I love the X-wing. Yet to see the movie. Still traumatised by 1, 2 and 3 and avoiding getting my hopes up. But I have been hearing a lot of good things.

Absolutely get your hopes up, high as you can manage! It's 100% in the vein of the original films, the cast both old and new are exceptional and the visuals and music are bang-on.

what Para said. It's so much the original style of movies and quietly sweeps I, II, III under the 'wtf did we do' carpet. Great watch. Go. Enjoy. Rinse &Repeat!

Great X-Wing there Para. I wouldn't call the new Star Wars the best of all the films, but I'll give it props for being well above and beyond the Prequels and possibly better than Jedi as well. The gut punch left me feeling flat for the rest of the film, I have to say, though - even though I suspected that it was coming from ages before I went to see it.

Still, a great fun film overall - and I'm tempted to go see it again.

X-wing 2 reporting for combat! Neeoooowwwoooowwwm!*









On this one, I decided to build on what I'd learned from the first one. The basics are the same, but the weathering has been taken up a notch and I took Graven's advice on the metal chips (cheers again, man!), a more prominent engine glow and replacing rather than just painting over the existing markings for something a little different. Overall, I don't think it's any better visually than the first one, but it achieved the goal of looking distinct, reinforcing what I learned and giving me another unique ship to play with.

And for the benefit of anyone looking to paint these minis, I took a pic of my B-wing that's just had a single wash of Vallejo Smokey Ink applied over the basecoat, it shows off how easy it can be to get these ships looking good!



That's all for now, A-wing and B-wing are up next (anyone got any thoughts on A-wing colours? The B-wing will be getting blue, the Y-wing I plan to get will be yellow, so it's either green or dark red for the A-wing, I think), then it's on to the Empire's Finest! I'm kind of itching to pick up a T-70 X-wing to paint up in the awesome Poe Dameron 'Black Leader' scheme, but I'm trying to hold off on the new film stuff until there's more to play with than X-wings and TIE Fighters... Trying being the operative word...

Cheers for looking! Any thoughts welcome, and may the Force be with you!


*this may or may not be the noise I made on first taking these minis out of the packet!

Great stuff

Oh stop it ! Stop it ! Stop it !

I'm doing my hardest to not take the plundge and go all out with X wing miniatures... Your new paintjobs are superb !

Stellar job (see what I did there !)

Look forward to seeing more

Thanks guys!

Awesome stuff amigo! If possible I'd like to see a green squadron A wing, I think. Love the chipping BTW.

Actually just a quick question, are the x wing miniatures parts moveable, like the X wing wings or the B wings cockpit ?

Sadly not. Although they are plastic, so it's not beyond the realms of possibility to adjust that sort of thing. I was tempted to do a B-wing repose myself, but decided against it, Maybe if I get another..

I've reposed both my b wings. The cockpit is easily detached with a sharp knife.
Do it, do it now!

Fantastic work on touching up those X-wings, I've not actually seen these models in the flesh, how large are they?

The bases are 1.5" squares, I believe, if that helps. I'll grab a scale pic tomorrow with a Marine.


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Blue Squadron B-wing and Green Squadron A-wing painted up, pics incoming tomorrow!

That's a big help, I can guess the size from that, really nicely detailed models too.

Thanks Para.

Liking what you're doing with the X-wing stuff, Para! I've considered getting into the game myself, but I don't need another black hole for my money right now (40k eats up my hobby budget pretty good). I have yet to see the new movie, but I've heard great things. Please no spoilers in this blog, though, guys, I'm avoiding the OT thread for that reason. I probably won't go see it until a week from Sunday, if then, as I don't want to have to fight huge crowds (theaters will be packed for Christmas weekend!).

The X Wing repaints look.amazing. I think the new film has pushed a lot of people who were tittering on the edge of getting into X Wing over, myself included. Seeing you repaints I'm tempted to do the same, but half of the appeal was that it didn't as add to my painting backlog...

Foiled again.

Re the film, I have a few minor quibbles but overall I felt it was awesome, really excited for the next!

EDC

Thanks guys! A and B wings are done, but I didn't get pics before the light went. Just wanted to drop in and wish all my readers a merry Christmas! Have a great time, everyone!

Nice work on those X-Wing ships. I should probably do the same to my own sometime soon.

Cheers Az! Definitely recommend painting up the X-wing minis, they make for a really nice change of pace! Speaking of which, on to the Rebel Aces! Took a while to get decent light for pics (how I miss my desk lamp!) but I think I've managed it.

The B-wing, in Blue Squadron colours. Kind of difficult to photograph just because of the shape, but I think I've managed. As far as painting goes, the lower 'wing' was a really nice canvas for some heavy weathering, as befits the B-wing's somewhat tanky nature.





And the A-wing, Green Squadron (bizarrely, in the films Green Squadron actually have red markings, but I figure this makes more sense and looks better)




And a few group shots, first of just the 'Rebel Aces' set and then of the full squadron. Also a scale pic at the end,





That's all for now! Any thoughts on this welcome!

I'll be back later or tomorrow with a 'year in review' post of some kind. As far as upcoming projects go, I've got a few options; the Imperials for X-wing will be pretty simple, just a wash and some squadron markings for the most part. I've just received some assorted Samurai minis from Carlos13th (cheers mate!) destined to become a Frostgrave warband or similar, I have a pair of Infinity Geckos I'll be painting up for Dakka user Methebest, I need to crack on with BaC at some point and I'll be ordering some more BMG minis today or tomorrow, a rogue's gallery of villains including Hush, Mister Freeze, Deadshot, Killer Frost and Firefly.

Anyone got any preference as to what order I go about these? I probably won't get a great deal of painting done until the week, but I'll see what can be done between family visits, exam prep and my newfound Titanfall addiction.

Good stuff, looking forward to your thoughts on the year.

Too bad you had to leave most of your models at home when you went to college. I'd like to see a huge group shot of everything you've painted this year lol!

The Rebel Aces look ace.

EDC

Thanks guys.

Now just a quick look back over the year, mostly through the lens of hobbying.

First off, the year in numbers. In 2014, I achieved a ratio of 200 minis bought to 281 painted. This year, with 1 day to go (might sneak in a cheeky BMG order later on! ), I'm standing at 303 bought, 532 painted, with the bought total not including minis donated, taken as payment for commission work ect, just stuff I've actually bought. Off the top of my head, it'd be like 330ish if it were just minis accumulated. So all in all, I'm quite pleased with the total painted, and that some extent justifies the 50% increase in the number of purchases as the backlog is still being reduced. The bought total is kind of frontloaded towards the first half of the year, where I got good deals on 'big box' games like Sedition Wars and the D&D Adventure System game, since then I've shifted from quantity to quality of minis, hence buying more single minis and stuff like the X-wing and Batman models that are really pretty pricey per unit.

I think that goes in hand with what I was going to come onto next, the difference in my approach to painting that underwent a massive shift this year. Back in Jan/Feb it was all about getting armies on the table quickly, LotR mostly poured forth from the desk slathered in mediocre but effective paint, around April/March I decided it was about time I learnt to paint 'properly' as it were, and since then, I've been focusing a lot more on new techniques, improving my quality of work and generally casting my net a little wider than just tabletop standard minis by the dozen for games I wasn't actually getting to play. Quite honestly, looking back at the stuff I was doing at the front end of this year is at once depressing as a lot of it is just shoddy, and encouraging as I think I've come a hell of a long way. Oddly, I was painting some quite similar stuff now and then, so how about a little comparison?

Raven Guard, December 2014 and December 2015:


X-wing Starfighter, December 2014 and December 2015



Pretty drastic change, if you ask me! I think my painting has come a long, long way in the last 12 or even 6 months, as I've learned new techniques (if you'd told me a year ago I'd have a handle on NMM by now I'd have laughed you out of town! ), started paying more attention, and finally figured out how to take pictures that actually look like the minis they're of! Once again, I want to thank everyone who's helped me along that road, and moreover, stuck with this blog from the appalling stuff I was doing at the start of the year to what I'm producing now. 40 pages of blogging in 2015, let's see if we can't up that next year!

As far as hobby ventures go, I've perhaps not been adventurous this year as last. Buying and then never getting to play Infinity and Malifaux last year put me off buying into new systems for some time, so this year it's only BMG and X-wing that I've actually branched out into. Getting into commission painting kind of fell apart after a few quick jobs at the start, but I'll keep the page and it's blog going and hopefully get some more interest at some point. If nothing else, it's a motivation to keep pushing myself. On the gaming front, I've gone from 0 regular gaming groups to 2 in the last few months, and unlike my previous clubs I'm not having to run either, so I'm getting a lot more games in and also a wider variety of stuff that I'd never buy in all likelihood but can still enjoy playing.


I guess that pretty much concludes my hobby thoughts, so on to a highlight reel of the stuff I'm genuinely pleased to have painted this year. No surprises, it's mostly from the last half of the year!



Phew!

Hope you folks all have a splendid new year, and I'll see you in 2016 for more hobbying!

Great end of year review Para! Love seeing the improvement in painting and find it unbelievable that you've painted 500+ minis this year!!

You're latest x-wing stuff looks amazing. Top class weathering.

What big projects do you have for 2016? Any new game systems or factions for ones currently played?

For me, Gollum, the Aelf Prince on the Gryphon and Joker are my favourites

I like Angron the best, although the Joker and the Gryphon rider are pretty awesome too! Congrats on getting over 500 minis done, gives me encouragement that maybe I can start going faster too (my count for the year is probably just over 30 ). Looking forward to what 2016 brings from you!

Thanks folks! Definitely been a good year!

@AoV and Zerg: I think that if I had to pick a single favourite model, it would probably be the Elf prince; he's definitely the one I'm most proud of, given that it was only the fifth mini I'd ever done NMM on and I'm still not sure I've done it better since. Second and third would probably be Mister J and the RG sergeant.

