Character Profile: Belial and Chaplain

For the follow up to the New Contract post, I will show you the best of the end result of the Chaplain and Belial. I will explain my design choices and some of the techniques I used in their creation. Also, I just want to show off some sweet models, so come take a look.

Character Sheet: Captain Cortez

Every now and then I get the urge to write up a character. Games Workshop just doesn't make enough special characters for my liking, nor does it provide the means to generate them. Also sometimes it's a nice challenge to write an interesting, fair and usable character profile.

Open Forum: New Contract

I said I'd be limiting contracts, and I had been doing so until this weekend when I was presented with a commission that was too interesting to pass up.

Bases: Eldar Wraithbone Craftworld

After the disappointment of the model releases of the last Eldar codex, I shelved the few boxes of models I had actually gotten for an army that had more plastic kits. After just recently acquiring an airbrush, I decided that my Eldar models would make perfect test cases. However, they will need bases and that's what today's post is all about.

Army Profile: Void Ravens Chapter

When I get an idea, I take it all the way to the end. It took years for me to settle on a Chapter Name and of course the oft mentioned main hero, but once I did I left nothing out. Even while I was painting my gaming force, I was laying down the scheme for the entire chapter. This way the entire force would always have consistency no matter what company I built and painted.

Tools: Press Molds

This is something that has answered the biggest problem I've had with my Space Marine army. When I restarted my Space Marines thanks to Captain Ingemar ( http://darkworkshop.blogspot.com/2010/09/character-profile-captain-ingemar.html ), many things were answered. I had my hero character, and with his shield, a chapter device. Now for the 40 some marines to be led by him. Consistent and unified armies are something that really impress me; a common scheme and modeling to match, using chapter badges, squad markings and helmet colours, especially chapter specific sculpted pauldrons.

News: Photo Gallery Established

Today is a glorious day for the Dark Workshop as it has now established a gallery for itself. How it managed to do this I'm not entirely sure, but it demands that I upload more images. I'm sure most of you have eagerly awaited this day to see row upon row of never before seen images. That, or most of you weren't even aware that there was a gallery in the works. Either way there is one now and you may check it out at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/darkworkshop/

Terrain: Desert Stone Columns

Another exciting addition to the terrain segment of this blog! Pink foam meets its doom and finds new purpose! Desert Tables get a huge increase in play! Click the title or Read More >> below for more details!

Terrain: Crashed Aquila Lander

This is perhaps one of my favourite terrain pieces, its simple design and layout with the high amount of detail and potential making it a really enjoyable set to paint up. I used this as a test for a couple things: I wanted to try out a new combination of paint for the sand and as a test of a colour scheme for broken glass.

Character Profile: Trajan

Just the other week Games Workshop was having their Ultramarines: The Movie week, and naturally they showed off a whole lot of Ultramarines. Hundreds of them. However, I noticed a depressing trend. Most of the Ultramarines weren't even painted with Ultramarines Blue, some only highlighted with it.

Tools: Turn Tracker

Unfortunately, I was a little too enthusiastic on this project and didn't make any design or concept sketches for this one. The idea came to me and I built it. I barely used any real form of measurement beyond, "this looks about right" and cutting away at plasticard. I had all the planning and excitement of an Ork Mek. Regardless, I may just post a design sketch later as an update to this article. For now though, I present the Turn Tracker.

Character Profile: Blood Angel Terminators part 2

As promised, the last set of Blood Angels Terminators before I 'Ard Coated them and ruined them for photography forever. As before, if anyone wants to know anything specific about these incredibly detailed models, how I painted them or otherwise, leave a comment and I will update this article accordingly. The heavy weapon bearer terminator again was the most fun to paint. All the details on Leon were annoying, but at least not half as bad as Zael.

