Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So with us being at the advent of a glorious new Space Marine Codex (I hope...) I've decided to return to my original love and actually work on a full Raven Guard Company.

When I first started back on a 40K army I build a test model to see if I could do the Raven Guard justice and came up with these gusy:



While working on these guys I was able to join up with one of the Dakka Detachment and participate in the Adepticon Team Tournament in 2012, which switched the focus of my guys to True Scale Space Marines, with a particular attention to True Scale Scout Marines. In the end I ended up with these guys:







After putting all these guys together I quit working on my beloved Raven Guard, since I had a pretty good True Scale burnout. I've worked on quite a few other projects since then and I like to think that I've gotten better at painting since then. So with the new Codex coming out, and what I hope will be some usable Raven Guard Chapter Specific options, I am willing to jump back into the mix of things.

I think that I should be able to use all my True Scale Scouts, bikes, and the Storm with regular Space Marines. Which would mean that the only guys that I would "loose" would be the 6 True Scale Space Marines. The Scouts are pretty much exactly as tall as a regular Space Marine in Power Armor, so that should work pretty well game-wise. Considering that Scouts are almost finished Space Marines (just without PA) it doesn't make that much sense that they are shorter than regular Space Marines (or even shorter than IG).

My goal is to eventually end up with a full Company of Raven Guard, so this is probably going to be a multi-year project. I want to make it nice and really work on my painting and modeling with these guys, but I also don't want them taking forever. So I think I am giving myself a 4 hour limit on each guy. I should be able to put the model together, file it down, and paint it in that amount of time. I'm also trying to give each model and squad an individual feel and really give myself some modeling opportunities with this. I got a decent amount of Space Marines to start out with already and a pretty full Bitz Box:



About 25 AoBR Tactical Marines, 20 Terminators, 10 Assault Marines, 2 Drop Pods, 1 Razor Back, 15 scouts, 3 scout bikes, 1 Land Speeder Storm, and a non-assembled Predator. Also got enough Forgeworld bitz for 15 more Space Marines, a box of Tactical Marines and a box of Devastators for Heavy Weapon options.

For painting I am planing on staying with the traditional black with white trim options, more white for veterans, but I think I want to go with yellow eyes this time around. For the weapons I am thinking about taking a page out of the Imperial Armor books and going away from the black and switching to the blue-grey with white stripes:



I think this would give the models just enough color to break up the sea of black.

I got my first model primed and will work on painting it this week, so we will see how this thing turns out.

I'm curious to see what your first model will be.

I'm starting with my DA librarian, Turmiel, from the Dark Vengeance set. He's too nice a model not to use.

First guy for me is a standard line trooper. Mk VI legs, MK VII torso and head, Raven Guard Bolter.

I will try to give each of them something to make them a bit distinct, even if it is only an ammo pouch here or a grenade there. I think that will also help to give the model little pieces of color to break up the all black armor.

Although I'm not sure if guys with black ammo would use brown pouches or if I should give them a more muted color. I think as long as I don't go with a super bright brown I should be okay.

I need to head down to the store soon to pick up new paints. I want to try to get all my colors straight out of a bottle so I don't have to worry about mixing the same shades for every model.

Who know's, I might even buy a few bottles and give the "GW Paint System" a try...

Can't wait to see what you do man!

I've been using the GW paint by numbers for a few months now, and I like what can be done with it. Quite a nice effect for a simple painter.

Only downside to it is that my GW is closed Monday/Tuesday. So I have to decide if I want to wait until Wednesday to start or if I should take an hour round-trip to the other store.

 d-usa wrote:
Only downside to it is that my GW is closed Monday/Tuesday. So I have to decide if I want to wait until Wednesday to start or if I should take an hour round-trip to the other store.

As the kids say, YOLO... I'd honestly wait until Wednesday.

If there is something else that you could work on today, I would wait until Wednesday.

I was lucky. My FLGS was open and it was not far from the cafe where we had coffee and cake this afternoon. They also had the Army Painter paints and Quickshade that I needed but not the colors (Ultramarine Blue and Angel Green) of spray paint. They said that they would have the spray paint in one or two weeks. I plan to wait for two weeks and then stop in. Until then, I can finish my librarian and build the other models.

Gonna go ahead and make a trip today, that way I have paints to take with me when I go to work on Tuesday night.

If it were me I would go with red for the eyes. Yellow is hard to highlight and give depth. If you use( what used to be scab red) and top it with (what used to be blood red) and then an orange. it gives it a lot of contrast. Can't wait to see your first model after returning.

 JB wrote:
If there is something else that you could work on today, I would wait until Wednesday.