@Bottle: at the moment, I've no idea what 2016 will bring! More X-wing and the rest of the 30k stuff will feature for sure, and there's plenty more Batman on the horizon; Two Face and Scarecrow will be the next crews I do, but first I'll be working through a bunch of baddies, as the Free Agent types are quite lacking from my collection at the moment. Later this week, I plan to order Mister Freeze, Hush, Firefly, Killer Frost and Deadshot, putting me just one Croc short of a Suicide Squad and giving me a real rogues gallery to play with!

After that, who knows? Infinity is always tempting me back, for the minis if not the game, more 40k might be in order now I have a regular set of opponents, knowing me, I'll find something ridiculously obscure further down the line!

Nice reppaints mate. Realy wanna see your take on more batman stuff.

This plog has been a *joy* to follow, way to push yourself to get better, I should totally emulate that feature of your painting ethic. Really looking forward to seeing more next year

The joker is my favorite. And I'm not a Comics aficianado at all. Here's to a good 2016 in painting, and in life.

I echo the mention of your move from quantity to quality. I liked the fact that you bashed out lots of cool, random stuff. Made it interesting to see what caught your attention the past week. But now you've scaled it back, and upped the quality I start wondering what technique you've tried this past week and watch you handle learning curves. The Salamanders for example, watching you handle and learn the green recipe, then drop that pseudo-Vulkan on us... It really has been great to watch. And you still have variety, which is great. I mostly paint Marines. So when I look here and at my display case I keep asking myself if I've got tunnel vision for the marines... I've promised to look into BMG - I haven't forgotten! As for how many minis you've painted... 500odd is crazy! I've done aroun 80 infantry and 5 vehicles for the Fists, plus what ever I did on my WoC at the start of the year, but no more than 150 at a guess. Over triple that is insane. I'm kind of curious as to what is in your backlog..? (although a little afraid to ask if you painted 200 minis more than you bought).

Keep doing what you're doing, Para. I look forward to seeing what early next year holds for you!

Oh, and I dont think i've seen that BA before. It's amazing! A real dark ominous feel to it.

Z

Fantastic recap there Para. 500? Sweet fething mercy, that is some number!!! Really great work. Think the Joker is my favourite. You captured him perfectly. So much great stuff to pick from through. Great year and here's looking forward to another fantastic one in '16

My favorite of your years efforts must be the Batman figs. They are really cool models and great paintjobs. Who would have thought black can be painted so many different ways.

Thanks guys!

@Zambro: To be fair, the 150 you've painted are probably better looking than most of the 500 I've done! As far as the backlog goes, the majority of unpainted stuff I have is actually older stuff that I mostly bought before I really got into painting and am not likely to ever get around to. The LotR splurge at the start of the year cleared out a lot of it, now it's things like LotR stragglers, some Rhinos/Drop Pods that I really don't enjoy painting, more recently a couple dozen Sci-fi zombies of various kinds (which may find a use in the new year, I kind of feel a Mass Effect themed Deadzone set is in order and they'd make great Reaper troops...) and then things like 25mm historicals that I never really intended to paint. Most 'new' stuff I buy either gets painted pretty sharpish after buying it or will sit for quite a while. As far as the stuff I actually intend to paint in the forseeable future, I have:

- The rest of Betrayal At Calth
- The Court of Owls for BMG (1/4 done, don't think I photographed him though)
- The not-Logar from Kabuki (might do him as a post-exam project at the end of January)
- Samurai-themed Fantasy warband from Carlos, I put the minis together yesterday and I'm really looking forward to painting them up. Then they'll need an opposition force, but I don't have the minis for that yet.
- A few more odds and ends, one-off minis and bits that don't just fit anywhere else. A little 40k, a little fantasy, some LotR bits, I'm just waiting on the right inspiration.


@Januine and Red Harvest: I'm right on the verge of buying another Joker actually, this guy just came out last month and is just perfect as a more comic-booky version:

He may well be in the next lot I order, but first, I need to get the aforementioned villains bought and painted.

Do really want to get a batman and joker but can't find them over here. Just have to wait until I visit home again next year

You've been a busy boy eh? great to see all your work this year and see you corrupted with xwing as well as BMG!

Nice highlights reel! I need to check this plog more often, lots of cool stuff in here.

Nice work. Good to see what you've done this year. Looking forward to seeing where you get up to in the next one!

I would like to see the Court of Owls done to your usual quality please.

I obviously want to see the Samurai but court of owls would also be great.

You've churned out some great stuff this year, mate. I really like your X-wing and Batman stuff. Will be a pleasure to see more of it in the future.

I haven't had chance to check by in a while. Amazed at what I've seen. The X-Wing stuff is brilliant. Seeing your improvement over the 12 months is fascinating. I can't pick my favourite from the year because there are so many. Well done!!

Thanks everyone!

Final count for the year: 537! This squadron of TIE fighters snuck in in the last hours of 2015,

Vader's TIE Advanced:





A pair of TIE Fighters with veteran markings




A plain Black Squadron





And a TIE with some white markings, no idea if they mean anything but it looked cool and gave me a nice canvas for some weathering.




And the whole squadron:



With these guys, I went a little less heavy on the weathering as Imperial ships would generally have more access to frequent repair. The greys are all just a wash over the basic paintjob, so really it was just weathering and markings that had to be done here. They're nothing fancy, but I think they have a little more personality than the basic versions. That's all my first wave of X-wing painted up now, and I'm not really sure where to go next. I want a Y-wing for the Rebs, and an Interceptor and Bomber for the Imps to round out my collection of film ships, but at the same time, I think now would be a good time to grab a big base ship, the Falcon or Slave 1... And I also don't know whether I should get the BMG stuff first or go straight on with X-wing.... Time will tell, I guess!

@Carlos: I put the Samurai together yesterday, really nice minis, so they may get pushed to the front of the queue... Need to do methebest's Geckos before I get too far ahead of myself, though.

Thanks for reading, any thoughts welcome! Happy new year, folks!

I like the Ties. I think I like the rebel stuff a little more but all of it looks better than stock. The white-markings tie fighter definitely stands out which is cool.

Y wings are nails. You could always get a Scum starter slave 1 is great. Falcon is... Lovely to paint, dull to play. Ties, especially weathering, look great!

GrimDork wrote:I like the Ties. I think I like the rebel stuff a little more but all of it looks better than stock. The white-markings tie fighter definitely stands out which is cool.

Yeah, I totally agree that the Rebels just have a little more too them. The Imps will get some fancier stuff when I get some more ships, I plan to have a couple in Royal Guard colours and a TIE Phantom with a cloaking/decloaking effect at some point....

inmygravenimage wrote:Y wings are nails. You could always get a Scum starter slave 1 is great. Falcon is... Lovely to paint, dull to play. Ties, especially weathering, look great!

Bounty Hunters! We don't need that scum... yet.... I'll almost certainly get S&V eventually, but for the moment I want to just focus on the 2 'main' factions. I'll also be holding off on the new trilogy stuff until we get more than just X-wings and TIEs, as I don't really fancy mixing OT and TFA stuff.

That Tie squadron is awesome. 'Thankfully' I havent seen X-Wing over here so I can't buy depsite your temptations

537? Insanoman! Well done, Para! You've achieved a great combination of huge output as well as an ever-increasing quality. I can only wish that I could get my completed numbers that high!

Love the Tie fighters, great work Para! Yes, I would love to see you do some Y-Wings in the new year :-)

Thanks guys!

Looks like the plan's changed regarding purchases, I've been offered a deal on some X-wing stuff that's too good to pass up, so assuming all goes as planned I'll soon have a few new ships to work on (Y-wing, TIE Interceptor, Bomber and Phantom, and the Millennium Falcon!). With that assortment, I pretty much complete my collection of movie ships (apart from the Slave 1, which I'm saving until I get into Scum and Villainy, and the Lambda Shuttle which if I ever pick up, will be done more as a display piece as it doesn't particularly appeal to me in game), so once those are done it'll be full speed ahead on Batman... unless something new and shiny comes along to steal my attention once again!

Been thinking a bit on goals for the new year, and really, all I want to do is continue the trend I tried to establish at the back end of last year of quality over quantity. No 365-model target this time around, I think given my new approach and ongoing uni workload I'll be more than happy with 100-150 for the year, I reckon that's manageable.

Beyond that, I want to keep working on pushing my quality upwards, trying new techniques and heopfully branch out a little more. The X-wing stuff has been a wonderful change of pace, so I may look into more smaller-scale stuff at some point (especially if Spartan Games' 15mm Halo game comes out this summer as they hinted at... I passed on the space stuff, but give me Warthogs, Scorpions, Spartans and ODST and I'm in, in, in!). I also have a few manufacturers and smaller companies that are on my radar to check out at some point; Hasslefree, Red Box Games, Heresy Miniatures, Minion Miniatures, Anvil's newer stuff and probably others I've forgotten. I'm more open than I was this time last year to buying stuff just to paint, so I will almost certainly go back to the likes of Infinity and Malifaux to just buy the odd mini rather than building forces for games I won't play.

I'm also going to say that if anyone sees or knows any indie mini producers or companies that I might not have noticed that you think I might like to work on, do point them out to me! The more stuff I can work on, the better!

Have you checked out Tales of War Para? They have some interesting stuff there that might be fun to paint for painting sake. I just ordered their solid snake and grey fox miniatures.

Black hat games have some oriental wizards that might go well with the Samurai frostgrave force you are planning.

Brother Vinnie has some very nice stuff including his fallout range. You just have to ignore the sheer amount of models he makes with their breasts out in order to find the good stuff.

Finally have you seen the Aliens vs Predator box? While their are certainly issues with Prodos atm I would love to see how you would paint the Aliens, Predators and Marines.

