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Hello all,

Well, this is it. A return to the hobby that I first delved into some 6-7 years ago. Back in my youth (I'm 21 now so back when I was 12-13) things such as highlighting, mold lines, shading and glazing were all completely foreign to me; I didn't need any advanced techniques to paint my models! All I needed was Boltgun Metal and Black Ink (I collected Iron Warriors ) Hopefully nowadays a little older and wiser, I can concentrate on really achieving a solid table-top quality standard to my models. Well, enough of the pre-amble, let's get down to it and see just how much my eye for detail and my 'steady' hand has improved shall we?

As you may have guessed from the title, this is my blog based on the AoBR set. I have to give Games Workshop kudos for releasing a truly awesome starter box with some lovingly detailed models. I decided to paint my Marines as Flesh Tearers; a Blood Angels successor chapter, and my Orks as Deathskullz; 'cause I like Deathskullz. Well, I sat down with my modelling clippers and hobby knife and eagerly ripped off the wrapping to my shiny new box of STUFF!

The first port of call was to get some of the models off of the sprues. 'Simple enough,' I thought 'Just need to apply pressure here!' Alas, I pushed down before obtaining a proper purchase and nearly sliced my hand in half. Lycaeus: 0; AoBR: 1. After calming myself down with a cup of tea and a shot of whiskey or 10, I managed to extricate the rest of the models without incident. Next I moved on to something completely alien to me: mold lines. After reading a few articles and watching a few videos I thought I had a fairly good grasp on how to do it. Unfortunately, when confronted with a particularly stubborn line and afflicted with a criminally short patience I went a bit beserk and nearly shaved off part of the Tactical insignia on my test model. Curses! Lycaeus: 0; AoBR: 2.


A sort-of panoramic shot of my painting/modelling area.

Annnnyway. As you can see above I'm now well into panting my Marines. I've got both my test and my Sergeant all painted up to the standard that I'm happy with. The other Tacticals have all got a layer of basecoat, two layers of watered-down Red Gore and a layer of Codex Grey on the aquilas.

Some close-up pics, yes?


A close-up of the Sergeant. Please note that his skin is not yet finished, and needs a further highlight or two.


The test mini. Apologies for the rubbish picture, I need to get a better handle on the photo skills.


The two finished marines.


The rest of the squad.

I quite like the dramatic look of the edge highlighting on Marines, and when the whole squad is completed they should look really quite striking. I'm especially looking forward to panting the Captain and the Terminators, to say nothing of the Warboss !

Anyway, stay tuned for regular updates and further modelling and painting calamities as I push on, TO VICTORY!

As always, comments and criticisms are much appreciated.

L. Wrex

Nice paintjob and excellent use of highlights - interested to see this develop

They are looking very good, nice to see another chapter painted, personally I like the flesh tearers (i think the assault aspect appeals to my orky nature) and these are v well painted.

Here's a tip, for those pesky mold lines, get some hobby needle files. Best purchase I've ever made.

Like the Flesh Tearers! Excellent highlighting, heck just throw on an ink wash and I'd say you're golden

I really like that color scheme.

Excellent start! I look forward to seeing this progress, its a nice change of pace from the normal Army Logs.

Thanks for the support guys! I should have another update for you tomorrow.

On a side note: would it be worthwhile putting a watered-down wash over the red to mute the highlights a bit? If so, which one would you recommend?

Until tomorrow!

L. Wrex

Very nice! For the sprues, get clippers (no need to cut yourself). For mold lines, files or an alternating blade (forward/reverse) works fine for me.

And IW FTW!

STOP! Update time!

Ok guys, sorry for the short delay between updates, I've been drafted in to help my parents rip up their old carpets in preparation for some new ones to go down which hasn't left much time for painting unfortunately. :( However, I have managed to get a further two Tactical Marines finished and without further ado here they are:



Next up should be another pair of Tacticals, including the ML Marine.

Enjoy!

L. Wrex

Dont push the models out with your fingers - youll hurt the models!

Other than that, great work on the FT - Whats the recipe for the white eagles?

Thanks for the comment!

The recipe is; Codex Grey, highlight 50% of the feathers with Fortress Grey and then highlight 50% of that with White. It's a very simple process but gives a very dramatic effect, particularly at a distance.

L. Wrex

Lookin good If you are looking for a wash for your red, I really like the baal red wash from GW. It makes the reds look alot richer and blends highlights pretty well. Keep up the good work.

Got another quick update for you all; finished the ML Marine and with it, my first Combat Squad! To celebrate I've decided to paint my Captain, and he'll hopefully be present in the next update.