I was lucky. My FLGS was open and it was not far from the cafe where we had coffee and cake this afternoon. They also had the Army Painter paints and Quickshade that I needed but not the colors (Ultramarine Blue and Angel Green) of spray paint. They said that they would have the spray paint in one or two weeks. I plan to wait for two weeks and then stop in. Until then, I can finish my librarian and build the other models.

Don't get the Ultramarine Blue unless you want realllllly bright blue Marines... I've not been happy with the can that I bought.

I will do a test of the yellow eyes tonight and see how it goes.

What's the best way to get straight lines on weapons? Can I use Blu-Tac as a mask?

 d-usa wrote:
I will do a test of the yellow eyes tonight and see how it goes.

What's the best way to get straight lines on weapons? Can I use Blu-Tac as a mask?

I've used silly putty... just don't let it hang around too long as that gak will start to "melt" and get everywhere.

 d-usa wrote:
I will do a test of the yellow eyes tonight and see how it goes.

What's the best way to get straight lines on weapons? Can I use Blu-Tac as a mask?

Get a really small brush. try a hobby store perferably not GW since they will charge an arm and a leg. try to get a 5/0 or a 3/0 brush. Sable hair is amazing for this you won't want to get any other type of brush after you use it. Try to steady the model as much as possible i usually hold mine and rest my forearm against the table and the same with the brush hand to try to take the sway out of your body. Same principle as shooting in the kneeling postion. then just take your time and if you got to fat just touch up with the color your highlighting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
dang I though you were talking about highlighting lol. I use blue painters tape I usually buy the 2 inch and just lay a piece down on my cutting board and measure out what I want the strips to be. the just lay it on and go. dont have to worry about the base paint either.

So I got all my paints, but I goofed up with the white and got the base white instead of the layered white. Not making another trip just for that, so I will just finish the model all the way up to the final highlight of white.

Meanwhile, I finished a test of the eyes. Did a darker yellow, sepia wash, highlighted the front half with the darker yellow again, and then tried to wet-blend in a brighter yellow at the very front:





I hate trying to take close-up pictures with my iPhone.

I also hate painting eyes...

And no funny statements about my poor Marine that looks like he is trying to crawl out of a bottle cap

another thing you can try is painting on the spruce.

Well, I have everything clipped and in bitz-boxes, so I hardly have anything left on a spruce at all. Will try pinning it on a rod for the second guy around. Meanwhile I got about 2.5 hours in with painting the first guy:






Overall I'm just feeling very "meh" about him.

-I need to work on getting better edge highlighting, but I don't want the edges going to far away from the really deep black that the Raven Guard are supposed to have. In the fluff they are almost sucking up light with their armor. I might see if I can get a deeper black or maybe some black ink to see if I can darken the panels up more.

-The bolter . Just not happy with it at all. I like the blue/grey color for it but I don't know if I could go more grey with it. I do think it gives a nice balance to the black of the armor without being super bright and anti-stealthy. The black wash just made it look dirty and looks like it was just a crap paint-job. I tried doing some dry brushing over it, but just not happy with it at all. I don't know if using a blue wash would be better there, but I'm open to suggestions.

-The stripe on the bolter. I like the idea, I hate the execution. I don't know if I just had a hard time with the blue-tac or if its just because it's not a very flat bolter (it's a FW Raven Guard Veteran Bolter, so it's got lots of little detail), but I just don't feel like I got a flat looking line. It looks a little better if you look at it from the right angle, but there are so many raised areas that the line just seems off. I will try a thinner line (this one was bigger to include the RG symbol inside of it) and try to use blue tape on a regular bolter.

-Games Workshop "layers". I'm just trying to figure out how to use these things correctly. Maybe I'm just over analyzing them too much...

Well, after being unhappy with how the paint job is going on this guy I decided to work on another marine today and try out different poses.

Decided to switch over to Jump Infantry and work on a standard Assault Marine. I didn't want to work on a Sgt or Vanguard until i know more about the new Codex.

So here is what I came up with:





I like the dynamics of the model. I was going for a "just landed and getting ready to jump forward and strike" pose.

The only part I don't like is the right arm. I looked through all my bits, but I could not find an arm that was in a similar pose as the left one. Any recommendations for where to find one?

The other alternative I am considering for the model is to use it for a custom Shrike. I'm not a big fan of the official model and this guy might look pretty menacing with dual lightning claws. It looks like the new Vanguard kit will have a decent selection of poses.

I'm thinking maybe having the model in the same pose, but with the claws of the guys on the right on the box:



Thought? Suggestions?

