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Yep, after much procrastination, deliberation, and probation, I'm finally getting a Painting and Modeling blog up. I am by no means a good painter, converter, or really anything when it comes to models. I'm literally learning as I go. I thought it would be neat to show the thought processes behind a guy who literally knows nothing about modelling, and how he goes about tackling ridiculously hard projects for his skill level. This thread also fills a secondary purpose, namely that of I have no excuse to slack off. If I do, I'll have people to chastise me and tell me to stop being a lazy git and get back to work. But enough about why I'm starting this. Time to get to the stuff you actually came here to read about.

THE PROJECTS

Number 1, Starting up a new IG Killteam from scratch: Many of you already know I have a poorly hidden hatred for the plastic Cadians GW makes. It's not that they're bad models (they actually look pretty good painted up) but simply that I see them all the time. My area has a VERY high concentration of IG players, and it tends to lead to seeing the same old Cadians every day. This is thankfully changing. We have a guy who's converted his entire army with bretonnian models, another making a WWII German themed army (he's going all out with even using German tanks and everything) and finally myself with the goal of creating a "throw back" army. Basically, I love the old IG models. They have a ton of character and personality that really made me fall in love with the army. The old cadians, catachans, mordians, tallarn, tanith 1st and only, vostroyans, Valhallans, etc, all have a look that you just can't quite match with plastic models I feel, so I'm making an army to try and recapture that look. I'll be using everything from original GW models, converting existing ones, and even building entire models from scratch if I need to. I was originally going to make them all look like the old 2nd ed Cadians, but I've since decided to make a "regiment of the damned". A composite regiment, made up of survivors of ill fated regiments from across the Galaxy. Gives me tons of room with the fluff for heroic last stands, brutal sieges, and tales of valor and personal sacrifice.

This serves 2 purposes:

1. I play foot guard. You use A LOT of infantry playing that style of army, and telling units apart can be difficult. By using many different styles of uniform, kit, and appearances, I can make my models easy to tell apart for both myself and my opponent, thus speeding up the game and making it easier on everyone.

2. Keeps me from burning out by painting the same thing over and over again. I'm already planning on having the 2nd ed cadians, my own take on Catachan troopers, Starship trooper MI styled infantry (both movie and tv show inspired), and maybe even some highland guard and Praetorians. By keeping things fresh and interesting, I'm hoping to avoid the burnout I had with my original IG army.

This by far will be the most demanding, time intensive, wallet intensive, and difficult in general project on the work table. I also think it will be the most rewarding by the time I'm done with it. Only time will tell.

The Ork Speed Freak Army: Exactly what it sounds like. Lots of bikes, dakkajets, and maybe even some Battlewagons. I've already gotten started by converting Dark Vengeance bikes for my warbikers, and they're looking pretty sweet. They'll probably be the first thing you guys see fully built and painted.

Bolt Action WWII German Wehrmacht army: Pretty straightforward. I've already got roughly 50 infantry models put together, they just need to be painted. I also plan on painting a Panzer IV as well. Pretty simple goal, but hey, it's a goal. Probably the hardest one painting wise, as I need to be historically accurate, and I can't pass off a wierd paint job as "I meant to do that" like I can with my 40k armies.

Sisters of Battle! Axed because it seems like GW is doing everything it can to screw the poor gals over.

Flames of War: Hungarians, 78th Sturmdivision Germans, and American 7th Armored divisonMaking good progress on the Hungarians. After that will be the Americans and Germans in whatever order I feel like doing them.

Thank you all for any support you can give and if you even glanced at this page, I appreciate it. I apologize in advance to all the experienced hobbyists, as I really have no clue what the hell I'm doing, so please go easy on me. Any criticism is greatly appreciated by the way!


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First update!

The command squad has been built, and now it's just needing paint and it will be ready for the tabletop.

First up, a group shot.



I'll spoiler the rest of these to make this easier on people to navigate.

Commander


Standard bearer and honor guard


Bagpiper


Lascannon Heavy weapon team


Sorry for the crummy quality of the pics. I need to figure out a better way to take pictures of my models. Any tips on how to do that would be greatly appreciated!

Next up will be some pics of my warbikers. Not sure if I'll be able to get them up tonight or tomorrow though.

As a fellow IG player i'm going to sit on the side lines and cheer you on and as a fellow lover of Victoria Lambs products i am even more interested in your work because i know it will include a fair amount of her stuff.

