Hi everyone this will be the progress log of my chapter the Crimson Tears. They look a little bit like Black Templars with red trim and borrow iconography from the Blood and Dark Angels for a martial, Angels of Death look. I've been painting them on and off for years but it's only in the last couple of months that I feel I've really gotten a handle on them and their paint scheme. Ultimately I want to paint enough models for a full second company of infantry plus a few extra bits like scouts, bikes and terminators.

For the moment I have around forty models done, though the majority need major touch ups so I'll lead in with what I'm currently working on/recently completed.


The current company commander is my kitbashed librarian:





He'll soon be accompanied by this Chaplain (I have parts for some kitbashed ones that I'm excited to build, but I really like this model):


A more recent picture of his tabard:


The first tactical squad plus close ups on pad work, specialist back packs and the sergeant's robes:






They are waiting for me to get paid so I can prime all the weapons from my ebayed devastator box and give this chap his missile launcher:

Searching for a new target or surveying the destruction wrought by his missiles?

Somewhere deep in the forges of their fortress monastery a Techmarine is being trained (read: painted very slowly) who will end up looking a bit like this:

Currently he looks like this:




Comments and criticism are welcome. The main thing I'm already aware of is that I need to highlight the black armour a bit. I've never done that before so I'll wait to get a few more marines finished tio the level of the tactical squad before I start trying it out.

Hey there, I really like your paintjobs! They are very accurate and look good! I'm waiting to see more! Keep it up!

I like the left arm on your ML guy. The Scrach build Techmarine is nice too, a bit wide, but they are usually solo.

Those are some cool looking marines, with a great paint scheme, cannot wait to see more!

Thanks guys! Must confess I'd kind of forgotten that I'd signed up on here. I've been doing crazy shifts at work lately (just started 3 weeks of 9 and 12 hour night shifts) and after 4 months of post-graduation unemployment hthe radical change has made keeping on top of my life a bit tricky. Nevertheless I have been finding the time to do some painting.

The main thing is I've finished the Techmarine and done some more detail work on the Chaplain.






Mr. Angry, the Chaplain, finally found time to stop hitting enemies with his magic stick and ask the Techmarine for some paint so some details have been filled in.


(perhaps 75% of the studs are done)






I've also started assembly lining some shoulder pads for the next squad, tidied up an old command squad member, started legs for various veterans (Stern- and Vanguard), my Tech-marine's first servo skull and some icons for back packs.

I'm not sure about the more ornate pad for my sergeant. The single blood drop (tear drop for my purposes) suits the chapter down to a tee, but the Sanguinius emblazoned on the guard plate is far too suggestive as to what their origins might be. I'm not sure I want them to be a BA successor (not least because BA's are far too numerous these days). In my head they are of largely unknown origin, like the Minotaurs. This is in no small part due to the fact that I want to paint other marines at some point and have thought about creating a squad of delegates from chapters like the Black Templars, Ravenguard, Blood Angels etc. who may lay claim to the Crimson Tears genetic ancestry.





The laurel needs some highlights and the white of the Angel's wings require some care, but this is a vast improvement on his previous incarnation from two years ago (his head was also swapped out for one of the amazing Sevrin Loth's Honour Guard helms).




Got some Vallejo paints and Army Painter detail brushes too. The brushes are brilliant particularly the Insane Detail one (it's what I used for the skull on the Techmarine's pack.

Hope this is a worthwhile update for you guys and that you'll stick with me as I build this company.

*GASP* you have looted form ORKS?! I can see eet!

But seriouly, The techmarine looks very good! Keep it up!

You're off to a solid start here but you really need to do something about those mould lines imo

After six soul-crushing days of night shifts my boss decided to give me a couple of days off, I spent yesterday sleeping and today, among a million other things that I needed time to get done, I finished some legs and started work on the Sergeant for the squad I'm going to start working on. He's a fair way away from being done but I was trying out some poses and couldn't decide which one I wanted.

To me pose #1 looks like he's singled out someone to kill and he's not even thinking about raising a weapon until he gets there. Pose #2 is very neutral, like he might just have finished killing something. Pose #3 is 'I'm going for a walk, try and stop me.'









So which one do you all think looks best? I'm leaning towards 1, but 3 obviously has appeal. 2 is just kind of there for another view.

Your minis are very nicely painted the white is so crisp, how do you achieve it?

As to the Sergeant, I like version three. It looks like he's casually walking forward shooting someone in the face.

MrMerlin - Indeed! The plasma cutter and flamer on the servo harness always looked a bit weird to me so I, uh, borrowed this from an Ork to create something that looks like it could actually weld tank plates back together/melt any enemies of the Imperium that try and stop the battlefield repairs. But, shhh! As far as the Inquisition are concerned the techmarine built it all by himself. Cheers for your comments, I hope to keep impressing.

A Kvlt Ghost - thanks, I'm painfully aware of the mold lines now. I undercoated these guys ages and ages ago, once I started painting I hadn't the heart to ruin my work (particularly on any white areas). Anything new I acquire gets cleaned up so they shouldn't be too much of a problem in the future.

GiraffeX - thank you very much. The white... ugh. Layer upon layer of thinned white until you're happy with it. I've shifted from GW skull white to Vallejo model colour white which has sped up the process a little, but it does take hours.

It could be simply that you used the words 'shooting' and 'in the face', but your opinion on the sergeant is duly noted.

I'm quite liking these. The white is beautiful and your minis look really good. I agree with GiraffeX and vote for pose 3.

pose 3 for me too.....

and let me share my way of doing white; get astronomican grey, and you will need only two layers; astro grey and white on top. the grey being a foundation paint makes it very good at covering!

I'm back! My run of back to back 12 hour shifts is up and I've had some time to sleep and recharge before starting normal night shifts again. There was also some time to paint, which I've not been able to do for a while. As a result the new squad has a sergeant and a few rookie members in various states of completion.








With regular shift lengths looming and a couple more days off in the near future I'd like to think I could get this squad fully assembled and more or less fully painted by the first week of 2012.

Anyway, I know this isn't the biggest update ever, but after the last few weeks I'm just glad to get anything done at all.


Mr. Merlin - 2 layers you say? I must try this at some point, maybe some of the money I've been getting after doing so many hours can go towards some new paint.

Can you give me a step by step for the parchment between the chaplains legs? got loads of it to for my army and love how yours looks.

Yeah sure, I'm pretty proud of it to be honest.

it's a pretty simple recipe, firstly get the area coated in bleached bone as if that was all you were going to do to it. Then wash liberally with gryphonne sepia. Re-paint raised areas with bleached bone whilst also putting more sepia wash into the recesses. It kind of helps to think of it as a mountain range: there are peaks and troughs. Peaks should basically be pure bleached bone and troughs should be washed in as much sepia as you see fit.

Hope that helps.

So, my aim to have this squad finished looks to have been a bit ambitious.The bulk of the squad is done, though, and I've attended to a few other Crimson Tears related things when perhaps I should have been painting.

The squad:
seven of the nine marines are now more or less constructed (though several still look like they might need to visit both the apothecary and the techmarine for some bionics to be fitted) and a few have had some detail work done (mainly some freehand on the pads and the wax bit of purity seals).







I'm having a bit of a dilemma over the last two squad members. I've got a couple of Death Company chainswords (the ones with winged blood drops on the guard area) that I would quite like to use because the poses they lend themselves to would be awesome. But, at the same time, these two weapons would stand out quite a bit from those the rest of the squad have. They're a bit 'bling', I guess. I was just wondering whether people thought they might stand out too much from the dull metallics of the squad's weapons?

The other stuff:
With my bumper Christmas pay-cheque (I knew there was a reasons for working those horrendous hours) I splurged on some bits

Quite a lot of time was spent trimming and filing everything so there should be no mold lines for any of you to point out!

I also acquired these wonderful OOP Ravenwing torsos, an amazing city ruins base for my company's Captain (if I ever get around to building him) and some of Pig Iron Production's System Trooper heads to use on my upcoming sniper scouts (because scout heads are awful)



You get twenty heads from PIP, so I'm sort of obliged to build twenty scouts at some point. I already have enough parts for at least ten.

