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Ho-lo Dakka,
So I am beginning another army blog, this one is for my Space Marines. They are a custom chapter - The Aegis Guard.

Mostly done here, but they are still WIP, needing touch ups. I started these a while ago, went back and learned how to paint yellow, and well... just better. I'm pleased with how they are they are coming out. I like the color scheme so far, and I'm using grey knight helms for most of the characters. I'm putting these blogs up to keep myself moving on these armies.

Background:

They are a loyalist successor chapter to the imperial Fists.
They are a relatively young chapter, only a few thousand years old.
They have suffered heavy losses in the last few centuries but are currently rebuilding.The chapter has lost the most of the second and the entire fifth and sixth companies. As such the have moved all reserve companies to line, battle companies and dispersed the first company among them.

Ninth Company:
I'm building the ninth company, freshly moved to a line company in the last sixty years. They have fought heavily in the Tigran sub-sector, defending the primary planet of Valena against a Chaos incursion. The traitorous forces were defeated, but the conflict attracted the attention of an ork Waaaagh!, my own Bad Moons.

So they are now locked in combat in the main city of Valena, which is why they are in an urban setting.

Anyway, I've got more background later.


Captain Decius:


OLD captain Aegis Guard, Ninth Company:

Still WIP -



Got some battle damage to do, and finish touch ups. I also need to finish his sword, but I haven't decided the way to go yet.



Captain Decius and his Command Squad

All still WIP, but mostly done. I haven't decided how to go on the power swords, I am not a huge fan of the lightning swords. I've experimented with some glazing white over the green, which failed, but might be the way I go. Any ideas?




Company Champion - still WIP:




Apothecary - obviously still WIP:





So as far as troops go, I have two tacticals very close to completion.

First Tactical:









Tactical the second:


Here's the Sarge and four others, there are still five more off camera resting.





Terminator SGT Voldoris:








Honored Brother Illyerion STILL WIP:









And the whole lot as it is now:




Continuing:

I still have to finish these guys up for the most part.

Then I have unassembled and stripped of paint to begin again as space marines:

1 Razorback
2 Rhinos
1Predator
1 more Dread
2 Tacticals
1 Devastator squad
1 Sternguard squad
2 Scout Squads
2 Land Speeders
1 Assault Squad


Whew. Between my orks, it's quite a task, but whole lotta fun.

Thanks for looking, any advice and C&C welcome!

So, been working on my orks as well so I haven't updated this blog in a bit. But I got a vindy for xmas, painted it up with my first attempt at sponge weathering. I am pleased with how this came out:

She's the Fera Bella which loosely translates (Read Google translates) to Beast of War:

Oh man that Vindicator is awesome. The custom chapter looks really nice also! All lot of times you see custom chapters that look really dumb or to much color.....not these....they are just cool!

You have a nifty idea going here. One idea is actually getting your hands on some simple shields from WFB knights and the like and using them on your vehicles, with your heraldry painted on.

The closest thing I have to major criticism is the power weapons. I know you don't like the crackly sith-lightning esque ones, but maybe a glowy orange/red instead? I think it would fit better with the yellows you're using here.

Thanks for the comments!

I really want these guys to be special, well at least to me.

I am definitely on a shield motif, since it fits in with the the name of the chapter. And well, being Imperial Fists descendants they are of course stubborn and hold ground.


I'm looking at some bits as my funds grow, anything with shield heraldry is worth adding. I would like some larger shields for my dreads. I'm also toying with redoing my weapon choices on my command squad to give them all storm shields, but the cost in points...

To tell you the truth, the power weapons are just sitting there. I have no idea what to do with them. I am not sold on the lightning power weapons I see. Some look great and some don't. I am not sure I can pull them off to be in the "looks great " group.

I am totally in love with Enzephalon's force weapon here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/431708.page#3953201. That is incredible.

I think I need to paint up an orange blade. I went with green because 80 percent of the models' color is yellow and there is a decent contrast. But I never thought about orange.

The yellow/bone/blue combo is looking good there.

I'm a big fan of the extreme weathering and filth you've got going on here...it looks really cool. Also the paint scheme is nice, subtle and low key, but visually appealing. Like to see more of this!

You're right, that is a nifty piece of work there, very otherworldly. I doubt my stuff will ever get on par with that blade or your weathering here.