So uh... Onward to modelling victory comrade.

Looking great so far!

waiting eagerly for the war bikes!

Alright well I hit a bit of a snag with the victoria lamb conversions. I was going to use Cadian legs along with vic's torsos to make a 2nd ed cadian look, but the legs are just so incredibly chunky it makes the guy look like he's wearing gangsta pants. I'll have to start looking for an alternative, since there's no way I can have my whole army wearing kilts (Because I suck at painting. They look awesome though)

Also, here's some pics of the Warbikers. They still need a little bit more before they're ready to be painted. Also, Do you think these guys would look better if I keep the space marine legs and just add orky bitz of armor and glyphs to them (to make them look like stolen armor and really rundown looking) or should I greenstuff pants onto the orks instead? The armor bitz idea is much easier, but I'm not sure of how it'll look when it's painted up.

Either way, here's some pics of them. I'll let you guys be the judge of whether I should keep them around or not.

Wazdakka


Biker Nob


Warbikers


That's it for this update. Next one will be my Executioner that I recently finished painting, along with some of my plastic cadians that I've painted. It's not much, but it'll show you what you're dealing with here There may also be some painted ork boyz, depending on when I get the update up.

I'd be tempted to sculpt the pants onto the orks. I get the feeling that Space Marine legs might be a bit weedy for the Nob and Warboss. That being said though the Warboss does look good with the way he is at the moment.

Alright finally got around to doing an update. These are my first painted pics. Figured out that the white sheet of paper, which I thought was helping, makes the camera on my phone bug out for some reason. Tried taking pics of the models just on my desk and they seem to look much better for some odd reason. Let me know which pics are the better quality, because I tried a few different ways.

Anyways, here's the orks. 9 shoota boyz and a nob. Couldn't get a good pic of their backs, but they're sporting a brown and khaki color scheme on their pants and a dark brown, almost black, leather "shirt". I made heavy use of washes on these guys and I think they turned out pretty well. Only problem I have is I keep getting this annoying "shiney" look on all of them, no matter how much wash I put on them. Is there something I can use to make them not have that annoying gloss effect anymore?

Nob


Boyz


I also have a Leman Russ Executioner with the FW turret that I painted up. I got it haflway painted with the whitewashed grey panelling and caution stripes on the trackguards. Everything else was by me. Not too crazy about the look of it, but it's painted and right now that makes it look better than any of my other russes

Let me know if these pics look better or worse than the ones with the white sheet of paper for a background. Other than that, everything about how I take the pics is the same. I don't have the money for a good camera right now, so I don't really have any other option but to keep screwing around with lighting and backgrounds to make these pics look better.

And always, any painting tips are welcome as well! Thanks for looking.

I like the hazard stripes. Are they handpainted or transfers?

They look to be hand painted. They were there when I got the tank.

I've got your six!

Hard to find female heads, especially ones with those "SoB Mop Top" haircuts. However, there ARE blank female heads, and if you want to try your hand at greenstuffing hair, that may be your most direct route. Once you build ones you're happy with, casting 'em up is a simple matter...and adds to your growing skillset.

If you go that route, start here:

http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?category=accessories~converting: Female heads, and Female heads (b)

I really like the hazard stripes on the leman russ, really clean and they stand out well keep up the good work!

Briancj wrote:I've got your six!

Hard to find female heads, especially ones with those "SoB Mop Top" haircuts. However, there ARE blank female heads, and if you want to try your hand at greenstuffing hair, that may be your most direct route. Once you build ones you're happy with, casting 'em up is a simple matter...and adds to your growing skillset.

If you go that route, start here:

http://www.hfminis.co.uk/shop?category=accessories~converting: Female heads, and Female heads (b)

Awesome thank you. This may well end up being the route I have to go. Best solution I've seen so far at least.

FenWulf29 wrote:I really like the hazard stripes on the leman russ, really clean and they stand out well keep up the good work!

Lot's of people seem to really like the caution stripes. I'm thinking about changing the color scheme of my tanks to a red/grey/black pattern, and I think the caution stripes would look awesome on them.

Unfortunately the only tank I have done is one I painted months ago and it's hideous. I may upload it just so you guys can see what I have in mind, and then just do that (but better) for the rest of my tanks and add the caution stripes the Executioner had to them.

