Greetings all,

Below are images for the first squad of my new Raven Guard army 'Shadow Force Dragomir'. The army has a deliberately muted and flat palette to reflect my view of the RG as one of the more 'professional' and less obviously passionate Space Marine forces. The army also includes liberal use of older Marks of Power Armour to represent the RG liking for old equipment following their decimation on Istvaan during the Heresy.

The army will mostly be made of plastic but I've utilised plenty of the new Forge World armour variants and Raven Guard upgrade pieces to make sure the army feels Raven Guard rather than looking like a different black SM army such as the Iron Hands. I've also used the FW decals, I honestly can't recommend these highly enough for RG players, there's a great selection of symbols - Chapter insignia, squad markings and honour markings for Marines and vehicles both - and the decals themselves are great to use, molding easily to shoulder pads and greaves.

Without further ado, Tactical Squad Khalid:



Below are some shots of a few minis to show some more details, more photos are available for the other minis if anyone is interested.

Sergeant Khalid:


Brother Nebosja, formerly attached to the Deathwatch:


Brother Drazan, in a mix of new and older armour marks:

They look great! I love the muted colors. Not bright and obnoxious.

What's up with sergeant Khalids right shoulderpad, though? That doesn't look like an RG symbol.

It's the Iron Halo.

'Awarded for displays of great initiative the Iron Halo is the Codex approved symbol of a Squad Leader (second in charge of a squad after the Sergeant). Like the Iron Skull it is most often rendered on a Marine's armour in red, frequently on the helmet or shoulder pad.'

Khalid has kept his Iron Halo, a hard earned symbol of his climb up the ranks whilst his white helmet marks his status as a Sergeant (or at least it does in my RG army, it's normally an indicator of veteran status rather than sergeant's rank but what's life if you can't take the odd liberty).

Wow, best Raven Guard tac squad I've ever seen. Great conversions and attention to detail. I love the FW decals too.

Are you using the Green shoulder trim to represent Tactical Squad, or for 4th Company?

those models are extremely crisp and clean. i seriously cannot wait to see more of this army.

Very nice work, you've achieved a lot there with a limited palette.

Awesome, like the mix of old and new mks of armour, very charecterful.

s.j.mccartney wrote:
Are you using the Green shoulder trim to represent Tactical Squad, or for 4th Company?

I've gone with the older style markings, shoulder trim represents squad type, squad number is noted on the Tactical arrow and the knee/greave markings represent Company. So these guys are the the Fifth (Tactical) squad of the 4th Company.

@DA666: I think it suits the RG to have a mix of armour, plus, it gave me a chance to play with all those lovely older armour bitz from FW.
@Ensis Ferrae: Thanks, I'm a slow painter but I'm just about to finish off the first Combat Squad for the next Tac squad and a Rhino for Khalid and his lads.
@Natorum: Thanks, the aim was to keep them subdued but still recognisably RG, I gave in to the occasional splash of colour (blue cabling on multi-melta pack, the red strap on the bolter of the top right Marine etc.), but I tried hard to keep them dark and menacing.

I really like your Raven Guard, which is saying a lot from me since I'm rarely interested in marine armies. The FW armor variants look stellar and I like the mix you've given to each marine. I hope to see a full army of these guys on the table in the future.

EDIT: Also, those FW transfers came out great!

That looks great!

I like the older looking bolters. They look almost like H&K MP5s w/ silencer which fits well with the raven guard's stealthier fluff IMHO.

Wow, I'm very impressed!

Raven Guard are hard to do well, making the black look different and good. You did awesome!

Wow dude, those are pretty awesome! Look forward to seeing a full army like this =).

@Kilted Samurai, Tylerkabana & Sturmtruppe: Thanks guys, I'm pretty pleased with how the army is turning out so far too, black is so much quicker to paint than my previous army (Brazen Claws - I barely finished a squad plus a Dreadnought for them in 7 years!)

@Snake: Yeah, the old style bolters from FW are great for a bit of sneaky-sneaky flavour, I'm just trying not to go overboard, I've got to make the FW stuff last for a whole army.

As promised the next Combat Squad is now ready:



Combat Squad Atanas are part of the Second (Tactical) Squad of the Fourth Company of the Raven Guard.



Atanas (above) is one of the Sternguard metals with various parts filed off and replaced by Raven Guard etched brass and the like.



Brother Goran (above) features a 'Corvus Corax' Mk.VI helmet - the idea was stolen from FW who have a neat little beak-like Mk.VI helm in the RG upgrade kit. I posted a simple tutorial for it over on the B&C if anyone's interested.

those are awesome dude... if i had your skill with black armor, i would still be playing my marines as RG.

good job on them.

They are perfect. Realistic feel all over. Very, very nice attention to details. Excellent work!

awesome!!!
5 more?

How are you painting your blacks?

It works very well, and I think I'd like to...emulate this on my RG army!

Thanks!

OK - found your method over on the B&C:

1. Spray undercoat black
2. Broad highlights of 'RG Black' (a very, very dark grey I made from approx. 1 part VMC German Grey to 3 parts Chaos black with just a touch of Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey to tie it to the highlights).
3. Badab Black Wash
4. Fine highlight of 50/50 RG Black/ Adeptus Battlegrey
5. [Blackline with black ink - 'true' black and recessed/shadowed areas only
6. Final highlight of ABG
7. Black wash
8. Touch up

Nice - and I'll definitely be giving it a try!

I was of the opinion that Raven Guard were one of the more boring chapters to paint, but you have made them look interesting despite the drab color scheme. Very well done!

Very nice work SCC. I love the realistic paintjob you've given these.

They look really good, i like the corax helmet, simple conversion that looks very effective

These are fantastic, how did you highlight them to get that look? cos they don't look too flat. Also, by FW decals (first post) do you mean their brass or their transfers...cos it looks like a mix on these minis...

