So I am taking the opportunity to get caught up on some projects I have had in the works. I currently have three commissions in progress. One has been a back burner commission that I have had hanging around for a few months. The customer fell into some financial trouble after making his down payment and after I did half the work. No need to get into details, but I agreed to cancel the models I did not start yet, but am charging him for me to finish the ones I did. (He mailed me the models which I don't normally do.) So this project has been lingering about for some time, waiting for him to sort things out.
Every so often I get a commission request from a youngblood who simply cannot afford it no matter what I charge. After exchanging some emails with a 12 year old from Australia, giving him painting tips, critiquing his work, etc. he asked me if he could hire me to paint three Imperial Fist and how much it would cost. Without boring you with further details, he only had 10 bucks US. So, giving into my soft spot for kids, I agreed to take the job. I had him mail me his box of 3 marines, plus the 10 bucks to cover shipping, and took on his three Imperial Fists.
Granted, these are not my usual Jawa quality, but I still think they came out nice. If I were to do a "budget" level of commission, this is what you would get!
Finally I am getting to another small commission I just finished up. These four models are Blood Angels sergeants that the customer wanted painted up to my usual standard. I charged him my usual price of 40.00 each for Sergeants, but ended up giving him much more than my standard. He wanted my older extreme highlight style, brighter models. It was refreshing to paint them the old way! My new way blends the models from dark to bright red, and takes a year, even with Army Painter Dragon Red. These guys were primed black, painted with mechrite red, painted with blood red, highlighted with blazing and firery, then washed with Baal Red.
My lighting needs work on the pics. I just got a light tent and am experimenting with the settings on my camera. If any one has any advice for using a Canon 30D as far as how to make the setting perfect for shooting with a light tent, I would be happy to listen!
By the way, the Feast of Blades banner will be going out next week. It is currently at school and I need my colleague to bring in her sewing machine so we can sew the image onto the banner. I will post up pics of that process next week. Next banner? Space Wolves Chapter Banner. That one should be fun!
This brings me to my current own project. I could not really play with this until I finished these sergeants. As I spoke of before, I am turning my Blood Angels into Emo Gothic Space Vamp Blood Angels. I have been working away, converting WFB chaos models into assault marines, and converting other models into my Independent Characters.
This new army is staring the likes of a Warriors of Chaos badass, playing the role of a Blood Angels Reclusiarch! I used the head from a Vampire Counts winged vampire lord or some such.
Playing the role of Sanguinary Priest with Chainsword and Blood Chalice is a Legion of the Damned Sergeant!
And never to be left out, staring in his debut army, Vlad Von Carstein as Mephiston! Complete with a plasma pistol he borrowed from some lowly assault marine.That was a bitch to get on right! I think the model is a perfect Mephiston. The pose is menacing and heroic, the Force Weapon looks much more killy and usable in combat, he is extremely vamped out, and he even has a psychic hood!
Here is a picture of my first finished Emo Vamp Blood Angel.
I will put up pics of these in progress tomorrow. For now, enjoy!
Jawaballs
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16 comments:
Nice figures all round. The red on the Emperor's Champion is especially great.
I like the fantasy/blood angel mashup. They're going to have a very John Blanche feel to them once they're all done, I think.
Thanks man. I dislike painting white, and well, love painting red. When I was working out the list with the client, and planning out the look, I suggest red accents to make the army stand out from all the other BT armies. (At the time the new BT update was not even a rumor.) So now the red is even more important since we will see a resurgance of BT armies taking the tables I think.
I plan on finishing the BT commission next week, so I will have lots of pics of the army, and should have my light tent working properly.
Jawa. i know this is not the appropriate place for this but i recently purchased your standard format video on painting ultra marines and how to win 40k fritz pdf, i was wondering if they come on discs in the mail or if i have to download them? If you could shoot me an email it would be much appreciated. Also i read an earlier blog about your after school care and was wondering what the address is so i can send some unpainted resin terrain pieces if they're interested in a new project to work on. Thanks =)
- Seanod40k@yahoo.com
Thats mighty generous!
Rippowam Middle School
Mr. Dubuque Room 122
381 High Ridge Road
Stamford, CT 06905.
The kids will love it because terrain is the one thing we are short on. I have enough for a couple tables, but last week I had 18 kids in there learning how to play the game. Most of them were playing with juice cans and paint bottles as terrain.
As for your order, you should have gotten a link for the Fritz download which takes just a few seconds so that should not be a problem, and I'm pretty sure I mailed out your disc for the vid. I have been mailing them all lately, download or standard, because my download server has been causing errors and not working properly. Email me, jawaballs at hotmail, and I will look up your order and see what the status is and we will make it right from there. :)
Everything looks really nice. The Blood Angel Sergeants look very very nice, and I love the painted converted Warriors of Chaos-marine. Looking forward to seeing the rest of this army.
Relatively new follower here!!
Your Emperor's Champion looks incredible. I've always been a fan of red and black and the green of the laurel around his helmet draws the eye in a good way.