So yeah, White Stripes tanks with caution stripes on them

I clicked this because I liked the name of the thread. Always in favour of a fellow optimist Will be interresting to see your progress as well!

Your Wazdakka is supercool! I need to stick more guns to mine... I've also painted some warbikes lately (link in my sig). But Wazdakka wont be finished anytime soon.

Its freezing in Norway as well. So I can relate to your spraying-issues. I think the problem is only when spraying - not when it is drying. What I do is spray indoors into a box, then I air out and put the box outside for drying the minis. Not sure if this helps you.

Keep up the modelling.

More ! More ! More ! I want to see more guards !

I share your pain when you say cadian models get old. Sure you can paint them up all nice, but there still basic cadian models.

I like the way this is coming, I'll be watching....

 mayfist wrote:
More ! More ! More ! I want to see more guards !

I share your pain when you say cadian models get old. Sure you can paint them up all nice, but there still basic cadian models.

I like the way this is coming, I'll be watching....

More guardsmen will be coming once I find an acceptable set of legs for them. Problem is the cadian legs, which look exactly like what I need to capture that vintage cadian look, are just way too big to work with Vic's armored torsos. They look like they're doing MC hammer impressions.

I'll throw up a pic in a sec so you can see what I mean. I've got a guy who still has his Cadian legs on him and it's a bit ridiculous. And I just can't seem to get the legs off either. It's really annoying.

Waiting for that pic, sounds promising mate

And for the legs, why not more Victoria Miniatures ?



The poses are similar to the plastic cadian ones, and they look similar too.

Subbed and eagerly awaiting your progress updates!

In terms of getting good female heads, have you thought of trying Dark Eldar heads? (Especially wyches) they may have a slightly 'evil' twinge to them, but I think you could edit that out with careful clipping / painting?

As for the rest of it, some really good stuff so far, keep up the good work =D

So, apologies to everyone who posted. I had no idea anyone had posted on this, so hadn't checked it for a while.

To answer a few questions before this tiny update.

@Mayfist, I've thought about it. Problem is the only legs she makes are kilts (which I WILL be getting more of, lack of ability at painting be damned), conscript legs, which look too plain, and dress uniform, which look too fancy. None really match what I'm wanting, which is basic combat uniform. Ironically enough, I may have found a good match today, out of all places, the plastic catachan kit. Good thing about the catachan kits is that I can make some more blood axe orks with the arms and torsos at least

@Parkin, I've never seen dark eldar outside of their cardboard boxes with wings, so have no idea what they look like. I'll have to check some out and see how they look, but if they're pointy ears, they'll probably be too slim for my needs sadly.

So, here we go. This is just me trying a few different legs and kit ideas with my guardsmen, and I'm looking for you guys to give me some input.

First up. Catachan legs. Found this prepainted set in a bitz box at a local store, otherwise it would be bare plastic. Had to shave it down a bit, but I kind of like the look of it. The camera did NOT want to take a good pic of these things. I'm going to try again tomorrow and see if I can get a better picture (which means you'll probably see an update to it in a few weeks ) I really like the cargo pockets on them, although I kind of wish they had the shirts untucked, they'll probably end up being the best fit.

Next up, MC hammer legs. I'm really only posting these to show that they are officially out of the running. They may not look too bad here, but I assure you, they're ridiculous in person. I'm not sure what makes them look so bad, but I think it's the boots. They just look way too big.


Finally, a possible breakthrough in shoulder armor. I recieved some groin armor from vic (whether it was a gift or a mixup I have no idea) but I decided to fool around with it some using it as shoulder armor, with mixed results. In some areas it looks awesome, and on some it looks really stupid. I can't really explain it, so I'll let you see for yourself. I think it has potential, but I'll need to bend it into place in certain areas to make it not look so stiff. Other than that I think it looks pretty cool, especially when it "hangs" naturally, like on the first guy smoking.


So yeah, not much of an update guys sorry. The weather has made it hard to prime models, and I've been pounding away at painting my orks since it looks like that's what we're taking to adepticon if the team doesn't kill each other first. I'm kitbashing some biker nobz, but they're proving difficult. Hope to have them done soon.

Thanks for all the encouragement guys, it means a lot and helps keep me going. Thanks for the tips and I'll start looking into them soon. Peace out guys!

