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Hey goes so I'm under a endeavor to build 5 different armies to help others get into war gaming. There really isn't a lot of people around me that I know that play and I try and hang out at the local hobby store as much as my wife will tolerate. So to keep up with the progress and to help myself become a better painter I'm going to keep this blog going each step of the way!

First up the poster boys themselves the Ultramarines.

Hopefully this will help anyone with color questions like I have had and give people ideas or answer questions that they have as we'll.

I'm using a Iwata neo airbrush with a sparmax compressor and a mix of GW paints and Vallejo paints.

To get the right color blue I want I've taken a tactile squad and primed 5 black and 5 white using called or sky, macragge blue, alaitoc blu, and kantor blue. You can really tell the difference the primer the primer colors will make on the final color.

Here are the results. It takes more coats with the black primed models so keep that in mind!

Thanks guys as always C&C welcomed and looked for!

5 different armies? That's ambitious. What point scale you aiming for? 500 pt. intros, 1.5/2k full lists?

You might want to take close ups of all the marines, so it's easier to do side-by-side comparisons. Well, so those of us on the the other side of the internet can, you can just pick up the minis… You going to strip and re-paint the losers, or just have a misfit squad? My personal recipe for Ultras is white prime, macragge blue, blue wash over all. Makes for a darker marine then traditional, but has a nice hue IMHO.

Looking forward to seeing where you take this.

Lol I know completely insane but should be fun none the less and with each army being different it will require different painting techniques which always helps out. Plan on doing 1000pt armies each big enough for good games but not full onslaught. Who knows though eventually they may get bigger. Gonna try and give close up shots tonight after work to really show the differences between all the colors. As far as these guys go I will probably just keep them around as references once I settle on my exact color or give them away to someone that enjoys it and wants to start a army of their own.

1,000 points is a nice intro army. Big enough to sink your teeth into, that feels like and army and not just a combat patrol/ learn the rules list. But no so big that games take forever, and you have trouble keeping track of everybody's rules.

Do you have lists in mind, or just winging it? Are you trying to keep them balanced against each other? What armies? Including a little bit of everything to help teach rules? Keeping costs down, so if someone wanted to pick up the list they just played for themselves, they could?

Just some random thoughts on your project. Not so much on the P&M side of things, but overall.

Yea I thought the 1000pt would be a good starting point. Don't have alot in mind just kinda winging it for the most part. With the space marines going with a tactical squad, assault squad, Captain, Predator (cause everyone loves tanks) and a Terminator squad. Who knows what else lol have to see what all i have in my closet thats unpainted then fill in the gaps.

I Think I have it narrowed down to:
Ultramarines (everyone loves the poster boys)
Tyranids
Chaos (gotta have the bad guys)
Necron (maaaaaybe i personally dont like them but ive got a bunch for some reason)
And either Eldar ( cause I have some already)
Or Orks (cause WAAAAAAAAGHHH)

Ive thought about if this goes as planned......... and this is further down the road and all but once I get the armies painted to go into my local store (that carries very limited supply of anything but paints, cause ive bought every dang paint GW makes.......) Buy up a couple levels of minis and see if I can talk them into have a game day with a painting competition and use those and the prizes. (Can ya tell Im tired of playing 40K in just video games???)

Personally I dont think im that great a painter, Table top standard no problem but I lack from there. So this project will help me better my skillz and hopefully get some more people interested in it!!

Its a lofty Project and one that I don't expect to be done anytime soon but hey ya never know I always strived to be the Emperor of Mississippi!

Ok so here are the close ups! Debating on which one I like the best but I think I'm leaning towards the kantor blue w/white primer.

Fiddlesticks. The pic is upside down. I like the lighter one, but that's because I think the darker blue I think Crimson Fists, but I have seen some pretty impressive dark blue Ultras.

Go with Orks definitely. Chaos is always cool. IG are a blast! (I have all of those so I am biased) I would love to have Tyranids. So those would be my five picks.

