241: painted Treeman Avatar of Khaine

Here's the steps I've managed so far, he's not quite complete, and unbased, but I'm really happy with how its going, and I'd be very willing to see him on the battlefield, all I need is an Eldar army for him to go with :D

Skipped a step here, but it was only the basing of yellow, then progressive drybrushing of Fiery Orange and then Blood Red to build up the graduation of the colour.

240: Forgeworld event only - yes please

Oh dear, why do you do this to us Forgeworld?

Well aren't they pretty!  To anyone going to the Horus Heresy weekender, I'd love a couple of the Iron Warrior (the one on the left), one for itself, and one for conversion.  If you could get me a pair I'd happily pay and contribute to your travel.

239: A lair full of Skaven

Totalling up what I'd painted last year, I realised that my Skaven were starting to become a full army.  I also got a good basing session in the other day while hanging out at the http://beardbunker.blogspot.com so the army is actually looking somewhat presentable.  I also managed to get a photo of them all together.

What you can see in the picture above are 120 clanrats including two pretty large unit fillers, 20 Stormvermin, some weapon teams, a Doomwheel, Warp Lightning Cannon, and various characters representing my Warlord, BSB and a couple of Engineers.  Its stretching towards 2000 points amazingly enough.  Sorry the pic isn't the best, hopefully I'll manage a bit better picture sometime soon.

238: Painting lava on the Avatar

Amazingly enough, the Avatar is one of the most popular posts on the blog, and its a model I'm really keen to get painted so its first up on my list for the new year.

I've never painted anything like lava before so I needed to test out some effects to see what would work.  What you see below is an attempt to recreate the classic lava look you'll find by simply searching on google.  One thing I've realised is that the areas that are going to be lava-like on this model are a lot larger than on the GW and Forgeworld avatar models.

To stop the whole model looking like some kind of weird bee, I'll be trying to make the molten sections darker, as if they are partially solidified on the surface.

237: 2015 New Years Resolutions

So here they are, my aims for the upcoming year.  I wonder if I'll have any better luck achieving them than I did my previous aims, which you can find here:
2014 resolutions and 2014 in review

2013 resolutions and 2013 in review

2012 resolutions and 2012 in review

2011 I didn't make up any resolutions but I did do a 2011 in review

• Post pictures of all the models I painted during 2014
• Skaven army, the Tyranids, One Force marines (Mk II and Mk IV)

• Continue the clear out
• Tyranids, Space Wolves (most of them), a lot of spares and bits and pieces

• Complete painting One Force as it stands
• 5 Mk V marines and jump-packs, 10 Mk III veterans with combi-weapons, missile launchers for all squads, Master of the Forge

• Complete standing painting projects
• Skaven warp lighting cannon, Treeman Avatar, Tau Firewarriors and Riptide, and any other bits and pieces I have lying around that I've forgotten

• Return to blogging
• I'd definitely like to tidy up the blog a bit, and perhaps improve the design and look of it.  As a more viable, achievable target I'm also setting myself 2 posts a month minimum as my aim for the year

So thats it, a relatively modest 5 aims, and as well as that, I'll most likely be beginning a Daemon army, and I'm sure that GW will be releasing plenty of new and interesting models that'll be tempting me and stealing even more of my money, but then that wouldn't be anything new.
If you've got any resolutions or aims for the new year, I'd be happy to know what you're aiming for, feel free to comment below and link to your own blogs.

Cheers - Andrew