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 after many months I am say I only have one model left to do to complete my base Deathwatch force. I have started to upload pics of the individual units into my gallery. I still have a few minor details to work out. I need to fill in a lot of the purity seals and the strips for names and titles as I am not sure what direction to take some of those yet. Those tend to be the very last thing I do on all my marines since I want to put a name that is fitting or just silly. But I was looking for some pointers at this point on what little tweaks I could make to these models to lift them up a notch or two. The pics are from my phones camera so that can be taken into consideration.

Here's the link to the gallery
http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-36485-30542_My%20Death%20Watch%20Kill%20Team.html

And a few teaser images. Thanks

You need to highlight them a bit to show off the details a bit more then they will be glorious!

 Asherian Command wrote:
You need to highlight them a bit to show off the details a bit more then they will be glorious!

 Minus wrote:

Backspacehacker wrote:Just a quick question.

Whats a good color to use to highlight tanks that are based black. Whould i use a darker gray or a light gray what do you think looks better

Hi !
All answers above are ok. In fact you could highlight black with any color, grey would give a sober result, but you can also for exemple use blue (as suggested) or green, even red. But I would also like to add that for vehicles, using a metallic paint like boltgun or mithril silver to highlight the edges works pretty well on black vehicles.

This is something I found on highlighting black vehicles. Would this have the same impact on units?

Got a couple more done. The Imperial Fist Marine was done about a year or so ago, long before everyone else in the force was even started, even considered...

That last pic, with the Nid head on the floor... conversion? If so, lovely and well done!

 dominiquekee wrote:
That last pic, with the Nid head on the floor... conversion? If so, lovely and well done!

Thank you. That was an easy add on. I just took a Warrior Head that I had in my bitz box cut the tongue out of it, painted it up and placed it under the model.

A number of my Kill team guys are going to have 'Nid bits on them. After all they are Ordo Xenos. My Dreadnought has a full Carnifex head on it's base. My Hive Fleet Grapist 'Nids and my Deathwatch all have the bases done the same way. So there is a combination of 'Nid, SM and IG bits scattered about them and the 'Nids are all painted in the Grapist Hive Fleet style.

And the Bolt gun was a little more work. I took the lower handle to a banner to create the extended barrel. The Lasgun power pack was just a fun bit to stick on there.

Added a couple more. Both are from IF 2nd founding successor chapters.

Here are a couple more models I finished. This is based on the Deathwatch Keeper from the FFG RPG. I used a bunch of Dark Angel bits on him. I named his Chapter the Swords of Redemption. I wanted to get a shimmery, silk style look to his robes. What do you think? I hope the pix do it justice.
I also got the Techmarine, he's really basic nothing fancy to him at all.

So I got a couple more pics uploaded to the Gallery but wanted to show them off here. I have another Homemade chapter with the Frontier Knights Tactical Marine. (They have a Four Square Field that they have left blank of iconography. The Chapter Symbol is left simple to show they are an exploring-crusade chapter finding and freeing worlds for the God Emperor. Each Battle Company in the Chapter allows for Individual Squad Sergeants to add a bit of Iconography to his units chapter symbol to show the personal history of that unit or company. However when Marines are seconded to the Deathwatch they leave that Iconography behind. If they survive their seconding they will place the I of the Inquisition into the lower left Square, to be a reminded to his teammates of the hard fought experience gained.)

My other is a Blood Angel. I took bits from the Baal Predator Driver and the Death Company Sprue to make him. There are a couple of oddities in the picture that I have since removed from the model.

Here are a few Pics for my Dedicated Transport. The model has 8 magnets in it to support placement of a wide variety of weapons and additional bits. In the gallery some of those bits are highlighted.

Added a Black Shield to the party.

So with the initial group all done I am wondering who to add next. I am thinking of adding a Chaplin. That way I would have all the basic HQ types. I am not sure if I want to make any assault style - Jump Infantry - to use as over prices Vanguard or again to mix up the allied detachment group. I plan to do a few more bolter marines from various chapters. Chapterhouse has some nice shoulder pad variants what are some other bits places you guys would recommend for a project like this?

How are you doing your black armor? I like how it looks without having to do the edge highlighting

Beautiful Rhino.

Also, I've never heard of Frontier Knights, can you tell me more?

I think a Chaplain would be a great bet. Have you thought of some of the more lesser seen chapters? Knights of Blood, Flesh Tearers, Space Sharks, Angels of Vigilance, Hammers of Dorn, Raptors, Black Dragons, Steel Confessors, or last but not least, the Fire Angels?

Honestly, I would think a Black Dragon Chaplain would be highly intimidating.

 Leth wrote:
How are you doing your black armor? I like how it looks without having to do the edge highlighting

So first off I use Reaper paints for the most part, I use a few GW and Vallejo and that makes a difference. Also depending upon the model I adjust to fit the personality of the model. But just a lot of thin coats (4 sometimes 5) has really provided a nice smooth finish. For the Inquisitor I used an OOP Reaper Paint called Slime Black which has a lot of green in it that while not immediately visible the eye does pick it up. I fell in love with it when painting a custom Borg Cube for Star Trek Tactics. It just adds an extra creep element to the Inquisitor model. In the case of the black shield I put on a couple of extra layers to make his black look even darker than the others, as if the Marine himself added extra layers of paint to make sure even a chip to his armor would not reveal his hidden past underneath.

On a few of the Tactical Marines I used the Krylon "Short Cuts" flat black as my base coat and built the models up from there.

 Stormsung wrote:
Beautiful Rhino.