I gotta say, this inspired me to get back to work on my Raven Guard!

Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy with the way the army is shaping up too.

@Menziez: The rest of the squad are basecoated and ready to go but I'm actually working on a Rhino for the first squad right now. I haven't painted a Rhino in years so this one is an old UM Rhino I had that's been re-purposed for a practice run so it'll be fairly plain and simple while I practice the techniques needed to highlight big flat areas and so forth. Pics soon with any luck.

@Imperial Monkey: Alpharius posted my recipe from the B&C but it's below for your convenience too:

1. Spray undercoat black
2. Broad highlights of 'RG Black' (a very, very dark grey I made from approx. 1 part VMC German Grey to 3 parts Chaos black with just a touch of Foundation Adeptus Battlegrey to tie it to the highlights).
3. Badab Black Wash
4. Fine highlight of 50/50 RG Black/ Adeptus Battlegrey
5. [Blackline with black ink - 'true' black and recessed/shadowed areas only
6. Final highlight of ABG
7. Black wash
8. Touch up

For those contemplating a black army of any kind I'm averaging about 3-3.5 hours painting time per Marine - and I'm normally a very slow painter so I expect others could bring that down a fair bit. I'm also limiting myself to no more than 5 hours per mini, once it hits 5 hours the '3 colour' rule comes into effect and I do the minimum to get the figure on the tabletop so there's room for a better looking army if you've time to invest.

As for decals, the first squad is FW decals only, the etched brass didn't arrive in time for them so the recently posted combat squad includes a mix of EB and decals.

I really enjoyed those pictures. A really nice "clean" painting work keep it up mate and post more photographs with the rest of your army.

Wow, you make black look goooood...

Really love the look of "Brother Goran" he looks really beefy and exactly like SM from the artwork, well done!

Simply amazing renderings. Thanks for sharing!

His Blog over on the B&C is more active than his here (jealous, no, of course I'm not!!! ), so check that out too.

A nice start to a rhino in it there.

I'm excited to try out his black recipe on my RG too!

I finished up Squad Khalid's dedicated transport earlier today, here are some photos of both Rhino and squad:





The Rhino is an old UM vehicle I simply over-sprayed black and added the 'aquila bar' on the roof too. Most of my 40K experience has been Marine infantry so I was using this as a chance to learn (or re-learn in some cases) vehicle painting techniques and to experiment with colours, decals placement and so forth. Given that the total time for the squad and transport is around 60 hours I'm pretty pleased with the results. I'm also pretty sure that the vehicles to follow will benefit greatly from what I've learned with this one, not to mention they'll all be built as dedicated RG vehicles to boot.

@Alpharius: I promise I'll show everything I finish here too, time spent blogging is time not spent painting, right?

@Theofilos, General S & Hollo: Thanks guys, encouragement from other hobbyists plays a big part in keeping me motivated

Oh dear god. Its gorgeous, if a little too clean stop painting these in so damn gorgeous a way!

Great job! Your Tactical Squad has a great feel!

As promised more finished Raven Guard:

Tactical Squad Atanas


Here's the second combat squad:


And some individual shots for some of the better models in the squad:

Fantastic work! I can only echo the sentiments from other posters on this thread! such a nice paint job on these guys, they look spot on as far as muted colours and limited pallettes go, you've done an amazing job, i wish i'd spent more time on the RG in my gallery, but I rushed them to play with then sold them as I wasn't happy with the job...now I regret it :-(

Okay. I have a question: Where did you get that iron halo shoulder pad? I might need a few hundred.

Love the clean and muted colours!

WOW, those make my Raven Guard look fugly :(

Really awesome paintjob!!

Also, did you free hand those tactical markings??

Some very nice, clean, good looking models there.

best looking black I seen

Great work here, OP. I know it's a fine job when it makes me want to start the army.

Awesome paint job. Dont see raven guard models very often but these made it worth the wait.

Holy crap dude thats insane i love the helmets well painted got any more tanks??

That Rocket trooper is awesome, such a great looking model with awesome paintjob.

Ill be keeping an eye on this for the future.

Beautiful stuff!

@Nerdfest, 2PaintPots: Thanks guys, compared to the last army I attempted to paint (Brazen Claws) the muted/limited palette is something of a blessing!

@NumberZero: The Iron Halo insignia pad is from the FW Red Scorpion upgrade set, there's only one in there for the Sergeant so you'll be busy casting if you need more than a handful!

@Grarg: The tac markings, in fact all the decals, are from the FW RG decal set, I've over-painted them white where necessary but other than that, they're straight off the decal sheet. The small tac arrows are actually taken from an assault squad marking made of four of those nice small arrows I've used on knees and a couple of pads. The decal sheet is a blessing for RG players by the way, I can't recommend it enough.

@Maniac_nmt; General Chaos; Manchu; Praxiss; BloodWulf: Thanks guys, I'm pretty happy with the army so far too.

@Jordankeeps: So far just the one RH1NO but the army is heavily mechanised and will have 3 Rhinos, 2 Razorbacks, a Whirlie and a Pred plus a Dreadnought, so there'll be no shortage of armour.

@Knightley: Thanks. The ML is a relatively simple conversion but I'm a better kit-basher than I am converter so it took forever (and a lot of advice from the guys at the B&C) to get it right. Bear in mind though I'm a bit slow so it takes me a while to update this thread with finished squads/vehicles.

SCC wrote:@Grarg: The tac markings, in fact all the decals, are from the FW RG decal set, I've over-painted them white where necessary but other than that, they're straight off the decal sheet. The small tac arrows are actually taken from an assault squad marking made of four of those nice small arrows I've used on knees and a couple of pads. The decal sheet is a blessing for RG players by the way, I can't recommend it enough.

hehe, yah i got that, so much <3 for FW.

