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Okay so I've been rather hesitant to jump in and start a P&M blog, but I figured I would at least finally give it a go!

I've been collecting Blood Ravens for the better part of 6 years, and I dearly love my army, and with the introduction of ForgeWorlds Horus Heresy expansion I thought it would be an awesome chance to expand on the fluff that oh so loosely connects the Thousand Sons with the Blood Ravens.

For some time now that had been a fun project, but as time wears on I am finding myself in an odd state. I love my Blood Ravens and they are definitely not going anywhere, but I am rapidly falling out of love with the General Thousand Sons aesthetic, it doesn't have the same draw it used to, and I have found it am getting very bored with painting Red.

This lead me to research and do a bit of play-testing on the other legions available, and everything kept dragging me back to the Imperial Fists, from the fluff to the challenge of painting to the various fluffy but fun play styles available that seemed to be available to them. So I recently decided to take the plunge and dive into them and so far I'm enjoying them, a lot!

So with that said here are some early WIP shots of what I have thus far. With Updates as things are finished.

Edited for the sake of fixing Bad Photos!

Alexus Pollux


Templar Brethren



Sicaran WIP



Autocannon Heavy Support Squad

Your painting is beautiful and crisp, but please rotate your pictures.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Your painting is beautiful and crisp, but please rotate your pictures.

Thank you for the compliment, as for the pictures, the perils of using a phone i suppose they came out "right side up" for me at first then rotated, then rotate back when I click em. I'll have to see if I can fix it when I get home.

They look very nice, but agreed on the rotation. I find I sometimes have to rotate the image in Microsoft Office Picture Manager AND rotate the thumbnail in Explorer to actually get them to appear the right way round. No idea why, but doing only one or the other leaves them wrong still.

Okay its been some time since I've been here but I've gotten some work done!

Rather picture heavy update this go around, but hey, Everyone likes pictures. right? ...I hope?

The two biggest updates come in the form of my Sicaran Battle Tank all but finished save for some final lense work and some Imperial Fists Icons im waiting on in the post. May add some additional weathering and grime.. may not, im quite happy with it as it is.

The second is a pair of Rapier Quad Launcher batteries, The bulk of them are done, still working on the crew. They come with Mk IV Crewmen, so im debating converting up some mk3 crew for it insidead. We'll see how that goes! I also managed to get the interior of my Spartan done and assembled and the first coat of yellow on that But my pictures of it got corrupted so.. They'll get thrown in later!


Also in the works are a pair of Medusas and a Typhon Seige Tank, all of which are assembled.. Though the only things finished on them currently are the main guns.

Looking good. Love that Sicaran.

They all look fantastic so far.

How do you airbrush your yellow? Do you do the shading first, following with the yellow or spray the main layer then add the shading?

 OneManNoodles wrote:
They all look fantastic so far.

How do you airbrush your yellow? Do you do the shading first, following with the yellow or spray the main layer then add the shading?

Actually I don't do any preshading with my yellows. It's grey primer, pure VMA golden yellow over that until I get the shade of yellow I'm after.

I then shade after that with VMA burnt Umber (reallllly) carefully as a ltitle goes a long way on yellow. Highlight after that with VMA pure white.

After I've done the shading and highlight I go over it with VMA Medium Yellow which deepens the existing yellow, blends in the shades, and leaves the bright upper highlights.

After that is a gloss, decals when used followed by second gloss, an oil wash of Burnt Umber in all the cracks and rivets and so on, followed by weathering.

Okay its down to the point where my Rapiers and my Spartan will be done by the end of this week, so I'm deciding what to toss into the mix next from my ever growing to do pile.

So what's better than a bit of community input?

So, what would you like to see come across the workbench next?

I love Breached squads so I voted Breachers!

Thanks for the painting tip!

Go for whatever you think would round out your force best, is my suggestion. What do you have so far?

Assault squads are supposed to get a points drop in the next update and whilst I'm a breacher fan destroyer squads would be cool.

Those are some good looking Fists you got here. Incidentally I voted Destroyer Squads. Mainly because Ive never seen any painted up and I think you would do a good job.

Thanks for all of the comments so far, they are much appreciated. It's hard to believe how much of a motivator starting this little painting "blog" has been for me, so I'm insanely happy to have done so.