I'm back with some fairly significant progress:

The chainsword-wielding tactical marines have reached their full compliment of ten and three of them aren't amputees anymore!I'm currently batch painting pads and pistols so that the rest of them no longer suffer taunts in the fortress canteen.


You might be able to tell that I went with the Death Company chainswords in the end, they look a lot better than thought they would.



Mr Angry has been sitting around half finished for a couple of months now and (aside from finding a suitable back pack) that shamed me a little so a couple of days ago I set about polishing off all the details. I'd like people's opinions on his right shoulder pad, do you think it looks alright? The position of the skull on the pad meant that doing a white pad with red trim or the opposite was out of the question, I came up with the solution of writing a litany of hate/faith around and beneath his bling, feeling it was suitable for his office.





While polishing him off I decided to have a go at making my plasma weapons look a bit more 'glowy'. Plus, I was getting slightly bored of painting white at this point and wanted to do something more colourful.


Now, you may notice that there's a plasma cannon in there. While dabbling with all things plasma I realised that I still hadn't furnished the previous squad with a heavy weapon specialist; what better to compliment their plasma gun than the super charged version of that weapon? The rainbow wiring is also a reflection of my yearning to dabble with some colour.





C&C appreciated as ever.

Woh, nice looking minies there mate. The white is perfect imo, I can never get mine looking that great. Nice concept, nice colours, keep it up.

The plasma-cannon marine looks great! I'd really like to play against these marines, i think they'd look awsome on the table!

Update!!
Warning, this is quite a long post with lots of pictures.


crimsonfist832 - thanks a lot, praise is always nice to receive.

Mr.Merlin - cheers my friend, it's nice to see you keep coming back for more. I checked out your Orks the other day, truly great stuff you're doing there. If I ever come to Germany with more than a rucksack and a sense of adventure maybe that could happen. I'm a little way off having enough for an army though.


Assault/Tactical squad:
These fellows are now complete. Each marine now has all of his arms and armaments as well as his pack, pads and various markings.
Group shot

Sample group to give an idea of the finished product





The tactical arrow obviously denotes them as basic troops of the chapter whilst the accompanying sword indicates that they've proven their close quarter prowess and have earned the right to serve at the forefront of any assault, never being held back for the duty of providing covering fire. As you'll see on the Devastator marine in the previous update, specialist marines have a tactical arrow as rather than forming dedicated specialist units the Crimson Tears second members of their Tactical squads most proficient in certain tasks to such units as Devastators I've selected these three squad members to demonstrate a disparity in inscriptions on the models. Some have very blank pads featuring only their Chapter, Company and Squad markings whereas others have records of their deeds on campaign recorded; some members of this squad are vastly more experienced than others.

Close ups of the assault weapon marine, I rejigged his pose a little bit .



I've decided that the blast symbol usually reserved for Devastators will be used to denote those marines who have shown prowess with the company's assault weapons, the more traditional inverted V will be reserved for marines bearing heavy weapons.



Sternguard -
These guys were one of the first things I started when attempting to get back into my army properly, but I soon realised my skills were too rusty to do such a unit justice and so the parts and some half assembled models have sat around for a little while. My idea of Sternguard is that, by virtue of being veterans with huge amounts of battle experience, they are trusted by their commanders to be given a broad objective and left on their own to achieve it.
3 rules for my Sternguard:
1. Kit. Lots and lots of kit. Ammo, grenades, pistols, combat knives, packs, stowage boxes, cloaks, auspexes etc. etc. It's all going on there.
2. Augmentation .Excluding the sergeants, who are primarily there to stab or hit anything that gets too close, these guys will have some sort of targetting/optical bionics on their helmet. I have scoured the entire space marine range to find (I think) 18 different helmets like this.
3. Resin bases. I might eventually get around to doing this for the whole army but for the moment this next step in my modelling and painting will be for specialist units only.

Here is the beginning of a unit that will be decked out with two 'heavy flamers' (that might not look that heavy...)

Close ups










Some of the white will need touching up to match my current standard.

On the production line: sergeant and two vets.



Resin bases!! I bought a few as an experiment and because the plain grey bases aren't really giving off the city fighting vibe I'd hoped... I was deadly scared of ruining these, but I feel like they've turned out pretty well.



Some might be curious as to why veterans are in the second company, I'm going with the Chapter is too young for a first company and so at the moment each company has it's own core of veterans.
C&C appreciated as ever.

I'm liking the contrast between the black and white, but the faceplate just seems a bit off with only half being white. The bases are pretty well done.

hey there

have you tried highlighting the black? It'd give them more depht I think.
apart from that, its great stuff as always

"If I ever come to Germany with more than a rucksack and a sense of adventure maybe that could happen. I'm a little way off having enough for an army though. "

as you can see I currently have a danish flag on my profile. I travel a lot with my family, and chances are that I'll visit england again this year.If that happens, I'll def bring my orks (alot of 40k players in engand i hope) and then i can pm you, If i end up in your area. Might not be very likely, but if Im there, why not have a battle?

btw where in UK are you?

Why hey there, Dakka! Long time no see. Real Life has been punishing lately. Should get better soon though, a combination of anti-social hours (in terms of shift duration and when they are worked) and 6 day weeks have denied me my ambition to teach for at least a year or so now but have made me realise how unhappy I am where I currently work and I've resolved to quit. Thus, there should be a bit more time to devote to the Crimson Tears!

As it is I haven't been completely idle over the last few weeks. Having finished the foot-slogger assault squad I decided to do two things:
1. Actually finish a Sternguard squad. I have two half started ones lying around and I'm going to finish one if it kills me.
2. Use those wonderful Pig Iron Productions helmets and build my Sniper Scouts.


Progress?

Well, a test scout got done:


Here he is posing on what may become home to multiple scouts or a dreadnought, not sure yet.



The base on its own


I have purchased a fair few resin bases now as it became apparent to me that plain grey bases are quite poor considering the amount of time I've put into these models. I was incredibly scared of messing them up but I think I've done ok.




For the Sternguard:
One finished marine (bar basing and a bit more equipment, but I'm awaiting a pinning drill before moving him to one of my resin bases):






Basic equipment for the squad to make them both WYSIWIG and laden down:




Some armour pieces have also been started, a couple have even been finished:





Swordwind - The contrast of black and white is exactly why I' tend to only paint part of the face plate white, I think it looks a bit more imposing, like the rest of the face is in shadow.

Mr. Merlin - I don;t know when I'll highlight the black. Like with the resin bases I'm scared of screwing it up. I bought some Vallejo Heavy Charcoal specifically for the purpose and I've saved some sprue coated in black primer to practice on, so it will happen, I'm just not sure when. Probably when I feel I've made enough of a dent in the mass of primed plastic I have lying around! As ever your compliments are gratefully received.. My (in)famous skills of observation (among friends and family at least) let me down a bit there! That's cool. I live in the South East, the lovely county of Hampshire to be precise, Yeah, if I had enough models, it suited your travel plans etc. that sounds nice. You'd be my first opponent in about 7 years as since restarting these guys I only model and paint.

I really like the scout on the dred base - I really want to know what you'll do with it!

Keep it up!

Incoming! Another member of the Sternguard more or less finished.






He needs a scope (why are they always sold out when I'm doing a bits order?) for that bolter and something else to go on that pack, but other than that he is done (awaiting base).

What else makes this post update worthy? Five more of those city bases. I feel I'm starting to get the hang of them now.


And here's a sneaky peek of another future project (for when I eventually finish this Sternguard unit and the scouts...)



Mr Merlin - I've pretty much decided to make it a scout base, the dred will have to find something else to stand on and plan destruction. Thanks for the encouragement, sometimes the heap of unpainted or half started things can demoralise you into inactivity but positive words like yours help to overcome it.

The new bases look very nice!

Love it all looks great keep up the great work !

So I've made enough progress over the last few days (notwithstanding the weekend's rugby) to feel a small update is in order.

Sergeant Terry "Pain train's a-comin'" Tate (kudos if you get the reference) is ready enough to fight the Chapter's enemies, though he could do with some pads, a pack and a few more bits. Not that he thinks so.





