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Welcome everyone!

A few weeks ago, I have decided to jump back into the hobby after about 10 years without painting/modeling/playing anything. Having moved, and changed continent a few years ago, and my old figures stayed back home, I'm restarting from zero, no paint, brush, or else. I have decided to restart with a Space Marines army, and after some research to develop a Salamander Chapter. I'll try to share here my progresses, questions (probably many ! ), tries, errors and failures ... and else !

So I started with a single space marine squad, made some colors tries, and here are the first models.

My first 3 marines:





Marines 4 and 5:


My flamer:


The photos are not 100% upto date, there are all based and with weapons. I'm just missing the decals. I thought I would be the easy part, but my first try didn't work good at all. Mainly because I just couldn't make them flat on the curvy shape of the shoulder, the border were always flying up. I order some micro set/sol, waiting for them to see if it goes better.

I have nearly finished a 7th marine. And I'm probably going to work on my missile launcher and sergeant in the coming days. I always welcome comment, critics and remarks, let me know what you think!

They look great damek; love the salamanders as a chapter!

Looking forward to updates

I did just a bit of painting yesterday. I started to work on my squad sergeant. I'm not 100% sure yet how I want to differentiate him from the rest. For now I?m thinking to paint his helmet and the shoulder edges in gold. And more generally for the whole army, using gold shoulder pad edges for "veterans", and gold helmet for squad leaders. What do you think about it? Would it match with the rest of the color I'm using? I never painted gold yet, any advise on what color to use?



A group picture of my first 5 models




On an other note, I decide to built a wet palette. I used a video game DVD box to hold the water, and read a couple of tutorial to create it. It's working quite good, helping to keep the paint thin. After about an hour or 2, it stop working as good, I think the parchment paper I'm using top to let moisture go through it. Not sure. But it's definitly better than not using anything.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 San76 wrote:
They look great damek; love the salamanders as a chapter!

Looking forward to updates

Thanks a lot!

Looking good mate.

Different colour trims could definitely work, or if you wanted to go more "codex" you could give him a red helmet.

i haven't painted gold using the new range yet, and everyone has their fav way to paint gold, but this is how i do it (have transferred names to the new range):

- nice even coat of Balor Brown.
- even coat of Ghenna's Gold
- wash of Seraphim Sepia (this changes hue)
- recesses with a careful line of Agrax Earthshade
- repanel, staying away from recesses, with Ghenna's Gold
- final highlight with Auric Armour Gold.

hope thats helpful mate

 San76 wrote:
Looking good mate.

Different colour trims could definitely work, or if you wanted to go more "codex" you could give him a red helmet.

I feel the red is not the best match with the green of the armor. I like my army to have a sober/subdue look, that looks like an ensemble, not with crazy color everywhere. (I don't like the red weapon of DA army for example, it looks misplaced IMO). I'll give a try with gold I think.

i haven't painted gold using the new range yet, and everyone has their fav way to paint gold, but this is how i do it (have transferred names to the new range):

- nice even coat of Balor Brown.
- even coat of Ghenna's Gold
- wash of Seraphim Sepia (this changes hue)
- recesses with a careful line of Agrax Earthshade
- repanel, staying away from recesses, with Ghenna's Gold
- final highlight with Auric Armour Gold.

hope thats helpful mate

That's sounds great thanks. I don't have Gehenna's gold tho (I only have a few selection of paint). But I have Balthasar gold and Auric armour gold, I was initialy thinking to do a 1:1 mix to do the base color, I think it will not be far off Gehenna's gold. I'll let you know how it goes.

Some WIP of my sergeant. The armor is done, with helmet and shoulder pad. I still need to work on the weapons.
What do you guys think about it? Specially the gold shoulder pad / helmet with green of the armor? Should I have used an other color?



I'm hoping to finish him tomorrow, and work on the missile launcher.

Looking good. I hope you are happy with the wet pallet I know I love mine.

Looking good mate.

I too have started using a wet palette and I reckon it's the best painting decision I have made. Paints are still good the next day and I just use a full dropper to inject water under the grease paper once every day or two. Keeps all the paint very consistent when painting and has made it easier for me to practice blending. I used an ice cream lid for mine and the only thing I might change is using something that I can seal up instead so it doesn't dry out as fast.

