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Update: I'll be adding updates for my own stuff here as well as the Eldar for Richard. I'm too lazy to create another P&M blog and I've already updated more than I thought I would so hopefully I'll keep this one up.

I've got plastic storage bins full of over a decade of playing, painting, and collecting little army men. It's time to dust them off and finally get them ALL up to table standards.

I'm not the worlds best painter (from from it).

I'm not the fastest (see below where I fail to meet deadlines).

I'm not the most creative (see everything I've done).

But by god I spent way too much money on GW product to let it sit around not being loved. I've got five armies in differing states of disrepair and poor paint. Not to mention that I still need to finish Richard's army (he found another half a dozen jetbikes, a fire prism, and a couple weapon platforms in his garage to add to the pile of neglected space elves).

This is gonna be a long road, with lots of hours hunched over my desk. Lucky me that the girlfriend (who is wonderfully tolerant of my hobby even if she doesn't quite understand it) has a netflix account with plenty of TV shows to watch while I stain my hands with glue and paint.



Let the madness begin!

Original First Post:
I got my friend into 40k years ago and he played Eldar. Long story short his army has been boxed for a while and I'm going to spruce it up for him and give it back for a Christmas present.

Probably lame as far as presents go, but hey, it's gotta be better than socks right?

Anyhow hopefully this p&m blog will help give me the motivation to get it done on time for this year. Given my slow painting skills and missing parts it's going to be close but it's worth a shot.

Here's the army as it started this journey.



And the parts I have to work with.



I'm not even sure there's enough parts to finish all the guardians and I'm missing some key pieces on a lot of the others. No turret on the fire prism, missing a wraithlord arm, missing rider legs for the jet bikes.

Going to get what I can on Ebay to make things work.

First step though is getting the old caked on paint off.

Bye bye bases...



... into the tub ...



... Hello Simple Green.



Hopefully they paint will come right off after work tomorrow.

Got off work and headed to straight to the garage and the simple green vat that had the Ulrad and crew in it.

Scrubbed away for an hour...



and they still had gratuitous amounts of red paint adhered to them.



I'm not sure what kind of spray he used to prime those minis, but it's resiliant I'll give it that. The black and white primed Firedragons and Rangers both came out mostly clean, but they're all going in for another night of soaking. Hopefully they'll clean up tomorrow or I'm going to try using LA's Totally Awesome on them. Who knows... maybe the threat of dunking in something so awesome will make the paint come off tonight.

On another note, I've done up a practice Guardian to show the new scheme. Still Sam Hain, since that's what he wanted back in the day, even if it is a foot slogging army.




Yeah two almost identical pictures, but they help show the models in questions. The one on the left is the one I just painted. He needs eyes, but I haven't decided what color to go. I know green seems standard, but I don't want them looking too Christmasy...

Even though it is a Christmas present.

After another day soaking in Simple Green, the rangers and the Wraithlord have emerged. There was still some paint... stuck under superglue.

After most of an evening spent trying to clear up all the glue/paint he have success.



The heavy weapon crews and the warlocks are still bathing with Eldrad. The red spray paint is stupid tough to get off. It's mostly lingering in the recesses now.

Still doing to bits shopping, trying to find a suitable replacement right arm for the big guy. Not much luck, but I'm finding many similar Wraithlords with the missing part. If I can't find the singular bit I'll just order one of those and make a copy using Instant Mold. Or try a custom sculpted arm, but frankly my GS skills are barely sufficient for the other bit's I'm making.

Edit:
I'm still looking for ideas and suggestions on what I can do to this army to get it up to casual standards. Any tips, tricks, feedback, complaints, insults, suggestions, or thinly veiled passive aggressive remarks would help.

Very cool, hope you get this finished in time. Man if i could get a repainted 40k army for christmas I'd be happier then I am when I'm in a candy shop. And that's like super fething happy.

Cool project. I wish my friends got me a painted army for xmas. I will be keeping my eye on this thread...

Poop. Three days sitting in Simple Green and six hours combined scrubbing. Looks like it's time to switch solvents.



Simple Green just ain't so simple.

Thank you Ultimate and lunar for the words of encouragement.

I picked up a bottle of LA's Totally Awesome on Saturday and dumped the still partly red models in it to soak. Also dropped a plastic Guardian in there to see how that nasty red paint came off some plastic army men. I wasn't going to attempt to remove the paint from the guardians except that they're really lumpy looking as is and respraying them would cover up too much detail.

