The Beard Bunker

Eyup all, realised it has been a while since anyone has seen any progress on my Nurgle army for the campaign so here it is! So far it is mostly metalwork that has been achieved. This is slow for me I know but a combination of RealLife TM and commission projects (for those that don't know that's how I try to make a living!) have gotten in the way. The metalwork is just Jeff-Rust (see here for an explanation of method) the cloth and woodwork is going to be treated the same as the sorcerer as will the bone. The rotting heads will be painted as accurately as I can (and I'm a biomedical scientist) so that is plenty of disgusting reference material in my future. Ironic yaaay! Currently debating with myself (always a curious argument) about the banner, I kinda want it to be drab and raggedey but I don't want the design to vanish into the background. Design-wise I'm thinking the traditional triple fly icon of Nurgle but colours... This could take thought.....

Inspired by Jeff’s spectacular (if somewhat dreamy) backstory for his Nurgle army , this post is going to describe two different methods for generating background for the units in your army. My suspicion (feel free to correct me by leaving a comment) is that most people just decide on an overall theme for the army, and maybe write up a little background for its commander. For me, I want more than that. If every single one of the units (sometimes even the unit champions) in an army has a little backstory (just a sentence can be enough), I get more excited about painting them. To elaborate, I’m going to use two examples: the swordsmen from my Hochlanders, and the stormboyz from my Orks. The Hochlanders are a perfect example of how digging through background material can provide inspiration, whereas the orks are a good example of how staring at the actual model and giggling can be just as effective. First, the Orks. I ended up choosing the following face for the nob: [image taken...

Hi Guys, if you'll excuse the horrible pun but I've been bitten by the Vampire Counts bug. I've been racing through the first 1000pts of the army at a pretty good speed. At the time of writing there is 900pts or so fully painted on my desk all done in just a couple of months. Not bad progress by anyone's standards, especially since I'm putting a fair bit of effort into the basic guys. However, it felt like time to paint a character. When I'm painting an army I like reward myself for finishing a unit or two with a character or a tank or some other singular model. I find it helps to break up the monotony of painting rank and file. In my first guard army I got terribly excited and started painting through all the fun stuff first, a tank, a couple sentinels, the command groups. Then I looked at the rest of the army and found myself staring at 50 basic troopers left to churn through. A daunting prospect even for the most varnish-hardened painters. Frankly, doing that...

The Beard Bunker has made it's first appearance on the Santa Cruz Warhammer Honour Roll! SCW is a big blog exchange and their periodic honour rolls are their picks of the best of the output out there. Charlie's freehand tutorial was what caught their eye so well done to the Brassley!

As a bit of a break from my various projects I have been working on some Roleplaying Game character models. This all started when I was asked to paint some models for a Call of Cthulhu group a friend runs in London: I had a ball making individual characters each with their own colours, look and feel. Gives me the opportunity to play with colour combinations that I don't usually use and to experiment with new techniques without thinking about keeping an army colour scheme consistant. I decided that I wanted to try making a model for each of the classic RPG character classes. As far as for which game to use, there was only one choice: For those unfamiliar with RPGs let me quickly introduce you. Pathfinder is what D&D (Dungeons and Dragons) always wanted to be. It picked up where the 3rd edition (actually 3.5 but who cares) left off and fixed all of the little things that were wrong. It is, by a long way, the best "High Fantasy" roleplaying game I have ever pla...

J ust over a month ago on a memorable Friday evening, I collapsed into the sofa with a beer in my hand and an unopened box of Chaos Warriors on my lap. The fro nt picture promised a unit of dark and demonic soldiers, their armour gleaming in the volcanic light as they marched towards a glorious victory in the name of the Chaos gods. Cool! So I ripped open the box, tipped it up and what should fall out but.... three racks of approximately THOUSANDS of teeny tiny grey things. Can this be right? What am I supposed to do with all these bits!?!? The answer: cut out each tiny piece (being very careful not to accidentally snip off important parts of your manly warrior’s anatomy). Then you need to clean up each tiny piece with a sharp knife (which invariably finds its way into my clutzy fingers). THEN you can start gluing your minions together. All of this has to be done before you can even think about picking up a paint brush. Good job I have a whole year to get this army done then! Ok, ok, e...

For those of you who didn’t know, I really, really enjoy painting freehand banners. Here’s one I painted earlier: People tend to have two responses to a reasonably well-painted bit of freehand: “Ooh, shiny,” or “I can’t do that. You’re clearly a mutant. I mean... it doesn’t seem physically possible.” There is some discussion as to the best way to follow up on the latter response, although many plump for raising their fists to the sky, shouting, “Curse ye gods for my untalented fingers!” before sundering their brush across their knee and leaving for a temple in the mountains. It may therefore surprise the budding banner painter that freehand isn’t a mystical art that requires you to have been born under the moon as it waned gibbous. You just need a pair of eyes and the ability to measure stuff. Obviously, artistic talent definitely helps , but if you’re a decent miniatures painter who still struggles with freehand, chances are you already have the skills you need, but lac...

And so it begins... The first model of my Nurgle Warriors of Chaos army and it's magic... Well, a sorcerer at any rate.This charming (if a little drippy) chap is Lothar Pneumophilus, Sorcerer of Nurgle and one of the powers behind my Chaos Lord's throne. The model has had no modifications of any sort as he is a splendid sculpt. The only addition is the wee nurgling chap at the front representing the Warrior Familiar that he has in the list. I actually auditioned Nurglings that I had lying around to see which looked best. My wife and flatmates giving me very odd looks as I ran "Nurgling Idol". Painting started with the clothing. I intend to use what I call "Andy Green" - named for Andy of Lair of the Breviks fame - for the main army colour. This colour starts with a basecoat of Charadon Granite so every piece of cloth was basecoated in one go. I intended to use Charadon Granite as the basis for all of the colours on the model to bind it together. ...