AvP is definitely on the radar, for the inevitable home-made Alien vs Predator vs Batman crossover if nothing else! I'm just waiting for the KS controversy to end there, just so I can find out what will/won't be available in the end. I'm also kind of waiting to see if I can find a good deal on it; I'm not too fussed about things like the game itself, the infant Aliens and the Marines, more the adult Aliens and the awesome Preds, so the value for me isn't really there on the main box at full price.

Never come across Tales of War, just checked them out and while the reimagined fairytale stuff and such doesn't really appeal, the not-Striking Scorpion mini is pretty superb... Might have to put that one on the list! I think I looked at Vinni once before, is he the guy that does a really nice not-Commissar Gaunt? Not really a Fallout fan, but I shall take a look nonetheless.

Yeah Vinnie does the not Gaunt you are thinking of.

Yeah tales of war stuff is kinda hit and miss, that said even the fairytale stuff is competently sculpted despite not being the kind of thing I would buy. I like some of their stuff though. The solid snake and grey fox as I said earlier. I have a few of their spartans and the fantasy roman general from a wayland games sale years ago where they were about £3 each.

When you say not striking scorpion are you talking about this?

That's the one! Lovely, lovely model...

I'd probably never do it justice, Eldar have always been a little bit beyond me paint-wise for some reason... Still, might give it a go... Or we could all just badger Januine into buying and painting one, then marvel at the results...

I heard that!!!! Crikey - that not-striking scorpion exarch is beautiful. I want one now!!!! Always were one of my favourite aspects. Way to tempt me into breaking my #1 New Years resolution mere hours after I made it !!!!!

Mission accomplished!

In all seriousness, thanks for pointing that one out, Carlos... Once the next round of X-wing is done, I might well look into getting that...

I dunno Para, the Lambda has some interesting properties. There's an article or two about how you can use it (with fun names like Doomshuttle, Buzzsaw, and so on), which helped solidify my like of the thing. Definitely not for everyone though.

It's more the fact that as per Star Wars fluff, they're just not really combat ships; if the VIP you're transporting in it is near some Rebel Scum, something has already gone badly wrong! I'm sure they're fine as a gaming piece, I probably just wouldn't use it (if I there's one setting where I'll be strict about fluff, it's SW!)

Well that's fair enough. There's too much gamer in me to not use a useful ship for how it plays versus how it would be used via fluff, but I can understand the sentiment.

 Paradigm wrote:
It's more the fact that as per Star Wars fluff, they're just not really combat ships; if the VIP you're transporting in it is near some Rebel Scum, something has already gone badly wrong! I'm sure they're fine as a gaming piece, I probably just wouldn't use it (if I there's one setting where I'll be strict about fluff, it's SW!)

I think in one of the books someone used a shuttle in combat on purpose...

 ZergSmasher wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
It's more the fact that as per Star Wars fluff, they're just not really combat ships; if the VIP you're transporting in it is near some Rebel Scum, something has already gone badly wrong! I'm sure they're fine as a gaming piece, I probably just wouldn't use it (if I there's one setting where I'll be strict about fluff, it's SW!)

I think in one of the books someone used a shuttle in combat on purpose...

It must have been Admiral Jar-Jar Binks with his brilliant tactical accumen.

I played one of those star wars games and there were totally space battles and the lambdas were totally shooting stuff to death. I forget which one, empire at war? Some kind of RTS but I didn't get very far.

Damn, that's a great looking Scorpion!

I've been meaning to ask - what's the technique you guys use with Smoky Ink on the Star Wars ships?

@Zerg/Grim: A fair few games and such have reimagined the Lambda as some kind of combat transport or even gunship, I just tend to associate them more with flying Vader to his next victim/Vader's next victim to him . I do really like the ship aesthetically, so will almost certainly end up with one eventually just to paint.

@Az: I can only speak for myself, but my method for the rebel ships is quite simple smokey ink all over the mini, repaint the panels in the appropriate grey-brown or grey, add markings then hit it with the weathering (usually a combination of sponging, drybrushing and streaking with more smokey ink).

That Scorpion is nice, the only thing holding me back from buying it is that shipping to the UK might be quite a bit... we shall see when I next have the funds...

Ah, so effectively a complete repaint after the smokey ink - gotcha!

Yep, the ink is just the first step as it brings out all the panels and lines, and gives a nice muted tone to the bits that don't get painted over.

And now for something a little different, who has taken a while to get finished. My Iron Hands standard bearer, entered into Nerdfest's annual painting challenge (with no hope of placing, but it's taking part that counts!) and my first mini of 2016 (no, the fact that I did 70% of the work last year doesn't count )









That's all for now, next up will be a pair of Nomad Gecko TAGS for methebest, and my next wave of X-wing goodies.

Is that banner freehand? Wow if it is!

Yeah, freehand and NMM... It looks all right from a distance , although close-up I don't think it holds up quite as well. Still, I was facing a deadline, and it does the job... Cheers!

It looks brilliant. Well done. I've avoided banners since returning to hobbying, I am not a great artist so wouldn't know what to put on the things! Also I prefer banners like yours with a little flow to them and I don't know how you are meant to compensate when doing the painting

Looks good, Para!

The banner's freehand needs a little bit of work, but nothing practise wouldn't solve.
Love the bloody chain sword!

Lovely job there Para, though a shame the Iron Hands Legion decals are coming out soon! Would have saved you some effort!

Great work on the banner , here's to another awesome year of your Star Wars repaints.

Thanks guys!

@Zambro/AoV: I'm in two minds about the freehand. One one hand, it definitely looks better than several previous banners I've done; looking at it on the tabletop it looks fine, it's the blown up pics that really don't flatter it. On the other, part of me wonders if I should just finally learn to use transfers properly at some point (I hear Lahmian Medium does a good job of matting them down?), as while I find them a pain, they are at least consistent. My freehand is getting better each time, I think, and I enjoy the learning process of practising it, so I think I'll just soldier on with that for the most part. Might raid my billions of spare SM transfer sheets and see if there's anything I can use in 30k, though...

@TP: the folds in the banner were accentuated here by the NMM effect, that's one of the areas I think has worked out better. It definitely looks less flat than if I'd painted it with the 'regular' method, and I don't like metallics on banners.

Superb blending on that banner, nice!

 Paradigm wrote:

@Zambro/AoV: I'm in two minds about the freehand. One one hand, it definitely looks better than several previous banners I've done; looking at it on the tabletop it looks fine, it's the blown up pics that really don't flatter it. On the other, part of me wonders if I should just finally learn to use transfers properly at some point (I hear Lahmian Medium does a good job of matting them down?), as while I find them a pain, they are at least consistent. My freehand is getting better each time, I think, and I enjoy the learning process of practising it, so I think I'll just soldier on with that for the most part. Might raid my billions of spare SM transfer sheets and see if there's anything I can use in 30k, though...

...I didn't mean to sound discouraging.
It looks good. It actually looks like a hand - which is more than I can do. I tried to freehand an Imperial Fist's Fist on a piece of scrap paper, and that day I decided to stick to decals
It's a skill I'd love to have. I get by with decals, but the flexibility that being able to freehand offers is awesome.

Microset and Microsol are the two things you need for decals. Quite inexpensive and last a long time. My original bottles are not even a quarter empty and I've had them since the start of my WS, I think. They really help with sticking decals down. Especially on non-smooth surfaces.

Oh, I'm not discouraged! As a competition entry and my first mini of the year, I'm being very critical of it myself, and I agree entirely that it's both decent enough to be proud of but very far from perfect! No worries!


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Oh, I'm not discouraged! As a competition entry and my first mini of the year, I'm being very critical of it myself, and I agree entirely that it's both decent enough to be proud of but very far from perfect! No worries!

Very nice job para! Where did you get the banner bit from btw?

Cheers! It's from the regular SM command squad on the sergeant arm from BaC

Lovely work as ever Para. Nice job on the banner. What's the banner made from - Greenstuff?

That banner looks pretty sweet. Only thing is, and this is probably a minor thing, there really should be something on top of it (like an aquila, a skull, or something) to make it look complete. The dude holding the banner looks good too, Ferrus Manus would be proud!

Nice work there, Para. If I can, I'd recommend learning to use transfers/decals properly (always over gloss varnish) and also working on your freehand. Practice using decals as a base for freehanding (highlight and shade a plain skull decal, etc) and also practice simple things, like scrolls and laurel wreaths - and then later on practice lettering inside those scrolls.

Late to the party but I enjoyed your recap of 2015. The side by side pic from 2014 definitely show an improvement.

I love your X Wing repaints. The banner dude looks great.

EDC

I found the iron hands chapter symbol a pain in the proverbial. Did it enough times though I think I finally got it right on the banners of some of my dreadnoughts. I like the banner. Just agree you need to find a suitably crazy banner top to finish it off.

Something with a cog and a hand, perhaps? How far are you going to take the IH? If it's going to be a significant force, you can get bags of tiny cogs off eBay for pretty cheap, and they make excellent deco for IH or Mechanicus forces.

That spesh mahreen is great I have a guy with a very similar banner (well, the banner part, not the design) and found carrying around heraldry to really fit in well with the way space marines roll. Good work.

Really looking forward to your geckos and more x-wing

Thanks everyone!

Regarding a banner top, I do have one lined up (the top of the BaC Chaplain's Crozius, a massive double eagle), but simply wasn't able to do it up in time to get the mini finished and photoed before heading back to uni and my mediocre camera. One will be added shortly!

@ZS: I am very pleased with the bearer himself, I used various stains and sheens to make the metallic black armour a bit more interesting than my previous IH and I think it's worked out well, I shall be adopting the same method on future IH.

Lots to get through today, so straight into it!

First off, a TIE Phantom with obligatory cloaking/decloaking effect that I think has come out quite well for a first attempt.




Next, TIE Interceptor in 181st Fighter Squadron/Soontir Fel colours, love this design and it's a really nice mini.




