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Paint is actually looking like it could be happening soon. I've been getting the itch to paint some of these guys up and I have some spare cash to put down on some paints. Thanks for sticking around during my absence. Hope I can keep bringing on the same quality stuff for you guys!

Holy gak that Alpha Legion dread looks badass! Nice one Bob

Wow, just saw this on Forge World's New Stuff page. I really like it; it's one of the coolest Legion contemptors to date in my opinion.

So, what do you think? Interested in adding it to your Dreadnought force?

@pantheralegionnaire

Indeed I had seen that brilliant Dreadnought! Boy is he beautiful! I'd be ashamed of myself if I didn't consider adding him to my Legion. He's probably going to be in my next order from Forge World; whenever that may be.

+++

Finished up the basing on Pythos over Christmas. Hope everyone had a lovely one, by the way! I added a Secret Weapon Miniatures ruined pillar to his base, adding a few bullet holes to give it a bit of modern/40k flair. It's hard to tell that it's not just a random piece of plastic, but I also added a plasticard I beam that I added some stress damage to to make it look more beaten up. Otherwise, it's the same basing style as the rest of the guys. There's a few spaces where I might add a little more ballast but, otherwise, he's ready for painting (eventually ).

Please run through what you did when you ordered, you see thinking of fw knights bundle well...

Hey guys, so I just uploaded an intro video to my YouTube channel that I had been wanting to use as a vlog for my hobbying/40k/roleplaying stuff. Nothing really new in it, but you do get a closer look at each of the models you've seen so far. Hope you guys enjoy!




P.S. Don't worry, I'll still be doing normal updates as I have been doing, since I'm sure not everyone wants to watch a video to see what's new! However, if you do like hearing my sultry voice, you will have that option as well. I'm going to try to do a video for every update from now on!

Hydra Dominatus!

Bit of a significant update today!

After seeing the new Blood Angels release, I've had an itching temptation in the back of my head. A temptation that turned into a plan, which has then turned into a reality. With only six Power Armored Astartes, I've decided that I'm going to re-base them and pop them on the new 32mm bases. Why? A few reasons. First, because they look so much better than the crammed, feet-half-hanging-off, no-room-for-detail, 25mm bases. Second, I think they make the models look larger, which is nice since I'm not true-scaling them. Third, I realized that by gluing them to their bases I was making a nightmarish scenario when it came to painting the backs of their legs and the insides of their capes, so I needed them to be separated from their bases, regardless. So began the arduous (and nerve-wracking) task of peeling/cutting/sanding the models off their bases. Luckily, I was able to cleanly remove them without any damage being done to the models. That being said, all Power Armor Astartes from now on will be on the 32mm bases. Now, if the Chicken Little rumors are true and 32mm is completely replacing 25mm bases, then feth that. I'm not re-basing any of my models on 25mm bases, nor will I base anyone on a 32mm beyond Power Armored Legionnaires and models that fit particularly well on them. Cultists and other normal human models look perfectly fine/better on the 25mm bases.

Anyways, here's the first of the re-based Astartes, Brother Calix. As you can see, I was able to do a lot more detail on his base and I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It looks a tad messy now, but I still have to go in and peel off some stray glue on the edges and the paint should make it look much nicer. The blank spots between his feet and the basing material (mostly seen on the inside of his right foot) will be filled in with some last minute ballast after the finicky bits are painted and the model is glued on. If you couldn't already tell, he's just pinned to the base right now. I may try to keep all of my models separate from their bases until painting from now on, but it will probably be saved for models that have finicky parts. The foot-pinning is a bit time consuming.

Interesting. I've seen a lot of debate about the 32mm bases, but no one commenting that they've chosen them for the reasons you have. Bravo! I'm sure they'll work out great for you based on the example above.

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Interesting. I've seen a lot of debate about the 32mm bases, but no one commenting that they've chosen them for the reasons you have. Bravo! I'm sure they'll work out great for you based on the example above.

The way I figure, my army's still early in its creation and I love the look of the new bases, so I might as well just start now before I get too far into it and not want to go back and re-base a ton of models. As mentioned before, I'm not really big on 40k as a game, so rule lawyering with the base sizes didn't have any impact on my decision to change the PA Marines' base sizes. It's purely an artistic and aesthetic choice. Glad you like the look!

+++

Managed to crank one last Legionnaire out before bed. Here's Brother Hylas all re-based. I love these ruined pillars from Secret Weapon. Without the new bases, I never could have had them on the PA guys' bases. The base looks a lot cooler in person, but without a bunch of photos it's hard to get the full scope. Once these six guys are re-based I'm gonna do an update video on my channel so you guys can get a full 360 look at them on their new, shiny bases.