That said thank you to everyone who has voted and offered their suggestions thus far. Polls gonna be up another day or so still, but as it stands it looks like the Fists are gonna get a pair of new Destroyer Squads!


With that out of the way, and update on my latest project to completion. My Spartan Assault Tank, went through a complete repaint! And now looks a lot better than the patchy Red it had on it before.

Still awaiting Weathering and chipping and some detail to the wheels/track interior but here she is so far.

Okay! Destroyers won out so that's the next project and I'm rather excited to see how I can turn them out.

There aren't a whole lot of references to Destroyers for the Fists, save for a mention in book three where it gives a shoulder pad emblem for them showing their "unofficial use" by the Imperial Fists, and a start for a color scheme that seems to favor Black over the more prevalent yellow.

I did order in a new set of the updated Fists Decals that have the Destroyer decals on it so we'll see how they look.

Test Scheme coming soon!

Update!

I've been slammed with all sorts of things lately so I haven't had too much time to put into stuff but! I do have some things to share.

First off, some shots of my WIP destroyers! Not sure about the helmets, may knock em down and dirty em up some more as the are really bright..

Next an added bonus, some shots of an as of yet unnamed Glaive in progress.

Love the color scheme for your destroyers. Awesome job on your tanks!

Thanks much!

I hope to have the Destroyers done for a game this week, hopefully anyway. But I still have a lot of detail work to put into them yet.

The glave looks fantastic already.

Good choice on grey for the destroyers.

 OneManNoodles wrote:
The glave looks fantastic already.

Good choice on grey for the destroyers.

Thanks, I really wanted something that would set them appart from the pure Black and Yellow of the other Elite and Templar-esque schemes so the grey over black gives them that really Rad-worn look destroyers are described as having, in my opinion anyway.

Next step after they're done will be trying to convert up a decent Moritat to go with them. I'll hopefully be able to do a ground up step by step thing with him.

Destroyers look really good.

Alrighty! Ive been kinda quiet but eh, Life happens right?

I'm going to try and do some sort of Update Weekly, and try and put out that update on Mondays, Even if i don't have actual model progress I can at least share thoughts and ideas that I'm putting into the army.

With that said, have decided finally on what my end goal will be for my Imperial Fists.

My end goal is to have three distinct forces:

A boarding Force themed around Zone Mortails, With Alexus Pollox in charge.
A somewhat of a Seek and Destroy force, with Sigsmund in charge.
And an overall Defensive/Seige themed force I can place Dorn in charge of.

I'm still in the full planning process for all of these forces and they'll be based more around Units I want available for them, rather than Singular Lists, but if it works out the way I hope, i'll have 3 'color coordinated' forces I can pull from for any game and look super spiffy on the battlefield!

With that said, onto this weeks updates!

First off, My destroyers, all but finished. I'm in the process of finishing up the Destroyer Emblems on the Shoulderpads, but i had a cat related incident with my last bottle of MicroSet so I'm waiting on that delivery to finish them up. Beyond that, they need some weathering especially around the feet, and perhaps some chipping, but that may be an option I forgo for these guys.

Decided to go with OSL (Crappy as mine looks) for the Jet-packs as just plain weathered metallic looked boring, but no matter what i try I can't seem to get the glowing Pop others can. But I'm happy with it in the end.




Second I've been working on these while waiting on my Decal fluid to arrive.

A Seigebreaker Centurion I can use as either a primary (or eventually a secondary) HQ choice in my main army. It started out as part of the Mk3 Comand set, But i think as he looks plus the addition of some custom Nuncio-vox bits and the Fists Upgrade shoulders he'll be a perfect fit for the roll.



Some other bits and bobs for the week:

I've gotten assembled and the first few coats on a ten man Volkite Tactical Support Squad. I opted to go with the Calivers for them, as I love the range and it makes them a perfect unit to hole up in a building or structure camping on an objective, at least that's my plan for them.
I modeled them using a swath of regular marines bits, the Imperial Fists upgrade sets for torso and shoulders. and came out with a final product that gives me a Major Sergeant: One to use as the Sergeant in a 10 man squad, and a Minor Sergeant: To use if i break them down into two 5 mans.

Also included is the first of two Medusa Crews they're nothing flashy really and the second one is still adoring their "Sprue" at the moment, but these guys i figure might give me some motivation to tackle the Medusas to a finished state sooner rather than later!