Being the most senior veteran in the Chapter not to become an officer he has some of the nicest gear: Ferrox bolter and bionic powersword arm from Forgeworld. I particularly like the little buttons on the sword hilt which makes it look like you can turn it on or off, perhaps even alter quite how powerful the blade is. Whatever, they're a nice touch. I tried something different with this sword, my attempts at power weapons in the past have been an all over coat of ice blue, just something to indicate it's not a normal sword, but as I've started to improve a bit (and after looking at the hundreds of threads on here and other forums) that seems inadequate. It didn't quite come out like I'd hoped as I wanted a lightning pattern in there somewhere but experiments on a couple of other swords in my bits box proved that I really can't do that yet. Despite that I'm warming to the way it's come out and I'd really like your opinions on whether you feel it works. Some close ups to help (the, uh, background is a t-shirt and it was the best way I could ensure the edges of the sword were properly displayed):



Sergeant Tate is accompanied today by Marine Deckard. Again, he's not quite done but he's getting there.




So, yeah, C&C welcome as always.



Mr, Merlin - Once again, thanks for your words. I'm super-happy with the bases now, I definitely have a process worked out and I'm looking forward to doing a few more.

ghostmaker - Cheers, buddy. Encouragement is always appreciated.

More cool stuff! I love that sword!

Btw, this song fits very well to your marines (or any Marines for that mater):

I love listening to that stuf when looking at cool minis, it makes them feel alive!

It is time for a long overdue update. While viewers have been away: Sergeant Tate has received new recruits to his Sternguard squad and the original members can now enjoy watching someone else get screamed at for wasting Vengeance rounds on Guardsmen, my lone scout now has a friend (with better looking combat fatigues, oh snap!), I accidentally made a sacrifice to Khorne, the unnamed tactical sergeant got a new toy and the first assault squad start training a new member.

First of all Sergeant Tate's new recruits: Two regularly equipped marines who are a little bit scared of their squad leader and frequently mix up their various ammunitions thereby incurring his wrath and leading to more fear. It's a vicious circle.








2 things about this guy:

How does that lense look? It's the first time I've tried doing one properly.

How does putting his combat knife on the back compare to having it dangle off the belt, as with many of the others?

The other two recruits have no such problems; heavy flamers only have one way of making things crispier than they were before.
This fellow is the closest to completion, he just needs an extra pad and a few more accessories.



This chap is in a similar position but he needs his arm to be pinned on as I doubt superglue will hold it for long. He's supposed to look like he just saw something while on the run, has turned his flamer wildly to meet the threat whilst reaching for a grenade. Does it work?


Sergeant Tate in all his finished glory




And the squad so far

Eventually all of these guys will be based properly and two more members will feature, however after an irritating saga with a supplier I still don't have a pinning drill almost a month after ordering one so that's going to have to wait a little longer.


The original scout was looking a bit lonely all by himself on that massive base so I painted up another one to give him some company. The only thing is I think I did much better job on his fatugues than his predecessor's, could be a bit awkward. Here he is sans rifle for an unobstructed view



And with rifle


Now then, part of my chapter's future will be an objective marker of trophies. For the Crimson Tears this means the heads of their enemies, consequently I ordered up a few Chaos helmets among other things and went to work on them. While doing some trimming it appears I slipped into chaos worship...


But shhh, no one tell the Inquisition!

Some of you may remember the sergeant from my tactical squad on the first page of this thread, but he's a little different now. After some discussion with the armory staff he was persuaded to part with his axe for a nice new power sword.


There is another still available for whosoever should next ask.



Last, but by no means least, comes the new member for the first assault squad. They've been complaining that one meltagun isn't providing quite enough melty goodness on the battlefield and that the Sergeant gets a bit out of puff having to hit all the things the current meltagunner misses. Once he's fully trained (read: I find a cost effective way of stripping paint from my old misadventures with a brush and transfer a meltagun accross) this chap will join the squad and hopefully sort everything out





A lot of the week or so since GW announced the new paints has been eaten up by trying to find out how it affects my paint scheme and devouring all the nuggets of info I can find about it. It seems like I might be losing Scab Red for my pad trim and weapons which is annoying as despite trying a couple of different options from vallejo and coat d'arms I haven't found anything that yet matches it closely enough; guess I'll just have to see what Khorne Red looks like. On the plus side, though, the Ceramite White base paint sounds like it could remove my need to spend hours painting millions of thin layers of white over black undercoat which would be great. Getting the motivation to paint shoulderpads, legs etc. is the biggest factor in slowing me down.

Anywho, this was a bit of a long post so congrats to anyone who made it all the way through. Thoughts?



Mr Merlin - cheers man, I'd always felt my old method of doing power weapons was rather underwhelming and having had the confidence to try something else I'm glad it's turned out pretty well. That is good, it certainly lends a heroic vibe to viewing.

Another update! This one is much smaller than the previous one, though. I will attempt to relay progress much more frequently now so that such mammoth posts are not necessary. Anyway, yes, I had a pretty productive evening today and thought I'd share because, frankly, I'm rather proud of it all:

First up, trophies!

I mentioned last time how I plan to make an objective marker of Crimson Tears trophies. As I quite like the idea of them actively seek out heretics and traitors the majority of the trophies (head of the last enemy to fall in a battle) will be those of various CSM. This also provides me with an opportunity to paint things that aren't basically black and white... I think I've decided on how to do it too, which is good. I was considering trying to model a wall with shelves of some sort, but I have no plasticard or experience using it so that idea was floundering. Then, I found this:
http://hitechminiatures.com/14/product/info/16
I figure that arranging them in a circle on the rim facing outwards will look quite good. The budget for this month is already spent though so I'll have to wait to realise the idea.
Anyway, here are the first 2 trophies; one Death Guard, one Word Bearer-



The horns aren't done yet as I'm trying to find some different methods to apply to each one, but methods that I can a) manage and B) have the paints to attempt

Here's a third trophy, an Astral Claw (+ something else I'll get to in a minute)


Does he look Astral Claw-ish enough? I didn't want to just focus on firmly established Chaos Legions so I'll also be looking to do helmets of renegades/traitors like the Claws. I'll take requests if anyone has a chapter/legion they'd particularly like to see represented.


Now, to that other head; what could it possibly be? Well, remember my kitbashed Techmarine? He can have some fellows accompany him on the battlefield for a variety of roles, but I hate their models so I wasn't going to bother. However, he is not doomed to walk alone because whilst looking for more of the Old Factory bases on the Micro Art Studios website I stumbled accross these chaps:
http://www.shop.microartstudio.com/iron-br...tp07-p-313.html
File off the odd looking six packs and there we have it, servitors I wouldn't be ashamed to place on a battlefield. They arrived in the post this morning and I was so excited I primed the head to experiment with a possible scheme. I went with red robes rather than the bone coloured ones my sergeants sport because it has more of a mechanicus feel and I wanted the other robes to be the marines' preserve. Here's a side shot to better illustrate the contrast I've managed to achieve on the robes


Lastly, I found a spare meltagun whilst rummaging for something so Rambo, the new assault marine, could be finished without having to go through the process of paint stripping. He's not quite done, still needs his back pack doing and a wash on his holster, but he is properly based and fully WYSIWYG (actually has all his grenades) unlike most of my 'finished' models. So here's a few shots of the details I've added since he popped up a few days ago:





That last picture represents my first attempt at weathering a gun barrel, how do you think it looks?

C&C as always.


tyrannosaur - thanks very much, I've seen your Raptors (they look smashing, by the way) and I can imagine how much easier a foundation white would make that paint job! I ordered a few of the ones that are supposed to be equivalents of the few GW paints I do use (Skull White, Scab Red, Tin Bitz and Boltgun Metal mainly) including Ceramite White and they should pitch up over the next couple of days. Looking forward to trying them out and hoping they live up to the hype.

Nice update, mate! I really like the head idea. How will you be doing the horns?

Rambo looks nice, especially the base (as you already know I like your bases )
But there are some things you could improve.... Some grey on the model would probably help a lot, the black and white contrast a lot. You should try edge highlighting on the black (use codex grey, or just mix black and white). That'd also add definition.