As it happens, I just purchased the EC model a few days ago. This'll be my first real foray into painting GW models. It'll also be my first time painting black as a main color. Any advice/best practices on getting black to work as a main color? Is it as simple just using the primer coat and then adding some definite line highlights?
Itchy, I used Army Painter black primer, then gave it good once over with Chaos Black, then highlights with codex and fortress. Good luck! and thanks. :)
WOW, loving the look of your Vamp Blood Angels, always thought a darker more evil looking BA army would be amazing. Can't wait to see more finished models/squads.
Hey jawa, if you don't mind my asking where did you get that head for your finished blood angel space vamp
The heads are from the GW Nightlords bits pack off their website.
Why do the gothic stlye marines still have leather boots on? That detracts somewhat from the asthetic and theme of the models (and doesn't make much sense). A bit of fileing and some greenstuff and you could have powerarmour rather than leather boots.
Did you really charge 40 dollars each for those sergeants? No offence but i don't think they are worth $160. For a start you have splashes of paint where they shouldn't be- such as the wings on the first one's bolt pistol. The extreme highlighting on the yellow is very thick. His yellow wings and knee pad arn't highlighted either.
I like the whites and the robes though, its a nice brown there, fits well with the overall scheme.
The lightning effect is a bit off, that might just be a lack of contrast though. The armour however is very good, smooth and sharp. I can't reconcile how the red armour looks compared to other parts of the models. If they are not finished or i'm jumping to conclusions them i'm sorry but in their current state i just can't seem them as worth $40 each.
I am by no means trying to 'hate on you' or whatever but just giving my honest opinion.
I appreciate criticism. But usually it should be followed by things you would do to improve it. You know... a little constructive input. You just point out what you think are flaws. (Wrapped around some compliments) A lot of people love to point out what they consider errors, but epic fail at being helpful. I think being overly critical about models shown at 5 or 6 times their size is not fair and accurate input. Take any model from the blood angels army comparison article in the recent White Dwarf, enlarge their images by 500 or 600 percent with a digital camera at 300 DPI, and you will find flaws with them. For example, what you call "splashes of paint" on the bolt pistol wings, is actually paint wrapping around the wing from the other side. The paint in that spot you point out is exactly where I intended it to be. As for the thickness of the highlights, I will give you that one. Yup, I paint thick. It is very well known that I paint thick. It has not stopped me from winning more than my share of painting awards. In fact, it has become my style. Guys who commission my work know what they are getting before hand. They are buying my very well documented style.
Want a tip? Stop using the phrase "no offence". It is cliche, over used, and fake. People only use it when they are about to say something offensive as a means of absolving themselves of any wrong doing. If you have something to say, just throw it out there, don't try to hide it behind cliche. I do give you credit though for at least backing up that opinion with some reason.
Why can't gothic style marines still have boots on? How does it detract from the asthetic and theme of the models? Vampires can't wear boots? You don't explain any thing!
Besides, I thought it was sort of obvious that gothic really has nothing to do at all with these models and was just sort of me having fun. The first time I referred to this project I think I actually used like 6 adjectives. Most of them absurd. There is really very little about them that is truly gothic at all, except for the fact that I want them to look old and vampy. But I think if you had to pinpoint something from "Gothic" style, you could refer to the darker, morbid and medieval look. It is my opinion that my conversion 100% succeeds at that when compared to traditional Blood Angels who have a more Rennaisance look. I think that the leather boots go right in line with the aesthetic of the model. Hell, why would power armor marines wear chain mail? That doesn't make sense! It's just a look.
You make a lot of opinion statements, and use nice words, but don't explain any thing. Instead your statements should be preceded by "it is my opinion", and then followed by "because blah blah blah."
You have a point about the green stuff. If I was good with it, I could have probably sculpted armor around the boots to make them resemble power armor. But I suck at green stuff, and it is my opinion that they look fine the way they are. Besides, for every good green stuff application, I have seen 99 bad ones. If I tried to use it here, I would have landed on the side of the bad. Maybe you could write up an article showing off your green stuff skills? I would be happy to post it and try what you demonstrate myself!
Allow me to reiterate here that I welcome constructive criticism on every model I post up. If you don't know what that means, google it. I appreciate every one that takes the time to read my blog, and even more so, leave comments. But I have maintained from the start that every one who comments should do so with polite courtesy, and at least try to support their statements with sound reason. Your comment was not outwardly rude, but you don't really do either of the things that I expect from posters, including myself.
Holy crap that was a book! :)
I love the Red Templar! And actually, I really love the Fists. They have an almost cartoony look to them (given, I know, from the speed with which you painted them) that is a bit unique.
And, of course, for purely personal reasons, I can't wait to see what happens with the Wolves banner!
I had fun with the fists. Knowing that I was painting them for a young kid, I was actually trying for more of a stylized cartoony look. The extreme white lines on the shoulders and grey lines on the Tactical symbols for example. And yes, I painted the three of them in less than an hour. The kid who got them just emailed me.
"They look awesome!" and "P.S. I'm 14 now." You're welcome Mathew!
Thanks again for those Fists Chris :D
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