Everything is looking great! Thanks for the updates!

I am excited about the new bases, too, though I haven't been able to get my hands on any here in Southeast Asia (I've tried). Do we know for sure that this is going to be a standard option going forward, or do we not have any real, clear announcement yet from GW about these new bases?

My main army is Blood Angels, and since they are the first ones with these new bases, I am wondering.

Well, guys, I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is that my Reaper Paints have arrived and I think I already have a formula for the color scheme down. You should see a painted model very, very soon. The bad news is that the Alpha Legion has lost a brother. Pythos the Dreadnought, who has been renamed Alphailius the Bane of Primer, has suffered from a casting defect I had not noticed before. A few spots on him were un-paintable because of the cast, as the primer simply slid off in areas. Alas, even several post-discovery soap and water scrub downs could not save what was obviously not release agent and simply a problem with the resin. The scrub down caused his basing to fall apart and at that point I decided to just let him go. And so, our fallen brother became a very expensive test model, as I tried out various schemes on the parts where the primer took hold. Rest in peace, Alphailius, your original name will be given to a future Dreadnought and the schemes you helped to test will be seen on models for years to come.

But I'm not letting this get me down, even if it does suck! I'm too excited to let it! The scheme I've worked out is looking really nice. It's dark and gritty, which is exactly what I had in mind when I started this army. The scheme takes some inspiration from RazakelXIII's Word Bearers, while having my own personal flair to it. I'm excited to show you guys what I've come up with and hoping it will be worth the four pages you guys have waited for painted models.


Hydra Dominatus, guys.

Call up FW, they will send you a new one.

 whalemusic360 wrote:
Call up FW, they will send you a new one.

Whalemusic is correct. FW will replace the defective cast without any hassle. You will probably have to email them a few pics of the model showing the problem and they will send the new part asap. I had a similar problem with 2 of my Zone Mortalis tiles and FW replaced them.

The issue is that I've had this model for a very long time. Almost two years now. Without the order information or the batch number, I doubt they'd be willing to replace it, but I've sent them an email just in case.

You should be able to see all your past orders if you were the one that ordered (I can see back to '11). Even if not I've had them replace things that weren't even their fault. Good CS, so I'd say you have a chance.

 whalemusic360 wrote:
You should be able to see all your past orders if you were the one that ordered (I can see back to '11). Even if not I've had them replace things that weren't even their fault. Good CS, so I'd say you have a chance.

I do see the order on the website, thanks for the heads up. I'm hoping for an email reply. Phoning them from the states is pretty expensive.

+++

In other news, something unprecedented has happened!

*gasp*

Paint?! In this thread?! Who'd have thought any of us would see it before we were old and gray? I'll be honest, I didn't.

Decided to start on one of the Cataphractii; Raskus in particular. After the Alfailius fiasco I was left with an unquenched desire to do a Forge World model, so one of the Cataphractii seemed like the obvious choice. I figured since he was the first one I worked on, he'd be the perfect candidate! I'm quickly seeing that the tests scheme I came up with isn't going to work out the way I thought it would. I tried to do the classic indigo and silver look but the first tests were too purple and the bluer tests look too much like Ultramarines. I had to go back to the drawing board on schemes but my idea for this new one should look pretty sweet. It's a new (AFAIK) spin on an old classic. Stay tuned for more and enjoy this early WIP shot.



Edit: Lowered the hugemongous picture size.

Hello! Very exciting update today to mark the occasion of my 22nd birthday! I've got for you today, the first finished model for my Alpha Legion project! I'm super proud of how he's turned out. I've never been the best painter, but considering I haven't picked up a brush in almost four years, I think I've done a pretty good job. The original plan was to go for the classic indigo/silver scheme but, as mentioned in the last post, color mixing didn't work out as I had hoped. I settled on a scheme I tried to keep close to the Forge World Horus Heresy scheme while still having elements of my original ideas. The blue is a ridiculous mix of varying shades of blue and purple, and I think the slightly purple hue does look better than a pure blue. I decided to go for the "green highlight" look that many people do, despite my desire to avoid it in order to differentiate my army. However, I realized early on that there wasn't going to be enough green for my liking and solid green areas looked fairly strange. So rather than doing brushed-on highlights, I decided to use a light green wash over all the blue, which was then touched up with the blue's highlight color. I think it gives a really nice, subtle fading effect from blue to green, and I'm really pleased with the look. I'm happy with how the red ammo box on the canon turned out, as I think it adds some nice contrasts to the model. Furthermore, I added some extra contrast by painting the tassels, which were originally a less-than-desirable deep brown, in a nice ivory color. I think I'm going to continue with this theme by doing the cloaks on the Power Armored guys, and the other cloth bits on my Legionnaires, in the ivory as well. It also may be hard to tell in the pictures, but the eyes are indeed picked out in the old "white dot reflection" style. They're red, which contrasts nicely with the other colors.