Character Profile: Blood Angel Terminators part 1

My friend commissioned me to paint up some of his Space Hulk Terminators. He initially only wanted a quick paint up of them for his battle force, but I couldn't settle for just that. So I compromised and only painted it somewhat detailed. I'll admit, I could have easily spent more time on them if they were my own, but that's not what he was looking for. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get my own copy, but at least I've gotten to paint some of them. Here are the first of the painted Terminators:

Concept Art: Ice World Table

After a quick trip down memory lane, I recalled some old ideas I had for a table. I've made countless number of these sketches, and forgotten about most of them. Some I've been able to find again, others have been lost to the void forever. Regardless, this one has survived, and I have remastered the old paper sketch into a more futuristic, high tech digital format using my trusty Wacom Intuos 4 tablet.

Tools: The Basics

After having already posted a couple models of mine, I feel that it is time to cover the tools that I have collected over the years and have found to be essential to the effective creation of quality work. Having the right tool for the job makes a task that much easier and that much more efficient. Some are required, others not so much. Skills and techniques, of course, are also essential, but this is not that article. I will discuss what tools I use and how well I feel they work.

Character Profile: Captain Marius

Today I will be featuring a couple new things: firstly Captain Marius of the Void Ravens Eighth Company, and secondly, my newly learned use of colour correction with Windows Photo Gallery. I will admit, the colour correction isn't fantastic, but it's quick and effective enough that I got a decent result without losing too much hobby time. I won't be going into an in depth step by step guide, Captain Ingemar covers all the basics for the painting. This will be more of a parts guide and introduction of my latest named character. If you haven't guessed already, this conversion is based of the character Kayvaan Shrike.

Open Forum: Anything Goes

I don't like to post my own personal thoughts that often. If you haven't noticed by looking through my previous and soon to be future posts, you'll notice it tends to be a very clinical breakdown of process and technique. I do prefer a very strict, essay style of writing, but these aren't essays so I allow some informality. So in these few posts that I'll continue calling Open Forum, anything really can go, feel free to ask any questions that wouldn't make sense being asked in other posts. This will be where I'll be more personal, and perhaps reveal a bit of my life.

Concept Art: Captain Ingemar

Whenever I start a really intricate project where I have no idea what the end result is going to be, I usually make a couple concept sketches to try and find what works. I often don't spend more than a few minutes on any one particular piece; I usually get distracted by something else soon after I start. That's the problem with having so many interesting things to work on. One day I might just get a full concept piece completed, but until then here are Captain Ingemar's original concept pieces before the final construction, which changed even as I worked on him.

Original Rough Draft

Terrain: Imperial Hive City Outer Fortification

Although I have many armies, what really interests me is terrain. I’ve always been too busy making armies to play in this fabled terrain I’d eventually make, so I’ve never actually gotten very far in making a lot of serious pieces. Regardless it remains my favourite part of the hobby and with all the people out there that make truly amazing terrain pieces, I find no lack of inspiration to create my own.

The outer walls of Hive Primus on Cerillis IV

Character Profile: Captain Ingemar

When I started Space Marines, I didn't want to play just space marines. Everyone plays space marines. Everyone and their kid brother plays space marines, especially in my area. They'll just grab space marines and call it an army. Well, I didn't want that, I wanted something more. I wanted something grand, something on par with the First Founding legions, and their resultant chapter codices. It took me three years to find it, a character to lead my army, a character that embodied my vision.

News: The Profile Series

I intend on starting a series of blog posts called “Profile”. In these will include the profile of a character or an army that I’ve created. For the most part however, these will mostly be focused on characters.

Introduction and Orientation

I’d like to welcome you, reader, whom ever you may be, to the Dark Workshop. This would be my first blog as well as blog post, so I would like to introduce myself as well as the purpose of this blog. I have been modeling and painting Warhammer 40000 miniatures since 2001. I started with Necrons, eventually moved into Space Marines, expanded to Tau, started a few Eldar, and finally an Ork WAAGH! I also have a Necropolis Skeleton army from Reaper Miniature’s Warlord.