And finally for the Imps, some ordnance in the form of a TIE Bomber:








And on to the heroic Rebellion/Terrorist Scum, a Y-wing:




And finally on the Star Wars front, the main event, arguably the most awesome ship in the history of awesome ships. I think this one looks really good, but then, you could probably colour one in with crayon and somehow come out with something that looks epic.










And the two collections thus far... I've not even been doing this a month! Heeeeeelp!





And on an unrelated note, a couple of progress shots of the first Gecko. Still needs the base finishing, his wristgun thing done, digital camo on the gun casing, and a few more general final touches that might not get done until I have both models finished. Really fun mini to work on, I do love painting Infinity stuff.





That's all for now! Any thoughts welcome, ta for looking! Up next, more Gecko, and then it's probably back to the BaC stuff as I'm out of X-wing for now...

Nice x-wing stuff. Falcon is incredible.

Para you are a demon painter!!!

Firstly - the ties in general are great, but that cloaking effect is brilliant
Secondly - I disagree about crayons on a millennium falcon making it cool (you'll understand when/if you have kids - crayon on "man toys" is a horrible moment)
Thirdly - that millennium falcon is superb! You have excelled yourself, the weathering is perfect and the grubbiness is as it should be for possibly the most famous spaceship of all time. Bravo.
Fourthly - your Infinity figure is really good and I like it. I'm used to seeing a lot of Infinity stuff being super-mega-ridiculous-bright and because it's not a system I have a huge interest in I am only able to pass comment to a certain extent.

I have voted for a few images in the gallery I have been that blown away. Sadly not enough to vote for all because I am on the school run - Gotta fly!!

Nice work! I especially like the y-wing and falcon. The weathering is more apparent, although cleaner imperial ships does make sense.

Excellent gecko, they are cool models and you are doing them justice.

Love that Falcon, you have totally nailed the icon of iconic space ships. Nice lot of X-Wing stuff you have already.

Was hoping for a cloaking effect on the Phantom, looks awesome!!

Very nice looking Xwing minis Para.

Thanks a lot, guys! I am very proud of how the Falcon has come out, so your comments on that especially are very much appreciated. I was dreading screwing it up simply as it's so iconic, and there were several points during the painting process where I thought I'd done just that. It all came together in the end, though.

yes, Yes, YES!!!!! All of it!!! ALL OF IT!!! Great stuff there P. Loving those TiEs - esp the Phantom. Seriously cool. Milenium Falcon looks gorgeous though - really cracking job. Must resist buying into X-Wing ...must resist!!

The geckos look fittingly used. Given the background of the unit, it's a very good look for them. Nice work.

As for the Millennium Falcon, I can only say this: Great paintjob kid, that is one in a million! All the X-wing stuff looks great! The Infinity figure looks cool, but like some others I don't know the system so I can't really make any intelligent judgment on it.

Wonderful work on the X Wing stuff, I especially like the Phantom with the cloaking/decloaking affect.

EDC

Ta chaps!

Something different today, my first Space Marine of 2016 (well, technically, there was the Standard Bearer, but he was 90% done at the end of last year so for the sake of the sake, doesn't count!). Also my first proper 'bits from all over' kitbash in quite a while.

Iron Hands Master of the Forge, toting a thunder hammer and conversion beamer. The chestplate is in Emperor's Children colours as only they were permitted to wear the Aquila before the Heresy. Whether he's wearing it to honour a fallen comrade or just because it fits, who knows?








Argh, I'd got used to the decent camera over Christmas! Oh well, hopefully those pics aren't too terrible, I'll try for some better ones later if I have a chance to. In the mean time, any thoughts are more than welcome!

Looks cool, but a bit top heavy. I think if you had angled the support struts back a bit, he might have looked a little more balanced. Of course, that might have just make him look back-heavy. I guess you have these problems when you are toting a massive cannon. I just see him flipping over when he fires it.

Paint looks good though.

Got some better pics:






@Nev: The top-heaviness is kind of what I was going for. Given the gun's potentially insane power, I wanted it to look bit, clunky and thoroughly unwieldy, and I also think the added height suits him as a commander; most of my HQs end up with banners or standards or big, ornate Iron Halos, ect, so I think it gives him the presence of that without having to have a massive flag flapping around as well.

I like the top heavy cannon. Maybe he's a survivor of Istivaan and took the chest piece as a momento

The master of the forge looks great, I like the conversion Beamer and the paint job is nice and gritty!

Pretty over the top but what are space marines if not that? Good stuff!

Nice! He looks cool, a real tough, hearty pose.

I like him, the Dwarf (one assumes) hammer head especially. Did you get another Calth set or is it just the one at present?

Thanks guys!

@Theo: These guys are all Istvaan, that's why there's assorted Traitor Legion parts throughout the force. Having thought about it some more, I quite like the idea that he took it as, being all Loyalist and all, he felt the Emperor's symbol was better worn by someone that hadn't gone Chaos-crazy! Yeah, we'll go with that... Not anything to do with the fact I wanted to add a splash of colour and couldn't think of a reason...

@Thraxas: Space Wolf hammer actually, but they're just tall Dwarves anyway! :d Just the one Calth set at the moment (still 5 Vets, 3 Command Squad dudes, 2 Termies and 5 Seekers to go). I may well get another depending on how much 40k I get to play in the coming months, but I am too head-over-heels for X-wing to think about buying much other than that for the next couple of months... maybe some more Batman, they just released an awesome model for Cyborg and I need to pick up those villains...

I really like the forge master para! It has given me an idea for doing an istvaan raven guard squad will mix and matched pieces from the campaign

I think the conversion Beamer is a suitably over the top choice. I really like the fact it is operating independently allowing the Master more time to focus on smashing things.

Loving that forgemaster! Really looks the part - some really nice treatment on the metals there. I acually prefer the tones and hues as they came out in the first set of pcitures - looks more weathered and war-torn I think. Lovely work in any case Para

The X-Wing stuff looks great. The standout, obviously is the Falcon. Nice work on the MotF as well!

The MotF looks great. I do like the Iron Hands fluff.

Another addition to the Command Squad today... Well, I'm calling him that, although like the Forge Master/Techmarine, he's not technically part of the squad, instead a separate unit choice. Anyway, Salamanders Apothecary.






And a couple of group shots:
Command:


Iron Hands VIPs:



That's all for now! Thanks for looking!

Those iron hands....so awesome.

Yeah, I think the Iron Hands have been consistently the best of the HH stuff I've done. I still find the Sallies a bit of a slog to be honest, the RG are fun but the IH I think get the 'feel' right and are dead easy to paint too!

Agreed. That Iron hand group shot is special. Don't know how many times I can say it, but you're capturing the essence of the betrayal to a tee with your miniatures.

gorgeous work Para. Loving what you've done/are doing with these BaC figs. Really look the part of war proven warriors - class act fella

I'm loving all the BaC stuff so far, especially those Iron Warriors. I think, however, that perhaps you have overdone the "war-weary" look on the Sallies Apothecary. Not badly, to be fair, but probably just a bit. Or maybe it just shows up more on the white apothecary armor or something. He looks great otherwise!

These are easily my favorite "dirtied-up" Iron Hands. My favorite Cleaned up Iron Hands have to be these done by BrotherArgos http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/331718.page. He started them 5 years ago and then stopped , I've kept it in my subscribed threads for reference.

Nice. I really like the use of an Emperor's Children chestplate, a really great idea.

Apothecary Sally looks great too.

EDC

Thanks everyone!

ZergSmasher wrote:I'm loving all the BaC stuff so far, especially those Iron Warriors. I think, however, that perhaps you have overdone the "war-weary" look on the Sallies Apothecary. Not badly, to be fair, but probably just a bit. Or maybe it just shows up more on the white apothecary armor or something. He looks great otherwise!

I think it's a combination of the greater amount of white (and the Sons of Horus teal shin plate on the right leg) meaning it shows up a lot more, the added blood simply because of his role and a concious effort to do slightly more weathering than usual; this guy's job requires him to be in the firing line constantly, often with no cover or ability to defend himself while he provides medical attention or harvests gene-seed, so it makes sense to me that he'd have taken more of a beating than a lot of the others

Theophony wrote:These are easily my favorite "dirtied-up" Iron Hands. My favorite Cleaned up Iron Hands have to be these done by BrotherArgos http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/331718.page. He started them 5 years ago and then stopped , I've kept it in my subscribed threads for reference.

High praise indeed! Those ones are pretty excellent, I shall have to take a closer look and see if there's any elements I can pilfer... ahem, borrow!

Surely an Apothecary at Istvaan would have just given up with all the carnage and grabbed an over the top huge gun to take revenge?

Anyway he has come up really well. Best of the Salamanders so far I think. The brighter colours help bring out the green really well.

I do definitely see him fluff-wise as being less about harvesting gene-seed and more about using his skills and gear to keep his brothers fighting; the shape this force is in, they can't afford to be losing men. He has grabbed a Plasma Pistol, though, so revenge is definitely on the menu!

Got some more Marines done, the Command Squad is now finished. I'll be entering all of these but the banner into the challenge.

Salamanders Champion, with a Power Sword/Paragon Blade and a Combat Shield/Bit of Dreadnought:




Raven Guard Veteran with Lightning Claw and Plasma Pistol:





And thus, the full Command Squad (sorry for the blurry pics, this camera really doesn't do group shots well)



And lastly for today, the first of the Seeker Squad, a Raven Guard:




That's all for now! Thanks for looking, any thoughts welcome!

Those are sweet, good work.

Cheers. I just pointed up that squad there, and leaving aside the Praetor required to even take the squad in the first place, and the fact the Apothecary can't actually have a Plasma Pistol, they cheapest possible WYSIWYG version is over 300 points... for 5 guys... 3 of whom are in Power Armour, all of whom have 1 Wound...

Oh well, rule of cool and all that!

Loving this project. You've captured the shattered remnants of these Legions beautifully. Sure that new squad isn't optimized but it looks amazing and you can get away with overspending in 30k more assuming you don't find yourself in a cutthroat group.

