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Welcome to Shumas Space Sharks!

It's been something along the lines of two years since I started my last painting blog. In that time I have painted all of ten space marines! Getting a degree was getting in the way, but now that I've done that I can get back to whats truly important. Painting tiny plastic men! Given that the entirety of both badaab campaign books were assembled then printed during the time that one single squad was being painted you'll find that my army maintains the old fashioned space sharks hockey logo insignia and single tone gray paint scheme. I will be testing the new pattern with the next squad as I prefer it to the monotone.

:images and revised fluff forthcoming:

Squad sarge 1 "punchy"


Squad sarge 2 "Stabby"


Squad 1 and 2 missile launchers



Squad 1 and 2 special weapons



Generic bolter configuration


Everyone together!



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Next up: HQ conversions to be painted



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Master of the forge with a conversion beamer on a bike! AKA a terrible investment of points!

Oh Conversion Beamer, you so crazy.

Hey Shuma,

Looking good on the sharks, if your open to criticism I would comment that your edge highlighting looks quite blobby, are you thinning down the highlight paint?

Clean and smooth looking armour I hope to see more when you get the time!

Part of the thread title "A lesson in "thin your paints"" covers the highlighting. I painted the lions share of these models with old paint and damaged brushes (i've been surfing on the same equipment for upwards of eight years for some items). I'm going to work on the highlighting some more in the next few models. I'm not an expert painter by any stretch and I'm rotating into new equipment now so theres a lot of room for improvement I hope.


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Is there any way to prevent the gallery from resizing the photos?

There're pretty obvious mold lines on Sgt. Punchy. I would suggest removing them, and then perhaps painting over the now-exposed parts. I would agree with Knightley, your highlighting's a little thick. But since you're moving on to better equipment, I would love to see updates!

I'm not sure about the resizing thing.

Most of the mold lines are results of the black reach box, though I wasn't very careful to remove them. Most models assembled after these first few squads have been better taken care of.

They look great atm but they should look even better after you drill out the barrels of the guns, just a sugestion.

great flower on the sarges base.

To second Corax, mold lines. A few minutes with a file on the helmets, back packs, and shoulder pads would go a long ways. Those are on top- and are easily seen and noticed since they catch alot of light- when something is supposed to be smooth- and isnt- it catches the eye.

And I'd suggest using a wash, some thinned down Devaln Mud or Badab black would help soften some of those harsh lines from the high lighting.

Last-for doing the black free hand insignia work, a 2$ Micron pen can really clean up the results and make nice pretty lines for you.

They look great atm but they should look even better after you drill out the barrels of the guns, just a sugestion.

Whats a good way to do that? Bolt gun barrels are very small.

great flower on the sarges base.

Thanks. I got a few different kinds of aquarium foliage that I'm going to be using. Most of it is a tad large for the regular bases, but the 40mm and dread bases will be spiffy.

To second Corax, mold lines. A few minutes with a file on the helmets, back packs, and shoulder pads would go a long ways.

For many of the tactical marines I primed shortly after assembly because I was excited to play the new army. I purchased 3 black reach boxes with a friend and split the cost back in the day, so many of the more basic marines are mold line filled and rather poorly molded in general. At this point they're spray sealed and I told myself I was done with them so the ones in picture aren't going to be filed for mold lines. I started removing them from the rest of the models a while ago though, so it shouldn't be a problem in the future.

And I'd suggest using a wash, some thinned down Devaln Mud or Badab black would help soften some of those harsh lines from the high lighting.

I dislike the wash/dip look strongly. There are some washes on there, but I'd rather not attempt to cover wide areas. I'm exploring the idea of investing in an air brush kit to try and get a better-then-drybrush look for many of the models.

Last-for doing the black free hand insignia work, a 2$ Micron pen can really clean up the results and make nice pretty lines for you.

Do you mean the purity seals? I thought I did a really good job on the kneepad sharks. They're the size of... well a space marine kneepad. Thats about the area medabee wanted me to drill out from the bolters.

Do microns look glossy after being applied? I'm trying to avoid having specific glossy areas but I think the purity seals could use work.

Nice work on the conversion beamer! (though you have an accurate view of the points cost I'm always a big fan of "It looks cool" and "It was really fun to build" over "This will be really effective in game". Mind you, "This will be really effective in game" is still good.

This is a great place to pick up some techniques from other enthusiasts. The "$2 micron" that Mistress of Minis referred to is actually a very fine tip pen that you can use on the models and works very well.

Keep up the work!

Cheers,
Rawson

ShumaGorath wrote:Is there any way to prevent the gallery from resizing the photos?

Some what, when i put the pictures together , i stack them vertically instead of horizontally lol

Do you all think that the white on gray highlights are too strong? In looking at other, better, highlighting jobs, I notice that people use slightly less dramatic shifts in color except on important edge areas.

Would a mix gray white be better?


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LunaHound wrote:

ShumaGorath wrote:Is there any way to prevent the gallery from resizing the photos?

Some what, when i put the pictures together , i stack them vertically instead of horizontally lol

I plan to post images at 800 pixels wide instead of 1200 now.

ShumaGorath wrote:Do you all think that the white on gray highlights are too strong? In looking at other, better, highlighting jobs, I notice that people use slightly less dramatic shifts in color except on important edge areas.

Would a mix gray white be better?

Yes and No.
Yes because nitpickingly speaking, it is indeed a rather large jump on the shade scale.

HOWEVER.
No because if any picture ( or mini ) require a balance, then that amount of white is needed to bring contrast into the subject.
So unless you are planning on introducing an new light color to change the contrast ratio, atm i like how it is.

Also the way your gray is ( flat ) and the way you did the red areas + its shading ( also flat, almost like pastel ) , i rather like the thick white highlights to compliment the 2.

Besides they look better this way from table top distance as well.

So my verdict would be, keep the white high light the way it is :'D

The yellow on the weapons looks out of place though, as well as metalic bronze or w/e the color is, on the chest looks out of place too.