Showcase: Blanchitsu Dire Wolves

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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 →

HOBBY: 6 Hobby Essentials I couldn’t do without!

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The Path of the Artificer is one of lifelong dedication and self-improvement. However, whispered legends tell of six powerful artifacts that can aid the disciple on their path to mastery of the paintbrush…

Greetings warmongers! I’m in the throes of a house move, so unfortunately the only time I’ve had for painting recently is rolling emulsion paint onto the walls of my new place. As such I’ve not had much to share here on the blog. Full service should resume soon though!

In lieu of miniatures I thought I’d share some of the hobby essentials that I find invaluable! Continue reading →

Project Log: The Shining Path – T’au Empire

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Here we stand on the brink of a golden dawn. In a universe of ancient tyrants, the destiny of our birthright burns unstoppably like a newborn sun. Illuminated by the Greater Good we shall blaze a shining path through the darkness.

In stark contrast to the grim darkness of the far future I love the naive optimism of the Tau. Having coveted them for a while, when the new releases came out I couldn’t help but jump on the band wagon and pick up some kits for a new project! Continue reading →

Showcase: Masters of the Deep – Cog Automaton

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Big, clanky and full of personality!

That’s how I’d describe the Cog Automaton I had the pleasure of painting this weekend. If you saw my previous blog-post you’ll know that I won the chance to paint a prototype from the game Rivals: Masters of the Deep. Set in a Steampunk world of underwater adventure, this forthcoming game is packed full of fantastic miniatures.

Continue reading →

WIP: World of Rivals Cog Automaton

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Clunking out of the abyss lumbers an automaton of the Cog Empire.

Rivals Cog Automaton 3Dprint 1Rivals Cog Automaton 3Dprint 2

Well this is exciting! Here at Technasma we’re amongst the first people in the world to own this miniature. I was lucky enough to be sent a 3D printed prototype of this World of Rivals: Masters of the Deep miniature by entering a competition via their Instagram.

As a rapid prototype, it’s a little rough around the edges, but undeniably an awesome mini. This week I’ll be breaking out the file and putty to get this guy ready for painting. The models themselves are quite large (see shot below for reference with a £1 coin) and present an interesting challenge to paint.

Rivals Cog Automaton 3Dprint scale

The Masters of the Deep miniatures have a cartoon style to them with lots of smooth curves and flat surfaces. Some of the characters have a chibi-vibe with big heads and exaggerated proportions. Coolest of all is the game’s nautical Steampunk art direction!

Rivals Cog Automaton 3Dprint 3

Keep posted to see how I paint up this mini. I’m currently deliberating whether to go for full brass with steampunk metallics, Non-Metallic Metal or try a more cell-shades look like the Necrons we’ve done…

You can see more about World of Rivals via their Instagram and be sure to check out their relaunched Kickstarter that goes live tomorrow!

SHOWCASE: Canoptek Scarabs of the Derelict Planet

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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…

Let There Be Blood! Blanchitsu Daemon

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Enticed from the empyrean by the tang of sacrificial blood, a lesser daemon of Khorne manifests into the material realm.

Khorne has been getting a lot of love recently, so to honour the Blood God today we present one of his minions. This is a bit of a throw back to a mini that was painted a few years ago. This guy is the first of many models painted in a ‘Blanchitsu’ style, and ultimately spawned an entire army of Vampire Counts painted in this way!

In the same way as the Cairn Wraith that we featured a few weeks ago, the colours on the Bloodletter were built up from a dark crimson basecoat. Highlights were added with drybrushing and glazes of off-white and bone to emulate the style of John Blanche’s concept art. The scales were picked out in Vallejo Model Scrofulous Brown .

The hellblade was dulled down with several glazes of brown and sepia paints and some Devlan Mud wash. I then went back to pick out the sharp edges with Mithril Silver.

It was good fun to tackle a Khorne model that isn’t just blood red! They have a really creepy, almost alien feel to them, that I just love. At some point we’d like to work on a Khorne Goretide army for Age of Sigmar – the new models are simply fantastic.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

SHOWCASE: Age of Sigmar, Aelf Realmscout spotted!