Anyway, sounds like a fun project, not too much to tackle if you set the points, plus the biggest thing is that you can always mix it up if you get tired of painting one particular army.

Well to be honest 5 armies to me isn't that big. But thats coming from me who has 5 companies of space marines.

But still good luck! Have fun!

Ok got the pic flipped right..... But I think my iPad hates me trying to post six pics and even though I will pic different ones it's pulling up six of the same picture upside down so until I get it figured out back to painting!

Subbed. Keen to see where this goes mate.

 CoyoteCasket wrote:
Ok got the pic flipped right..... But I think my iPad hates me trying to post six pics and even though I will pic different ones it's pulling up six of the same picture upside down so until I get it figured out back to painting!

My iPad does that to me. IIRC the reason is that the pad has what it thinks is "up" even if it's rotated. This is what it uses to tag the picture's orientation. Whatever the reason, just rotate your pad 180 and try again. This might change depending on your model.

Thats a good thought on the Ipad wanting to flip it, but doesnt explain why picking 6 different pictures would cause it to load the 1st pic 6 times...... Any thoughts? want to get good up close pics for yall to see (haha i said yall, you can tell im from the south lol) without it being six different posts. Though since its my blog i guess that would be ok. maybe overkill though.

Had another thought last night whilst tinkering with the ultramarines, Ive seen it done on tanks and such, but takin the terminator squad and painting it a undercoat of silver and then matte varnish then hairspray then real painting then water and chipping away. Should work out fine wouldn't you think? or would that many coats thicken up details to much?

 CoyoteCasket wrote:
Thats a good thought on the Ipad wanting to flip it, but doesnt explain why picking 6 different pictures would cause it to load the 1st pic 6 times...... Any thoughts? want to get good up close pics for yall to see (haha i said yall, you can tell im from the south lol) without it being six different posts. Though since its my blog i guess that would be ok. maybe overkill though.

What I do when uploading pictures from my iPad is to go to the Gallery -> Upload your Wargaming Images -> Choose File. You get two choices, "Take Photo or Video" and "Choose Existing" I just take the pic from there. If it turns out I took it upside-down, I just cancel the upload, flip the pad, and try again. I can usually get it in under 2 tries. Usually… This is with an older iPad 2, using Safari. YMMV.

The other option is to find out where The Wife has put the decent camera and take better quality pictures, download them to the laptop, and post them the old fashioned way. Better quality, but more legwork.

If you are serious about better pictures, you probably want to get a lightbox and a tripod. I know there are some tutorials out there, and it's on my own to-do list.

Lets see if the pics load up correctly this way......... if so awesome if not........ i declare war on photography

So I'm pretty sure I'm going to end up using the cantor blue with a white primer base coating with the air brush. Funny thing I found though is that for touch ups you can use alaitoc blue and it's almost indistinguishable. Using just the janitor blue by itself is a touch too dark. Weird I know but I double checked the mini to make sure the colors were right. Anyway I don't like the look of drakenhof nightshade wash so gonna get to my stopping point tonight and make a run to the hobby store tomorrow. Here is a progress pic not sure why I painted the crest of his helm white but can fix it easy besides he's a test model lol.

Well, the golds are looking really good, which almost makes up for the fact that they're Ultramarines. I'm not saying that they'll give you space herpes, I'm just saying, why take the chance?

 bossfearless wrote:
Well, the golds are looking really good, which almost makes up for the fact that they're Ultramarines. I'm not saying that they'll give you space herpes, I'm just saying, why take the chance?

If anything is going to have you harvesting the crops of Nurgle's garden, it's consorting with degenerate xenos scum. Not the Emperor's finest.

Ultramarine hate/banter aside, looking good!

Lol I was thinking the same thing about being more of a plague marines thing. Anyway finally have the colors down like I think I want, plans for tomorrow.... Buy a new tactical squad and get them all done up to get everyone's opinion and critiques hopefully have me done by Tuesday night!