And the weathering on the gun looks kinda overdone; Maybe do it more subly, with less color on the drybrush.

And I've always wondered about this: do meltaguns actually get carbon on the muzzle? They don't work like normal guns, right?

Other than that, cool mini, as always!

A slightly shorter update this time. I've been working on getting everything I've done so far based properly, adding bits and pieces to slightly unfinished models and just generally cleaning house before I start anew on some fresh stuff.

Chaplain is now re-based and has a back pack. As he's quite defensively posed I thought sticking him behind a piece of wall like he's about to receive a charge would be a good approach.





The new meltagunner for the assault squad picked up a pack and some highlights. It's the first time I've tried the latter so I'd appreciate some feed back on them.






Techmarine is rebased. Both he and the servitors will have these slightly different bases as they feel more right for the models and their role, I've tried to keep them looking gritty and urban, though.

Base on its own



Now, I couldn't completely resist doing something new so I started one of his servitors. Body and base are done, arms are waiting in the wings.


Base on its own.





That's all for now, make a noise if you see something you do or don't like


Mr Merlin - thanks, as usual. Usually I do bone/[parchment with a bone coloured paint (surprise, surprise) sepia wash and then re hilight up to almost white. I picked up the Devlan Mud replacement Agrax Earthshade along with a few of the other new GW paints this week so I might try and use that instead of the sepia wash and see how it affects the look. Alternatively I I might go for a dark grey approach, almost like with my bases. I figure those horns might be daemonic and why would daemons have human coloured bone?

For the weathering, I agree with you. It doesn't look quite so overdone in person, but macro pictures will always show things up. It hadn't actually occurred to me that a meltagun might not get a charred barrel, the tutorial I was following used a flamer and a multimelta, so I didn't think anything of picking up a melta to play around with.

Finally, as you can see on Rambo, you have badgered me (in a good way) into casting aside my laziness/fear and actually attempting some highlights on the black armour. I think they look alright but they were surprisingly time consuming. Not sure I'll be going back to do them on the others just yet, but for all models going forward I guess I'll keep it up. I appreciate your continued support of this thread.

Great use of white on black. The red also is very striking and looks great.

The great basing project hit a bit of a snag recently as I found out I didn't have as many regular sized bases as I thought. So while the requisite number are taking their time finding a route to my desk I decided to crack on with some other stuff. The Sternguard squad is now up to eight and a half members (someone's missing an arm), all based and with a fair few trinkets/accessories. Everyone's seen them in various WIP states already though so they are going to get another update only when they're finished.

What have I been doing? Well, the lone armless servitor wasn't proving much use to the techmarine so another was constructed and both were provided with arms (sort of):




Now they each have only one claw at present because the other two were slightly malformed and as I happened upon this cheap little kit http://blightwheelminiatures.vendder.com/bionic-arms-and-servo-arms I figured there was no point in repairing the existing ones. So they are just waiting for its delivery before they are fully complete. as you can see, though, they are done bar those two hands(? tools? utensils? what do you call the appendage on the end of a servitor's 'arm'?)

While I ran out of regular sized bases I did have two large ones knocking around. So I painted them up too.




This one is for my floundering scout project. I don't game at the moment (and I can't see it happening in the immediate future) and even if I did I'm not sure scouts would really feature in a list, so they are more a display piece than anything because I like the idea of them. I've decided that they will be 3 to a 60mm base with 2 aiming at something and 1 in a spotter/sentry pose. Because this projects has floundered for a little while I've given myself a diktat that enough scouts for a minimum sized squad must be painted before I can start on any other squads

The next large base is for the dreadnought that will eventually get started. It was pretty fun to paint as there are a lot of details to bring out,like the chain and cables in the rubble, with plenty of metallic parts to contrast with the shades of grey.




Then for fun, and as a reward for myself I ordered a few bits to make a boarding/siege marine. It's sort of backfire as rather than being a one off it's kind of inspired me to build a whole unit... I've spent this month's budget already though so those FW chain axes and the boarding upgrade will have to wait! He's only mounted on the scout base because it already has a couple of pins in it and wasn't being used by anything else.






White Ninja - cheers fella, I do like praise

These look really sharp. The black and white rocks.

Really cool update, mate! I love the dred base and the siege marine looks great as well!

The great basing project is back on! They all pitched up a couple of days ago so I will be able to keep pushing forwards. I've managed to prime the top part and as soon as I get my paint order (more primer and greys) I will be right back on track to getting everything I've done so far based.
Here are the bases in all their glory:

That's forty standard infantry bases, one dreadnought base (because I have always fancied a Siege Dread from FW and when my tax rebate comes I may take the plunge), one 40mm hero base and what is apparently a biker hero base (it looked awesome so I got it, loads of details to paint like bullet casings a skull, cogs, cobbles etc.). It should be a little while before I have to buy anymore.

In the absence of the bases I messed around with a few bits and pieces to kill time.

Item 1. Missile Launcher scout:





I put a lot of effort into his fatigues as I wasn't too happy with what I did on the previous two. I think I'm satisfied with how these have turned out.

Item 2: Scout bits:



Boredom + lack of satisfaction with simply a shaded grey cloak = this. Not sure it looks amazing, but it's my first attempt at camo so I can't be too displeased with how it;s turned out. There are also the heads for the remaining three scouts required to fill the 2 60mm bases.

Item 3. Pads for my siege marine.


The Right one is an Anvil Industry medieval pad and the left one is a Dark Angel Veteran pad. The intention was to help bulk him out and stylistically look like he's supposed to be a storming a breach, trench or fortification. You might also note that he's from the IV rather than II company. I figured that the II, as the main battle company, should be relatively codex adherent with proper tactical squads and a devastator squad alongside the assault marines; thus, any specialist assault units will be drawn from other companies and I figured that the IV could be the all out assault specialists.

Item 4. Assault Squad #2 begins:




The wings are so badly cast on that head.... There is one line for the first 2 and the third doesn't seem to exist, so it's largely freehand and I'm super happy with how straight the edges are as painting straight lines is usually a cause of major frustration for me. This squad is going to be kitted out as though they exist to kill Chaos marines; that means plasma pistols on the two that can have them and the sergeant. Unfortunately that's kind of the limit to tailoring wargear, but as you can see the bolt pistol has been swapped out for a Heretic Pistol by Anvil Industry (two plugs in one post, I should be getting paid for this!). To me it has a more brutal look than the standard bolt pistol and the shells look like I imagine Vengeance rounds do. The ammo feed looks a little long for a pistol, I think on future ones I'll trim it down. This guy can always claim he was conserving ammo until they get close.

Item 5.
Messing around with Vallejo Pale Grey wash. I bought this a while ago and it's been sitting there as I haven't thought of an obvious use for it.I finally decided to have a little mess around and this is what I got
My Sternguard's very own apothecary (more of him when I finish the sternguard. There are literally two accessories left to paintso that shouldn't be too far off now). Those are Cadian medic bags in case anyone was wondering.

Now this could be an alternative way to do Aquila's, though I'm quite fond of my way with the harsh black lines breaking them up. It also gives possibilities if I ever want to paint a Crimson Tear who hasn't just stepped out of the Drop Pod/Thunderhawk.

40kFSU - cheers, I've found that Ceramite white topped off with some Vallejo white is now giving me an even stronger white than before and with 5-6 coats rather than 10+.

Mr. Merlin - Thanks mate, dunno when that base will actually end up with anything on it! The parts are all there but I've got to finish other things before I make a start. Being disciplined is really hard... The siege marine is a bad boy. Because of him I have been eyeing up the Forge World Boarding upgrade and Chainaxes as well as the MKIV Ironclad and appropriate Siege armaments. It;s a good job the government owes me hundreds of pounds because with those new Apothecary models I's not sure I'll be able to hold off on making an order.

Ha, that bunch of bases is badass! You need to do a tutorial on how you do these and post it in the tut section!

Also, I like the cloth on the scout and the the new siege marine. Good jobs!

You overwhelm me with your flattery Mr. Merlin. I've decided I will do just that.

To anyone else who views this log at the moment I apologise for all the pictures vanishing. I had no idea about the photobucket bandwidth limit. I'm going to look into some alternatives to get this up and running again quickly.

