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Got the warriors done, along with four sets of scarabs, huzzah. They got more attention than scarabs and warriors have any right receiving. But it isn't like I get to play much, so I might as well go all out on the painting.

Tried out some NMF metallic polishing powders on them, and it turned out pretty great, though the real metal sheen doesn't seem to come through the pictures well.

I, once again, readily admit some of the OSL is a bit overboard, but I'm pretty happy about it. I think it gives a nice eerie feel I also included some updated pics of my monolith based on some awesome feedback I got in my last thread. Big shout out to Nowoo for all his great feedback.

Finally, using an actual DSLR camera now we got for Christmas, so photography tips are now greatly appreciated as I actually have some control over the pictures. Once again, would love any feedback.

First the scarabs. Necrons can be pretty simple, and I hate that. So I decided scarabs would leave glowing ooze puddles when they ate through things. Since my bases were going to be schemed as rising up in an imperial city I figured this would give me an excuse to practice with some fun OSL and terrain techniques. The scarabs themselves are busy eating through marines and rubble.

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Next the actual warriors. I'm going with a theme of the higher you are in the hierarchy the more bronze/copper bits you get, so warriors are limited to strait steel. Not much I could do there. I did want to give the rods a bit more spice and do some battle damage though. I also realized the natural texture of the bases looked like asphalt, so I took advantage of that on a few of them using plasticard to make curbing and white glue to make those tar sealant lines you always get. I'm trying to decide if I want to add ash and ash drifts later down the road.

Terrain thoughts would be greatly welcome.

Lost an arm and though, "BATTLE DAMAGE!" Went for a glowing fiber optic effect. Thoughts? (his gun is actually pointing directly at the camera in this shot. oops.)

It is worth noting the guardsmans head in this one. I think the newly re-done portal in the background is looking great too.

A better view of some of the OSL green goo puddles.
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Finally a group shot of everything I have so far. (note: this only looks out of focus due to Dakka's resizing engine. If you want a better view of anything look at it in my gallery you can actually zoom in on each individual unit)


Next step is the command barge.

nice ! make shure you don't go crazy on the OSL

It's just so pretty though...

Those look great! I like the OSL on them. A lot.

My only point of critisism is the nubbin on the back of the marine for the backpack. It looks out of place!

Photography seems fine though. Maybe isolate the subject more?

I really like the OSL personally, especially on Necrons .

As for the photograpy, try to create diffuse light for your photo's. You can create this easily by reflecting the light from a white matte surface, like normal paper.

Also, if you have got an DSLR, invest in a macro lens. It allows you to take extremely sharp pictures from extremely small objects. It will completely remove the blur from your photo's like you have now. Downside is that macro lenses are relatively expensive.


Edit: Alternatively, if you do not want to buy an expensive macro lens, you can simulate the effect by zooming your current lens in to the max, then adjusting your camera distance to the object until it becomes sharp. It won't allow you to get as close to the object as with a macro lens, nor will it allow you to do sharp group shots due to a bigger focus shift, but it will be very sharp and you can crop the image afterwards with Photoshop or the likes.

I wouldn't invest in a macro lens. The only advantage a macro lens has for miniature photography, is the close focus distance. Nothing you cannot get with a good lens with high focal lenghts. High focal lengts will allow you to get a fully filled frame of a miniature, even while keeping a 1m distance from your mini. For single 28mm figs, I tend to attach my 80-200 mm f2.8 lens on a crop camera and at the 200mm range, that fills up my frame nicely.

A macro lens tends to be a prime lens as well, meaning your framing will have to be done by moving the camera to zoom. This doesn't offer the same flexibility your have as you'd have with a normal telelens with a zoomrange. All I'm saying is: good luck framing larger miniatures (like tanks, stormravens, ghost arcs, monoliths...) with something like a 60mm macrolens. You'll have to move your camera so far back that at that point, the only advantage of a macro lens is nullified.

Also... macrolenses tend to be rather expensive because of their large aperture openings (a setting I avoid for mini's, because I want deep depth of field when taking my shots (so f8.0 to f16 on aperture priority mode).

A good thing about macro lenses though, is that they are really sharp. I cannot name 1 macro lens that is a bit of the soft side (even from 3rd party manufacturers like tamron or sigma).

But I wouldn't advice an (often very expensive) macrolens for mini photography. Invensing in a tripod (no need to make it an expensive one, it needn't be super rugged) and a 55-200mm f4.5-5.6 kitlens is MORE then you'll ever need for miniature pictures.

@OP: what camera did you get for christmass and what lens came with it? Judging from your pictures, you took your shots in "macro mode" (the depth of field seems quite shallow in these shots)? Try aperture priority mode (Av or A depending on camera brand) and take a few shots at aperture f12 or something and see how that turns out for you.

Thanks for the photography advice. I'm using a Canon 60d with an 18-135 lens. I did shoot them in macro mode at full zoom, which I guess accounts for the limited area of focus. I'll try some with higher aperture setting today. Thanks again.