Incredibly clean, they look awesome.

Do you have any assault marines with jump packs in the works for your RG?

I must say when their special rules came out back in White Dwarf in 3rd Ed I was sorely tempted to build a RG army as I love their muted scheme and the Assault Marine models.

Great army so far, I've commented on some of the photos in the gallery but was so pleased to find this thread and see the rest of your Raven Guard!

Grarg wrote:

SCC wrote:@Grarg: The tac markings, in fact all the decals, are from the FW RG decal set, I've over-painted them white where necessary but other than that, they're straight off the decal sheet. The small tac arrows are actually taken from an assault squad marking made of four of those nice small arrows I've used on knees and a couple of pads. The decal sheet is a blessing for RG players by the way, I can't recommend it enough.

hehe, yah i got that, so much <3 for FW.

There's no way I'd have attempted this army without the FW Raven Guard love of the last 12 months, that's for sure.

@Maniac_nmt: The planned 1850 list actually has no JP equipped Marines at all. Long story short my army is operating on a ruined refinery world where the atmosphere is so poisonous/acidic/full of particulate matter that JPs and other turbine-like engines (such as Land Speeders) have such poor efficiency they're not worth using. Scouts are a no-no for the army too for the same reason, instead I'll have a full bike squad for recon/assault and will rely on an army heavy in basic Marines and APCs/AFVs.

I do have a couple of test minis with JPs though, I'll see if I can post some pics for you.

@Reaper Man 2020 & sphynx: Thanks guys, working on a Librarian based on Sevrin Loth at the moment and the first bikes, hopefully they'll be joining the army soon to push me to 750pts and some actual table time.

Black is one of the easiest colors to look mediocre, and one of the hardest colors to make really stand out.

You sir, have achieved the latter. Looks great!

I like how subtle and yet forceful the color schemes are on these troops. The bases compliment the figs excellently. Awesome work, very nicely done series of minis.

Wow... fantastic looking raven guard. I've always worried that the plain black and white scheme of the raven guard wouldn't look dynamic enough. But your models look amazing and the positioning really gives them an amazing look.

I LOVE the lenses, most of us go for those suspiciously glowing helmets, but that muted glass-like "realistic" painting of them has almost converted me

@Cottonjaw: Thank you sirrah for those kind words, I've had trouble with black over the years but I'm pretty happy with my RG recipe.

@TRJ: Thank Forgeworld, their RG kit and decals have made the job of creating a good looking RG army much, much simpler!

@Ambull: Thanks, I always worry the bases are too drab...

@Henners91: Thanks mate, though I must confess that the plain lenses is simply 'cos I can't paint fancy ones, my hands shake too much

___________________________________________

OK, now on to my latest finished mini - Codicier Dragomir himself!

The Sevrin Loth mini which forms the basis of this mini is a lovely bit of work and I'm hoping I've done just enough to make Dragomir distinct from Sevrin without ruining the underlying coolness of the model. Obviously he's in black rather than blue and the scheme contains fewer colours over all than most Librarians which should help 'Raven-ise' him . Together with the change of base, thanks to Argos' advice, and a few FW RG bitz I think the result is a decently RG model and one that doesn't look too much like the original Loth model.

The other FW parts are the studded left pad, something I identify strongly with my RG, and the FW RG pad on the left give him a decent Raven Guard identity swap. The RG symbol on the knee, the RG backpack and the use of white rather than yellow as my primary accent colour also help tie Dragomir to the RG and more specifically to Shadow Force Dragomir.

The conversion was very simple, I used the force staff from the =][= Eisenhorn figure with the staff top removed and replaced with a 28mm scale facsimile made from two Iron Halos and a small skull. The base change was a matter of clipping off the stone under the foot on the original model and replacing it with part of the statuary taken from the Imperial Sanctum building. I had hoped to make that statue marble-esque but that proved beyond me in any reasonable sort of time frame.

One of my normal lights died the other day and I need a new bulb for it but here are the best shots I could grab of the completed Dragomir. Note that technically I still have to do the scroll/purity seals but I'm trying to make some decals for those 'cos I suck at free hand but that oughtn't detract too much:



I decided to stop tinkering at just on 11 hours for this mini, I could've kept trying to get the staff skull right, indeed the whole staff is something of a disappointment and may be replaced with the very similar one on the new GK sprues one day in the future when the army is complete. Similarly the bird skull on the right pad is a little flat and could do with some extra work but I have to keep reminding myself that this is a tabletop army.

Tabletop. Tabletop. Tabletop. That's my mantra for this army or it'll never get finished like all my others.

That said I'm extremely happy with the blue touches on Dragomir, I think the highlights are just about spot on and the colour is the one I had in mind for the Librarian elements of the mini all along. You can see the blues nicely in this shot, complemented quite well by the Terminator Honours I think:



Just ignore the staff in that shot. I used the auto-adjust option when I uploaded this pic and the black is closer to real life but it's done horrible things to the metals *shudder*

Tabletop. Tabletop. Tabletop.

All up, Dragomir won't win any Golden Daemon's but he should look good at the front of SFD and should serve nicely as my first army centrepiece

__________________________________________

Next up, 3 bikes, the third and final Tac squad and the Dreadnought. The Tac squad will be done concurrently with the Bikes and Dread, I can complete regular Tac Marines fairly steadily/regularly and that helps give me motivation to keep moving forward. I'm hoping that this will help me keep going now the LPC is done. I also need to start working on the vehicles soon...

Meow... they look good, It can be really hard to paint in black and not make it look like a basecoat, well done to you sir.

Wow. Dragomir FTW. These Ravens are awesome...putting mine to shame!! I love the black that you've achieved and your painting is so neat!!