And last but not least, I've had this guy Stareing me in the face since I started my Space Marines for -40k- years and yeasrs... and years ago.

While Lysander as a character was not yet a member of the Fists during the heresy, or even alive if i remember, he's sat on my shelf far too long. So i'm trying to find a purpose for him in my 30k army if at all possible.
I know that Indomitus pattern Terminator armor was present during the heresy (which is what most people recognize as 'normal terminator armor'). So he's not out of place on the table I'm just not entirely sure what his place would be. Possibly a Terminator Seigebreaker with a Vigil Pattern Stormshield and Thunderhammer? Not really sure where to go with him yet.. But I welcome any and all suggestions!



As for non Pictured updates/Future planned ideas.

I've also decided to take the plunge into adding some Mechanicum Allies though this is faar down the path right now, I do think it will be a good addition to my Army. (and i had a friend dump a -crap ton- of NIB Skitarii and Cult Mech stuff on me )

And due to the number of 40k armies and Psykers I tend to face in normal gaming, I've also converted up my own (Temporary) vision of a Pair of Sisters of Silence to be "Counts As" Celuxus Assasins, at least untill forgrworld gets around to putting out their versions of the SoS.


I Hope you enjoyed the update, and if anyone has any suggestions, questions, ideas, or anything of that sort, I always wanna hear what you have on your minds. So please feel free to share!

That's it for today, Don't forget to tune in Next week, Same Fist time Same Fist channel! (Okay that sounded funnier in my head.. )

Alright my I'm a bit late for my planned update, but life happens.

As of this week, the Imperial Fists have two brand new leaders for their ranks, an HQ Centurion and a Finished Support Squad Sergeant.

Not entirely sure how I feel about how the Centurion came out, but it's a successfully finished HQ, so that means less counts as in the future which is Always a plus!

Second is the First Sergeant of my newest Tactical Support Squad, I call him a First Sergeant because all of my 10 and 20 man squads have a secondary model that can easily be identified as a Sergeant should I break the Squads down.

Personally I am really happy with how he came out, took forever to decide what to do with the trim, on the pads and the armornew as black can be so crappy to make look good. I first tried with Vallejo Black Metal, but after comparing it it was just too bright even after a nuln oil was, so I settled on black and am happy I did so in the end.

Character names may change in the future; but I felt they rolled off the tongue nice enough.

Siege Breaker Avilus:


Tactical Support Sergeant Starvis.

Okay, Monday Update, and on time this week too.

I have a few things to go over this week, and hopefully it helps someone else the way it did me.


First things first, I have a few WIP shots of my Rapier crew, it took me so long to get them done because i had no idea which direction i wanted to go in for their color schemes.
After a lot of studying and mulling over, I decided to go with a partial "Elite" paintjob, Since the Rapiers do fall in the Elite Slot, So i did my own take on the Black and Yellow veteran look.

The black stumped me for a while, I honestly have had a lot of trouble getting black to look right in the past. It has always come out looking too stark and cartoonish for me, and I dont really do the Hyper Edge highlighting for most things. But after some trial and error and looking at a few ideas for Iron Hands, I came to the conclusion of black basecoat, Drybrush of Leadbelcher, or similar dark metalic and then two heavy coats of Nuln Oil over that, and it gave me a perfect worn black metal look that fit with the yellow im doing, (or at least in my opinion )

Best Illustrated here on the backpacks.


Next up are just some rather self explanitory WIP shots of the crew itself, nothing too special, just adding finishing touches and Decals to the "crew chief" members of the crew. There's no real precidence for it anywhere in the fluff, but the way I see it the Squad leader/Sgt. would be doing the targeting, and the 'junor man' would be doing the firing. So i went with with giving the two Crew on Foot Augery Scanners. If i had or can find some of the original FW bolters with Handles on t hem i'll likely go back and tack them on "Mag Clamp" style so they can have a bit more versatility later on.


I also have received some comments regarding the bases I use, and how I've done them up. This is a small preview of two of my bases for the above crew, taken sans Mini for this purpose. Later this week I plan to actually sit down and do a full "Start to finish" Walk through on how i do them for those who want it.