I'm still here people. Life's starting to get a bit busier after a couple of fairly slow months so my updates might get a bit less frequent from here on out. Order of business:

1. The great basing project - it's stalled again. The mold release was being particularly stubborn on some of the bases I bought which slowed me down a bit and then the restock of my greys is taking forever to arrive so progress on this front has been limited.

2. Chaplain #2 - Now although the absence of adequate quantities of grey paint means my Scouts and my bases can't continue just yet it does mean I can crack on with some of the many things I have lying around primed but otherwise untouched. Enter Mr. Angry's non-plasma armed brother in arms:


He's still very much WIP but I thought I'd made significant enough progress on some areas to share it. His skull face and the shoulderpad are my favourite part sof the model thus far. He won't stay one armed forever, but he wont be getting that horrible powerfist arm that he comes with. At the moment he's set to get a bolt pistol; after all, one of the Second Company's Chaplains needs to have a gun that won't jeopardise his health.

His pack isn't WIP though (unless you count the little hole I need to cover up with something after misjudging how quickly the drill was going through metal...)



3. Dreadnought - because you can never have too many competing projects I decided it would be a brilliant idea to make a start on the dreadnought. At first I thought I'd just do these two items as they were similar to some of the things I was doing with the Chaplain

However, that soon turned into an entire arm (which took a surprisingly long time to paint!).

The black still needs highlighting and the swords on the two angels require a bit more attention, but they're basically done.

4. I kind of finished off the siege marine too and made a bit more progress with the Sternguard (one day I'll stop adding bits and pieces to them...) but there's not enough change for photos of them.

5. Tutorial! Upon Mr. Merlin's recommendation and requests elsewhere I have created a tutorial on my urban bases for those whom it interests: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/448429.page

That's all for now. C & C as always.

It's that time again: update!

It's been a pretty good two weeks for getting things done. I'm trying really hard to rein in my ebay trawling (the voice in my head has started screaming 'you have enough!' at a deafening volume) and not start painting new things. To that end that Chaplain I started by accident has been done. Honestly, I think he's the best thing I've ever painted and I'm so pleased with how he turned out. I also got back to my ongoing Scout project, made serious headway with the bases and finished off a few models that have been waiting for minor details to be done. That last part means that my Sternguard are actually finished! Or they were until I noticed the cimson tear drops on some of their shoulder pads looked a bit naff... so they are back to being almost finished. Still, there's nothing like pursuing perfection, eh?

1. The Chaplain
Well this guy feels like something of a triumph for me. I didn't have to tidy up too many of the highlights, used a metallic that wasn't either Boltgun Metal or Tin Bitz, tried my hand at a jewel, took a different approach to bone effects so that they were more distinct from parchment and so on. The results?





I don't think it's going too far to say he's my new benchmark in terms of what I'm capable of.

2. Slightly less radical but important for staying with things and finishing them off are these scout legs. They're all done as are some heads so once I get the torsos and guns done I can finally tick the six man squad of my list (until I acquire/construct a Telion counts as and up the squad to ten).


3. The bases, oh the bases. Here is a pile of what I've gotten through. I used about ten or so before I had the idea of taking a group photo so mentally insert those to the picture to try and understand how mind numbing my painting sessions have been at times this week.


The details have been pretty fun to paint and here are some shots to show the level of detail on these bases, but the various layers of grey are not entertaining when that's all you do for four days straight.




I still have these to do as well, though I might need to take a little break from bases before I tackle them.


4. This guy had to make way in the melta squad for the second melta marine so he's been shunted into the plasma squad. For his inconvenience he got a shiny new crusader helmet, a slight repositioning and some highlights.


This fellow you've already seen a sneak preview of but here he is in all his glory; the Sternguard Apothecary Novitiate (because special forces guys tend to end up in situations where they need some running repairs done).




I'm not sure what the blue stuff is, but I assume marines run on more than just blood, besides, it would have been boring to do two sets of red vials.

Then there's this guy, tasked with carrying around the squad's ammo. He doesn't have a scope because his chin prevents it being placed where it goes on all the other bolters. I shall have to think of a way around this. But other than that he's done. He's actually a slight reworking and thorough repainting of an earlier model.





Group shot of the unit before I set about making all their insignia super pretty rather than slightly rubbish.


So, that was what I've been doing, hope it all meets with approval. Until next time my friends.

I really like the bone and cloth on the chaplain, well done.

Your bases look really good with some paint on them btw....

sockwithaticket wrote:Then there's this guy, tasked with carrying around the squad's ammo. He doesn't have a scope because his chin prevents it being placed where it goes on all the other bolters. I shall have to think of a way around this. But other than that he's done. He's actually a slight reworking and thorough repainting of an earlier model.

I actually discussed this on another forum in regards to my own project log Marines. My suggestion, and it's what I do to achieve the posings on my own models, is wrist re-posing. You can probably fix your scope issue by slicing off the hand at the wrist and rotating it a few degrees. Obviously would have been better before you had painted him, lol. You can probably do it behind the wrist ring, which will minimize the damage to your paint and be easiest to fix.

It's been a little while since I've checked in here, came down with a nasty bit of food poisoning last week so although I was confined to home for a bit doing anything other than lying in bed with a bucket was out of the question. I had an insomniatic spell over the weekend, though, so I've made a fair bit of progress with my Plasma assault squad and will promptly show it off. I finished off the last few bases too, but you're probably all fed up with photos of those by now and it barely seems worth it for the few I had left.

1. Sergeant-
For giggles I decided to magnetise this guy, it's the first time I've done it and it made me have to concentrate on what I was doing like never before. The issue of matching up polarity and making sure both sets of weapons consistent with the were novel considerations and the latter was certainly very challenging; there was much cutting, cursing and gap filling.. For maximum plasma and anti-CSM-ness his main load out is PP and PF, the alternative being BP and PW. He's still quite WIP, though his body, base and pistol arms are done.






Just to show that I bothered doing the Lense and the barrel (which will only happen in rare instances, I have far too much to paint and build without getting bogged down drilling a company's worth of barrels).


2. The wonder twins. Again with much cutting, cursing and gap feeling I have created my two plasma pistols wielders as sort of the mirror of each other and made them as MK. IV as possible with the bits I had lying around (only one pair of MK. IV arms unfortunately so they were shared).










3. Head Taker - I've mentioned before that the head of the last fallen enemy gets taken as a trophy by the Crimson Tears and I had this fancy pair of legs sitting around, it made sense that a particular marine would be allocated the task of taking the head as a sort of sacred rite and what better place for him than this squad?. With his pose I've made it look like he's having to respond to an attack after having finished the rite, clearly it was begun a little too hastily. This is my first proper attempt at blood/gore so some feedback would be appreciated.





Close up of the blood on the CSM helmet as you can;'t really see it in the other photos.




4. Wing face - I finished him. Not much else to say really.



Group shot of the squad so far:



So that was me, hope you enjoy.

Mr. Merlin - glad I can always rely on you for some positive feedback I am actually really happy with how the bases have turned out despite being from a few different companies I think they've all come out looking fairly uniform. I was worried about the bone and cloth for the Chaplain as I used new recipes for the first time, but I do think they've come out rather well and the bits on his shoulder pads are particular favourites of mine,

Veteran Sergeant - believe it or not the wrist was already reposed I just did it quite poorly, it was probably at some stupid hour of the morning when I was already sleep deprived (damn you, episodic insomnia!). I really don't want to break him so I may just move it further up the bolter to where I usually place it. Alternatively, he's an ammo runt who generally fires with one hand whilst on the move, no one is expecting him to hit anything so why bother with a scope? Cheers for dropping in with some advice , though. If I'm ever feeling less lazy than usual I will certainly bear that last tip in mind.

*Big sigh*
I've been trying very hard to finish units/individuals before I start new ones, but you know what they say about good intentions...

I have done a little bit more work on the Scout Squad and the Plasma Pistol Assault Squad, but not much because one small ebay win kick started a project I'd had booked for that indistinct date 'the future'; the project being an objective marker, more on that in a little bit.

As far as the Assault Squad goes all I've done is a bit of pad work, but you've seen my pads before so I didn't bother taking any pictures.