I also have the FW decal sheet but haven't used it yet. Do you use the decals straight off the sheet or do you use any solution to make them more manageable? also do you use matt varnish after decal-ing your models to take off the shine?? I'd be interested to hear your advice before I start to decal my army!

@Sevenups: Thanks!

@!s.j.mccartney: Again, thanks for the kind words. As to the decals, I prep the model and the decal. I paint the model as normal, when the decal'd area is finished I brush on a gloss varnish over that area. Let it dry thoroughly and it provides plenty of purchase for the decal to be placed there. The decal itself I always trim as close to the markings as possible, the less bare film the better.

I also strategically cut my decals to help them conform to shapes like shoulder pads. For the RG that means using a fresh scalpel blade to slice between the head and wings on each side and also between the two 'outside' feathers of the wings and finally between the claws and tail feathers. That done I soak the decal as normal, plain old tap water, room temperature, for about 20 seconds.

While that's soaking I use plenty of Aero-Set II (virtually the same as Micro-Sol/Set) to wet the area the decal will sit on. Next I transfer the decal to the mini, use a piece of tissue to blot up the worst of the excess Aero-Set and get the decal in the proper place before a final blot to lock it in place. If the decal isn't quite flat I use a scalpel to 'pop' any bubbles or folds and a nice soft brush dampened with Aero-Set to smooth the wrinkles out. Repeat as necessary to obtain a smooth finish.

I then paint over the RG markings themselves with a few coats of really thin VGC Skull White or Reaper Dragon White to keep them really nice and clean and ensure the best contrast with the black (which helps the black look really black as an added bonus). I also make sure to paint over any remaining transparent areas of decal with black, again, it's all to max out the contrast and make black black and white white.

Finally I seal by hand with gloss varnish once more and when that's dry I hit it with the Dull Cote matte spray varnish that gives my RG their 'stealth' coating.

It sounds complex/time consuming but really for each mini I only spend about 5 minutes, maybe 10 if over-painting is particularly tricky (note: I don't paint stuff like the numbers, waaaay too fiddly for these old hands) actually doing the decals. It does take 24 hours to actually take the steps above but that's mostly waiting for varnish or paint from the overpainting to dry before the next step can occur.

Having said all that, get some Micro-Set or a similar product that helps soften decals and mould them to the mini and it's pretty hard to go wrong with decals

Thanks for that SCC, I'll give it a shot!!

Love the idea! Think you should have put more detail on though, not too much so you don't spoil the muteness.

fantastic work! The painting style looks incredibly realistic! I love your bases as well, are they resin or made by hand? Very impressive army!

:O

Great tips on the decals, I use some of those techniques but hadn't heard all of them so really helpful and they clearly give good results!

@s.j.mccartney & RM2020: No worries guys, I've been addicted to decals since the age of 6 and my first Airfix kit, almost 30 years of practice has got to be worth something, right?

TRISKELION7 wrote:Love the idea! Think you should have put more detail on though, not too much so you don't spoil the muteness.

More detail? Really. Huh. I think there's plenty of detail on the mini and I'm not really sure where else you could put detail without making the whole figure busy. If you're talking painting 'quality' when you say detail then that makes more sense to me, but as I've already said, this is a army for play, not display. I've gone the other way with previous armies and never managed to finish more than a handful of figures so I'm pretty happy with the balance between quality/quantity at this point. I could spend another 10 hours or more, easily, on Dragomir, but that's a Rhino or 3 Tactical troopers I could be doing instead...

@element 206: The bases are plastic, though I did just pick up some Back-2-Basix resin bases that are city/rubble themed that you'll see crop up soon. Most of the rubble is from GaleForce9's Concrete Rubble Mix (GF92025) finished off with plain old flocking sand. I also add the occasional pipe or grate and that kind of thing for variety, they're either plasticard or etched brass for the most part.

@Imperial Monkey: Thanks

So great! Nice and crispy

As I've said before I'm blogging the creation of Shadow Force Dragomir over at the B&C, the most recent part of the blog was a tutorial on how I paint my raven Guard. Well, the tutorial is now complete and has been turned into a PDF for your convenience and is being hosted over at the B&C, the cover page below will take you to the download area to grab it:



For the curious this is the end result of the tutorial:

Awesome!

Thank you VERY much for the tutorial - it will come in very handy indeed!

They look great!!

Did you model the hand on the Librarian?
I love the look of that model. Did you build his psy hood?

Rochronos wrote:Did you model the hand on the Librarian?
I love the look of that model. Did you build his psy hood?

It's based on this guy.
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40000/Space_Marines/Red_Scorpions/MAGISTER_SEVRIN_LOTH-CHIEF-LIBRARIAN-OF-THE-RED-SCORPIONS-WITH-HONOUR-GUARD.html

very jealous

Hey SCC, sorry to join a mildly-threadomanced set of comments, but I had to post to say THANK YOU for the tutorial. I'm having some serious challenges with painting black and your .pdf will help a lot.

Cheers!

Can we see the Dread yet, or is that tightly under wraps?

Great job with the army, Raven Guard are some of my favorite original chapters. The black armor is really well done, I wish mine looked as good.

This army looks amazing mate. cant wait to see more

Beautifully done, the fact that they sort of blend into the bases really captures the stealthy element of the raven guard, good job!

Very well done, best Raven Guard I've ever seen. I'm liking the mixed armor as well.

Alpharius wrote:Awesome!

Thank you VERY much for the tutorial - it will come in very handy indeed!

Savnock wrote:Hey SCC, sorry to join a mildly-threadomanced set of comments, but I had to post to say THANK YOU for the tutorial. I'm having some serious challenges with painting black and your .pdf will help a lot.

Cheers!