Very nice para! I see that you are using the markings from IA 8 on the raven guard seeker's chainsword.

Am I? I thought I was just using very dodgy white stripes and then covering them with blood so you can't see how rough they are!

Cheers chaps!

 Paradigm wrote:
Am I? I thought I was just using very dodgy white stripes and then covering them with blood so you can't see how rough they are!

Cheers chaps!

Yeah you are, its just basically a dark grey/black casing for the weapon with white stripes and markings on them (an example would be any of my raven guard as I just copied it out of the book). But I think it gives them a cool look and makes them stand out besides the usual red casings etc.

Aha, fair enough.

I think it looks good so keep on keeping on

Will do! The end is in sight for this project now, just 3 Termies, 4 Seekers and 5 Tacs to go now before I'm done. After that, I shall be starting something new... Between your work and Jan's, that Ad Mech starter bundle is looking awful tempting...

Lovely stuff, Para. I like the posing on the Salamander, very "Come at me, bro".

Great stuff, Para. That squad is looking very cool!

Awesome. The posing of your minis is really fantastic!

EDC

Cheers guys!

Everything from BaC is assembled now, and one more mini done, in a colour scheme that you might not have expected in this army... Camera's out of batteries again, I'll grab some more later if I can be bothered to go out and tomorrow if not, Should have some more done by then as well, I'd trying to make the most of the momentum from finishing the Command Squad and nearly having the whole lot done. It'll be much easier to start a new project once everything for this is done, so that's my goal, finished the HH stuff before mid-Feb when I should have some funds for something new.

Are you going to do a loyalist from the traitor legions? Maybe an iron warrior or death guard?

Ooo you tease! Always playing the out of batteries card

EDC

Batteries acquired, pics taken. Behold! Lots to get through today, so I'll crack straight on.

First up, another Iron Hands tactical Veteran, this one with a Flamer.



Next up, another Iron Hand, this one a Seeker with a set of binoculars that are totally not just a bit of missile launcher... This will be the last Iron Hand in the force, the idea being that of the 30 PA minis, they're split pretty evenly between the 3 Legions.




And another Seeker, this one a Raven Guard with a scanner:




And one million internet points to Archer for correctly deciphering my hint... mostly! Yes, it is a loyalist from the Traitor Legions, though in this case a Night Lord. What with the Sons, Death Guard, World Eaters and Emperor's Children all being purged of loyalists at Istvaan III, I figured it had to be one of the 'second wave' traitor Legions, and after going through assorted blogs for inspiration, I came across Skimask Mohawk's NL stuff again and was inspired. So here's the Shattered Legions' very own space Batman!





The Seekers thus far, one more to go who will be a Salamander, but I may try something a little different on him...


Ugh, all this sneakiness is getting silly. Time for some real armour, in the form of a Salamander Terminator toting a Heavy Flamer for maximum Purging.





And lastly for today, some hopefully better pics of the Command Squad members I'm entering into the challenge:





Might have some more for you later, but for now that's your lot! Any thoughts welcome, cheers for reading!

Great stuff!

Looking good!

Dose your camera take normal batteries or or odd-shaped ones? The last camera I had needed weird ones that cost a bunch and it ate through them like candy. New one uses bespoke batteries, but they are rechargeable, and I’ve got two. One on the charger, one in the camera.

Considering how many pictures you take, if there is a rechargeable option, you might want to look into it.

Ta chaps!

@Nev: I do need to get some rechargeable batteries at some point. The trouble is that the camera won't work once the batteries hit about half full for some reason; on one hand, I now have plenty of spares for remotes, Xbox controllers ect that are still good for a fair bit of use, but soon I will just have to buy a rechargeable set. At the moment I'm using ones that are 6 for a pound, so it's hardly breaking the bank to buy a pack once a month or so, it's just annoying. Rechargables are the way to go, I just need to get off my backside and order some!

Well , its been quite some time since I commented on your work. Ive been lurking around watching you paint up these guys. Gotta say i am impressed with what you have done with the BaC stuff. really took it to the next level with the bits and conversions.

Cheers mate! Good to see you back in action hobby-wise, I look forward to your Ultras totally upstaging my Legions!

And speaking of Legions, here's another Troylaist (I know, terrible name, but it's better than Laitor! ), though given his Legion of origin and what went down between the Ravens and Alphas after Istvaan, he could well be a double agent...




The highlights on his armour are a lot greener than they look here, but this is as close as I could get. Against the blue background, he was just a blob!

And the last of the Seekers. As mentioned before, he's a Salamander, but seeing as he's a also a Sneaky McStealth recon specialist, I figured bring green armour with flames up the sides would be a little out of place, so in a nod to their original Rogue Trader scheme, olivey-greeny-yellow with black camo lines), I went for something a tad more suitable for his line of work. Not as yellow as the RT colours, but noticeably different from my other Sallies and with black camo instead of flames.





And that rounds out the Seeker squad:


Just 5 minis to go now; 2 Salamander Vets, an Undecided Legion vet (leaning towards Iron Warriors...) and a Termie a piece for the Sallies and Hands.

Any thoughts welcome! Ta for looking!

That Salamanders Terminator is probably the best of your most recent run of stuff (since I last commented). I like how he came out looking, and the heavy flamer definitely fits with the Salamanders fluff.

Cheers!

Gorgeous work there again Para. Agree with Zerg there re the Salamander termie. Reckon he's my favoutire thus far. Really like your Salie armour colour. So much better than that gakky luminous green they usually get swabbed in. Great job

Man I love that Termie Salamander with the HF. Nice work on the Troyalists, especially the Alpha Legion (which might be all of them?!)

EDC

Yeah, I like the other stuff but I lurve the salamanders <3

Nice troyalists gonna do me up some Imperial Heralds and Dusk Raiders in 30k, as a small task force that stayed loyal and turned to their old colors.

Loved the sallies. Especially the apothecary. The whote and FE looking green is a superb combo. Nice marines.

Oh and the recon one was sweet.

Thanks guys! Since you seem to like the Salamanders Terminator, have another one!





And his Iron Hands brother in arms:



Giving me a full, and pretty brutal-looking if I say so myself, squad of Cataphractii goodness, joined by the TDA Praetor in the second pic:




That's all for now, but with 3 models to go and motivation running high, I might have this army finished by this evening, so stay tuned for another update later on! In the mean time, any thoughts are of course welcome!

Your a flying through these and they are all looking great. I love the Cataphracti Terminators and you are making me want to buy them even more!!

I do like the cataphractii terminators. So is it a horus heresy/30k thing to have squads of mixed chapters?

Nice looking squad of brutes you have there Para.

 GrimDork wrote:
I do like the cataphractii terminators. So is it a horus heresy/30k thing to have squads of mixed chapters?

Iron Hands, Raven Guard, Salamanders and other Loyalist elements of the traitor Astartes, suffer massive losses to their forces at the beginning of the Horus Heresy. After the Drop site Massacre on Istvaan, they never fully recover. Some of the survivors end up banding together to form guerrilla forces and from then on, they're referred to as the Shattered Legions.

Ahh cool. If I were still into 40k, 30k seems like a neat place to be.

 GrimDork wrote:
Ahh cool. If I were still into 40k, 30k seems like a neat place to be.

It's great if you like LOTSA Space Marines, Mechanicum/Dark Mechanicum, Imperial Army, Cultists/Renegades, Knights and Titan Legions. Though you may as well throw your wallet in the fire if you commit to it lol. That resin crack be expensive!

Yeah. That's why I've always stayed away from forge world. Honestly, if you're looking at marines the oldschool ones are just as neat. Though I doubt i'd like playing it any more, basically shirts vs skins as opposed to marines vs aliens lol.

And that's a wrap. This is the last update on this army, for the forseeable future at least! Prepare for Troyalists, weathering, grittyness, group shots and lots of MkIV power armour! On with the show!

First, the final 3 Marines, 2 Sallies and an Iron Warriors Troyalist:















And now, re-done group shots of everyone, now I've just about figured out how to get decent ones with this camera.

Veteran Tactical Squad 1:





Veteran Tactical Squad 2:





Legion Seeker Squad:



Legion Terminator Squad:



Contemptor Dreadnought:



Command Squad, Apothecary and Techmarine:



Legion Praetor and Consul:



The Shattered Legions:




Phew... that was a blast! 64 days from first opening the box to a finished army, in the region of 1600 points, and my first ever complete (based and painted) 40k army! My goals with this were to create a force where every model was an individual, but that came together as something coherent, and I'm pretty darn pleased with the results. It's fluffy, I think it looks good, it'll probably get annihilated when it hits the table but oh well, they'll look bad-ass doing it! I've learned a lot over the course of the project; new ways to make my models look even more beat-up, re-learned how to get decent results with metallics and generally I think my painting has improved compared to some of my previous SM stuff. All in all, I'm chalking this one up as a success!

But as the old saying goes, no army is ever [i]really[/i finished! After a quick bits box raid, one more model has emerged, fated to be a Salamanders Praetor/Consul depending on what points I'm playing, just to give me a HQ that isn't horrifically expensive (IH Praetor) or useless as a primary HQ (Vigilator). I won't be painting him for a while, as I need to keep him back for March's painting challenge, but here's how he's come together:






So, where to next? Well, over February, I plan to enter my last not-Primarch, Lorgar, into the monthly challenge, paint up my Court of Owls minis for Batman, finish methebest's Gecko up and then, things will be getting all heroic; some of you will have seen the announcement of the Marvel Universe miniatures game from Knight models, and that's something I'll be getting in on from the beginning. I'll be starting with the X-men, my brother with The Avengers, and I'll be painting up both sets... So plenty to be getting on with!


That's all for now! Thanks for reading this massively overlong post, any thoughts more than welcome!

Grats on the nice looking army. Impressive work banging them out!

Cheers mate!

Great work on the Calth Box army, Para. I think you need a second box now.. to go crazy with!

