Shas’nel D’yni looked around the hull of the Devilfish lander with quiet pride. The craft was destined for the heart of the ruined gue’la Sector and around her sat a handpicked team of her Infiltration Cadre’s bravest warriors.
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Category Archives: Armies on Parade
SHOWCASE: T’au Cadre Fireblade
The abandoned depot was a welcome shelter from the abrasive ruststorm that howled outside. The T’au vanguard had made camp amongst ancient manufactorum crates and now huddled together around the blue glow of their fusion-heaters. Hovering drones hummed and whirred around the perimeter, motes of dust dancing in their infrared beams. Shas’nel D’yini’s jaw was set sternly as she listened to the latest reports from her scouts.
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SHOWCASE: T’au Tetra (and tips for transfers)
Grit hissed and clattered off the hood of the small skimmer as it ploughed through billowing red clouds of oxide dust. The tandem craft buffeted like a leaf in a storm, jinking and swerving through a mangled sprawl of skeletal buildings and ducts.
Gales keened through the sector’s broken spires, stoking the rust clouds that threatened to choke the Tetra’s engine intakes. The spotter’s grip tightened on the craft’s side, scanning his holoscreen as his comrade doggedly steered towards the faint blip of the basecamp homing beacon. They had to tell the others what they’d seen…
Welcome back reader. This week we have a miniature I started in 2015 but only finished recently (some of our long-standing Instagram follower may even recognise it!). It is, of course, the beautiful T’au Pathfinder Tetra.
SHOWCASE: Disciples of Tzeentch
In the fractal realities of Tzeentch’s labyrinth, time and space are subverted. Years pass in the blink of an eye and prisoners of these chaotic realms find themselves spontaneously vomited out into planes of existence very different from those they left behind.
In the world that was, I was working on a Chaos Sorcerer and a mutant flock of Forsaken. Now, these warped servants of Tzeentch find themselves fully painted and reborn into the Mortal Realms. Let’s take a look.
SHOWCASE: T’au Pathfinder Team Aurora
Sickly shafts of sunlight pierced the vaults of the derelict Sector. Dwarfed by towering stanchions and silos, a band of tiny figures stalked furtively amidst the shadows.
WIP: Blanchitsu Black Knights
Resplendent in the finery of a bygone age, Black Knights are a decaying mockery of once noble templars. Now these baleful revenants are consumed with loathing for those who’s hearts still beat within their chest.
Quick post today guys, it’s been really busy again lately! Here are some more of Tim’s impressive collection of John Blanche inspired undead. This time we’ve got the first part of a unit of Black Knights. Continue reading
Showcase: Blanchitsu Skeletons
The unquiet spirits of ancient warriors once again heed the summons war. Blasphemously tethered to their mortal remains they march from crypt and barrow beneath the tattered banners of a bygone Age.
Shambling from their tombs this week, a rotting regiment of Blanchitsu inspired skeletons. Continue reading
Showcase: Blanchitsu Dire Wolves
The fell winds of Shyish stir the bones of long dead beasts. Haunting banshee-howls pierce the night and then comes the carrion stench, thick and heavy in the air. Make haste traveler, the hunt of the Dire Wolves has begun!
Things have been a bit dead here at Technasma with real life getting in the way… However now things are not just dead, they are Undead and back from the grave with a vengeance! We’ve got some all sorts of grizzly and ghoulish miniatures to share, all inspired by Warhammer’s Arch Illuminator, the inimitable John Blanche. Continue reading
GUEST SHOWCASE: Skitarii of Metallica by Adam
Through a haze of incense and the voltaic crackle of the noosphere, Metallica’s cyborgs march to war!
I’m Adam and I’m thrilled to be asked by Technasma to do a guest post. Continue reading
SHOWCASE: Chaos Knights of Tzeentch – Age of Sigmar
Coruscating energies unfurl from arcane Realm Gates and the thunderous sound of hoves echoes from the mist. Tzeentch’s chosen ride to war! Continue reading
SHOWCASE: Canoptek Scarabs of the Derelict Planet
Mindlessly driven by deconstruction protocols, the chittering swarm of Canoptek Scarabs decends on its prey in a horrific multitude of monomolecular razor-claws and particle cutters. Rendered down to its very elements and its atomic energy harvested, no trace of their prey is left behind when the swarm ascends.
The third installment of our Necrons of the Derelict Planet arrives today, ready to atomically flense your pathetic organ-bodies and short-circuit your primitive computer-comms arrays!
Our Canoptek Scarabs hover above an oxidised wasteland, illuminating the debris of the battlefield with the blue glow of their anti-grav repulsion fields. Amongst the debris are the radiation-blasted remnants of Necrontyr structures and warmachines.
The derelict exoskeleton of a Necron Warrior languishes on one of the bases. Its ocular circuits flicker as reanimation protocols are rebooted by the galvanising energy fields of the nearby Scarabs. We wanted to add some dioramic elements to these miniatures. As part of the rather venerable Necron Warrior kit, Scarabs can look a bit plain and boring compared to newer miniatures if just clumped together on a round base.
If you’re interested you can see the Necron Warriors and Catacomb Command Barge for this army and some info on how we came up with the colour scheme.