Consider Kroot armour bitz. You can see the pieces clearly, here:



Note the kneepads, groin armor, and gorget/neck piece. All of these are from the Kroot sprue.

Hope this helps.

--B.

The groin guards on the shoulders looks good.

I don't quite see the problem with the Cadian legs, although i do agree that the Catachan legs look much better.

Ok guys so I know I've fallen off the face of the earth, here's why.

1. I'm kinda broke. Haven't been able to afford anything. That'll change soon as I'm selling pretty much every GW IG model I own so I can get around to finishing my orders I need to make.

and 2. I need a new brush. Badly. Only problem is I can't find a good one. I need something for detail work, like doing guy's eyebrows and other details. Every brush I own has no tip to it, and I've had a hard time painting almost anything. I need recommendations for brands to look at for new ones.

Updates soon, been putting together dreamforge's stormtroopers and am about to start fooling around with them to see if my sisters of battle idea is genius or madness.


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Oh yeah, and do you think these heads would work well for my IG? Thinking about placing an order soon. They look about perfect for what I need


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http://madrobotminiatures.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9_10&products_id=26

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm selling pretty much every GW IG model I own

Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!

I 2nd that Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!

TheCaptain wrote:

 MrMoustaffa wrote:
I'm selling pretty much every GW IG model I own

Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Snrub wrote:I 2nd that Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!

Keeping all the old metal ones I own. Only selling the fugly Cadian plastic models (which I have an insane amount of) Also decided to hang onto my Catachans. They're abominations, but dammit, they're my ORIGINAL minis, so they stay. I think I had like 6 commissars that are surviving the purge as well.

And besides, said money I make off the cadians (around 200) is going to be going into building my new IG army, which will hopefully look awesome. It's part of the reason you haven't seen any updates. I made a massive order from vic, but didn't order any legs. So I've got like 50+ torsos and arms and heads ready to go, but no legs to put them on. A 100 easy is probably enough for me to get started on really rebuilding my IG right. 200 should be cake and get me stuff to buff up my orks and maybe even start up some sisters or something.

And after playing the new aliens games, some of my may or may not be wielding hasslefree's pulse rifles (would make kickass plasma rifles now that I think about it....)

I have no shame, stop staring at me like that. At least I haven't found a good Aliens APC yet so I can sell all my chimeras...

So, got some updates. No real pics yet, but need some ideas. First order of business, got 40 of these guys coming in the mail. For those of you unfamiliar with them, these are Starship Troopers Light Mobile Infantry. These are the guys from the movies. I really liked the look of them and found a bunch the other day for a good price, and jumped on the deal. They'll be here soon, and I was trying to think of ways to get these awesome models some table time. I think I'll use them as platoon infantry.



Now I know what you're thinking. "MrMoustaffa! That's insane! You can't use these guys, they don't have special weapons. And if you cut them up, you'll be damaging really rare minis that'll be hard to replace!" and to that I would say "Get out of my head Charles!"

So, these guys have a bit lower quality equipment than what my main troops will have (more info on that later) so I had an idea. Almost all of these soldiers have regular rifles, look "young" (they tend to be skinny) and have crummier looking tech. Now, let's say you have a veteran regiment that's seen a great deal of battles. They've taken losses and recieve a new batch of recruits. Would you really want those recruits handling things like your special and heavy weaponry, or being sergeants? No, of course not. So here's my plan. My "veteran" soldiers (aka the bulk of what my regiment will be) will be sprinkled among these new squads of recruits to provide specialist roles and leadership. As for justification of why they're BS is worse, you try taking a bunch of unproven rookies into battle and not have it feel like herding cats. If a guy is on a heavy weapon team, carrying a special weapon, or is a sarge, he will be one of my custom "veteran" troopers. If he's just some schmuck with a rifle, he'll be a mobile infantryman. I think it's got some potential and would add some character to my army. Only problem is I need to figure out a way to visually tie the vets in with the rookies, so that it doesn't look like I'm being lazy and mixing in two different types of models for no good reason.

I was thinking maybe a universal patch or something might work, but I'm not sure. What do you guys think?

In other news, I finally found heads that might work! These "Colonial Defense Heads" pretty much capture what I have in mind, or at least seem to be as close as I'm ever going to get to it. http://madrobotminiatures.com/zencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=26



Oh yeah and in other news, I've finally got new brushes. Expect to start seeing more painting updates soon, especially my Warlord Germans.