And here is the updates Focus, My finished Rapiers. Squad 2 and Squad 6, I had a lot of fun with these, and may tack on another transfer to the Launchers themselves if I can manage to decide on something. But as of now, They're finished and ready for the table top.


And finally a small tease at what I'm slowly working on in the background of all my Imperial Fists, Personally really happy with how the colors came out, And of course there is still a lot of detailing to do, but I'm taking this particular project slow and steady.



That's it for today, Hopefully I will get that base Step-by-step done by the middle of the week.

Also on my plate is the 30th anniversary Marine, though deciding which army to paint him for is giving me a headache. Unfortunately i was not able to get a hold of two like I wanted, so i could make one for my Blood Ravens for 40k and one for my Fists to use. But we dont always get what we want do we?

If anyone has any requests on what they might like to see next, Feel free to speak up! I have a mess of "various stage" stuff from Still-in-bag to Assembled and Primed.

Great looking fists there, as a newly initiated Son of Dorn, it's always good to see some nicely painted yellow

Excited to see how the titan turns out!

So.. I've been quiet for a couple weeks.. Not intentionally but Between live and throwing myself into my paintwork I just kinda.. shoved everything else to the side.

I do have some Nice updates this week however!

Also do not worry for those of you who did ask i did not forget about the 'basing tutorial' that will be coming next week for sure, I just need to snap a few more pics and do some finishing touches on those.


Anyway Since i've Started this little P&M blog I've managed to get quite a bit finished!
Finished Stuff:
Artificer Armor Siege Breaker Centurion.
10 Destroyer Marines
2 Rapier Quad Launchers
1 Sicaran
1 Spartan
1 Typhon (really happy with this)

Stuff In Line on the Bench or In progress:
Apothecaries
MkIII Tactical Marines
A sicaran Venator
Various special and heavy weapons squads.

My Second Biggest Side Project at the moment has sort of arisin out of the need for a way to help against Psykers in the 30k vs 40k environment i play in a lot, as that's the biggest thing that I run into that is very difficult to handle. So after browsing a few topics here regarding assassins in 30k and their place/use, and after some thinking on it a bit i decided this was the best way to go. However, I did not really want to be just some guy throwing down an assassin with my 30k army as even though its plausible and what not, It just doesn't seem to fit in my view. So I have since started working on a few conversions, trying to work up some Sisters of Silence for a counts as Celuxus assassin. Right now i'm in the process of sourcing bits and such from various eldar, dark eldar, and dark elf kits while at the same time looking for good counts as models on line (have found zero lol). So needless to say it is a slow project and my luck will be finished the day before they officialy release Sisters of Silence!
So you should be seeing some pictures of these pop up soon as i work more on them.

I've also started planning for a Mechanicum Ally based on ForgeWorld Lucius to be fielded around my Titans, but i'm working on how to best do the 'dark' armor they have. So Any tips from other people would be greatly appreciated! This is still heavily in the planning stages however, though i did get two Castellax to practice on.

Now, it's time for the meaty bits of every post, And what most people I'm sure come here for.. Pictures!

Titans!


And here are a few WIPs of my pair of Apothecaries.
For these guys, I really don't like painting white, less so than black armor, but still really dislike it. So i did a lot of experimenting to get them to where they were 'used' but not dirt choked, thus far i think it's come out pretty well.


Bleh edited for picture derps.

These are great looking IF, really enjoy finding a good 30k Log. All this old power armour excites me.

I envy your airbrush abilities. Lovely Fists .


I'm building my own force as well

Sooo many beautiful things...

EDC

Thank you all for the compliments and comments so far, I hope to soon have pictures up in a mini update of everything I've actually finished so far, since everything here is kinda... well a mess as far as organization goes lol.

Okay only a minor update today, I'm waiting on a resupply of a couple shades of Blue and yellow that I've been using for my Titans and Fists, so I figured I would take the down time to try out an idea I've had bouncing around for a while.

A long while ago I purchased a pair of Multi-Melta Castellax battle automata and they have since sat unused with no inspiration for them, until I finished my Warhound.

I decided that a Lucius themed mechanicum detachment would be perfect to accompany the Titans on a board and make good allies when necessary for my Fists. With that said and after doing a lot of research and asking around for tips, I've come up with a basic test scheme for them, and below is the first example of this.