Also, I've never heard of Frontier Knights, can you tell me more?

I think a Chaplain would be a great bet. Have you thought of some of the more lesser seen chapters? Knights of Blood, Flesh Tearers, Space Sharks, Angels of Vigilance, Hammers of Dorn, Raptors, Black Dragons, Steel Confessors, or last but not least, the Fire Angels?

Honestly, I would think a Black Dragon Chaplain would be highly intimidating.

I am looking at getting the Iron Snakes, Hammer of Dorn, Scythes of the Emperor, Howling Griffin pads from Chapterhouse as well as a few others, perhaps the Mortifactors, they also have a pad with a lion, idk.... I also have some Death Company bits that I plan to use, there is a nice pad that has an Angel in Robes with an Iron Halo that I plan to use for some homebrew chapter unless I can find a successor that utilizes that kind of image....

As for the Black Dragons, the Dark Angels refuse to work with them so that could make for some interesting Fluff to my unit on the table, a Dark Angel seeking counsel from a "tainted marine"...hum.... Also consider that the Inquisition is very watchful of the Black Dragons it is questionable if they would even consider having them 2nd to their use.
Knights of Blood are renegade but it could be possible he was already 2nd when the Chapter was declared Traitor so like the Death Guard who were loyal to the Emporer, but that would likely lead to the Marine becoming a Black Shield to avoid open disgrace and answering for his Chapters crimes before the Inquisition. .Angels of Vigilance could be a fun one, add another Yellow shoulder pad. Raptors could work, I can free hand their symbol as it's the same as the White Consuls but with green armour.

I like the idea of lesser knowns and homebrews for Deathwatch, but I think having it balanced with the established chapters. speaking of Excommunicate Traitoris....

How do you build them up? Sorry I am kind of dense when it comes to painting, and painting lingo

So the first thing said I needed was some highlights. Now I looked at a lot of black tanks and the highlights just seem to run on every line on the model on all 4 sides. I also found that to really successfully highlight and shadow black the model needs to be a deep grey more than black. So I tried to merge a couple of ideas and now this picture only shows the highlights off. The other side of the model I am working on what I shall call reverse highlights. Where you paint a highlight on but you do it with dark colors and instead of building to a lighter point you buildup to a darker point. So instead of going from Abbaddon Black to Space wolfs Grey to Runfang Silver you go the opposite way start with say Stone Grey from there to Shadowed Stone then to a very dark Nightshade Purple.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Leth wrote:
How do you build them up? Sorry I am kind of dense when it comes to painting, and painting lingo

Build-up means to add paint to existing paint. It adds layers of color. But this is done with just a lot of thin coats (4 sometimes 5) and this really provided a nice smooth finish, you don't get chunky paint or cracks. If you water down your paint, which in most cases you should do this helps with that a lot.

SO I have a Exorists Space Marine carring an Deathwatch Banner started. I also have a Scythes of the Emperor in the works as well as a couple of other marines who have not yet been determined. I'll get pics up soon.

The Standard, still a WIP but 95% complete.

That banner is awesome, I hope you don't mind if I steal that 'Nid head design for my Company standard?
Two things though. Firstly, and most importantly, I am saddened by the lack of an Ultramarine. Secondly, with the eye lenses, have you thought of going over them in a lighter shade, leaving the darker colour around the edges, then a little white dot in the corner, it really makes them pop.
These are awesome though, I love a well done DW force, and you sir, have a well done DW force.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
That banner is awesome, I hope you don't mind if I steal that 'Nid head design for my Company standard?
Two things though. Firstly, and most importantly, I am saddened by the lack of an Ultramarine. Secondly, with the eye lenses, have you thought of going over them in a lighter shade, leaving the darker colour around the edges, then a little white dot in the corner, it really makes them pop.
These are awesome though, I love a well done DW force, and you sir, have a well done DW force.

I might try that trick with the eyes. Thanks. As for Ultramarines, my DW force has one.

 dalsiandon wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
That banner is awesome, I hope you don't mind if I steal that 'Nid head design for my Company standard?
Two things though. Firstly, and most importantly, I am saddened by the lack of an Ultramarine. Secondly, with the eye lenses, have you thought of going over them in a lighter shade, leaving the darker colour around the edges, then a little white dot in the corner, it really makes them pop.
These are awesome though, I love a well done DW force, and you sir, have a well done DW force.

I might try that trick with the eyes. Thanks. As for Ultramarines, my DW force has one.

Now that is one fine looking fellow.

I have begun work on the Assault Squad. I have the Chaplain complete as well as one of the Marines.

The Chapters represented will be:
The Mad Dogs, Iron Snakes, Hammers of Dorn, Howling Griffins, Angels of Penance and the Black Guard.

So here are some long awaited pics. My Kill-Team continues to grow. Soon it will be a full-fledged Allied detachment. I've got a Terminator from the Axe of Guilliman chapter coming as well a Deathwing Terminator and some Space-Wolf style Terminator still to come.

Well I finished my Ultramarine successor in Terminator armor for the Deathwatch. I present a brother of the Chapter Axe of Guilliman.

Finished another one. I home-brewed this guy by taking the destroyed Black Consuls and creating a new role in the Ordo Xenos and created the Death Watch Chronicler. As one of the last of his Chapter he has received a permanent seconding to the Death Watch and has now assumed a more observatory roll recording the deeds of his battle brothers. This is meant to protect the gene-seed and the chapter until the time comes when it is back to fighting strength. This is also a roll that Black Shields can attain to once they have finished the penance.