Thats it for now guys. Hope to have more updates soon!

Alright I'll bite... Where in the 19 hells did you find the Starship Troopers? I've been looking for a box of those boys for a good 2 years now and just as I give up hope and forget them, you dig up a full platoon. Anywhere that still has them in stock?

As to the "universal patch" you mentioned, have you thought of making your own ranking/squad marking system? What I've done with my minis (using Cadian arms usually) is a bordered shoulderpad with a custom rank on the right shoulder and squad/position designation on the left shoulder. I actually adapted letters from the Star Wars language (Aurebesh?) to use as ranks, and different geometric-looking shapes to say "Veteran" or "Sargeant" or "Special Weapons."

That way it doesn't matter if my dudes are wearing kilts, power armor, Halo style helmets, or whatever, a private has the same shoulderpad as any other private. With the way you've stuck those shoulderpads on it'd be easy to slap something on there.

So, life has been kicking my arse lately, and the P&M blog has suffered as a result. NO MORE.

 Yipyioh wrote:
Alright I'll bite... Where in the 19 hells did you find the Starship Troopers? I've been looking for a box of those boys for a good 2 years now and just as I give up hope and forget them, you dig up a full platoon. Anywhere that still has them in stock?

I knew a guy. I still have a ton of the powersuit infantry based on the TV show, so if you'd like those, I might be able to help you. I'll also PM you the name of the guy who sold me the "Light Infantry" (movie guys) I will say, they look awesome painted up. I'll post some pics in a couple of days once I have some more done.

In other news, I'm not dead! HOORAY! I've left this blog alone for a while mainly because I've not been painting. While I'm debating on quitting 40k, I've got a lot of cool models that still need to be painted, so don't worry, the IG will keep coming, even if they never see a game. I owe the little guys that much.

Onto an actual update. I'm getting into Flames of War, and picked the Hungarians as my army of choice. Something about their history (which can be summed up as "oh god everyone hates us why?") made them really stick out to me, and some of the battles they fought to protect their country in WWII were pretty amazing. As a result, I bought Open Fire!, and have started painting up the Germans as Hungarians, since they use similar equipment. Don't worry guys, just because I'm starting up FoW doesn't mean I'm leaving the 40k stuff off for good, this just gets me more variety in (who knows, maybe you'll see some completed Guardsmen by 2015 )

So yeah, without further ado, here's the first few pics. I got a new phone and it seems to have helped immensely with the quality of the photos.







They still need to be based obviously, but I'm really enjoying painting at 15mm. It's a lot less stressful. Not sure what to base them with, but I think dirt with patches of grass would look alright. I'll also try to get some pics up of my Mobile Infantry by the end of the week. I've got a few done and they're starting to look pretty cool.

Peace out guys.


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While I'm at it, I never really posted pictures of what my old paint scheme was. Those who's eyes may bleed from horrible painting might want to look away now.

You've been warned.

These are some of the only "survivors" of the original purge of cadians that I sold off a while back. These guys were my officers and my first commissar, and after all the gak they'd seen, I just couldn't part with them, no matter how badly painted they were. Click on each one if you'd like to zoom in, they're pretty good quality pictures so you can see the horrible horrible details in the gallery. The Commissar in particular looks like a particularly unfortunate burn victim, which fits the crazy stunts he's pull off ever since I got him quite nicely. Enjoy.

A small update to show that I haven't given up on my Guardsmen yet. Not really happy with the pattern on the Tartan, but this is the first guy, so I'll have plenty of chances to improve. I'll probably do a different one for each guy in the command squad till I find a pattern that I like.





Also, which of these looks better for lighting? I'm trying to nail down the concept of the "light box" and it's proving really tricky.

Number 1


And number 2


I'm so sorry Vic I wish I could paint better...

Good to see you back on the horse Moustaffa.

I really like the standard bearer. Great pose to be sure and a great use of Vics bitz. I'd have to say pic 2 is certainly the better lit. It's much brighter and clearer then pic 1.

So, I know you guys are really excited to see what I'm doing with vic's awesome bitz...





So I painted up a bunch of Germans instead

Need to work on the faces a bit more, but other than that I think they turned out really well.

Don't worry, I'm still working on my IG, I just need to have a bunch of these guys done before the 9th so they're taking up most of my focus for the time being.