So a little over two days later and with far less scrubbing here's the results.



I think the new stuff did fairly awesome. It's also really easy to tell which models are older...

Get it... because it's the brand name. I'm hilarious.

Or not. Anyway tomorrow should be productive, Hopefully.

After failing to complete a highly similar project I wait with anticipation for the completion of yours!

No new pictures at the moment, but more bits have been ordered, some sculpting done, and all the Guardians have been stripped.

I'm just about finished painting the first Guardian squad sans heavy weapon platform and will throw up a couple photos once I get that done... Probably Tuesday afternoon.

Someone should hold me to that lol...

Just dropping off a pic of the first guardian squad.



The red is done... that's about it...

Good job getting all that paint off, I've done it before and I know how much of a b#&%h it can be. Also I'm thinking about doing this with my unpainted Eldar army, small world hey?
I'm looking forward to seeing more units as you complete them, btw thats a solid test paint job, I know I'd be pretty happy if all my Eldar were painted to that standard!
Good luck

Received my bits and more modeling epoxy. Thank you Mr. Mailman.

I've got the wraithlord disassembled and soaking to strip the paint. I've already got several pictures up of stripping paint so a few more seemed redundant.

New parts include the heavy weapon platforms and the aforementioned wraithlord. Both are the old style to match the miniatures that he has already.

I'll be duplicating the right arm in green stuff so I can assemble both wraithlords. It was cheaper to grab a complete spare model than to pick up just the missing arm.

Go Ebay...

Edit: I'm still open to suggestions for gem/eye colors and basing ideas. I'm leaning toward blue gems and going for grey rubble bases but haven't decided.

Hey, just a trick for the simple green... use a glass mason jar and make make sure it's about 90% filled with models and full of simple green. Make sure some of the models are metal as well. Shake it enough and it simulates a tumbler pretty well and the paint all starts to knock off from the vibrations, no brushing required. I'm also going to try the method with a spare jewellry tumbler instead, but it looks like LAs totally awesome worked well for you.

Some minor progress.

I got the right arm molded to replace the missing part. Had to cast twice because I can't watch tv and play with epoxy at the same time.



It'll be passable anyway.

Yeah yeah recasting is bad blah blah.

martian_jo wrote:Had to cast twice because I can't watch tv and play with epoxy at the same time

XD

Awesome stuff btw

Between drying pieces on the wraithlord I've been trying to figure out what to do about the missing turret on the grav tank.

I've rearranged some war walker bits to make a halfway decent looking turret for a counts as wave serpent. I don't know if he'd rather use it as a wave serpent or a falcon (or even a fireprism). Or if I want to use those warwalker parts for something else (like a war walker...).



Still thinking of alternatives....

I also vote "not lame" Christmas Present! You are a true friend. I absolutely HATE stripping old metal models.

While we're voting, what about yellow eyes for the guardians?

Good luck!
Rawson

I actually like the turret. It looks very alien, and definitely like it can put out a whole buckets worth of shots.

Question.. What is LA's Totally Awesome?

Bro that is an AWESOME Wave Serpent turret. I run Scatter Laser Serpents, and this looks way better than the GW version!

Not a lame Christmas present at all.

Rawson wrote:I also vote "not lame" Christmas Present! You are a true friend. I absolutely HATE stripping old metal models.

While we're voting, what about yellow eyes for the guardians?

Good luck!
Rawson

Yellow eyes... hmm... I'll do a test model and see how it turns out. My yellow selection of paints is rather limited but it would go well with the red.

Andrewdrexler wrote:I actually like the turret. It looks very alien, and definitely like it can put out a whole buckets worth of shots.

Question.. What is LA's Totally Awesome?

LA's Totally Awesome is a multipurpse cleaner/degreaser. You can pick it up at the dollar store or Walmart. It's cheap and works fairly well for paint removal.
http://www.lastotallyawesome.com/
I've actually been using my bottle for cleaning up since it's out with my wargaming stuff and not tucked under the sink and it's a pretty good product.

Tek wrote:Bro that is an AWESOME Wave Serpent turret. I run Scatter Laser Serpents, and this looks way better than the GW version!

Not a lame Christmas present at all.