The thought has crossed my mind! I was throwing around the idea earlier of doing a dedicated op force for these guys, again just from 1 Calth set, for the Traitor Legions. Not as ragtag and mixed up, but something like a Death Guard Tactical blog, some Iron Warriors heavy support Marines, a Sons of Horus Terminator unit, Emperor's Children Veteran squad ect. It won't happen for quite some time if I do go down that route, but if Calth is still around in the middle of the year (or another HH box set has come out. MkIII armour, please, GW) then it might make for a nice summer project, No one I know plays HH specifically, so having two ready-built opposing armies of around the same value could be handy...

The nice thing about HH is that the same Power Armour sets can make a lot of different units, so having just had a play in Battlescribe, I reckon I could make a force that plays very differently to this one from the same sprues... Really think this might have to happen at some point... not just yet, though, I'm all Marined out...

Love seeing finished armies. Happy for you and your ridiculous progress.

Loving that legion. It'd be an honor to play against them.

Sterling work Para, really top banana. You've done an amazinf job on them. The Shattered Legions really was the way to go and you knocked it out the dropsite, so to speak! Now - go get that AdMech starter box you've been thinking of getting

Thanks guys!

@Jan: that was the plan... but then this happened:


Don't know the exact price yet, but between that and the Avengers set my hobby budget will probably be mostly used up for Feb/March... AdMech will definitely happen, though, that starter is just too good a deal to pass up!

I dint mind the 'classic' look except for cyclops. Looking forward to your work in them when you get em.

Praetor is a cracking build, and loving all the pretty!

Cheers guys!

@ Grim: I'm kind of torn on whether to go all-in on the classic look paint-wise, or do what I do with Batman and try and make everything a little more down to earth and realistic. Leaning towards at least using those schemes, rather than the movie-style black/blue suits, even if they don't end up glaringly bright.

Just caught up on your thread.

Lots of cracking stuff mate and again I'm in awe of your work rate.

For the X-men /avengers stuff my vote goes towards the classic colours for them. Thankfully their too big to fit in with the rest of my collection or I would be crying over my empty wallet.

Great group shots. The entire army is brimming with character.

EDC

Is this what they mean by 'passive aggressive'??!!!

Thanks guys!

@Jan: I think it is! In return:

I hereby pledge, Dakka's Assembled Hordes as my witnesses, to buy, build and paint 'Start Collecting: Skitarii'... just as soon as I have the X-men and Avengers painted up!

Seriously, though, it is definitely next on the list, I would have bought it next month but I've been waiting for the Marvel game for a loooong time.

My job here is done......'barman!! Pint and a Dirty Steve's Gin chaser'

Congratulations on the Shattered Legions, they look suitably epic and battle weary.

Am looking forward to the Marvel minis, I bet you have them painted up within a week of receiving them.

 Paradigm wrote:
...just as soon as I have the X-men and Avengers painted up!

Now that’s an open ended promise. I only lightly follow comics, but don’t both those groups have a revolving door membership? Like at some point, every hero in the Marvel Universe has been a member of one, the other, or both? So saying that you’ll get to the AdMech once you are done with them is kinda like saying you’ll get to it once you’ve counted all the stars in the sky.

Or at the rate you paint, mid-summer.

Haha, very true. But for now, it'll just be the 4-model starter packs for each, and possibly the blister that's getting released alongside them pending who they actually release. If the single-mini blisters are ludicrously expensive (I believe Hulk used to be about £25 before they pulled him) or not characters I'm really a fan of, I'll just get the starters.

 Paradigm wrote:
Thanks guys!

@Jan: I think it is! In return:

I hereby pledge, Dakka's Assembled Hordes as my witnesses, to buy, build and paint 'Start Collecting: Skitarii'... just as soon as I have the X-men and Avengers painted up!

Seriously, though, it is definitely next on the list, I would have bought it next month but I've been waiting for the Marvel game for a loooong time.

Im all for the marvel game. Not sure which starter I will pick up first though.

Well done on the shattered legions, I know little of the fluff behind it, but I can get a lot of the story just by looking at your army. Now that's an achievement.

Have fun with the Marvel minis. I've got a lot of the Eaglemoss figurine collection (which got culled when baby 2 arrived and we had no space for the whole set) so it would feel weird painting up minis. Plus the wife would kill me. Wish they'd been out a while ago so I could have bought them instead.

The shattered legion is truly excellent. A really tragic story that your war weary models portray very well.

Paradigm! I love your shattered legion army! Fantastic work brother!

Ta chaps. Not been too well this last week, and rather busy the last couple of days, so apologies for the lack of updates! I do have a couple more Batman minis done and ready to be photographed, but I'll probably hang on with those as there's only one more to do in the crew, so I might as well show them all together.

Then it's on to Lorgar and the Geckos...

Sorry you're not feeling great, here's hoping it passes soon

agrax earthshade or nuln oil. they fix everything (feel better soon fella )

My cold has pretty much cleared up now, so I hope to get the Court of Owls and first Gecko done and Lorgar started this weekend. Got a fair bit of time free. Might also get the Legion on the tabletop tomorrow, hopefully New Paint Syndrome won't strike!

Will you be running them as generic legion?

At the moment, I'm using the Legion rules of whoever leads the force, same as I do when I combine 40k Chapters in one Detachment. Keeps things simple, and gives me a fair amount of freedom. There are Shattered Legions rules coming in the next book, so I'll see how those pan out.

Took the Legions for a spin on the tabletop last night, lost 4-3 to Necrons on T5. Had it gone to another turn, I probably could have pulled it back (I had a Terminator squad 1 turn from an objective and nothing was in a position to threaten them), but 'twas not to be. What probably cost me the game was throwing a 14-man Tactical Squad with Centurion and Apothecary into a 10-man Immortal squad, they ended up in combat for 3 turns due to some bad rolling on my part (It was so very embarrassing when they actually lost a round of combat to the Necrons... ) when they could have been capping an objective. Staying back and using Fury of the Legion for 60-odd Bolter shots would have been a better use of them... Still in the process of re-learning 40k having not played much in the last couple of years, though, so it's all valuable experience. I set up some good stuff early on, but was too hesitant to capitalise on it, so that's something I need to work on. Taking BMG and X-wing down next week, should be a nice change of pace.


On the painting front, back into it this weekend and I've made a start on Lorgar. Well, his base. Going for a marble effect, kind of making the method up as I go along but it's coming along quite nicely, I think.







More later in theory! In the mean time, any thoughts are of course welcome! Ta for looking!

Good that Uni, as well as educating you for a successful career (if that is what you want) is presenting lots of opportunity's for you to get your hobby on.

The base looks good so far, the finished article should be brilliant.

Exceedingly pretty!

That base looks awesome. I love doing bases first, means your mini is complete as soon as you put the last stroke of paint on it.

Thanks guys! He's done, after a day's solid work! Played around in a photo editor recommended by Januine to hopefully get some better pics, but my decent camera has broken so it's back to the old one... however, the silver lining of that is that next month I'll probably be buying a new camera, that actually works!



The camera has really not been kind to his cloak, and I shall endeavour to get some better pics before the month is over and once I've made any tweaks you guys suggest. Thanks for looking, any thoughts welcome!

Yes!!!! yes yes yes!!! He looks great (btw - what are you - a fethig machine?? All done in a day???!!!) the photos look great! closeups!!! nice one Para

Wow. So pretty - are you sure he's not the Purple Primarch?

Awesome, nice subtle glow added in on the photos

Ta chaps!

@Jan: Cheers for suggesting that photo editor, it makes things so much easier than the standard Windows Photos program I was using! The painting probably took around 6 hours start to finish, not as long as I've spent on some minis but longer than I spend on most! I think my record is 15, for Angron and his base/victims, but that wasn't done in one sitting like this guy!

Glad that photo editor worked for you. Play around there's loads of setting and fiddly bit beneath the surface

Very nice too. Did you adjust the photo to make it look like his mace is glowing, or is that some mad painting skill?

EDC

Nope, I must admit to cheating there, I've not figured out how to paint air yet!

Not bad for a days painting there Para, Nice looking red armour

Thanks!

Put together another collage with some different pics, think this one has come out slightly better, particularly the cape:

Any thoughts welcome, and if you've got a moment, I'd appreciate some gallery votes on this one, just to see where you all think I'm at!

EDIT: Pic was a bit bright, I've swapped it for a different one.

Nice work on Lorgar there. He looks every bit the orator.

 Paradigm wrote:
Nope, I must admit to cheating there, I've not figured out how to paint air yet!

It's easy, you just need an airbrush!

Voted in the gallery

@Az: Cheers!

@Nev: Ah, that's it! I'll have to look into that!

@TP: Thanks mate, the comments in here are always encouraging but sometimes I find the odd vote is a good way of telling where I am in relation to others and how I'm progressing.

Fully agree Para. Good to get that "level".

I have yet to get any models with 5 votes, so can't tell how I'm doing yet

That's not a plea for votes, I promise, it's just interesting how people like you and I have voted hundreds of times regardless of posts made, but some have posted thousands of times with no votes! As they say, you can lead a horse to water but can't make them drink

To be fair, one of my hobby resolutions for the year is to vote and comment more in the gallery, and not just on amazing front-page images. It's something I'd neglected to do before, but when I'm listening to a podcast or waiting for a wash to dry or whatever, I now just bring up the gallery and start with the 'view random image' button, do 10-20 votes every couple of days.

Same here. Great to get ideas for new projects actually I find. Haven't done it in a while though. Time, where do you go.......?

The gold looks fab on the Lorgar, it's either very good NMM or just has nice NMM look to it.

Did you not care for the Forgeworld figure of Lorgar? I'm not one for that type of fig but i thought he looked pretty cool. Mind you the FW figs are awful dear and iirc the Kabuki models were quite a bit more reasonably priced.