The Scout's are now more or less fully formed, they have torsos attached to their legs and one even has a head.


I did the cloaks in three different styles almost by accident and I'd like to see which method people think is best. I'm leaning towards the one on the right. Also I'm wondering whether it will be worthwhile adding a camo pattern to these cloaks? My first attempt is somewhere on page 2 of this thread I think and it looks ok, probably doesn't bear much greater scrutiny than a look from 12 inches away, but not much else. While I can freehand certain things relatively well I think really good camo is a little bit beyond me at this point and I don't want to spend the time doing something I won't be entirely happy with. If anyone thinks I'm being unduly harsh on my previous efforts/too lazy, do pipe up and give me what for.

Now then, the thing that's been taking up my time: an objective! Possibly because all the greys and whites I painted this week were getting a bit dull I went rooting through my box of 'future projects' that will bring the company up to full strength and I happened upon my obejectives bag. 45 marines and nothing to fight for? That can't be right. An objective was due! Here are the constituent images, I'll explain them further below:







Can you tell what it is yet? [/Rolf Harris mode]

Traitorous guardsmen are attempting to bring unholy hell to the city they are besieging by summoning demons of their chosen God, in this case Tzeentch, to run through the streets, leaving mayhem and bloodshed wherever they go. I chose Tzeentch for a few reasons: it presented me with an opportunity to paint a brighter colour than I'm used to, I don't particularly like Nurgle or Slaanesh and I already do too much red to be interested in doing something Khorne related. I've used the symbol of Chaos undivided as I imagine that to be a constituent part of summoning rituals, with the icon of Tzeenth and the actual words intoned determining (as far as possible) what pops out of the warp. I've tried to make the Chaos star a little untidy whilst still being recognisible so it looks like blood daubed on the floor. The whole thing is meant to look like an ad hoc shrine with all the skulls having been brought there and heaped for the purpose (can't take credit for that, the base is, as ever, a resin one, I've just added a couple of bits to make it look more like part of a ruined city.). I settled upon a blue horror rather than any other demon of Tzeentch as I actually have blue paints and because it is these guys' first summoning, they're hardly going to be calling a Lord of Change to battle!

So that brings started/ongoing projects up to 4 now with Scouts, Assault Squad, Dreadnought and this. Whoops.

Still, this one will be a welcome change. Thoughts everyone? (Anyone?)

Oh look, internet access! Didn't get much of that over the last few days..... been travelling around Skye.

How'd you do the cloth on the scouts? I like the loof of the third one, it has lots of depth. Is it drybrushed or layered?

Also, the base of that objetive marker is kick-ass. Your bases always look nice for some reason, kudos. However, I think the skulls are a little too yellowish. What color s did yuo use?

New update everyone, it's quite small as I'm currently combining a work experience placement with my job, but there has been progress.

I've done all the skulls on that objective base, which was a task and a half I tell you:



I also finally found room in my monthly hobby budget for these amazing parts.


They've enabled me to finish those servitors that I've had kicking around for a few months now bereft of a secondary tool/appendage due to some miscasting/my being clumsy with a penknife.Here they are, now able to cut into things as well as grab them.




Hey, Mr.Merlin; wow how did you cope? It's sad, but even when I go travelling I have to check into an internet cafe every 3 days and look up the news or something, otherwise I feel cut off from the world.

I started with a standard basecoat then one highlight job and gave them a pretty heavy black wash. The one on the left is just that, the one in the middle came out a bit darker anyway but I also put some matt varnish on because the wash had dried a bit shiny and the one on the right has been layered back up with the original highlight colour. I definitely think it looks the best out of all of them so I guess I'll just have to suck it up and take the time to get the other two looking like that.

Cheers for the words on the bases, I just dumb-lucked into a good way of doing them I guess. Yeah the skulls I had painted in that photo were just Army Painter Skeleton Bone, they were by no means finished, as you can see in the pictures above I have actually done more to them now. I washed the Skeleton Bone in GW Agrax Earthshade and then drybrushed a highlight of Vallejo Bone White which is lighter than the Skeleton Bone.

I really appreciate your continued feedback, by the way, it's good to get it from someone who consistently views what I'm doing.

Yeah, I think the skulls look much better now.

Where did you get these parts?? I could really use some of these myself! (they look neat on your sevitors btw.)

greetings from the tiny and rainy Portsoy, where they have only the slowest of internte access (took me a minute just to view my subd threads! )

Merlin

So this thing happened recently, 6th Edition, you guys might have noticed. This hasn't had a massive impact on me as, for the moment at least, I only collect. That said I do try and make sure what I'm collecting is game legal and at least reasonably effective on the table. I think the most obvious thing to come out of this is that my army needs an alternative HQ to the Chappies withtheir now AP 4 weapons and that all future power weapon choices for squads and characters will have to be considered carefully.

Now, I've been combining work experience placements with my job for the last couple of weeks so I've not done a lot of actual painting to be honest. That said I have begun the four remaining members of the plasma assault squad. They have legs



and their close quarters armaments



I also got around to finishing the primary weapon set of the sergeant and so my first powerfist with the new(ish) power weapon scheme. I was a bit unsure about it at first and it was a time consuming process, but I'm pretty pleased with the end result.





While I might not have gotten much painting done since the last update I've been doing a bit of modelling and, unusually for this log, I'm going to share some of my unpainted WIP's.
Firstly, here's a flamerback turret I've knocked up:



Not the most difficult kitbash in the world, but pretty effective I think. This should be destined for a future Command Squad or counts as Death Company transport in the future.

Secondly, my Chapter's counts as Tycho. I've been lurking on the BA part of this forum and the members there all seem quite excited by Tycho for 6th Ed., it made me think about the character and the place he might have in my force. Aeons ago I owned the Tycho miniature and he was one of my favourites. Alas, he's long been lost to the warp and I don't really want the stock model for my current force, I feel the Crimson Tears deserve their own equivalent.The buzz around him at the moment plus stumbling upon the perfect bit for Dead Man's Hand (FW Apothecary in Mk. 2 armour's chainsword arm, minus chainsword) made me want to give it a go. Obviously you can have normal, functioning Tycho or DC Tycho, but I want both so I've knocked the two up. Can you tell which is which?
1.


2.



Unfortunately, I only have the bits for one and I can't decide which to build until such time as I can get duplicates of the combi-melta and Dead Man's Fist, though I am leaning towards the DC version.

Quite a lot of waffling for so small an update, so I'll stop now. Over and out


Mr. Merlin - Excellent, the base colour is surprisingly yellow but it's amazing what a wash and a drybrush can do!

I got those bits from blight wheel miniatures http://blightwheelminiatures.jumpseller.com/ . They've got some cool stuff available, they're based in Monaco, though, so the shipping costs aren't great. Still they are great parts, really well cast and pretty much unique. I certainly haven't found any equivalent parts from other companies.

Ha, welcome to Britain where even in June/July (and probably August at this rate) we continue to enjoy endless rain and grey skies. It's also the land of rubbish internet if you stray from major towns and cities. The drop off in broadband speed is insane if you're even 20 miles away from one, that's if you can even get broadband, I know many areas are still on dial up!

Hope you're finding some enjoyment in this green and pleasant land (assuming you haven't moved on).

The British summer, it's fairly well known to be a synonym for rubbish weather and this year it's really gone all out . I can barely remember a day over the last few weeks where it hasn't rained incessantly. As such when I had a couple of days off this week, which I'd completely forgotten about, I was largely confined to quarters as it were. Still it's not all bad because my pile of primed and part painted plastic got some love, unfortunately this was largely at the expense of the Assault squad who simply got their helmets finished. On the plus side I gave the scouts some much needed attention, I fixed the cloaks of the three I last showed off so that they are more or less the same and I actually finished one entirely! Here he is:





It's worthwhile noting the lenses at this point. While I was doing his it occurred to me that I'd not done the lenses properly on the two other finished scouts nor on my Sternguard, so I sat down for a couple of hours to remedy this. Having done so I was ready to finally complete one of my three scout kill teams:






I imagine that the missile launcher guy is getting ready to pop an enemy transport while the other two keep watching the perimeter.