No worries guys

And Saynock, feel free to PM me if you think I can offer any help.

@FallenRaven, susejo239, Snarky, Dragoons & bdix: Thanks guys, hopefully have some more finished soon.

@Joshh: The Dread is still under wraps, next models off the desk will be a test bike, the Rhino for Squad Atanas and the first half of my last Tactical squad.

Wow these are utterly amazing. Simple yet elegant, tough and yet sleek all at the same time. Very nice work.


Although I have to ask, can we get a whole army shot. Like all the completed minis in one group shot? (or more if you're feeling generous )

Wow, those look amazing! Thanks for the tutorial also, will have to try that out sometime!

Hello again folks, I'm back with an update including a completed Rhino, the test bike and a sneak preview of my Venerable Dreadnought.

To start off I present the Rhino Moriorum, which will carry Tactical Squad Atanas into battle:



Raven Guard brass etch adorns the side doors - with a FW purity seal on one side to give a little individuality to the otherwise identical sides, whilst the interior has etched brass and some FW resin details to add a little character too. The front panel is FW resin with an etched brass nameplate, in retrospect I might have been better off painting the plate silver, but it doesn't look too bad as is and in the interest of 'play, not display' I'll let it stand for now.

Next up is my test biker:


The model was a test for a number of things, firstly could I convert the legs into different marks easily and with a decent end result? After all, if I'm doing 10 of these guys I want them to look like individuals not clones. The answer is 'yes' and 'mostly' for my first attempt at making Mk.V legs, some extra practice should help improve the end result, I've already got a set of legs undergoing conversion to Mk.VI standard too.

That said there is one major issue with the test mini - he looks like Ravenwing as much as Raven Guard. The guys at the B&C helped me figure out why - silver details and red seat for the most part - and the next mini will have an all black bike with dark brown leather seating I think. Hopefully that will help make him look more RG than RW.

Finally, even though this thread is really for my finished minis I can't help but share the progress on my FW RG Dreadnought:



Plenty of work left to do of course - arms, banner and so forth - but I'm pretty happy with the way everything has turned out so far...

Great work,really liking these mini's a lot.

Wow!...again! loving your mini's the biker is great and looks really menacing, but the dreadnought is what i'm eager to see! I love the way you've painted up the bird skull on the sarcophagus it looks fantastic, and as usual your recipe for painting black is flawless as demonstrated by the rhino! excellent work as only you can produce! looking forward to more!

It is all coming on really well, I like the Rhino a lot, very clean and the biker looks cool too. I'd love to get one of the Forge World dreads for my Raven Guard successor chapter I'm doing at the moment but I have decided I need to finish all the other models before I go and get another one!

Could you possibly upload the pictures in the gallery so we could zoom in? I'd like to take a good look at the interior of the Rhino and it's a little small. If you upload the pics in the gallery then you can copy and paste the forum link of the pics page and put it in you blog then when we click on it it takes us to the pic in the gallery and we can zoom in.

Looking extremely good - very impressed with the depth you have on the black.

Thanks guys, as I've said before, I'm very happy with the progress of the army to date.

@Reaperman2020:
Link to some bigger pics of the inside I've uploaded.

These are the biggest images I have right now, if you're particularly interested in more/better shots let me know and I'll take some more.

Wow the interior is lovely! here are the pics a bit bigger;

Awesome stuff! You make black look...black. I love it! Keep it up! Each model seems to be its 'own' not just some random marine. I think thats what I love most about this army, it is very custom and has a great theme.

Nice , your raven guard look awesome ! , good job .

That dread is downright sexy. Very good job on the bike too!

Wow, i find it so hard to paint black well, but yours is so crisp and clean, really captures the sneakky-stealth of the RG

I really like the dreadnought and the biker..... white side panels on the front forks with black raven symbols might help.

Fantastic blog. It's very difficult to get black armor to look right and your Ravenguard pull it off very nicely. Thanks for sharing. Definitely looking forward to more.

Very nice stuff, man. Can't wait to see more.

Maybe the bike farings could get a coat of very dark colour to represent the squad attatchment? might be done subtle enough to work with the overall theme? but before you even consider that, you need to paint and post more up! love your work!


Nerdfest09

I proudly present Venerable Brother Pallas, Fourth Company, Adeptus Astartes Raven Guard:



The model is straight out of the box - Forgeworld Venerable Raven Guard Dreadnought with FW DCCW and Autocannon arms and a coupla bits of etched brass (plus some MV lenses because I can't paint lenses). That FW gear is a god send for RG players, it really is I've left off the FW banner, I just couldn't get black and white to work on cloth, I'll come back to it when the army is closer to being finished and I have time for luxuries like that. And finally, some bigger pictures:

Front:

Back:

Front left hand quarter:

Front right hand quarter:

Rear left hand quarter:

RHS:

Lovely, the best thing about your painting is its understated and not in-your-face bold, I really like that! The bike doesn't seem to work for me...I think that the bike is a little cartoon-y in its shape and style, whereas the figure riding it is much more....i don't know what the word is, but they don't seem to fit. Anyway. Keep it up, I love your work....

Sweet as!
this is great!
Subbed indeeeed

how have you got such a mat black finish on them? i gotta say though they look amazing. i love the striking white helm on khalid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
how have you got such a mat black finish on them? i gotta say though they look amazing. i love the striking white helm on khalid.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
sorry only just seen the tutorail! keep up the good work!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sorry only just seen the tutorail! keep up the good work!

Long time no see!

Between moving and back problems I've not been able to do much modelling in the last few months, but everything seems to have settled down now and I've been making progress on my 'Captain' and his command squad. And without further ado, here is that 'captain' - in fact a First Company Sergeant, but rules wise Captain will do just fine:



Arcolin here is much fancier than the rest of the army bar Codicier Dragomir, but still in keeping with the grimdark feel of the Shadow Force. I'm particularly fond of the combat shield and it's white stripe, but best of all I think is the menace of the pose, I think it's got the hunting vibe I was aiming for down pretty well.