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Lithe as quicksilver and as elusive as the wind, the Aelf Realmscout is ever but a fleeting shadow in the peripheral vision of her quarry. What is it that drives this exiled traveler to stalk the nebulous hinterlands that link the Mortal Realms? Does she seek truth behind the legends of vanquished gods or to avenge the shaming of her sundered race? Perhaps she seeks only to survive…

 Aelf-Realmscout-2

This week I’d like to share one of my favourite miniatures from my collection. Age of Sigmar really encourages players to open their imaginations, and the cannon of the Old World is no longer a barrier to creating your own narrative. Here at Technasma, we love playing Pathfinder: Adventure Card Game, and this figure is inspired in part by the fabulous Iconic Characters illustrated by Wayne Reynolds. She started out as more of an RPG type character, rather than anything from the established Warhammer lore.

There’s a bit of Xena, Warrior Princess, Merisiel from Pathfinder, Arragorn and even a hint of Link from Legend of Zelda! 

She’s converted from predominantly Warhammer 40,000 parts, so it was a fun challenge to make a miniature that didn’t look out of place in a high fantasy setting. To make her battlegear more lowtech, I opted for leathers, ivory and metallics, but picked warm bronzes and golds for an exotic aesthetic. To compliment this I opted for bright textiles – jade green for the cape and trousers with a splash of lilac for the sashes and fletching.

I used True Metallic Metals (NMM style but using metallic paints) on her weapons; a lethal looking scimitar and paired dagger known to the Aelves as glimmerblades. Under her hood you can see her defiant expression and a few locks of blonde hair.

    

Games Workshop certainly design their models with converting in mind. There’s such cross-compatibility in their kits, that its very easy to create something unique and special without hours of cutting, filing and putty work. My Realmscout is living proof of this – a product of six kits from two gaming systems. Finishing touches were applied with a ruined statue from a Scibor Basing Kit and some Agrellan Earth.

Have you been using the creative freedom of Age of Sigmar to kitbash your own iconic heroes and villains? Let us know in the comments – we want to see pictures too!

Head over to our Instagram to see work in progress pics of some of my other Aelf Iconics.

SHOWCASE: Necron Catacomb Command Barge

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Manical from an eternity of stasis-slumber, the Phaeron of a long-forgotten dynasty rides to war. Behind him, vast and implacable hordes of machine-vassals march in unison. Once again the galaxy will face the wrath of the Necrontyr!

Time for the second installment of our collaborative project – The Necrons of the Derelict Planet – inspired by the fantastic artwork of Pascal Blanché! It’s back to 40K this week as we present the superb Necron Catacomb Command Barge. If you’re into vehicles then this is a real joy to paint. It has organic curves – perfect for fades and blends – as well as crisp edges for sharp highlighting.


As with the Necron Warriors we painted the Command Barge together over a few sittings. The colours are intense and vibrant, built up in successive layers initially using sponge and drybrush, with more controlled glazes and edge highlights deployed towards the end.

The underside of the Command Barge is left the dark teal green colours of the basecoat and picked out with Sotek Green. The style is inspired by the bold colours of Pascal Blanché’s Derelict Planet art, but we hypothesise that the underglow is from the craft’s grav-repulsor force-field. (That or it’s just a pimped out ride, fitting of an insane Terminator Space-Pharaoh!)

The Necron Phaeron was a perfect opportunity to try out some advanced painting techniques. His War-Scythe and Ressurection Orb were embellished with glowing blue non-metallic metal effects. We’re pretty happy with how they turned out. We used the iPhone app Snapseed to work out how to light the War-Scythe before painting it, to ensure the lighting looked correct. We’ll feature this in a future blog, but here are some close ups.

 

As ever we’d love to know what you think of our work, your feedback sustains us! 

Also, we’d like to thank Pascal for tweeting our blog last time – great to have some engagement from such an inspirational guy! We highly recommend you check out Pascal Blanché’s art on his blog or excellent art book Derelict Planet. 

SHOWCASE: Bestigor Warband

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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 🙂