Always be willing to fiddle, especially since you're trying to make a special force for yourself.

How were you planning to load out your scouts?

@ Wulfe Luer - I have a squad of snipers, which I want to do some kind of guille suit for camo cloaks. And I have a 'holding' squad, that is heavy bolter, sgt w/bolter/power weapon and the rest have shotguns and bolters. It's more for look than actualy game play for that last squad. I'm sure they'll get killed but I want to have a squad of infiltrating, fast moving objective holders.

I did the tank weathering with the sponge method. My first real success with that, and I have several colors of pigment from Vallejo. They are a lot of fun, take a little practice. I screwed up a few pieces with them before I got this one to work. But the cool thing is they wash off.


@ Cave Dweller, thanks. I think that marines should be in the muck and constantly on crusade with little time to clean up properly.

@Swordwind. Thanks! I toyed with about twenty schemes before settling on this one. I like it. My first attempt at yellow came out horribly orange and I didn't even notice it. They also had full blue helmets. It was pretty terrible looking back. I guess I had to learn to work with colors.

Well, well. It's been a while since I posted any updates, I'll try to keep them coming. There's been more updates to my orks lately.

Okay, so I got some really cool parts and made up a nice jump chaplain. This is Chaplain Artemideris:










I really like how this model came out. I tried something new with the jump pack heat. As always C&C welcome.

I'm working on Sternguard, more Tacs, and my command squad(redux). Should have more updates soon. Thanks for looking.

I really dig the sponge weathering on the Vindicator.

Constructive criticism-wise, I think the tactical squads are too heavily washed. I understand you're going for a "weathered" look, but the wash allowed to pool on the flat yellow surfaces makes it look sloppy instead of "dirty". I think sponge-weathering them just like you did the Vindicator would be awesome.

Well, now I see that too, great!

I think I need to go back over them and highlight over the raised parts of the armor where the wash pooled. So far my sponge attempts on infantry haven't faired too well, but I have practiced it on orks a little more. I might give it a try.

I still have so much to paint, but I do want them to be the best that they can be, which is honestly why we post in blogs, so we can get feedback and other folks can see what we may not see.

Thanks Raatcharch

The one thing i really like is the use of the GK terminator heads on the sergants, really sets them apart from the rest of the army

Young Logan

Yeah I wanted something to make them stand out. I envision this chapter to be very knightly, I don't mean like WFB Bretonnians but well, I don't know honourable, true loyalists, Imperial fist descendants. I love the GK helmets myself, so had to have some. It just kind of evolved into the squad leaders and honor guard types having this armor, as a type of inner circle.

So I figure I am going to put up some WIP shots to show what I'm working on and to help keep this thing flowing. I get busy, lose track of time and it is months between blog updates. Eh.

I retooled my Captain. I got to thinking about him and the previous load out, a relic blade and plasma pistol. It didn't really work. SO now he has a relic blade (different one mind you) and a storm bolter. I LOVE storm bolters, they are everywhere in my army.



I still need to do more clean up and weathering.







I think that he is coming out better than the previous version. But I really want to clean up this model and weather it a bit more.

Here's some Sternguard WIP pics. I know I know, heavy flamer negates the special issue ammo, but the opportunity to do a heavy flamer was just too much. I might do two. I don't play competitive anything anymore, so I put what I want in my squads.

I picture these guys in the streets, clearing buildings with flame and melta shots.

Lookin' good! The yellow color is fantastic! nice work.

I like this army man!
Great conversions all round!
I LOVE the HF in the Stern Guard squad!
Although personally I don't like the combi-weapons.
Try something like this for a combi-melta...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/408559.page
and for a combi flamer just swap the melta bit in the tutorial for a Cadian flamer part (thinner that SM flamer) and replace the other melta part with the flamer's tank.

Some of the heads on your command squad look a bit out ofnproportion but the colour is great. Nice chapter.

Thanks for the comments and critiques.

It's amazing to me the things that I don't notice. The tactical squads were pretty blotchy in places.So I am attempting to clean them up with a highlight. I've also made a bunch of changes to different units, but I'm leaving the old pictures in the blog to show the evolution. IF I EVER FINISH anything.