Anyways, I hope the first painted model at least somewhat was worth the wait. I'm quite proud of it, and he signals the imminent coming of more! Here he is, the first of many!


Raskus, Heavy Weapons Specialist of the Pythian Terminators, Alpha Legionnaire of Legion Cell: Iota







Hydra Dominatus!

Congratulations, man! Great to see your long-term project come to fruition with its first painted model! Hopefully you can build some momentum and feel that satisfaction that results from seeing a painted army emerge.

Color came out very nice. Should be a good looking unit and army when it's further along.

Oh, and happy birthday!

Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback. The more and more I look at the photos, though, the more I'm unhappy with them. I really need to learn the ins and outs of miniature photography. I don't feel that these photos properly portray the way the model looks in person. A lot of the depth has gotten washed out, unfortunately.

I may try and re-photograph him in some better light. Or maybe I'll pick up a light box with some of my birthday money.

Well guys, here's an update for today.




I go into more elaborated detail in the video, but for those who just want to read or can't view the video, here's the main points:

I) Went over all the stuff I hadn't covered since the last vlog entry; 32mm overlords, Alphailius, Raskus, etc.

II) After staring at the pictures and the model itself for a long while, I've decided that I'm not happy with how Raskus has turned out. It's not so much that I don't like the color scheme, because I do. However, when I first started this army, I wanted a scheme that was going to portray the dark, brooding, and Gothic nature of 40k. While this is a great Alpha Legion scheme, it just doesn't portray that vibe, and the vibe my army exudes is very important to me; critical, in fact. So I'm probably going to end up stripping Raskus and re-painting him in the new scheme I'm working on. The new scheme is going to be a dark metallic scheme based partly off Forge World's Alpha Legion and this model I saw on Blood of Kittens, which has really inspired me:


I've done a brief test with the (unfortunate) remains of our dear Brother Alphailius. Notice how his chest is bare? That entire area wouldn't prime. But enough of that. The blue is very thickly slathered on because I did it over other test schemes, so ignore the thickness and brushstrokes. It was essentially done with successive coats and highlights of different shades of silver, followed by several thin washes of Army Painter's Blue Tone Ink Wash and a subtle wash of MSP Viper Green. I think, combined with the contrast from the brighter silver trim, it looks quite nice. I've already built a test model (shown in the vlog entry) to try out the scheme, but I'm honestly not happy with Reaper's metallics. They're not bad, but I don't know if I'd make them my go-to set of metallic paints. I've ordered a (almost) full set of Vallejo's Model Air metallics because I hear nothing but good things about how smooth and shiny they are. Waiting for them to arrive before trying the test scheme. Stay tuned for that!


III) I also started building/converting up an Apothecary for my Power Armor squad. I imagine individual Legion squads being fairly self-reliant and able to operate independent of the larger forces in dedicated missions, and every team needs an Apothecary to keep the Legionnaires healthy and recover the precious geneseed of their "dead" Primarch. He's almost done but, as mentioned in the vlog, I'm not sure which head to go with. It's down to one of these three because I need a bit of Chaos on him, what with all the loyalist parts on him. Thoughts?





IV) Finally, I've started picking up bits and bobs for the other non-Astartes stuff. Ordered one of the female Raging Heroes not-IG commanders as a general for the Legion Auxilliaries, Hoping nothing happened in the mailing, because she's taking a while to get here. It'll be two weeks today, but I'm still optimistic! Picked up a box of Tempestus Scions and some Vostroyan Snipers, as well. Also got an old OOP Rackham Confrontation Aberration Prime off eBay for a steal; $30 for one new in box! I'm planning on making him some kind of Mechanicus technomonstrosity, and with all those tasty optional bits I should be able to get a lot of use out of the kit. I'm getting excited as we seem to be getting closer to finally seeing the fruits of our pledges from the Creature Caster Kickstarter, so I'm hoping to get those fantastic models in the next month or two. Furthermore, I'm actually thinking about doing three separate blogs for this army. This one, for Alpha Legion and Auxiliaries, another for the Mechanicus stuff, and a final ones for the Daemons; which I have big plans for. I'm one to like things to be organized and not too jumbled, and I think keeping the three entities separate but equal will be the way to go; for my sanity and yours.

Anyways, that's enough of my ramblings.

Hydra Dominatus!