I would angle his head up like he is looking for his target not looking down. If you make the head look down the angle of the gun the arm probably wouldn't look so weird. I like the pose though can't wait to seeit painted.

compdrag wrote:
I would angle his head up like he is looking for his target not looking down. If you make the head look down the angle of the gun the arm probably wouldn't look so weird. I like the pose though can't wait to seeit painted.

So here would be with a new head pose (and head):

Yea much better I like that. If you mix him with a couple units jumping and charging that would look awesome.

I think I found an outstretched right arm that I just need to do a weapon swap on.

If I can make it work I would love to have a pose similar to this:


(Excuse the TMNT, just the first good picture of the pose I could find )
I think the head will depent on what position I end up with the arms.

I think the original "heads down" approach gives it more of an "I just landed, crap just got real" look.
The "heads up" approach gives it more of an "target aquired, ready to launch" look.

The final arms will probably be the deciding factor here.

 d-usa wrote:
I think I found an outstretched right arm that I just need to do a weapon swap on.

If I can make it work I would love to have a pose similar to this:


(Excuse the TMNT, just the first good picture of the pose I could find )
I think the head will depent on what position I end up with the arms.

I think the original "heads down" approach gives it more of an "I just landed, crap just got real" look.
The "heads up" approach gives it more of an "target aquired, ready to launch" look.

The final arms will probably be the deciding factor here.

Agree with you there keep it up.

Never apologize for TMNT.

That assault marine looks good either way to me. Does his left knee look good from all angles?

I think so, the legs are standard kneeling missile launcher marine legs from the Devastator box.

I think the head position will really depend on the final arm positions to support the "just landed" or "taking off" pose.

Could you take a pointing sergeant arm, cut the hand and replace with a BP? Or possibly a grenade. Although now that I think about it, my sage pointing with that hand is metal, not sure if they make a plastic right pointer. Possibly the arm from the standard bearer in the command squad? That should have the right angle.

Looking good with what you have anyway.

This veteran pack would work great. http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440272a&prodId=prod1600058a

Found a decent outstretchet arm, and unless I end up turning this guy into Shrike this will be the pose that I am going with:






I think this pose has a good "Landed, taking a quick survey of the area" feel to it.

Also:

Didn't take a picture of the previous guy, but I ended up getting the blue glaze that GW sells and I hit all the black areas with it. It did a good job bringing the hightlights down and I think the slight blue sheen does a good job bringing out the black.

Fairly unproductive week, but that's not that surprising considering that we are in our last week of pregnancy .

Decided that landing/jumping guy will become my Shrike, so I am going to hold off until the new Vanguard set is coming out to finish him. I also need to order some etched brass from FW to decorate him up a bit.

I did order a special head for him from Anvil Industries:



Got another couple guys ready for priming, so I should actually get some painting done soon.

The other more custom guys I am working on are a Chaplain and a Librarian.

The Chaplain is fairly straight forward so far:



Of course I might actually change everything on that figure by the time I actually get to painting

I liked the old legs, and I wanted something old and imposing looking for a Chaplain. But I just don't think that the legs and torso have any kind of synergy. I used the torso because it was easy to file the front flat to give it some custom icons on there. I should have the Raven Guard Veteran Kit coming in this week so I might look at some of the bodies with that kit. I think there are a few that have raven skulls hanging from chains and things like that, so I might end up using one of those torsos insead. And I will have to see how I feel about the legs at that time.

I do like the head though. I was thinking about using the skull with the winges in the similar spots that Shrike has, but I think a winged skull just looks weird:



So the only other question will be "what weapon" and "where to get his power staff".

The Librarian has not been very labor intensive so far:



Only real work done on him so far has been the Librarian icons added to the backpack and a scratch-build psychic hood.

I was thinking about using the robed head that goes along with the model, but I think I will end up using the bare head with the gas-mask from the Commander kit. That will give me some room to run wires near the psychic hood. The exact weapons will depend on the new Codex, I will probably add some green stuff decorations to the leg, and then I need to figure out what to do about his Librarian shoulder pad. It looks like the "non-Librarian" pad from Chapterhouse got taken down, so I'm out of look there.

I am hoping that maybe there will be some usable parts with the plastic Librarian and Chaplain that are being released, but I will have to see.

It would be really nice if GW would just show the indivual parts of their Finecast models so that you can see if there are individual bits you can use.

Glad to see that the DA veteran parts made it to you relatively fast.

Bits are not so easy to get now. What icons and imagery are you looking for?

I got lots of purity scrolls, scroll canisters, parchements, terminator honors, etc...

The only thing I need to order is the Raven Guard Etched Brass.

Green Stuff work will probably be limited to lightning bolt Librarian type stuff and the shoulder pads for both guys. I can always use more Raven Skulls but I should be able to do some press-molding once the Raven Guard Veteran kit gets here.