The first member of his command squad (which will also double as a Sternguard squad for smaller games) is also complete, apologies for the photo but you get the idea:



Note the stripes on the weapons of these Marines, a theme that'll carry through the squad and inspired by the Imperial Armour Vol. VIII book Nerdfest so kindly donated to my RG army.

some pretty sweet painting dude

These guys are everything the ravenguard should be, fantastic work well done

Love how your RG turned out . Very clean, I can't wait to see more.

Glad to have you back! I must say, I've been wanting to see more of these guys. You've got the most perfect black armor I think I've ever seen on a mini, but it's the subtle details and natural poses that really bump it up to the next level.

So glad you have done some more models! Fantastic additions to the force, looking forward to more.

Really great models! When/ are you going to add any of the named characters (Shrike or that guy on Forge world)?

The combi-flamer fella looks like he's leaning back too much...looks unnatural...

great work! consider me subscribed

Magnificent looking marines. The crows skull on the dread provides great contrast making the model that much cooler.

Hey Chris, great to see you back dude I like others have really missed seeing these guys into fruition ! and I can say the wait was well worth it! love what you've done, the dread is amazingly good, especially for the large areas of black, and the bone detailing is beautiful, you have captured the colour spot on! I also am a huge fan of your latest marines! the characters look great! and I'm pleased the book has offered you some ideas for them that are usable! I can't wait to see more of this army! it's truly inspiring to see!

hopefully i'll catch you soon!

cheers dude, keep it up!

Nerdfest09

Nicely done!

Looks great keep it up !

Nice'n'smooth!

A truly beautiful job. Your army is excellently done. Everything from the great posing and modeling to the cleanness of the painting job. That Captain is just intimidating. Cheers.

I LOVE Arcolin's pose, it conveys the stalking menace very well. I can just imagine some poor grot cowering in terror behind a pile of rubble as he walks by.

Not so sure about the white studs, but I can't think of a color that would do much better (as you've already used the steel color in a lot of the details). And I also like what you did with the champion's combat shield, you really made it work.

Beautiful!

Wheres the Captain's Chainsword from? Looks very cool.

@everyone who said nice things: Thanks very much folks, glad you're enjoying the army. Battlefield 3 is slowing progress but I'm still managing to get paint on plastic (and resin).

CappyBen wrote:Really great models! When/ are you going to add any of the named characters (Shrike or that guy on Forge world)?

My RG force is pretty much straight Codex so no fancy characters for me. That said I have re-purposed the FW Korvydae model to help create several upcoming miniatures so keep an eye for that...

Imperial Monkey wrote:The combi-flamer fella looks like he's leaning back too much...looks unnatural...

Agreed :(

It seemed alright until the paint went on for some reason, as an interim fix I've shaved the underside front of the base down and built up the back and it looks more natural now. When the army is finished and I have the luxury of time I'll see about a proper fix...

Rayth Phaenor wrote:I LOVE Arcolin's pose, it conveys the stalking menace very well. I can just imagine some poor grot cowering in terror behind a pile of rubble as he walks by.

Not so sure about the white studs, but I can't think of a color that would do much better (as you've already used the steel color in a lot of the details). And I also like what you did with the champion's combat shield, you really made it work.

I can't tell you how pleased I am you used the words 'stalking' and ' menace', that's really made my day

As for the white studs, the rest of the army (4th Company) has black studs and I prefer that look overall, I went with white as part of a deliberate effort to identify Arcolin here as 1st Company - the studs, white stripe on the shield and full white pad are all part of that effort.

whalemusic360 wrote:Wheres the Captain's Chainsword from? Looks very cool.

It's a Forge World chainsword from the Mk.II assault squad they do, I believe the Mk.V assault squad has the same swords too.

Great work!

Special cookie for that shield on the pauldron of that sternguard. The talon is striking, especially with the muted detail on the rest of the model...The contrasts are brilliant.

I must also commend you on these guys, very very nice! Love the muted blacks and white.

Now THAT's someone doing justice to the cool FW Marine armor! This force is absolutely beautiful, and I'm envious of your painting skill and dedication.

From a gaming perspective, why a TL Autocannon and Fist on the Dread? Double AC would have been effective and still looked just as cool...not to say your paint job looks any worse for the weapons selection!

@thechosen1: I build armies based on what I want to paint for the most part and I like to FW TLAC, so...

I present for your viewing pleasure Veteran Sergeant Arcolin of the First Company, Raven Guard and his brethren:



In game terms they represent a Captain and Command Squad of course.

I started developing in July, you can see what it originally looked like here.

I went through an awful lot of evolutions to get to the finished product and I'd like to offer my thanks to all those who commented on the squad and helped me bring it to life. Only one Marine survived from that initial planning phase intact (Veteran Brother Daulk - far right), although a number of parts were shuffled around to form new and improved Marines. In the initial phase I made the mistake of just making models that looked cool, the problem of course is that there's no coherency amongst the squad at all. Some discussion on my B&C blog and my WIP thread, especially with Povar, helped me identify the need for and develop a more defined theme for the squad.

The theme I settled on was 'hunting xenos through a ruined cityscape' and I think the revised squad does a pretty good job of presenting that theme. As I look at that group photo I'm more convinced than ever that I need to paint a servo-skull for Keldor (kneeling) so it looks like he's receiving a report or giving it instructions so he ties in more closely with that theme. I also used red through the squad to help tie them together a little more as well, typically, but not always, on the shoulder pad.