Using a tripod? If so, make sure you keep your ISO nice and low.... at 100 or 200. Don't worry about the shutterspeed running up to a second or 2 at that ISO and tiny aperture. Just set the camera to timed mode, focus and shoot. Also, try taking a few shots on either a black or white T-shirt... see what works best for you (black tends to be easier to get the white balance right if you aren't shooting RAW). Good luck with the pictures.

Give that marine a backpack or chop that peg off. Only complaint. Your OSL is pretty off the chains and what's nice about it is that it's not all dayglow OSL. I wouldn't call it subtle, because as afforementioned it's pretty much everywhere. I liked your "wire effect" coming out of that warrior. Very good army I must say. Sincerely 8/10, I would love to fight that army sometime, looking forward to seeing how you do up the new models that just came out.

Yeah, subtle the OSL is not, but that was the intent with this army. Rising up in the middle of an fairly average city I thought lots of green glowing would give the right creepy atmosphere.

I had never heard of dayglow before. That is actually pretty cool stuff. Is it generally looked down upon? I thought it could look good on some of the sources, like the scarab 'eye's.

riplikash wrote: Big shout out to Nowoo for all his great feedback.

Thanks for your kind words! I was immediately drawn to the monolith in the background before looking at the author's name and did a double take... knew I had seen it before! Did you end up airbrushing the portal and crystal more? They both look amazing! Would you mind posting some updated pics of that bad boy? I've just about finished my two monoliths, the varnish is drying then I'll take some pics and post em.

Your warriors and scarabs look great too, you can tell a lot of work went into those bases! I especially like the bricks on that one scarab.

Personally, I enjoy a dramatic OSL with Necrons. It's such a prominent part of their fluff. Hellforged, FoD, & Dead Men Walking all describe that sickening green glow. I imagine it's night and that poor guardsman in a fox hole on the front lines is just noticing a faint, eerie green glow of the necron phalanx advancing (before later being decapitated for your warrior's base). Accentuating that feature army-wide is what I'm going for too! One of the things that drew me to the 3rd edition crons was the simplicity of the models. It allows you to add dramatic OSL without making the model too busy, imho.

I just found this guys blog, taking that night glow to the next level: http://www.the-vanus-temple.com/?page_id=1686


Keep up the great work!

Yeah, I got some scorpion green and redid all the OSL on the monolith. I think it looks much better now, less washed out and overdone. So thanks again for your input on that. I'll get some more dedicated pictures up a little later today.

I agree on the dramatic OSL. I think it defines them even more than the whole metal thing.

That link is fantastic. I was already trying to darken the scene and add dramatic OSL to give it a creepy, night time feel, but he really took it all the way to it's logical conclusion.


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Here is some updated photos based on the feedback I received. I used a backdrop and upped the aperture settings. Further feedback would be appreciated.

First the updated monolith as requested by Nowoo:



And some updated closeups of the warriors with the smaller aperture settings and longer exposure:

Looking good! Got a shot of the front of a monolith with the portal in it, by chance? I really like that patina going on in the copper vents on the corners. Did you use a wash there? Mind sharing the recipie? I found this link a while back and have been itchin to use that green one somewhere.

Glad I could help, where I could & thanks for the close ups.

Oops, used the smae image twice. Fixed that, the front shot now appears.

Patina recipe is 1 part color (usually scale green and hawk turquoise, ratios depend on what I'm going for), 10 parts vallejo air mixing medium (because it is nice and thin), 2 parts alcohol/windex.

I just love me some good patina:

No green sticks! They're looking good, I like the glowing eyes.

Booyah, command barge time. I was super excited for this model from the moment I first saw it. Hope I did it justice.

But I need YOUR help! I've used a different marbling effect on the stone and a different bronze effect on the...bronze. I'm not sure which techniques I prefer. Previously I painted with in a gradient using brush techniques, which gave it (i think) a nice stylized look. The new model is using a natural metallic effect bronze 'polish', which looks much more realistic. I then wash it and re-highlight. Same type of technique I use on my warriors. My old marbling technique was realIy just brush stippling. The new one uses the airbrush to achieve a marbled vein effect.

The two techniques side by side (monolith uses old technique):








Finally, anyone know any tricks for getting picture to display cleanly on dakka? I swear I have seen some. Mine are all fairly high resolution, you can zoom way in from the gallery view, but when they get displayed here they just look so...fuzzy.


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Oh, and a big thanks to Elmir for his photography tips. They have made a huge difference.

I like the paint job and I wish you would retake the first few pictures with this back back drop or white backdrop. As it is really hard to see the paint job with all those effects against wood. Really great job though mate!

Will do.

Hmm i just started a crons army. i also have csm. you appear to be a good blender could you put a little tutorial with pictures of how you do it. iv got how to pain citadel miniatures. every time i look at the blending section i know less than when i started it seems

Very cool.