@ Flying Poo - Yeah.... I really like your combi bolters far better than my own, but I am not sure if I want to rip them apart right now and start over. Wish I had seen that a week ago. I have a grip of storm bolters from tac termies that I could do something similar too.

Here's my string of bad luck/mishaps/frustrations lately with this army:

- Started my Librarian. Forgot how to paint blue. Horrible fiasco with Asurman blue on white, it looked like a ghost of a member of the Blue Man Group. Back into SuperClean for You!

-Actually tried, tried mind you and I have no clue why, actually tried to paint a chaplain black in layers up from a white primer. (I prime about everything white) Back into SuperClean for you!

- Tactical squads big spots of wash all over them. I am able to repair one by adding a highlight layer over it, which I should have done in the first place. But the other will have to be completely redone in order to fix that, It was the first squad I painted in proper yellow, my first attempt came out orange. Don't ask. But anyway, I had used a yellow ink in the paint that makes anything added to the top of it run and not hold at all. Back into SuperClean!

- Command squad was almost finished, i was putting on the last yellow layer, the one I missed on the tactical squads, and was using the new Citadel paints. I had used Averland Sunset and Yriel layer with great results, so I puton the last layer of Flashgitz yellow and even though it went on smooth and I had it watered down, as I do, it dried on everything I used on with a grainy, thick glop. No matter how thin I applied it, same results. I guess that serves me right for using new paint on almost complete models. Anyway, back into the damned SuperClean for them.

I had some good luck with my assault terminator sgt last night. I may finish him today if I have the time and post that up.

I've been able to paint up orks like a factory lately, but my blessed Aegis Guard are like the Cursed Founding. Mutation!

I really like the use of the GK Terminator heads - one of my friends does that for his Exorcists Sternguard - but I feel that the PAGK heads (the ones on the regular grey knights, not the Terminators) might be better scaled for use on regular power armour.

Everything looks pretty good though. You might want to thin the yellow a little and do a couple more layers. I know that yellow is a bitch to paint, but more layers never hurts with yellow. It looks fine right now, but another layer or two would really eliminate some of the spottiness and streakiness. I'm mostly going off of the dreadnought for this critique, and it appears that you've been getting better since then - the Captain looks much better!

The bone on the Chaplain and the white everywhere else looks good though, but your highlighting of the yellow could use a little work. I might also suggest a gryphonne sepia wash (or whatever GW calls it these days) to shade the yellow a bit if that hasn't been done already.

So I must be crazy or the pictures are making them look like it, but the GK termie heads look fine proportionally here. Maybe it is the pics, but since there's at least two people that see it, I gotta believe you guys. .

@Joshh - yeah I thin it out, but you know I don't think I've been layering enough. I got an update, did this termie assault SGT today, I think he came out great. I haven't weathered him yet. But the yellow is nice. I think I found my recipe.

So I learned some things today:

1. Yellow requires more layering and trials at layering than any color I've tried before.
2. Don't rely on washes too much
3. Washes should NEVER be a final coat
4. Thin out paint, then thin it again. Halfway through your layer, thin it more.
5. Painting is like cooking, it requires experimentation until the recipe is right and certain dishes/styles are more forgiving.
6. Yellow Orks are far easier to make look good than Yellow Space Marines.
7. Pictures come out farrrr better with scenery and multi source lighting instead of just multi source lighting
8. All of these thing s have been said before, but it takes practice I think to really understand it when other people give you advice.


So okay, here is my Assault Termie SGT:










Also, I tired do some repair work on one of my tactical squads - Ooo and I've decided to make all past and future sqts have red hemlmets.





Anyway, thanks for looking, it has been a journey this week. But I think I'm getting better and that's what I want. So I'm leaving the older stuff up so I can see how I'm progressing.

1. Yellow requires more layering and trials at layering than any color I've tried before.
2. Don't rely on washes too much
3. Washes should NEVER be a final coat
4. Thin out paint, then thin it again. Halfway through your layer, thin it more.
5. Painting is like cooking, it requires experimentation until the recipe is right and certain dishes/styles are more forgiving.
6. Yellow Orks are far easier to make look good than Yellow Space Marines.
7. Pictures come out farrrr better with scenery and multi source lighting instead of just multi source lighting
8. All of these thing s have been said before, but it takes practice I think to really understand it when other people give you advice.