Small end of the week end update. The sergeant is nearly ready, I miss the decals. I will do them when I have a bunch to do at the same time. I finally decided to got back to a green helmet, the golden one was just not looking good. I don't know why. Maybe it was just the relation of colors with the skull on the helmet, or with the red lenses, but I was just feeling something was off. So I end up going just to green, and use gold just for the shoulder pad edges. I think it looks good like that, and it's easy to see who is the sergeant in the squad without being
I still have some though to give to his chain sword. It feels a bit "plain", maybe I need to add something on it. Maybe some marking for the squad / company? I'm not sure, still unclear what to do. Suggestions are more than welcome.




I painted a 7th member of the squad (that you can see below in the group picture, missing his weapon). And I started working on the missile launcher. I decide to assemble him late, to be sure I catch more details. With the ML, it will give me 8 members. The first 2 guys I painted were in a dark green DA color. I need to decide if I want to clean them of the paint and repaint, or just keep them on the side.

I started to work on the 2nd squad, unmolding the a few parts. I think it's the worst part of the hobby, it takes a lot of time, it's boring, and if you miss a little part, then it will shine on your finished model :p

I did some painting yesterday, I advanced on my missile launcher and on the next batch of 5 space marine. I'm hoping to finish the missile launcher in a couple of days, put the last details on the first squad and I should be able to take picture of the first squad completely finished soon.




I'm already thinking of the next stage after my second squad. I'm wondering if I'll built an assault team, some bikes or some terminators.
As always, do not hesitate with comments!

I love me some Salamanders. Great, crisp colouring on them, looking forward to see more

I few picture of my sergeant and missile launcher finished. Overall I'm really happy with the result. The armor colors / technique look good, for me at least (if you have any comments, they are welcomed!). But I'm not so happy with the weapons, they lack of something, I don't know what. They look a bit dull, bland. I need to find some inspiration to try something else next time.





Please do not hesitate to C&C.

The Salamander's look great. When you get time, I'm interested in what colors you are using.

For weapons, I don't know if you've seen this or not, but check out Les Bursley's awesomepaintjob you tube channeL:

http://www.youtube.com/user/awesomepaintjob

He has some great video tutorials. On some of his earlier ones he does some interesting paint jobs on weapons.

Maybe it will inspire you!

A long overdue update. I have been plenty of busy last month with work, so as for everyone, not much time to paint. Moreover my cellphone where I had a few WIP picture died and I lost all those pictures. But here are some progress I did.

I decided to add a flame on my sergeant right knee.


I have also worked on a few more marines, I don't have individual picture but here is are shots of my "force" right now.



I also worked on some basing idea. I did the following trying to create a "paved floor". I really like how it looks but right now my Salamander's have base showing a desert look and I don't see how I could incorporate both.


I also created a rock to put under my captain. I used a cork from a champagne bottle. What do you guys think about it? The second pic is how my future captain will looks like.




My "big" project right now is the following. Until now, I was painting my guys with just highlight on edges of the armor. I'm trying to paint my next guy with a more blending highlight, that the highlight goes more smoothly on the armor. In the pictures next, I already did the two legs and left arm. The rest is still to be done. What to you guys think about the work until now? Any tips for how to make the blending? or highlight / shadow?





As always, comments are more than welcome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

sooner wrote:
The Salamander's look great. When you get time, I'm interested in what colors you are using.

Currently I'm using warpstone glow, recesse washed with Athonian Camoshade, and edge highlight in Moot green.

Salamanders ftw!
I'm finding it difficult to layer my salamanders but this is beaut

A lil trick I've found after your base colour do a wash of baal red it contrasts really well with green and gives it a "dirty" look if you leave it in the recesses. And also do a test model for this next idea, after all your highlighting do a watered down wash of ogryn flesh or 2. Redo the last fine highlights you did then a wash of thrakka green. The end results awesome in my eyes. There's an example on my thread if your interested of the end result.
Keep the fire burning fireborn!