Thanks for the feedback. I guess the turret issue is settled. Most of the heavy weapons are already pinned so they can be swapped as needed so i'll just do the same to these scatter lasers and bulk up a bright lance with green stuff for when he wants a falcon.

These are looking vastly improved already, always good to see abused/neglected minis taken in and nursed back to health.

Argh! It's already December. I haven't made nearly as much progress as I'd like. Still at least it's some progress...



I've got another squad of guardians cleaned up and primed, as well as the wraithlord assembled and primed. I've also cleaned up the fire dragons, rangers, and the warlocks. The striking scorpion conversions are at about 20% and the dire avengers are about 25%.

I'm stupid enough to believe I might finish by Christmas, or at least close enough to still make it a Christmas present.

We'll see...

More progress, the dire avengers are at 70% and just about finished the second guardian squad and wraithlord. I'm thinking one final edge highlight should do it for both units.


The guardians...


Just about finished the wraithlord as well, since the photo I've added sand to the base.


Not much more to show yet... Though I've gone through 4 seasons of lost and two seasons of Heroes while working on these guys...

Just about there with the Dire Avenger Exarch.



The rest of the squad will be regular guardians with plumed heads like this guys.

C&C anyone?

Finished up the two Exarchs. Their weapon loadout is WYSIWYG so there shouldn't be any problems in friendly games.

The one on the left is a Dire Avenger Exarch with dual Shuriken Catapults and the one on the right is a Striking Scorpion Exarch with Shuriken pistol and Scorpion's Claw.



That's the end of the major conversion work. Now on to the massive painting.... How long till Christmas?

Oh poop....

Gah! just realized the Scoprion's Claw replaces the shuriken pistol not the chainsword. Boo.

Time to chop and swap...

Really great thread! I love seeing old minis refurbished like this. This will make a good force and an excellent Christmas present...but you'd better paint faster only a few days left!

Well, I missed my Christmas goal. We're getting together to do some gaming tomorrow so I'm out of time. Just going to have to show him pictures and say "This is what's coming."



Where the army stands now. I've gotten the Dire Avengers assembled, the Striking Scorpions/Storm Guardians Assembled and ... that's about it. Painting is really time consuming.

Here's the Striking Scorpions / Storm Guardians. I'm also modelling a pair of special weapon guardians to count as flamers or meltas depending on what he'll want to field. They're modeled on Dark Eldar torsos with Eldar Guardian heads. Add the Exarch and they're Striking Scorpions. Take him away and drop in a couple flamers and they're Storm Guardians. Easy conversion work that gives him options.


Similar approach to the Dire Avengers. They're regular guardians with a custom sculpted head. They can count as dire avengers or he can field them as regular guardians.


Guardians are just guardians, but hey, at least I finished a couple actual models...


And here is the first of the jet bikes I was working on. I was going for a marble look but I'm not sure if I like how it turned out.


And that's where I'm at. I'll show my friend the pictures of the army tomorrow and see what he says. Hopefully I'll actually get it finished over the next couple weeks.

It'd help if I didn't paint at a snails pace...

I gave Richard the codex and showed him the latest pictures of the progress. I think he was happy and apparently he has another box of jetbikes and such that he'll be sending my way to repaint as well.

Apparently the turret to the fire prism is there as well. Sweet.

He was appreciative, so much so that he gifted me Dead Island in return. Sweet!

Hopefully with all the new video games I have acquired from christmas won't slow my painting down too much lol...

So now that I've switched gears and am turning this into my general P&M I figure it's time to assess my armies and figure out where I'm going with them...

Oh lordy I've got a lot of little army men...



See the carnage unfurled upon my drafting table...



And some examples of some things I've already painted. Yes... Most need based.

Obvious AoBR Captain. He's been painted in the colors of the Omega Doom Fist Angel Knights. ODFAK... long name, amazing results.


Here's his trusty Apothecary friend. Useful for patching up the old man when he hits himself with his glowing sword.


The perpetually constipated looking librarian to smite anything that gets to close:


And a hapless tactical marine to allocate wounds to. Poor cannon fodder...


My trusty dual TL Devourer Hive Tyrant, decked out in Hive Fleet Minnow colors.


None of my orks, Imperial Guard, or necrons are really worth taking pictures of yet. When I figure out what army is up after I finish Richard's Eldar then I'll get some decent "before" shots taken and posted so the "after" shot will be somewhat impressive. Mediocre actually starts to look good when you stick it side by side with crappy.