I like your Heresy Marines, i would imagine they are Istvaan survivors or somesuch? They certainly look like they've been through the wringer.

Thanks! Yeah, it's NMM, probably among my better attempts at doing it properly. I love pretty much all the FW Primarchs, Mortarion and Perturabo aside, and one day, I'll definitely get another (I have Angron). I happened to catch the three Kabuki ones I have when they had a Free Shipping offer and they were on an insane sale, I got their Lorgar, Vulkan and Mortarion for the crazy price of £20 total!

Yeah, the Marines are all Istvaan survivors, I really need to write up some proper fluff for them at some point.

Lorgar is looking excellent Para, your marble on the base came out really nicely.

Ta mate.

Quick question for you guys; what's your favourite 40k Chapter? I am currently assembling a Marine, purely as something to paint after finished the game-based army project, and I really want to see just how good I can make a basic-jsh PA marine look. I don't really have any Chapter in mind, so I'm throwing it out to you, what Chapter do you want to see me tackle as a one-off? Preferably something I haven't done before, so most of the First Founding Chapters are out (apart from the Scars, but white is still an 'aaaarrrrgh' scheme for me! ), but aoart from that, anything goes.

The build isn't finished yet, so if it's a Chapter that needs certain features/embellishments on the mini itself then that's doable.

My favourite's Dark Angels, so that's my vote

Only trouble there is I've done a lot of DA before, I kind of want to experiment with something new here... Not ruling it out, though, as I have some nice DA bits in my bits box. Are there any DA successor Chapters you'd like to see?

Other than that, more thinking has me thinking possibly:

Mantis Warriors (though they're maybe a bit simlilar to the Sallies I've just finished)
Red Scorpions (the mini has a fair bit of MkIV armour)
Howling Griffons/Brazen Claws/Novamarunes (wouldn't mind another crack at quartered schemes)

But that's nothing definite, so keep the suggestions coming.

Have you considered the relictors? Medium grey scheme with the added bonus of being maybe evil.

I think I'm leaning more towards a DA successor now. Maybe the Disciples of Caliban:

great looking stuff as usual .

I really like the look of the Disciples of Caliban, will be interested in your take on them.

Sons of Orar is a nice scheme, striking but not gaudy, the red Omega on their pad would be a nice and simple way to practice freehand as well. You can't go wrong with Howling griffons though, that would be my first suggestion.

Not personally a fan of any scheme that segments the colours the legs or arms, either looks like they're wearing goth gloves or welly boots to me.

Do the White Scar.

You are not going to get more fluent painting white by avoiding it. Face your fears. You might get frustrated, but will be a better painter at the end.

Scythes of the Emperor, a cool scheme imo.

Personally I like the idea of painting raptors chaptor. But they are either green or camo.

All interesting suggestions.

The Raptors are probably out, as the model itself is pretty blinged up, not overly stealthy. Lots of purity seals, a big sword, eagle bacpack, that kind of things.

Scythes of the Emperor are an interesting one, quite striking. Sons of Orar are neat, but quite similar to my Blood Angels, that's the only issue. Definitely considering both of those, though. Howling Griffons I've always been a fan of, they're the front-runners at the moment.

I will do some Scars at some point (or at least something predominantly white), I think I'll pass on them here though simply as I'm approaching this mini as a test of what I can do, rather than experimenting with something I possibly can't. That's another plus for the Sons of Orar, though, there's some white in the scheme to play with without writing off the mini if it isn't perfect...

Relictors are a cool one, but if I recall they're quite minimalist, this guy as mentioned above is quite adorned.

No love for the Red Scorpions? Really liking the look of them.

So the shortlist thus far is:
Howling Griffons
Sons of Orar
Scythes of the Emperor
Red Scorpions
And I'm going to throw in the Blood Ravens as well just 'cos.

Thoughts?

Well if you are going for pure skill based the howling griffons would be the best since they are a quartered army. But scythes would be interesting as they are black and yellow (two hard colors to paint well)

Just started on the mini, went for Howling Griffons. Always been a fan of their look, the quartered scheme should be a nice challenge and the it provides a nice canvas for a few techniques I want to try out...

Looking forward to the Howling Griffon, I've had them on my really long list to do for ages.

Wait no longer!



Pretty pleased with this evening's work. Not my first try at a quartered scheme, I did some for a commission a while back, but the combination of the pattern, the colours themselves and the techniques involved made this chap a nice challenge. First time I've done a wet-on-wet blended power weapon like that as well, it's not amazing but for a first try I daresay it's passable.

I'll say it again, it's really amazing what this photo editing suite is doing as well, for maybe the first time I'm actually confident the pics I'm uploading consistently look like the mini in my hand. Still getting my head around some of the features, but it's certainly better than the raw pics.


That's all for today, cheers for your help deciding on the scheme and I hope you like the result! Those whose suggestions I didn't pick, they have been noted, I plan to grab some more Marines next time I'm home and do some more one-offs like this, so I'll certainly revisit them at some point! Cheers for looking, any thoughts welcome!

My god Para, that is truly a piece of art.

It really shows off your skill and wide range of techniques, great job!

Do you mind sharing how you went about the mud? It looks like weathering materials but I could be wrong.

Wow, high praise indeed! I must say I did kind of approach this with the view to cramming as many techniques onto one model as I could, the only things I can do that aren't there are NMM and OSL, I considered both but decided they didn't really fit the style/tone I was aiming for.

The mud on the base is simply watered down dark grey over sand, I then just splashed some onto the ankles and sponged some onto the other areas. Nothing as fancy as powders!

Holy ! That's incredible work. I have previously been nothing but indifferent to the griffons, but I would love to see a full army painted up like this. Truly, truly incredible!

Wow!

Damnit Para weren't we just trying to decide on your scheme? Snap.

Oh wow thats exactly how I envisioned I wanted to paint mine, thats just jaw dropping Para you really captured the grim dark feel.

Always love looking at your stuff Paradigm, but that Howling Griffins marine is just gorgeous, weathering is perfect for 'grimdark'
...

Thanks guys!

@TP: An army? Waaay too much work per model for that! I could see myself doing a squad or two down the line, though.... When I'm home at Easter I plan to see about stripping most of the old Marines I have (DA and UM) as their paintjobs just don't hold up to my current standard, so if that all goes according to plan, I should have plenty of plastic to play with... Hmm, the Griffons were involved in the Badab War... Not that I need another mixed-Chapter army after the Shattered Legions, but a Babab crusdade force with squads of Howling Griffons, Sons of Medusa, Charachadons Astra, Red Scorpions, Marines Errant... Filing that one under 'projects I might do one day'...

That is art. You did an amazing job with that Marine, holy gak.

Also did someone say Sons of Orar? *They would have had my vote but it seems they got ninja'd by a HG marine instead.*

P.S Teach me how to paint lol

Cheers Stormwall!

Found the parts for another Marine, so keep suggesting stuff. Currently, the shortlist is:

Sons of Orar
Scythes of the Emperor (although I have just done yellow)
Red Scorpions
Blood Ravens

Feel free to throw others in though! If it helps, this Marine is going to be posed a lot more agressively, running or at least striding legs, probably some kind of beefy CCW.

Gotta dash now, won't get any painting done until this evening so suggest away!

Blooming heck! That Holwing Griffin looks amazing!

EDC

Looks amazing. Truly amazing. I think something predominantly white. That's a challenge to stop it looking grey but keep your normal weather beaten look too.

If you have any of the robe parts from the DA veteran kit, maybe a Guardian of the Covenant? Gunmetal armour with dark crimson robes seems right up your alley, and it'll look amazing no matter what!

No robes, so the Guardians are probably out (that and I don't fancy painting metallic armour). The Sons of Orar and Red Scorpions both have a fair bit of white on them, which I'd rather do than a predominantly white mini. I could do Marines Errant, they're split blue/white, but having just done a split scheme I'd rather do something different...

Mmmmmm damn fine model there, that blend on the power sword is gorgeous. I think for me I would have liked the red to be that little more zingy if you get me

That Griffon is lovely work.

How about sons of Medusa with some exposed bionics on their nuclear green armor....they have white on their helmets also

Damn fine looking griffon. I like the use of the tilting shield on the sword arm. I might have to steal that idea. I didn’t use the ones that came with the BaC termis, so might repurpose them.

Someone needs to explain to me how I just became aware of this excellent blog....

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Someone needs to explain to me how I just became aware of this excellent blog....

I think I might be because you have 14 blogs of excellence that you are in charge of and have so little time to come out and play.

 Theophony wrote:

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Someone needs to explain to me how I just became aware of this excellent blog....

I think I might be because you have 14 blogs of excellence that you are in charge of and have so little time to come out and play.

Yeah, that's it; we all gather in awe around your blogs, we are truly honoured when you wander into ours!

Started work on the mini, went for Red Scorpions in the end.

@Gits - I just found this blog last week after Paradigm graced me with his presence on my page...

@Paradigm - damn fine work, definitely grim dark, No one would want to feth with that guy. Great detail work with the split colors brother.

Another day, another Marine!



Not as good as the Griffon, I think, but I'm still rather pleased. Just needs something else, but I can't put my finger on what... The base came out as well as I'd hoped, the melta-hole in the middle still glowing as if he's just gone all 'breach and clear' on the poor bastard whose hand you can see reaching out from under the rubble.

Cheers for all your comments on the Griffon, really motivational. Kind of have this crazy scheme in my head to grab a box of Tactical Marines and do up one mini from each of the Badab War chapters in this style, but it won't happen for a while, I need the funds for Marvel and then AdMech over the next couple of months.

Any thoughts on this chap welcome, thanks for looking... I think I might manage to scrounge up the parts for just one more Marine from my bits box, we'll see!

Heat-stress the melta barrel?

Looks pretty nice. I think he belongs in a squad. Nothing wrong with him, but he’s not a “centerpiece” model. Nothing flashy, nothing to pick him out of a line-up. I think him and 9 of his closest friends would look great together but individually, he’s just hanging around.

