Fire Dragons Finished for Nova

Here is a quick update on my NOVA project. As you know, I am painting models for the NOVA charitable foundation. Well here are the finished Fire Dragons! Some of them are redundant because I tried with and without flash. I don't have a great setup for photographing miniatures. Once NOVA gets them they will be photographed right but for now here is a taste!  You have to be in it to win it.  The NOVA Charitable Foundation will ship these armies free of charge just about any where. HERE is a link. The site is still under construction for this year's update so keep an eye on it and donate!

More Sons of Orar WIP

Today I am featuring another painter in the Sons of Orar project, AJ Taflan from Vigilante Studios.  You can find lots of WIP potos of a Tactical squad, plus other work he is doing on his Facebook page HERE.

This time it is all about the helmets. Painting white is not easy as we all know but he nailed it. And I absolutely love his eyes. If you go to his page you can follow the step by step progress of these things.  The best part about being in this painting project for me is that I get to be part of this fantastic creative process and it helps my own work grow.

More to come!

Jawaballs

NOVA Charitable Foundation army project update

Here are some images of an assault squad painted by Joe Johnson.  Joe and I have had some battles, on the table and for best painted, and I enjoy every time I encounter him.  He is probably best known for his "salmon" marines that crushed best painted on the East Coast for quite a long time.

The Nova Open site is not yet ready to accept donations, but HERE it is if you want more information on past projects.

Jawaballs

2015 Nova Open Charity Army

It's that time of year again! For several years now I have been involved with painting armies for charity.  It started with a simple, small army and a handful of painters and one very motivated Santa Cruz gaming group.  The next year the gloves came off and we did a massive project including Orks, Blood Angels and Steel Legion.  It was epic!

But sadly the process of running such a massive effort is too much for any ordinary handful of people. The reigns were taken over by an organization that had the proper infrastructure and setup to handle it.  The Nova Open Charitable Foundation.  Proudly I signed on with them to paint some Dark Angels bikers, and the following year some Ultramarine Veterans, who were lost in the void that is the USPS. No worries though I ended up donating the last of my Gamesday Best Banner winners, a full sized Ultramarine Chapter Banner instead.

That brings us to this year.  The Nova Open Charitable Foundation is proud to bring you two armies. The Sons of Orar, a stalwart Space Marine chapter descended from the Ultramarines, and an Eldar Alaitoc army.  The idea is that The Sons have invaded Craftworld Alaitoc in an epic "all or nothing" campaign.

You can WIN either of these armies by DONATING to the foundation. All proceeds, minus a bit to handle clerical costs like shipping, go directly to Doctors Without Borders. They have been our charity of choice for years because of the world wide impact that they have, particularly in support of kids.  For every dollar you donate, your name is entered into the drawing once. At this years Nova Open the winners will be drawn. Any one in the world is eligible to win.

Some of this years supporters are Atlantis Games and Element Games who provided the models, KR Multicase  who is providing the transports and of course my friend Justin at Secret Weapon  who has been providing the bases and terrain bits for years.  Please support these generous businesses!

So lets get to the good stuff.

First the Sons of Orar are being led by John Stiening who is an absolute painting machine and one of my favorite 40k friends. This guy has an output unlike any I have seen, and every thing he paints looks absolutely fantastic. Check his blog HERE.

This is an image from John's blog, it is just WIP but you can see the beautiful work he has done so far.

And here is a quick image of some of the Eldar models.

And here are some Swooping Hawks by Ken Webb:

I will update a complete list of links including all of the painters soon.

For now, here is what I have going on!

I am painting models for both armies. For the Sons I am painting a Vindicator!

I have been following the John Stiening tutorial for color modulation. You can find it HERE. The theme for the Sons is supposed to be a darker red, to differentiate them from the Blood Angels... but I just can't help myself.

In short, we started with a black base coast and layered up a red shaded coat with Mephiston Red and a final highlight edge of Wild Rider red.  I actually used a mix of old Blood Red and Wild Rider for this, and used it a tad more liberally than John does, but this is a Jawaballs model after all!  Besides Vindicators should stand out from the crowd, they are BAD ASS.

At this point I did the base coating on the tank, and edged some of the front panels with Wild Rider. I applied Windsor Newton Matte Varnish, then applied a Sons logo on the side, then blasted that side with Home Depot Gloss Varnish.  I will be doing some hand painting on the other side so did not blast the entire model yet.  I am hoping that when I matte the model back down the subtle shading will return.  Don't worry John Stiening it is darker in person!

My other contribution is a squad of five Fire Dragons.

Here is the exarch WIP.  I was given some artistic license on the Dragons since they have their own separate look from the Craftworld armies.  I started with a deep red base on black. Then I hit the armor with Blazing Orange, then Firedragon Bright.  Then I gave the armor a glaze with Lamenter's Yellow.  I am playing around with the gun, trying to get an Eldar Wraithbone look without using Bone.  But I am thinking I may go bronze metallics with this.  The helm is base coated with Averland Sunset and then layered with Yriel and Flash Gitz and washed with Casendora.

That is it for now!  Stay tuned as the sites are updated for the 2015 armies.  I will post a link to donate on the top right of my blog soon as well as links to the other painters blogs.  Start saving those pennies, you are not going to want to miss this drawing, you have to be IN IT TO WIN IT!

Oh, and just in case you were wondering where I am at with my new Blood Angels army...

Here is a taste.

Jawaballs