HOWEVER, I need your help! I don't know how to go about painting his cloak. I already have an abundance of black and red in the scheme so I don't want to replicate that. I'm thinking a nice, deep blue with a white stripe on the exterior, whilst the interior will be done in the same vein as the cloth on the Sergeant. What do you guys think?

Onto the pics:




L. Wrex

EDIT. Throwing in a pic of Combat Squad Alpha for your enjoyment. Hope you like them!

Looking nice and what colour scheme/chapter is that?

They're the Flesh Tearers, a successor Chapter of the Blood Angels.

Glad you like 'em!

L. Wrex

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:Unfortunately, when confronted with a particularly stubborn line and afflicted with a criminally short patience I went a bit beserk and nearly shaved off part of the Tactical insignia on my test model. Curses! Lycaeus: 0; AoBR: 2.

Ah I hate it when that happens. A lot of times my orks look like they have just punched a wall thanks to mold lines on their fingers that required me to sic my file on them.

Anyways, nice job so far! Your doing an awesome job on the tactical squad.

I would suggest taking a look at some of the pro stuff, but a good suggestion would either be to go harmonious eg. a darker red or other, or complimentary so a green, blue or even maybe a purple (but only a little).

Also- are you going to convert those orks? at least convert the boss or something, unless of course you have no extra bits ect.

This is more of a status update rather than anything more substantial just to let you all know how I'm getting on.

So far, I've managed to basecoat both the Captain and the Terminators in Mechrite Red. Unfortunately, it was during this period that the one(!) brush that I had (and thus used for everything; from fine detailing to drybrushing) frayed completely and wouldn't give me the point I needed to paint to the standard that I want.

As a result, my painting was been put on hold until tomorrow at the earliest when I will (hopefully) be able to get a handful of dedicated brushes from my FLGS.

You should get a proper update, with some funky new pics, on Saturday.

See you then!

L. Wrex

I think you should go for a bright cloack, or maybe in some bleach bone color? I like how your marines are developing! keep it up


Automatically Appended Next Post:
cloak*

UPDATE TIME!

Sorry for the lengthy delay all, I struggled to find time to visit my local GW whilst juggling a job, gym and Forces paperwork BUT I'm back on it and haven't been idle in my absence. I now have a full squad of Tactical Marines and a Captain all painted up and posing for your viewing pleasure.

The next squad to get done is the Terminators.

Without further ado, I present you with; PICS!

Tactical Squad





Captain





I decided to keep the Captain's cloak the same bone-colour as the Sergeants in order to keep a sense of coherency and unity within the army scheme. Pre-banner he looked very white compared to the rest of the Flesh Tearers so I made sure that I offset this somewhat by making the primary colour of the banner red as well. As it stands I think he's turned out rather well, and I shall leave you now and get on with layering a foundation coat on my upcoming Terminators.

As ever, C&C is much appreciated.

L. Wrex

Looks great! Dunno what you did in during those 7 years, but you've come along way from Boltgun and black inc in my opinion.

Me and my friend got a similar story. He bought the AOBR set and went with the orcs, and I was supposed to go with the marines, but the call of the dark gods was to strong to resist, and now I'm building my IW army.

Love your choice of chapter btw. Have you read Red Fury by James Swallow? Got some nice FT action.

Nice!

I would use a darker grey for the highlights, maybe shadow grey. IMO, the light grey highlights detract from an otherwise excellent tabletop quality.

I like the work you've done so far, though. Keep it up!

Those don't look like highlights, the look like wear & abuse.

Jabbakahut is right the highlights do not look so. they look like either battle damage or edgings.
A more subtle highlight would have been better.

Hand on...which highlights are you commenting on? The grey highlights on the black?

How do they look like wear/abuse? Your comment has really thrown me, as I'm not sure what you're suggesting to rectify the problem.

orange1095: If you are also commenting on the grey highlights they are supposed to look like edging. That's why its called edge highlighting. I've got no idea how it looks like battle damage but thats just me...

L. Wrex

What i meant was that they are not subtle enough, or edge like on some models, for example your commander's edge highlighting is so uneven it looks like chips on the black paint. I think the solution is not to say "oh just have a steadier hand" i think it would be better for you to try a few watered down coats for the highlights, it would look so much better. it is the only thing i can say that lets the model down.
The only other thing i can say is that the gray you have chosen looks like bare plastic, so looks like real life wear on the models.

Understood. I'll see what I can do to alter it. Thanks for the suggestion!

L. Wrex

orange1095 wrote:...your commander's edge highlighting is so uneven it looks like chips on the black paint...

Yeah, I thought that was intentional, I actually like it. You could still add highlighting as you get better.

Very nice.