removable ladder. (its not on now at all, the way the ladder looked bothered me).

Thats all for now, comments always welcome!
Spanky

Oh just finish already!

I know, I know, Im working on it. Here is some more progress on the Stompa model.

Heres where I'm at right know:

I finished the back piping, rusted and weathered nicely. On this part I used pastels thinned with testors paint thinner- not as easy to use, but gives a little different look. It has its uses.A shot of the patina, came out well I think.

Back of his head

His mug shot, soon to be on imperial wanted posters everywhere...

Not finished with gun yet, heres my progress so far.

Your still working on that?

Yes I am. Sad I know. Been working on a milliion non- game projects lately, but I did find some time to do some more painting on my Stompa.

This is the finished fully weathered close combat arm. Although after looking at these pics for a while I think I need some dark circular scrapes on the round blade. Ok so its 99% finished now.

Here he is with most of his pieces on. His head, upper cc arm and gun arm are only about 50% finished. Speaking of his head...

Here it is! I really was pleased with the way the eyes turned out.

Two more shots showing the weathering/ rusting that I've done with this guy so far.

Questions, comments?

Stompa project- quick update

Hey all,

a quick update on the Stompa project- I've got about a third of it weathered. Its a long slow process, but it is progressing. Thats all for now.

More stompa goodness...

More details painted, it seems every time I look at this model I see another detail piece I missed...

None of the weathering is started yet, and ther is a lot to do.