EPTFinishing the Hat, a Warhammer Blog
Evening chaps, Ianuus here, long time lurker, first time blogger. You know what they say about TL - come for the Starcraft, stay for the (girl) blogs. However, what fascinated me more than the girl blogs were the art blogs, showcasing the talents and journeys of many artists from TL's diverse background; I've decided to cast my lot in with them, and bring you some 'art' (albeit thoroughly low-brow) of my own: my Warhammer (40k) figurines.
Now, this has been a long-time hobby of mine, and I've given thought to blogging it for a while. However, I somewhat doubted that my blog would actually be read by anyone if I just made a blogspot or wordpress out of the blue; TeamLiquid, on the other hand, is a nice diverse community, leaning towards the nerdy side, which would probably be an audience not only more interested in what I have to share, but also more likely to give me inspiration for my work. So here I am, and here you are, for better or for worse; hopefully you will enjoy.
What is Warhammer?
Most of you will probably know what Warhammer is, and maybe even dabbled in it before running out of money, and/or kidneys. For those fortunate enough not to be sucked into the giant moneysink that is Warhammer, it is a military simulation board game played with little figurines, manufactured by a British company called Games Workshop. What I'm mostly interested in, however, is that the miniature figurines come unpainted, in pieces yet to be assembled, and you can paint your own colours, mix and match parts, or even sculpt your own replacements in the process of creating a viable army with which to do tabletop battle. The neat thing about this particular board game is that the creators have bothered to create a rich and expansive sci-fi universe behind the game, filling it with cool stories and amazing concept art. As such, synthesising the imagery and atmosphere of these works in your head, then actualising them in miniature form is a very rewarding process.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/jqanaMB.jpg)
Look at the lines, look at the focus. That is one badass piece of concept art
Objectives
What this blog is not is a technical blog, detailing each little painting or sculpting technique - not only do I lack the qualifications to give lectures on the subject, the process of writing exhaustively on every single brushstroke is not very appealing to me. What this blog is, is a hopefully long series of updates documenting the sometimes frustrating but always rewarding process of making an army in Warhammer, from conception to completion. When I do talk about techniques, I will be focusing not on how to do the techniques, but rather on why I employ these techniques. Should you have questions on any of the specific techniques, though, ask in the comments and I'll respond as best as I can. As such, I hope to give the reader a guided tour of the creation of a visually pleasing army, with insights into the thought process behind the concepts and inspirations which lie behind these little plastic figurines.
Something for you, something for me
I should probably come clean here; for all I've said about the process of army creation, I've barely done any myself. I'm one of those types who get extremely distracted by every new release and buy a character or two, and as a result never build up an army of my own. My best effort to date is a force of around 30 marines and 3 tanks, and even then they're mostly elites and HQ. So, this blog will document a learning process, and although I have a relatively good idea of what to do with my various projects, it's probably going to be a bumpy ride. Hopefully you lot can provide me with helpful suggestions, inspiring artworks, and technical advice on helping me make my armies look better.
Some of my completed works (pretty pictures!)
If you've read this far, I'm sure you're interested in seeing some pictures of my previous work. I might do a timeline of my works later, so you can see how bronze league my painting was before I learnt some key techniques, but here are some of my presentable works, done within the past 2 years (for size reference, the round base upon which the figure stands is 28 mm in diameter):
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/0kKeDt7.jpg)
Sternguard squad. Brilliant models by GW.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/n10FwxS.jpg)
Legion of the Damned squad. Absolutely useless in the game, amazing models.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/8i9rLjh.jpg)
A repainted Librarian Tigerius. Originally painted rather poorly back in 2000, before the new Space Marines came out. Redid him recently, because he's worth it.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/MRqgZXa.jpg)
Slightly converted Sternguard.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/hhdqW8f.jpg)
Attempt at silver non-metallics.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/Qi4MIh5.jpg)
GW was nice enough to release an article detailing how to paint gold non-metallic metal. This was my best attempt at reproducing those results.
So, what now?
Well, now you'll be expecting a post from me in the next few days with all the juicy details on some of my projects. A heads-up, though, I tend to work on several projects at the same time, so my posts might jump between different armies. Another caveat is that you'll probably only see blogs about Space Marines; just an idiosyncrasy of mine. I'm setting a loose target of an update a month, which will hopefully both provide me with enough material to write about and not clutter the forum. Despite this post's lack of actual content, all suggestions are appreciated, about either content or the blog itself. Anyway, enough rambling from me; see you in the next post!
, you're pretty damn awesome at painting too. I got into paiting WH models a few years back, and I loved it. I had a nasty tendency not to finish things though ( painting half a squad for example) and it's sooo expensive -.-. 