He is very cool, but the griffon wins of the two (I REALLY love that Griffon model). Heat stress on the barrel would be good, but also his eyes could be more intense to draw your eye to a focal point

Nice work on the Griffon and Scorpion. You got the poses down, they look like they are looking for some trouble. Or more trouble.

Nice job on the red scorpion. I especially like his base and the free handed chapter pad. The pictures are also great, I really need to learn how to use that program you suggested.

Cheers guys.

@Nev: To be honest, I did want this guy to look more mundane than the Griffon; not everyone can be toting a power sword or covered in purity seals and bling. The Griffon was quite ostentatious, I was going for something a little more grounded here.

@TP: I'll see what I can do with the eyes. I'm not a fan of OSL on Marine eyes as it makes no sense, but if it makes him stand out a little more I can give it a go. There is a charring on the end of the melta barrel, but the pics aren't really showing it up (edits can't solve everything, it seems! ).

@Ustrello: It's pretty simple software (itunes is about as technical as I get with computer programmes, and I was able to wrap my head around it easily enough). At the moment, all I'm doing is cropping to get nice close-ups, and using the 'sharpen' feature to compensate for my camera's lack of Megapixels (the trick is not to overdo it with the sharpen, things look super-dodgy if you overuse that feature), then just adding some text and a border to make things look a little more professional.

Needs a yellow stripe on top of his helmet- right in the middle.

I like both the heat stress and yellow stripe idea. The latter is wonderfully retro. Beautifully painted model Paradigm.

Wow, another great mini. Bravo Paradigm. The quality and the frequency in which you put out your work is amzing

The griffon is amazing, both the painting and the extremely expressive pose! Looks so menacing. Did you do any conversion work or is it an out-of-the-box pose?

Yellow stripe added, melta improved, generally cleaner pics:


@Gits/Master/Mymearan: Thanks guys!

well-fething-done! Both those models look ace - and the pictures are head and shoulders better than your standard pics. Care to share the software you use...

The griffon is excellent. A contender for your best mini...
I think the Red Scorpion is lacking a splash of colour. Atleast that is whats sticking out to me.

I've just looked into this blog and missed the past few days worth of discussions, but my vote was on Raptors or Minotaurs...

Sure, this is the (free) program I'm using to edit and it's working wonders:
http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/index.php

Credit to Januine for recommending it in the first place.

Minotaurs are a favourite of mine, definitely adding them to the list of upcoming schemes!

Impressive work Para.

The SoO white is easy! *looks to pile of shame, I am a hypocrit.*

The Scorpion looks sweet now but, your HG is the best.

You'll find no argument from me there, the Griffon is definitely the better of the two!

You know when you get a new toy and you can't stop playing with it?


Which style do you prefer as a viewer? The column of images above, or this more compact version? Both are easy enough to make, but I think these newer ones (there are various configurations of tile shapes/patterns available) might be slightly better to look at as you can see it all at once and not need to scroll forever. Thoughts?

I like the more compact ones. The less scrolling the better.

I agree with Nev. Given the short attention span of the average internetter, you're more likely to give the full effect of the model in the smaller panel. I'm assuming there's still quite a bit of resolution involved in the more compact display to allow for plenty of zooming and gawking, once you've caught your audience's eye

My vote goes for compact too. The yellow stripe was a perfect idea and has really added to the Scorpion. Glad you didn't go and do too much OSL, I agree that it doesn't look great on marines. I was more talking about what you did which was intensify the red rather than having it muted. The adjustments made a huge difference.m, well done. Forgot to say before hat the base was perfect for the mini and sold a story for him very convincingly.

Yeah compact is the way to go.

Cool, good to know, I'll stick to that kind of thing in future then!

Got a further two Marines by picking up the bits box and shaking it until something Marine shaped fell out, one's a leaping Assault Marine type, the other is a Devastator with one of the BaC missile launchers. Leaning towards Fire Hawks, Charcarodons or Mantis Warriors for the former, maybe Exorcists or Star Phantoms for the latter?

Carcarodons and star phantoms IMO

Do the ML as a tranquility campaign Mantis.

For the assault marine, jump the shark!

Fire Hawks need to make an appearance. At least before they disappear again.

The helmet stripe and the improved melta definitely finish off the Scorpion nicely.

Do one from one of the Dark Angels successors, especially the Angels of Redemption. I'd love to see what you can do with a half-bone, half-green color scheme.

Nice Red Scorpion. The yellow stripes on the helmet/knee etc really help it pop.

EDC

Just stumbled across this PLOG. You've got some truly great work on here man - i dig your style and it's obvious you care about each mini.

Keep up the great work! I will follow it with interest.

My goodness the griffon is impressive!

Thanks guys!

Just primed the Dev, I'm thinking he'll be a Star Phantom (as Nev says, I have to face my fear of white at some point, and the Phantoms do favour Devs, they have 3 squad per company rather than 2). Still undecided on the Assault Marine, it's between the Mantis Warriors, Fire Hawks and Carcharadons...

Ah, Star Phantoms - what a beast! Let's see your interpretation of Fire Hawks.

crikey Para that howling griffon is cracking. I can honestly say that's the first time I've seen a howling griffon adn not thought that it was the gakiest colour scheme ever!! Lovely job as ever. really enjoy your SM style (there's a statement that could be misinterpreted lol) we want MOOOAAARRR!!!

Cheers Jan.

And one more, a Star Phantom Devastator. At several points during the painting process, I thought this mini might bring the roll of decent ones I seem to have been on this week to juddering halt, but he's turned out all right, I think, given how gak he looked earlier on (all hail to weathering, that which erases all dodgy blending! ) But as always, you guys can judge that better than I can, so here he is! (not sure which layout shows him off better, so have both to compare. It's the same pics in each, just cropped and arranged differently)





Up next will be the Assault Marine, and that will be it for now, I will have literally run out of Marines (at least until I go home and can get at the Pile Of Shame And Things That Need Stripping... about 3 armies worth at least in the latter category!). Pretty sure he'll be a Fire Hawk, he has a hand Flamer now and everything and I think he'll look good in red and orange (and it should be a nice test to get him visually distinct from the same colours on the Griffon).

Any thoughts of course welcome, thanks for reading! Again, please do be critical, your comments/suggestions saved the Scorpion after all!

Stop painting so well. That's my advice

Best I can tell on my phone that looks pretty awesome. Looks like a really cold and indifferent white. Which is good.

Love that Star Phantom. So many small chapters to pick.

I am rooting for a Space Shark or an Emperor's Spear Marine for the melee.

Nice to see that symbol came pretty good, looks sick!

Great job on that mini.

That star phantom is awesome! How did you paint the white?

Agreed. Really fine work on display! I'm also very gratified to see you doting on these lesser-known chapters.

Thanks guys! Any thoughts on the arrangement? Is the first pic better or second, do we reckon?

 Master Azalle wrote:
That star phantom is awesome! How did you paint the white?

Painfully.... Started from a black prime (I simply cannot paint over white, no idea why, it's just never worked out for me even for colours it's supposed to make easier), basecoated everything mid-grey, then moved up to pale grey, two thin coat of that then a mid-grey wash, then 3-4 more uber-thin layers of the pale grey with a little more white in each time. It never quite hits pure white, highest it gets is about a 1:1:4 mix of pale grey:white:water. Then weather it all to hell so it doesn't look crap!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gitsplitta wrote:
Agreed. Really fine work on display! I'm also very gratified to see you doting on these lesser-known chapters.

I think the plan now is to do a mini to represent every Chapter that fought in the Badab War, on both sides, it's a really interesting period of 40k history that, FW aside, deserves way more coverage. With the future ones, I'll try and theme them a little more to a specific Chapter, rather than just gluing bits together then picking a scheme that might look good on it.

Must say it's great fun to be doing these more obscure schemes, prior to this I've pretty much only done First Founding Chapters (including my HH force, I now have at least a squad or equivalent of all the 1st Founding Loyalists but the Scars) which are all well and good, but their schemes aren't hugely exciting. Branching out like this has given me a lot more colours, tones, markings and methods to play around with, so it's a nice challenge and adding more to my repertoire.

Look forward to it Paradigm. You will do a fantastic job!

I've been utterly disinterested in space marines for a while now but I keep checking back to see what you have done with your latest one Para. The effort you are putting in both in terms of painting and the various different painting schemes makes it far more interesting than space marines normally are. Looking forward to the next one.

Who next?



Tiger claws, Raptors and firehawks would all be interesting. As would many others.

Fire Hawks Assault Marine is up next, then there will likely be no more until I'm home at the end of March to grab some more Marines as I'm now out of parts. Might get some sent up, but with the Gecko to finish, and Marvel Minis Game and Ad Mech coming up, I've plenty of other things to be getting on with.

Looking forward to the Fire Hawk Para.

 carlos13th wrote:
I've been utterly disinterested in space marines for a while now but I keep checking back to see what you have done with your latest one Para. The effort you are putting in both in terms of painting and the various different painting schemes makes it far more interesting than space marines normally are. Looking forward to the next one.

Who next?



Tiger claws, Raptors and firehawks would all be interesting. As would many others.

What’s with the new-fangled picture? If you want to paint Badab, go dig up the old RT pic. With variant camo patterns.

(interesting to see how things have changed)

Have voted for all of your recent marines in the gallery (soz for not doing earlier). Love the Dev marine - the white comes off well - I'm still not brave enough to take on that challenge yet!!

Cracking stuff!
Love the new Avatar picture..!

Devastator looks great. I think it's awesome to see Star Phantoms painted up.

Very nice job on the Devestator. Really awesome pose that helps with a potentially static model.

You have achieved a great result with a very hard colour. I would love to do some not first founding marines. But am already up against it with my own plan so I am glad I can live out that interest through you and your work.

Nice work on the Star Phantom.

EDC