Amen to all that!

I like the red helmets on the sergeants and now I've noticed that I really like your bases!

Thanks Flyin' Poo! I usually prime on flat bases, pop the models off and attach them to a finished base after painting. I like to do up like 20 or 30 at a time and keep them stored.

Okay. Well as always a huge length of time between posts. Not only busy but I've had to do some thinking.

My first finished models just didn't jibe with my latest. I think I've been getting better, but the main fact was color matching. My earlier stuff was too brown. I've been able to adjust one squad and do some highlights, but when it came down to the command squad, dreads, and termies, well... they were just not right. I started over. Again.

Well, I have three dreads and I've done magnetizing for all the arms. It just won't do to have the colors be off. Same thing with the termies. So I stripped back a bunch of models, and started over. Then I started really thinking. Seven layers to get to the yellow I liked. Seven. Per model. That is going to take me years.

SO my wife picked me up some yellow flat spray. Cut that in half. Boom!

Here's my test model, still not done as far as highlighting, but it has a prim, wash, then layer:




Not bad so far. So let's get going with the rest of the company. NOTE: I kept my original two squads of tacticals, my chaplain, and my termie assault sgt,, oh and the Fera Bella. Everything else was re-done.


Setback! Ugh. So the flat yellow spray was decent, but I ran out of Sepia wash on my test models. So I got some more. Same stuff. GW Seraphim. It utterly dried atrocious. Never seen any wash do this. I posted about this failing so I won't go into to it too deep, but I batch shaded the whole rest of the company. They came out really awful:







IDK why. Splotchy and red orange. Here's a compare. The SM on the left is from my first Seriphim Sepia pot the one on the right is from the second. Why GW?




Anyway, here's a trip for everyone else back to the drink:





I have taken this as an opportunity to really mull over the direction I want to go with this chapter. I just ordered some more parts. I'm going to try and make the captain and veterans a lot more unique. And I am totally remaking the sternguard.


Sigh. But oh well. I am having good initial luck with Army Painter Daemonic Yellow spray. Will post up my Assault Squad too. Now, some scouts:


Here's some of my scout snipers with camo cloaks still WIP:








I plan on painting these guys up in gray tones only. I wanted a ghillie suit type thing. I spent an evening putting strips of gauze wetted down in water/PVA glue to these guys. I like how they came out. I doubt they are sort of way effective on the field, but they are cool and fun to do.

As always, thanks for looking.

Sometimes I hate this hobby.

I just seem to hit roadblock after roadblock after roadblock....


So in my vain attempt to cut my painting time and excruciating effort in painting yellow SMs down, I purchased some yellow primer. Army Painter Daemonic to be exact. Now compared to the cheapo hardware flat yellow I had, this bonds well, covers nice, etc.

It bonds and covers a little too well. Half of the primed models I did came out great. Some got covered so thick, that I had to strip them. Boom back in the SuperClean again (Heartless woohoo) I swear my models spend more time in the SuperClean lately...

So as I am painting my Assault squad I realize that the legs are covered in dusty paint. You can't paint over it. So guess where they get to go.

I go to scrub the models this morning and lo and behold - ruination! WTH? I have stripped hundreds of models in SuperClean and no issues. This bottle was used before and no issues. It only seems to be when they are primed with Army Painter. Sigh:

My former captain, he's got small melt holes all over:



Termie next to the captain, the gouge is from my thumb nail. That boy is melted:




My dread weapons, thick paint stuck on, but underneath, it melts! It freezes!:



These next two, the paint won't come off. They stayed in just as long and are starting to get damaged:







Now this guy was in there with everyone too, no real issues and the paint came off:





So, has anyone seen this before with Army Painter and Superclean? if so, I still have about 15 SMs and my two dreads covered in half stripped paint, anyone know a safe way to strip Army painter? I've been looking online and I am not seeing anyone else with this issue.

I honestly was liking the coverage. It is easy to paint over when it works, but unforgiving. One too many sprays and the coverage is too thick. But if there's no way to strip it, it is useless to me.


Any help appreciated, I'm a little skiddish.

