Flickr Thursday

The Vampire Counts are preparing to lay siege to a Hobby Centre near you this weekend. To get ourselves even more in the mood, we thought we would delve into our very own blood-filled scrying pool (also known as the Flickr pool) to take a peek at what other great Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 hobby is going on right now. As ever, you've been a busy lot, so on with the show:

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  Grzegorz Zeweld painted these wonderful Mangler Squigs. I'm not quite sure what one of the von Cartsteins would make of Mangler Squigs bounding towards them on the battlefield. Perhaps the poor Mangler Squig wouldn't last all that long, sadly, but on the bright side I don't suppose it would really be aware of its own demise. (If you look closely, you can see one of these guys is going to need a bigger toothpick.) Great job, Grzegorz!

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  These Marauder Horsemen were painted by Scott Edwards , who uses them in his games as 'cannon fodder': they can rush down the flanks and cause trouble, forcing his enemy to waste valuable shots trying to kill them; or his opponent can ignore them and, due to their speed, the Horsemen will soon be charging enemy guns or vulnerable wizards early in the game. Scott said he wanted to give his models the appearance of a Viking warrior, with lots of leather and metal armour, trimmed with bits of gold and quite a dark skin tone. Menacing!

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  Scott also painted this nifty Chaos Sorcerer, which was a model he said he just had to buy as soon as it was released. He followed the 'Eavy Metal colour scheme to a point, but wanted more colour on the robes, and opted for a dark blue. He then balanced this with some glowing blue eyes, and the blue energy bolts running up the staff to the top. His favourite part was actually the hand, as he wanted to make the Sorcerer appear as if he was about to cast a spell. Scott had seen enough movies to see what 'real' spells look liked, so tried make it as accurate as he could using a dark purple colour, then gradually highlighting on the raised areas.

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  We've not seen any Tomb Kings in the Flickr pool for a few weeks, so it was nice to see this Necropshinx, which was painted by Rachid Hadjeb. He used an airbrush for most of the gold, and followed it with a wash of 1:1 Devlan Mud and Ogryn Flesh, since he felt just Devlan Mud alone would make it look a bit too dirty. The base of the jade colour used a mix of Hawk Turquoise and Dark Angels Green. The 'veins' were achieved with a thinned mix of Dark Angels Green and Hawk Turquoise, with random lines that go from one side to the other. The lines don't break in the middle of a surface, but form a network of them passing through each other. He then added a little Bleached Bone into the previous mix to go over existing lines, mostly where they intersect with each other, taking care not to cover them all. Then Rachid added more Bleached Bone into the mix, and repeated the process, but on less of the surface this time.

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  Not content with the one army, Rachid also painted this rather menacing Arachnarok Spider. The first blends were achieved using an airbrush, with a coat of Mechrite Red first, then adding more red, followed by orange for the highlights, before finally applying some Chaos Black on the tips of the legs. Once that was done he washed the whole spider lightly with Devlan Mud, but mainly where there were creases to be found. The bare skin areas were painted with a Dheneb Stone basecoat, washed with Gryphonne Sepia. For the eyes he mixed up a dark blue, then more teal for the first highlights, before adding Bleached Bone, for the final highlights. And a coat of gloss varnish to make it even creepier!

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  Time for a little something for Warhammer 40,000 fans: this superb Space Marine Scout was painted by LordShejtan, which probably isn't his real name... but boy can he paint. The whole of this model, from the rocky, snow-covered, blood-spattered base (with icicles), to the battle-worn Scout with dozens of chinks (and a rune) in the armour, and all so well done, it really does evoke a day on Fenris. Whoever you are, LordShejtan, we salute you!

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  On Facebook we're often asked to show more Imperial Guard hobby - well, we can only do so when people paint 'em up and upload them, which is exactly what ebs_arch has done with this Imperial Guard Shock Troop (again, we doubt this is his real name, unless he had particularly mischievous parents). Not only is it fantastically well-painted, but again it's the bases that really made this model stand out - you can really imagine these guys trudging through some toxic wasteland.

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  We'll finish today on this rather cool Dark Eldar Talos Pain Engine, which was painted and uploaded by ThalasCzech. The description on Flickr mentioned that it was his first Dark Eldar model (I'm guessing not his first Games Workshop one...), and we thought it was a wonderfully crisp paint job.
  
  Don't forget, folks, we can only show what we get sent in - you know where we are (well, online at least). Send your photos or write-ups of your own games to whatsnewtoday@games-workshop.co.uk or simply upload your Hobby to Flickr (over 13,500 photos and counting...).