Your cognition-signals and bioelectromagnetic stimuli sustain us! If you have a point of view on our Necrons then please leave a comment below to be harvested for our mechanical overlords…
SHOWCASE: Bestigor Warband
When I was a kid first getting into Warhammer, Chaos armies used to be eclectic collections of all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures. Beastmen marched to war beside hunchbacked Chaos Warriors, enigmatic Chaos Champions and outlandish Daemons that were only available via mail order! Chaos is at its most magnificent when it is truly undivided. The opportunity to take wildly divergent units and unite them with a strong colour scheme is the perfect hobby challenge for me. So this time I’ve been working on some Bestigor as a bodyguard for my Great Bray-Shaman.
Most people paint their Beastmen with rusted and corroded battlegear, as if scavenged or primitively made. I’ve painted mine in the same shimmering bronze as my other Tzeentch aligned units. Although they aren’t how I picture Tzaangor to look (that requires a lot of modelling putty), I like how they fit into the rest of the army.
I imagine that their loyalty to my Chaos Lord has been bought with the newly forged armour that they wear. By contrast their foe-rending Great Axes are worn and dulled with the blood of countless battles.
I painted their tabards in the same blue as the Runeshields on my Chaos Warriors and chassis of my Chaos Chariot.
I’m pretty happy with how these guys turned out and will be adding the command group next!
Do you like your armies to look uniform, or do you prefer the unfettered chaos of many colours? As ever, if you like what we did or have comments/crits then please drop a line in the comments 🙂
Call of the Wild! Great Bray-Shaman
When The End Times: Glottkin came out I was pretty happy that you could build an army using all of the Chaos factions. The Beastmen have some great models including this guy, the gnarled Great Bray-Shaman, and I was glad to have an excuse to add him to my collection. I painted him up in the same magenta that I used for the wizards and heroes in the rest of my army.
I converted his staff with an icon of Tzeentch from the Burning Chariot kit, the eye of which glows blue with clairvoyant power. If you look closely you can see blue Object Source Lighting from the baleful eye glaring out from beneath his hood.
I freehanded runes onto his hood, inspired from designs found on the Chaos Warshrine. Here’s a better view of the Chaos Star over his left eye. I glazed his cloak with Reikland Fleshshade and Druchii Violet to create a patchwork of flayed skins.
I really pleased with how this model came out. To me he’s a real throw back to the creepy old 80’s artwork from Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and The Damned. In fact I enjoyed painting him so much that I got a unit of Bestigor bodyguards for him too – more to follow! What do you think of him – tell me in the comments below!
SHOWCASE: Necrons of the Derelict Planet!
Under the glare of a blood red sun a legion of immortal warriors march through the remnants of a derelict planet…
Sometimes all it takes to inspire a project is one idea. In the case of our Necrons, that seed of inspiration came from stumbling across the beautiful art of Pascal Blanché – art director at Ubisoft. His blend of post-apocalyptic and mythological themes, vibrant use of colour and techniques that span CG and digital artforms are beautiful to behold.
“Danu” ©Pascal Blanché. Used without permission. See more at http://derelictplanet.blogspot.co.uk/
“Sanctuary” © Pascal Blanché. Used without permission. See more at http://pascalblanche.deviantart.com/
Struck by bold, three-dimensionality of his work an the transition of contrasting colours we realised that this had to be applied to miniatures. And what better faction than Necrons to capture the alien marriage of corroded machine and organic shapes!
These Necron Warriors were painted surprisingly quickly. Keen to emulate the transition from dark teal green to oxide red we sketched the colours in with drybrush and sponging techniques. We began with a blue basecoat of Necron Abyss, working up through Stegadon Scale Green to Sotek Green. Successive red layers were then applied from above to simulate a vibrant red light-source. The final layers of orange were applied using thin glazes instead, and edge highlights picked out to give definition. We picked a cold blue as a contrasting splash colour for the glowing eyes and energy canals on their Gauss Rifles.
We’d love to know what you think of our Necrons. Have you been inspired by the art or ideas of another in the same way? Tell us in the comments below.
Also, we highly recommend you check out Pascal Blanché’s art on his blog or excellent art book Derelict Planet. Maybe you’ll find your next inspiration there!
SHOWCASE: Blanchitsu Cairn Wraith
A malevolent spirit returns from beyond the grave in today’s showcase! The Cairn Wraith is one of those wonderfully understated models – very simple design but perfectly executed and full of macabre character.
This is the first of several Undead miniatures we want to share with you. The palette is inspired by the reds, sepias and burnt umbers of John Blanche’s evocative Vampire Counts concept art. It was good fun to use a limited range of colours, starting with initially quite messy applications of brown and crimson, working up to successively more refined glazes of bone and off-white.
I like how the wraith seems to have manifested into a bloodsoaked death shroud – an effect that was completed with a few spots of Tamiya Clear Red.
Given Games Workshop’s obsession with vanitas and memento mori symbolism in the Warhammer world (a big part of what makes it so cool), this model is something of a homage (an homage?) to John Blanche. I added the tongue from a Bloodletter to give it a creepy twist, and freehanded the checkered pattern around the edge of the wraith’s cowl – a motif ubiquitous in Blanche’s artwork.
Hopefully this guy gave you the chills! We love to hear your feedback, so feel free to let us know what you think in the Comments below!
Technasma 