Oh and here are some Sternguard just to prove I did their lenses too (so many lenses, and I still need to do some on their heads :wallbash: , another unit I'll never finish it seems...)



The other major thing I did was make a start on my very first dreadnought. Even way back when I first started the hobby I never owned a dreadnought despite wanting to, so this is quite big deal to me. The base I did as part of the great basing project already, but everything else is new. I didn't know how much i was going to get done in my time off so I was taking pictures after every small milestone, hence why I'm starting with just the feet on the base:






This is what he should end up looking like, hopefully the pose gives some sense of motion. It's quite hard to not make dreads look static. I'm going to magnetise the arms as I've got enough alternatives lying around to turn him into an Ironclad, a Furioso or arm him with assault cannon and missile launcher. The purity seal looks like it could do with more of a wash too.



Lastly, after the fun I had knocking up a Tycho I thought I'd have a stab another character and settled upon Gabriel Seth. There's no real reason for him to have a death mask head other than I've got 5 of them and I think it's be cool if I gave them to all of my BA special character counts-as models.




Obviously he needs a ton of work but I think for a basic pose that'll do. His sword needs to be swapped for a chainblade thus giving me an excuse to buy the Kromlech Rippers, y'know after I pay for my holiday, car insurance, road tax, rent etc... I'd also like to draw attention to his wrist plate. I shaved that done from a storm bolter to cover up the mess I made hacking it off his arm. I had no idea how tricky that would be, in fact the next time my brain suggests something like that I'm just going to veto it. As a final remark, you wouldn't believe the amount of pinning wire running through those arms and the weapon, it's easily one of the fiddliest conversions I've ever done.

That's all from me this week. C&C at your leisure.

Why am I the only one commenting on these?

The scouts and the sternguard look good, what I like most about them are the lenses. Well done.

Also looking forward to seeing your Gabriel Seth model.

these look realy good

I have what I consider to be a pretty significant update this week.
1. I painted my first ever Dreadnought
2. I finally took some pictures of my finished Sternguard. Some of you will know how long these guys have been knocking about on my work desk so to finally get them on here in finished form is a big deal.

Before we get onto them, though, here's Dreadnought Uriel. I started him last week and I enjoyed painting him so much that I used every spare moment I could muster this week to work on him. I'm really pleased with how he came out, the only blemish being the magnets, but, given that drilling holes for them went drastically wrong, simply being stuck there over my repair work will simply have to do. Particular personal highlights for with this model are the power cables on the lascannon, the freehand tear on his sarcophagus icon and using a piece of etched brass for the first time:








Sternguard time! They've actually been finished for a little while now but my camera does not take group shots very well and I was too lazy to think of a way round this until now. I say they're finished, clearly they aren't highlighted like my more recent work and I will go back and do that at some point, however, I really want to get up to a half company of marines before I go on holiday late in August (incl. these guys and the WIP assault squad I have 40 + Chaplains and Techmarine). Anywho here's a group shot:



And here they are in pairs to get around the terrible group shot and show them all off:











Laden down with equipment, ready for anything, just like an elite fire-team should be.

Cheers for looking, all feedback appreciated.


Merlin - because you're awesome? Cheers, I'm pretty pleased with them. They indicate to me that I am progressing as a painter, which is gratifying in the extreme. I washed Seth's torso yesterday evening with a few other resin bits and pieces but I probably won't be able to prime him for a bit because it's now 25-30 degrees outside with fairly high humidity. This country! It was about 12 degrees and wet a week ago, which is also not good for priming, and now we have this It's probably for the best, though, it's not like I have a lack of things to be doing without chucking a character onto the painting pile.

elliot - cheers fella, always nice to see a new face on here with positive things to say.

Really nice work mate. Keep it up!!

Cool ideas that are really well implemented there mate.Two stand out points for me are the smooth whites(something i can never achieve properly)and the robes which rock.The pig iron heads look great for the scouts and the creativity is great.Keep it up mate.

The lenses and blue bits on the drednough look great, and the Crimson Tears color sheme works really well on him too!
However, while the black parts are very nicely highlighted, some of the other lolors lack definition.... your red and white seems to be only a single color each, without any shading or ighlighting, and the metal only got a wash. You really should highlight these parts (well, not the white; how'd you highlight that anyway? ) The dred would look even better then!
As for the Sternguard; loving the dynamic poses and clean paintjobs, well done. The reds here could also use a highlight though, and please drill your barrels .... it really adds to the realism of the models!
Bases are looking as good as always!

Already waiting for the next updates, mate! And could you give us some shots of the whole army? Would be awesome!

Hey everyone I've gotten a bit more done on two of my projects, how exciting. Been a bit more pushed for hobby time this week as with my car insurance coming up and a whole bunch of people quitting at work I've been taking advantage of the opportunity to work some extra hours and keep myself flush. That said the scouts are now so far along that they may have to relinquish their title as permanent desk ornaments (and the objective may take it up, though I did paint a whole arm of the blue horror). Once I get the original scout up to current standards I'll have game legal squad to post. Until that happens, here they are out of their natural environment of city ruins.



The other thing I did was get these guys to 90% completion. Pads and the appropriate freehand are all that's required for them now and one that happens I'll have 43 finished marines plus 6 scouts. That half company is getting so close I can almost taste it. Before that though they must strut on the cat walk:

I tried for a "come at me bro'" pose with this guy who cares not for shooting enemies of the Emperor, I'm not sure it's quite gone that way but he's pinned now so it'll have to do.


This pose was looking a bit awkward 'til I stuck the tiny shield on, now, at least, I can pretend he's saying something like "go on, hit the target and see what you win. *Chainsword to the face*"


En garde! Ever seen someone fence with a chain blade? Me neither, but I imagine someone in the 41st Millenium has given it a try


"Oh no, I appear to have fallen on you chainsword first, terribly sorry" Dynamic posing with static legs is hard.


Group shot:


That's it for this time, thanks for looking. C&C if you want.


THE3FALL3N - thank you, I certainly intend to.

shingouki - Cheers, mate. I tell you, Ceramite White is a godsend. It's no good on it's own and it does take 3-5 thin coats but as a base to put another white over it is spectacular. Glad you approve the modelling side of what I'm doing too, I know marine armies can look very samey so I'm trying my best to do interesting things with mine.

Merlin - Damn it man, stop pushing me to do better, it's very time consuming! I agree that the red should be highlighted and that I'd have no idea how to highlight the white, but I really like the dull, smokey look the metals get from a simple black wash so I'm not sure I'll change that for the most part, though I will look into how to highlight gold/bronze for the crux..
Most of those Sternguard are actually quite old now, I think I built them all before I owned a drill I'll go back and do them, you'll note that the scouts had their barrels done Glad for recognition of the posing, it took me long enough to get i tall done.
Speaking of highlighting red how does this look?

It's quite subtle, but I like it. Importantly it's a paint straight out of the pot which will guarantee consistency for the future.
I think I'll do an army shot when I get to the half company, if you can wait that long

Really liking what I'm seeing!

Nice and clean paintjobs as always, sock. The red highlights are looking good!

'Tis the week of finishing things! Although I'm not part of the ETL competition the deadline and work of others has inspired me to keep hammering away at my unfinished stuff and it's really paid off. It is now only the objective that sits incomplete on my work desk! Yes, that means I have finally finished those damned Scouts (until the unit expands to ten men)! I opted not to go with camo cloaks for the two newest guys as I'm not overly happy with how attempt on the first one and really just wanted to get these guys done. I think I painted the first one back in January or something similarly ridiculous. Hunkered down in some ruins they watch all possible avenues of attack, aiming to discourage the enemy from take those routes:



On top of this I finished my Chaos Marine hunters, the plasma assault squad, by padding them all up. The only thing they could possibly do with is the grenades that would make them WYSIWYG, but since when did people do that?:



Having discovered the wonderful Sanguine Highlight paint from the P3 range as an adequate highlight for my beloved, but now discontinued (and heavily stockpiled), Scab Red I went back and touched up the large red areas of Uriel the Dreadnought as on such large surfaces I don't really think I can avoid highlighting:


As a reward for this landmark of effectively clearing my desk I decided to have a crack at a couple of more 'fun' models, a Deathwatch marine, Brother Nathaniel Tydrael, and my counts as Seth, Captain Cyph Ezekiel.