OK, so some links to individual Marines, these take you to the final entry for each Marine on my Bolter & Chainsword Raven Guard blog and include pics from multiple angles as well as a commentary of the construction, posing and painting of each:

Sergeant Arcolin (Shield & Chainsword, centre front)
Brother Apothecary Leandro (rear left, BP/Chainsword)
Veteran brother Keldor (bolter, kneeling)
Veteran Brother Daulk (Combi-Flamer, far right)
Veteran Brother Balfour (left front, bolter - left handed)
Veteran Brother Renner (rear middle, BP/Chainsword)

Love how crisp your whites are and the way you do the black armour, awesome!

I can really not overstate the envy I feel. My Marines are so poor by comparison.

Marines are great fun from a modelling perspective; the codex's scope for individualising the squad 'n' all the markings and things one can add. Aware of all this fluff and looking at your models, I can really imagine them as having been ripped straight out of a 40k movie or something. I wish my Marines could look that 'real'.

Stunning! Absolutely love the Raven Guard.

love the color scheme. Very, very impressed with the dreads green lights or whatever. Keep it up!

Incredible painting and modelling skills! Nice to see more Raven Guard as well.

I love all the little details and conversions. Really great stuff!

As usual, your Raven Guard are amazing! they all look so damn good together, each model performing their battlefield role is conveyed excellently and I am certainly envious of how your army is looking and progressing! the info in the links is great to see how you do the steps and the process involved, you' will in inspiring people I have no doubt! :-)

Keep it up my friend!

Nerdfest09

Masterful. Probably the best RG I've ever seen.

Great work! A really well executed squad with extremely well painted black and white. I can see you use the Bolter and Chainsword site as your primary site but could you upload some pics to our gallery so I could cast some well deserved votes?

Those are some pretty sweet Ravens!

WOW..... i minus well burn all my mini's now... seeing that yours are the far more superiorly painted..... O.o you make me sick being all perfect lie that XD lol they are just too amazing! Wow... i think i just went through 3 emotions right there

what color do you highlight with?

Woooo How long did it take you to paint like that?

Thanks for the tutorial on Page 3. I will be dragging all my RG minis out and trying my best to bring mine up to a fraction of this quality. I am jealous to the Nth.

Sorry for the delayed reply, I was kidnapped by SW:TOR...

@Henners91: Thanks, I think the 'movie' look is really enhanced by hacing the squad 'moving' and themed. Looking at my other RG minis to coolest ones are all 'moving', the ones just standing still look more like minis than 'real' Marines, maybe that's the key.

@Nerdfest: Thanks mate, glad you're enjoying them and if they do inspire someone, well, that's the highest compliment a gamer can get, right?

@ReaperMan2020: I will eventually upload more photos for viewing but I want to do it properly rather than upload the mish-mash of photos I have right now. Really I need to re-do the whole army in a consistent manner now I think of it.

@capitansolstice: As Sonophos said, I wrote up a full tutorial a while ago, you can download it over at the B&C:



@nightfall: If you mean how long did the minis take to paint, around 8 hours each (although I have the rank and file down to about 2.5 hours these guys got a more care and attention as veterans). If you mean how long did I take to learn to paint like this, well, technically I've been painting models since my first Airfix Spitfire in about 1983 and 40K since '87. That said I think if you have the core painting skills of thinning paint, shading, highlighting and neatness then after a few practice runs at the tutorial method you should be able to turn out some good looking tabletop quality RG in a very darkl black with a little effort...

@Sonophos: Feel free to PM me if you need help and be sure to drop a link to some pics here when you're up and going.

@ Everyone else: Thanks for the kind words all, glad you're enjoying things!

These must look beast on a city fight board!

How do these marines fare in-game?

Just saw that SCC
sweet tutorial by the way!

Some of my paltry efforts at RG are in my gallery.

I love raven guard and these efforts warm my heart sir, well done!

At first; awesome work you got there!

second: Brother Drazan, left shoulderpad, a custom one or a trimmed down tac pad and termie pad on it?

Nerd-gasm! They look amazing! Hmmmm so wanting to paint my black templars now using your recipe so they look amazing as well.

I can't wait for Christmas Day! The prezzies are piled in front of my paint & modelling gear.

Awesome work! Keep them coming!

Wow probably the best painted black iv ever seen, plus you've turned a SM chapter that i usually pass by or over look as boring and dull into something else my man. You've really added something thats been missing from other incarnations iv seen.

Gonna try your technique for painting my CHaplain in terminator armour!!!

Now is it just me, or are there two LEFT-HANDED Marines in the command squad? Hmm?

First Thread post of 2012! Woo!

Cheers for the tutorial SCC I adapted a couple of your techniques to my style and the first result is on my blog.

I'm looking forward to seeing your next results.

Half year update time:

Combat Squad Trae, first half of Tactical Squad Devlin:

A mix of ForgeWorld armour and regular plastic parts, fairly standard stuff really.

Whirlwind Eudynamus:

A ForgeWorld MkI Rhino chassis mated to FW Whirlwind launcher.

Rapier Laser Destroyer (second crew member still WIP)

More FW gear, the second crewman is still under construction/painting...

Predator Corvus Ferox:

A standard plastic Predator really, I added some Greif lenses and that was about it really.

Assault (Bike) Squad Kviarim:


Some close-ups:

Wow Chris, absolutely beautiful as usual dude! it's a rare person who paints black like you who can confidently take a close up and still have it look amazing! I love everything you paint, you really put so much passion into it, all the small details and care taken make them something special and a joy to look at!

It's great to see you here again, lets hope it's not another 6 months before we see more? (that's a hint I want to see more lol)

Damo

Excellent update! You keep us waiting a while but it is really worth it when an update comes. One suggestion might be to change the colour of the bike tyres a little to differentiate them some more from the rest of the bike. Maybe some mud or dust? Loving the Rapier, are they any good in the game?