I can't seem to find a good color of blue to paint my Ultramarines. I start with Macragge and wash it with drakenhoff nightshade. but I guess I suck at Shading cuz it darkens the models too much. I end up going over it with another blue. one of these days Im going to get the highlight edge right. I suck at that too.

I know what you mean it's a pain finding that right combination of colors. Originally I had wanted to go with a grayish blue but the color combo I found just popped and I was like "That's It!" I'm going with white primer caledor sky base coat, macragge blue for shadows, a 3:1 caledor sky/white for highlights, then wash with Guilliman blue. Ends up with a nice rich color that compliments the gold and white for the shoulder pads and insignias and lets the red eyes really stand out. Pics will be coming soon!

Finally had some time to get some painting done!! Granted I'm doing a tactical squad, assault squad and a captain all at the same time. Hopefully some of the techniques here will benefit atleast someone, if not then its just to help me remember exactly how I pull everything off.

Step one: is assembling the mini's legs and torso and getting rid of mold lines... (Which on this many takes one night to do!)

Step Two: Primer with white ( Hard to see in the pics below but its there (didnt go like WHITE WHITE just a nice dull coat to cover the grey)

Step Three: Caledor Sky Base Coat, (Quick Tip: Since I'm using an airbrush I went ahead and did the highlights by not giving some areas as many coats of paint)

Step Three: Macragge Blue for the shadows, Between the legs, under the backpack, under the arms and in the head cavity, just enough to darken the areas

Step Four: Guilliman Blue Wash over the entire mini, (using the wash gets all of the lines darkened and blends the Caledor Sky in the with the lighter highlights and the Macragge Blue Shadows) will go back and touch up some of the highlighted areas just to make them pop.

Once again Questions Comments Suggestions and Critiquing Welcomed!!

now lets see if i can get the pics to load right!

From a fellow Ultramarine player (4th Company), looking good. An usual choice of base blue, but it looks good!

smithy12262: From a fellow Ultramarine player (4th Company), looking good. An usual choice of base blue, but it looks good!

Lol good to see more Poster Boy Players! Your Ultramarines look fantastic btw.

I Know the color seems off, as I was painting them last night I was looking at the macragge blue and it was almost a purple color and its was all.

But the Guilliman Blue Wash is the secret trick to blend it all together and get rid of technically baby blue and purple and turn it to a rich blue.

Hey guys quick update showing the shadow and highlight effect with the wash . It turned out really good on the heads and once on the bodies it made the flow stand out better. So here's three pics !!

I remain envious of those with airbrushes. Nice results, smooth colors, looking good!

I know love my airbrush but I'm not using anything expensive its the Iwata Neo, runs like $54.00 on Amazon and a small compressor. I want something with a smaller needle just haven't figured out which one yet.

Hopefully I'll be able to make some more progress tonight got caught up in couch buying yesterday..............................(but since the wife got to buy couches means Terminator Squad and Dreadnaught for me!!! hahahahaha)

Hobbyist justification for plastic crack. Love it

Just a small update been busy with things and havnt had lots of time. Still a WIP along with the others but here is my Captain hope ya like. Comments suggestions and critique welcome.

So finally some time for progress to be made, after fixing the Sister of Battles car (seee her in a bad mood and you'd know why, I'm sure some people can relate.) and Dealing with a sick 7 year old........ Nurgle got ahold of her..

They have started getting arms finally!!, Basic basing done, not sure if I want to add abit more to the base kinda like the blackish rock look, make the blue stand out. They are still a WIP but its slowly getting there. My Captain is the closet one to being completed, but all the airbrush work is out of the way. Now its down to doing all the tiny detail work.

Anyway guys just some update progress pics let me know what you think, or if you have an idea or a suggestion its always welcome!!

These look awesome, I really like the contrast of the blue armour and concrete bases, very eyecatching (which is always a plus when sucking others into the hobby!)