For the Command Barge, did I read correctly that you used an airbrush for the "marbled' effect with the turquoise?

I'm thinking of doing my Necrons up in a similar scheme, and I really like how the turquoise looks on your stuff. Could you go into more detail on how you got tha teffect?

Oh wow that is a greaet looking command barge, fantastic stuff! What colors did you use for the grey?

@darkcloud92: For the iron/steel I actually used Hawkeye's Polishing Powders, a natural metallic powder that can be rubbed into paint and polished to give a very realistic metal effect. I based it with steel powder then highlighted with a blend of steel and aluminum powder.

@dahli.llama: Sorry for the late reply. I did use an airbrush for the marbled effect.

To produce my marble effect I first based in scale green.

Then at a low psi and with a fine nozzle I started lining it with a thin hawk turquoise, slowly building it up so the lveins kind of faded into existence.

Finally I highlighted the peaks of the veins with a light blue. Next time I think I may do a final layer with a brush to give it some more definition.

@Nemisor: again, sorry for the late reply. I'm not entirely sure which effect you are asking about. The marble effect was produced via airbrush, which naturally produces a nice, blended gradient. I also did it with 3 different colors.

That's about it for now. I have recently finished a bunch of new items and should have a big update soon. Unfortunately my wife and both kids are sick right now, so I just can't find the time. Hopefully Monday, unless interest is shown in me getting it up sooner.

Ok, finally time to update. This is going to be a big one.

Command Barge, updated based on feedback




Next we have the Deathmarks, Immortals, and Lord. I'm trying out a few new things here.

Baded on the awesome tomb roach and tomb centipede thing tutorials I decided to start incorporating "chitinous robots emerging from the depths" into the bases, much to the annoyance of some of my troops:



I'm also doing a new glowing ooze effect.



[/spoiler]




Finally the lord, who is blinging it up:




But now what?! Well I should have a huge order of stuff coming in, but the guy keeps forgetting to send out his order.

So I'm working on something a little different. BEHOLD THE KLINGON BIRD OF PREY!


I've really been going to town on this guy. Tons of weathering, obviously, but I'm also working on an internal lighting setup, with gently strobing engines and running lights in the cabin. I found a great kit for making the wings movable. All in all, the ship was by far the cheapest part of this project.

Wings down:

Top view, which shows some good weathering:

And some closer looks at the weathering. You can see some beam impacts here:

A closer shot of the hinge action:

And what I call 'random' impacting here, possibly caused by kinetic ordinance bursting:


Feedback is more than welcome.


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It's funny, you slowly buy one of two paints at a time, as the project calls for, and then one day you realize you need a lot of shades of green, take an inventory, and realize you have 30 unique shades of green.

Finished the under wings of the Bird of Prey, and got pictures for a weathering tutorial. I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, so here are some pics I took for the tutorial. Still not sure if there is enough interest to justify writing one though.

Ugh. Well I made some awesome progress getting all the interior lights ready, and most of the paint job done. Things were looking great, the white interior, sanded LED's, matt finish on the interior of the engine piece, and cotton all worked together seamlessly. My first real electronics job in years had worked wonderfully. Then came the problems.

Cutting out the windows...didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I tried to prime the area by drilling 3 holes, but they were a little too big. No big deal there. Then I tried cutting them out, and I'm not very happy with the results. It's ok, but at least one of the little double windows is now a single large window which i hope to patch up with some plasticard later. How do other people usually cut out square and rectangular windows, especially when they are close together?

Then I tried using GW's 'ard Coat gloss to fill the windows. Should have gone with a resin like a few people suggested. Since GW 'ard Coat is an acrylic it dries instead of cures, meaning it does NOT form a nice, flat window. And while it always seemed like a nice, hard coat when painted over metal/plastic, apparently when free standing it is more of a super soft plastic. So now I have to clean out the windows and try again.

And finally, as I did some of the final assembly, I realized I LOST THE FRIGGIN ROLL BAR FOR THE BRIDGE! (the red bar on the 'lip' of a bird of prey) My 2 year old boy probably got ahold of it at some point.

The two options I can think of are either
a) get some brass bar of the appropriate size and try to create a new one, using plasticard to to add on the techno gibbons, or grubbins, or whatever you call them. I'm not entirely confident in my ability to do this
b) buy a second model just for the roll bar and save the rest of the parts for the bits box. The 30$ model is by far the cheapest part of this project after the various kits and electronics I put into it, but it's an annoying prospect.

Any ideas?

Ok, lets update this thing!

Second wave models, WOO!







Based on some feedback I have further evolved my marbling technique beyond what is seen here. Here's a compilation of my technique evolution:


I've also recently finished a triarch stalker and spyder. I'll try and get some pics up soon.

Can you please please please please please give even a brief tutorial of how you do the bronze/patina effect, greeny glow awesomeness and especially the marbelling!

Also - LOVE THEM!