So I think that this is noty necessarily an issue with the primer. I got a very quick response from the nice guys at Army Painter and they said that they have not heard of a reliable way to strip color primer. I haven't come across much either on line. I am adding to my checklist, to be very careful when priming.

The dust is from being too far away. The thick is from too close. I know I had to have moved around. But just FYI, if you are stripping this stuff, don't keep the models in the drink too long.

Strip using LA Amazing. 1$ at the dollar store. What a bargain. And It WILL strip the paint in about a day.
also...Dont leave it in for too long. IT will soften the plastic if you go for a long time so best thing to do in your case is take a test mini, dunk that as an experiment.
also...
You can use a cheap bubbler like they use in a fish tank or some other means to agitate the solution so that it moves around the models to facilitate the stripping. For more info consult with Stripping models the orky way. Its a thread here on dakka.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/365067.page
Good luck dude.

I feel your pain big time. I had a whole batch of minis ruined by lumpy primer (GW). I was furious. Then later i ruined a batch of my girlfriends sisters of battle minis (furious) again with gw primer. I have never had problems with army painter primer but a freind of mine has. you have to be careful with the temp that you use it at as well as the humidity. I pay close attention to these two factors.
with respect to the issues you are having with the wash. I have had Exactly the same problem. only mine was even worse. the wash puddled and dripped. Nothing i could do but deal with it. I am sorry for your loss.

Yeah I think I'm going to rename this blog the FAILblog. I managed to hit the right distance and environment with about half of the batch I did, so I think in the future I need to be real careful. If it saves four layers of painting per model, its worth it.

I think all but the captain are salvagable, and I just said to hell with it and got a bunch of new bits for something a little different.

I'll definitely try LA Amazing, thanks!

On the wash note, Agrax Earthshade I got is working like a champ. Seraphim is not. But hey, my next pot of Earthshade may fail too. I'm gonna try some others maybe. Earthshade ain't going to last long, seems like the new pots are half full. Anyway, I hope to actually have progress to post instead of failures this week.

All aboard the FAILBLOG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here's a pic from one of my recent games against my nine year old, she was playing as the Orks. Needless to say, I was overrun.







On a positive note, IF YOU ACTUALLY FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS, PRODUCTS WORK AS EXPECTED!

So after talking to the guys at Army Painter, I realized that they were not kidding about the priming distance. I just finished priming the entire army. Woohoo! and it worked without any issues(mostly). I just had to make sure not get too close or too far back. Anyway, I have the whole army primed now or, well, they are in various stages, but they are all at least primed. So... Headway!

Been a bit since I posted updates. But I've been busy, nothing complete, but a bunch of WIP.

Since I primed the whole army, I have had a nice morale boost. It really makes you want to finish when you see the whole force assembled and primed. Although, right now I'm going blind from the yellow glow in my home office.


So here's a grip of WIP pics:


Third Tactical squad, a little bit of converting on the flamer and sgt. I think this is my only Tactical squad that doesn't have any AOBR or BFM marines in it.






Next my first of the scout snipers that is almost completed. I'm keeping them in a gray scale as much as possible to blend in with the urban ruins of Valena.













Next, a complete(almost) re-do of the Sternguard. Looking at them after they went into the drink and the old pics, I totally had to agree with Flyinpoo. The weapons just didn't work. I got some fresh bolter bits and Blood Angels hand flamers/meltas I had used, and made more of a uniform look. I also swapped out the heads to regular marines. I want to keep the Grey Knight/older style helmets to command staff.












I've started on the 4th tactical squad too. Tried to make them a bit less static by converting the AOBR sgt. Just a couple arm and head swaps. He came out pretty good I think.





Last but not least, the command squad.

My priming disaster took the biggest toll on the captain. Oh well, when life gives you lemons, to quote Phil Hartman, turn around and demand the oranges that you asked for originally.


Anyway, it gave me a chance to get a bunch of random cool bits and see what I could come up with to make a good, unique model for the army. I'm pretty happy with how he came out so far, still very WIP. But his armor looks like artificer should I think and the rest of the squad is nice and fluid in theme. These guys are the elite of the company and have the best equipment. I did a little casting for the right shoulder pad on each of them, using the captain's as a guide.
















So that's my big group of WIPs. Starting to come together and I am happy with what I have so far.

Completed to Date:

2 Tactical Squads and a Chaplain.