Wow your stuff is simply amazing. I am just starting my Raven Guard and now I am sad.

These look excellent, I like the FW pieces

Another (sporadic) update:

Raven Guard Vanguard Veteran Squad Ravill


Zoomable image here

The links below go to my B&C blog, you'll get more photos and some commentary on each Marine there if you're interested:
Front left: Brother Apothecary Andros
Rear left: Battle Brother Zalman
Centre: Battle Brother Ravill
Rear right: Battle Brother Durzo
Front right: Battle Brother Galt

Dude they look awesome! the Apothecary is simply brilliant! how many have you finished now? you'd have to have a decent strike force by now?

Yeah, getting close to finished with these guys.

Completed Raven Guard so far:

Librarian
Captain
Command Squad (5)
Vanguard Veteran Squad (5)
Tactical squad w/Rhino (10)
Tactical squad w/Rhino (10)
Tactical squad (5)
Bike Squad (3)
(FW) Rapier Laser Destroyer
Whirlwind
Predator
Venerable Dread

That leaves me with the following:

Razorback (for the Librarian & Vanguards)
Tacticals (5) + Rhino
Attack bike
Chaplain
(FW) Storm Eagle (for the Captain & Command Squad )

No idea what the points value on that is, but it's a nice fluffy Marine force with a little bit of everything a mechanised strike force would have I think. I'd like to add a Vindicator and maybe a Damocles Rhino (I have one partially built with a detailed driver compartment to go with the Damocles detailing in back) too.

In an ideal world there's also a couple of Tactical Marines from early on I'd replace with better versions, but with luck, less than 6 months to completion!

Looking forward to seeing the rest done chris! especially the command rhino! I do like the model heaps!

i wouldn't worry about replacing some older ones you painted, they all look amazingly good! seriously some of the best Raven guard i have seen! :-)

Looking forward to more! It makes me sad that posts are rare but then when you do post it becomes all the more exciting! Love the stuff, great as always! That's the FW apothecary, am I correct?

Yep, lovely FW Mk.IV Apothecary. FW have made a fortune from this army, they really have...

Yep, lovely FW Mk.IV Apothecary. FW have made a fortune from this army, they really have...

I feel your pain! really if they stopped making such crisp models i wouldn't have to work so hard! maybe after a few more purchases they'll name a model after you?

Really impressed with your painting and models and overall feel of the army, I am thinking of doing 30k RG so this has been bookmarked and will refer back to for inspiration thanks!

A few minor updates:

Rapier Laser Destroyer Empalion's Lance

This Rapier battery earned it's soubriquet during the Siege of Empalion II as the Raven Guard Fourth Company besieged an Iron Warriors force, mounting a laser destroyer battery Empalion's Lance destroyed numerous Iron Warriors strongpoints and fortifications during the campaign beore the arrival of reinforcements from the Brazen Minotaurs chapter.

During the height of the following battle Empalion's Lance was deployed alongside the Minotaur's diversionary force and claimed the un-life of the Chaos Land Raider Medrengard's Fury before it's crew perished. Recovered by the Minotaurs at battle's end, the Rapier battery was returned to the Raven Guard and after undergoing repair and re-consecration is once more at the service of the Fourth Company.



Detail of the battery spotter/commander:


And Chaplain Uirroth:

I was very happy with how the conversion for Uirroth turned out but not the paint job:

I'm currently waiting on a Greif lens for the 'rosarius' raven skull and I ran out of Dull Cote at the end of the second coat and have a slightly spotty finish as a result. I can fix that up simply enough with the next supply run to the hobby store.

I can admit to myself the model isn't bad, but it isn't what I'd imagine it would be and what it could have been. I'm still happy with the pose and feel of the model and I learned a lot in building and painting it, but it hasn't been a pleasant experience in any way. I dropped him at least three times resulting in a wonky crozius that got wonkier with each repair and a revamped 'rosarius' in his left hand when the original proved far too flimsy for the real world.

The worst thing though is the right shoulder pad, I tried any number of schemes here with no luck I couldn't make the raven on circle work at all. I even tried removing it, but it's glued, pinned and GS'd in place so I gave up before I broke the damned crozius (again!). It gives me fits just to look at it

Like I said, I know it isn't a bad result, but it's not what I'd hoped...

Maybe you're being a bit over-critical about your chaplain - trauma from the hard build? He looks great to me, worthy of standing alongside your others.

Can't wait to see what you do with a Raven Guard Storm Eagle ..

That Chaplain looks really, really good!

I really like the Rapier and crew, I think the chaplain looks great but you haven't shown us the right shoulder so how about another pic? As usual great work, I would love to see this army in the flesh.

Can we get a 3/4 and side view of that Rapier?

This is a wonderful looking army. But.....Where are the scouts??? I thought this was a fluffy RG force.
Kidding aside, I love your work here, the black is fantastic and the lenses and scopes are breathtaking.

Bu-...Ha-... how-...HOW can it be that good! Where's the gasoline? I'm gonna burn my army! How ling did that take you? my army took ages and it looks like crap to this! Astronomically good! That's all I've got to say.

Subbed.

 Jordan wrote:
Can we get a 3/4 and side view of that Rapier?

Yes, yes you can:







@IronEagle: Thanks. The lenses/scopes are easy - just buy some Greif (or MV) lenses and glue et voila!

@Valgaurd: Thanks I've been working on the army on and off for two years now, but the minis are averaging 5 hours/infantry, 7.5 characters & bikes and 10 for vehicles under my 'play not display' rule.

@ReaperMan: As much as I'd like not to show that right shoulder pad, here it is...

Doesn't look horrendous, is it the red disk you were worried about?

Wow that is awesome love the mixed armor marks