Use the second head, it's the best IMO.
Nice painting and fluff!

Those are all excellent choices. I like #1 the best, but if you want a horned helmet I think #2 is preferable.

I like #1 for the apothecary. (Number two is by far the best, but I've always been partial to giving that head to a chaos lord)

Thanks for the feedback, guys, it looks like the first head was the most popular and it was also the one I was leaning towards the most. Here's the finished model. I haven't drilled out the gun barrel yet because I can't for the life of me find my pin vice.


Brother Apothecary Ophidius

I just realized that head is the most "beaky" and is far more akin to the classic European apothecary look.

All he needs now is a hat and a cloak

Very nice.

Curses, I've missed out on a whole page of updates.

Vidlogs are good. Nice to be able to hear straight from the horses mouth. One piece of advice, staring at a black table for a minute and a half is boring. Put some models there or something. Something for us to look at while you do your intro.


Raskus is bloody amazing looking painted up like that. Although I do like the alternate scheme you did on the dreadnoughts leg armour. That also looks really good. An army done in either scheme would be fantastic looking,
I also think you made the right choice with the Apothecaries head too. Looks far more medical then the other two.


If you plan on doing more video showcase type things then maybe look at getting one of these things. https://www.eckersleys.com.au/products/craft/modelling/clay/steel-turning-wheel
Would help get a nice steady 360* view of a model/s. They come in plastic as well which are cheaper.

@King Pariah and Gitsplitta: Thanks guys! Appreciate the kind words!

@Snrub: I was wondering where you'd gone! Yeah, I'm still getting the hang of doing videos that aren't super boring, but I did take your advice in this most recent video. Glad you like how Raskus turned out. He's sitting right across from me and he does look nice the more I look at him, but I've just got this itching in my brain that I want to repaint him, so I'm probably going to do it. Tests of the metallic blue didn't work out so well on smaller models (my method doesn't really work on a smaller surface). I'm still testing schemes but I might move on to painting up the Cultists until I can find something I like. Playing with some turquoise schemes right now based on a scheme I saw on B&C. I've decided that I may try to achieve the gritty scheme through the use of battle damage, since it's something I've never really done before and will lend to that sense of realism.

+++

So I got some stuff in the mail that I ordered with some of my birthday money. Lady Hilda von Stroheim came in from France (finally), so this video review is of her. On the whole, she's a great model, though one of my bits ended up being miscast/broken in the packaging. Might contact them about it. In a way, I kind of wish I got the metal version to avoid the chance of this happening, but oh well. Also got my Aberration Prime, which will be getting its own review video when I get around to it. This is probably the last you'll see of him in this thread, save the review, since I'm almost 100% sure I want to do the Dark Mechanicus stuff in a separate thread. I also got one of the Alpha Legion mugs from the HH Weekender off of eBay. With it, I can drink super secret cocktails while I hobby.









In other news, receiving the Raging Heroes model got me thinking about schemes for the human auxiliaries/Traitor Guard. I knew right away that I didn't want these guys to look like straight up Alpha Legion. I don't want them to have completely separate colors from the Legion, but having the same proportions of the same colors would make them too similar. Plus, I don't want to paint the same, exact colors across the board. Part of the reason I like the idea of auxiliaries is it lets me try different paints/colors from my Alpha Legion, allowing me a break from blues, greens, and silvers.

So this is what I've come up with! It's looking like turquoise is going to be the main color on my Alpha Legion so i kept that in mind on these tests. Let me know which one/s you guys like the most. Right now, I'm most leaning towards #1 and using #4 for Stormtroopers and the like. Tanks would be mostly off-white with turquoise accents. But I'm open to other ideas! Feel free to play around with the B&C Guardsman painter and post a scheme you think would look cool.

#1: Off-white fatigues, turquoise armor, white accents, gold metals.


#2: Bone fatigues, turquoise armor, white accents, gold metals.


#3: Medium gray fatigues, turquoise armor, white accents, gold metals.


#4: Charcoal fatigues, turquoise armor, white accents, gold metals.


#5: Turquoise fatigues, off-white armor, turquoise accents, gold metals.



That's it for today! Hydra Dominatus!

You know Bob, I would go a completely different direction with the Aux troopers and paint them up in a completely different colour scheme.

Something markedly different from the Alpha Legion. But then add little subtle hints of green/blue or silver to them somewhere. Something that says "No no, we're totally not Alpha Legionnaire Auxiliary troops. No... totally not..." . Rather then something that says "We might be, but maybe possibly aren't Alpha Legionnaire Auxiliary troops even if we sort of closely match up to their Legion colours... Maybe."


Go all out and do something properly Alpha Legionish.