Tydrael would be done if I hadn't misplaced his pack (the Grey Knights one with the Inquisition symbol on the back):



Ezekiel is fully finished bar a Company marking (not sure I want a special character to be leading the 2nd). Now this is how he started a few weeks ago:


And this is how he's ended up (tons of photos for a full 360 effect):





Oh I also want to mention that I made the base this time and I think it stacks up pretty well next to all the resin ones *puts away trumpet*.

I'm going on holiday next Monday for a couple of weeks, so this may be my last update for a little while.

Kenshin620 - I'm glad, I know my skills aren't as good as some but I do try and make the Crimson Tears visually interesting.

Merlin - well as you liked them I included some more highlights Thats 45 Marines now, 5 more and I can do the army shot. Not sure if I'll manage that before my holiday, though.

I like the scouts and the highlighted dred... nice work as always. Tho the back of that wall is a little plain... roughen it up a little!
Now Ezekiel.... THAT is an awesome model, mate! The white face looks great, a bit like a harlequin, which works really well.... and the pose is a win too.

But his sword.... so big and plain.... it has to be smeared with blood and guts, lol!

Where are you are going for your holiday?

Your Seth conversion is awesome! Wish I could paint as neat as you. Did you freehand the chest symbol? It looks great!

Lucarikx

So between work and rushing around getting stuff together for my impending travels I haven't had time to do much painting this week. I did have a crack at one of the Imperial Borderers I bought from Anvil to be allies in the future, here are the results.




I don't know if I ever wrote this down in the thread, but I think of the Crimson Tears as being a chapter of urban warfare specialists who frequently descend upon embattled imperial positions to rescue the situation. Thus my allies will (eventually) be small contingents of assorted vanilla space marines, IG or GK Henchmen/Witchhunters.

Merlin - Thanks man, I'm really happy with how he came out. There was a lot of work involved but I think it was totally worth it. He's running to meet the enemy fresh off the drop pod/Thunderhawk, hence no blood and guts yet (and the immaculate condition of the many white parts of his armour),

The wall the scouts are hiding behind came like that and it never really occurred to me to scuff it up . I see a lot of GD entries on large bases with flat and plain surfaces like that so I'll just say I'm following their example

I'm off for a little tour of South East Europe, start off in Zagreb, go on to Plitvice Lakes, go back to Zagreb so I can get to Budapest then off to Bratislava a few days later. It's a quite a busy schedule for just under two weeks away.

Lucarikx - Thanks for the compliment. I promise you I'm not that neat, my highlights and chapter symbols receive a ton of touch ups. I didn't freehand the chest symbol no, it's a piece of FW brass etch from the Blood Angels sheet, however given how fiddly it was to paint I wish I had tried doing it myself now!

I'm back! Well, I've been back for a week now, but I haven't had anything to show until now. This isn't going to be one of my bigger updates, though I hope there's enough to make it worth your time if you stopped by for a look.

First up is my Devastator sergeant, Isaiah Kain. He's based on one of the old metal Dark Angels models and that gave me ideas for some fluff. That's right, I wrote fluff! I don't usually feel the need for that sort of thing but this guy got my creative juices flowing. It's largely because of the ornate robe buckle (like a belt buckle, but for robes) of his, it made me think why would he have that rather than the standard rope that all the other sergeants have? The answer being: he's a badass. The Crimson Tears are an army that runs forward and beats the hell out of the enemy, what do the devastators do? They stand at the back shooting things until everyone else gets close, getting progressively more isolated and thus vulnerable to attack. To lead this squad you have to be Death just to make sure it survives. Hence he has a couple of extra added trinkets/battle honours dotted around his person and perhaps a loadout not exactly suited to a Dev. Sergeant, but hey, that's the collector's prerogative right? Without further rambling here are the pics:




Fluff:
Sergeant Isaiah Kain, The Undying, is a living legend not just in the Second Company but throughout the Crimson Tears chapter. He’s been a member of the Second Company’s devastators since they first set foot on a battlefield and has led them for all but forty of his years in service to the Imperium. Steadfast, dependable and utterly lethal his presence on the front line is a given. He alone trains his squad and it endures rigours not expected of any other unit in the chapter, a burden his handpicked recruits bear gladly for the opportunity to learn from this great warrior. Indeed, but for his dedication to the Second Company and his refusal to entrust its heavy support to anyone else, he would long ago have been a member of the Chapter’s command structure; On three separate occasions he has turned down promotion to Captain of another company. His aim is true and his capabilities in close quarters are remarkable for one who has dedicated so much of his time to killing the enemy from afar. Given the Crimson Tears propensity for close quarters engagement the devastators tend to find themselves alone in the field or supported by vehicles alone, thus it has been through bloody experience of protecting his charges, often against fairly ridiculous odds, that Kain has become so formidable. During the 3rd War for Armageddon Kain, his nine squad members, two predators and seven rhinos had been left at the entrance of a hive city after the rest of the company had forced its way inside through a breach too steep for the tanks to enter when a Speed Freaks column came into view on the horizon. Kain made the decision to stand and fight rather than abandon the company’s armour to the Orks to be looted. One of the predators and four of the rhinos were destroyed, with the remaining tanks and crew members being severely damaged in the engagement. But when the dust of the retreating Orks had cleared Kain and the two members of his squad capable of standing were victorious. Though the losses had been severe, tanks could be repaired and brothers healed, Kain had ensured their brethren in the hive would not become the besieged or be taken by surprise on the streets. This incident and many others like it over the years give rise to his legend and ensure that his squad is never short of members despite the disregard most Crimson Tears have for ranged combat.His epithet is one not uncommonly used by other chapters for their brethren who have been encased in a Dreadnought, fighting on in undeath. In his case it is simply because he seems invincible. Squad members sustain wounds and are sometimes taken to the Emperor’s Grace, but not Kain. Frankly, his survival through an individual campaign, let alone his centuries of service , is remarkable and yet if there is one thing a Crimson Tears commander may guarantee it is that Isaiah Kain will be standing at the end of the battle, sometimes alone, seeking to do the utmost harm to any that would threaten his brothers.

I think I left the lense on the 'signum' a little too light and I can see some wash on his right shoulder pad that needs covering up (damn you camera and your ability to pick out tiny mistakes!), but otherwise I'm happy with the results. I tried some glazing with the robes and i think it's worked pretty well, but the process was a bit random and I'm not 100% sure what paints I mixed and in what ratios so who knows If it'll work out like this again.

Other than him I've been cutting and sticking frantically to come up with his second in command, a librarian and a company champion (for an eventual command squad):

I'm going to try and modify the bolters of every Devastator with a different scope to try and make it look like they've been customising their weapons


The Dark Vengeance Librarian is a beautiful model, though a little too Dark Angel-y for my needs. The swords aren't a huge problem as they are very much a part of my chapter's symbolism and heraldry, but he did need somewhere to place a crimson tear and so the left shoulder pad had to go which gave the opportunity to reposition the arm and have something a little different to the standard model I'm debating whether I should give him deep blue robes rather than blue armour to help differentiate him from other members of the chapter.



Everyone has an Emperor's champion model don't they? Well, here's mine. He's finecast (boo, hiss), but other than a warped sword, that I've replaced anyway, he's actually remarkably good, a far cry from the Jump Pack Chaplain who's had to lose both arms and his pack (more on that in the future). His pose has ended up oddly similar to the Librarian's by some quirk of my modelling taste.


Right, that's your lot. Feedback absolutely welcome.

subbed!

Great work on Isaiah Kain! I really like the robe and the fluff gives him lots of character!

It feels like it's been a while since I last posted something on here and it feels like I've been painting at a glacial pace when I've been able to fit some in lately. Might just all be in my head. Anywho, Isaiah Kain now has some squad members! Not quite enough for a legal squad, but that's probably because they were all wiped out in the previous battle and he's still training the recruits. I've gone full WYSIWIG with these guys, meaning both grenade types and bolt pistols are on their person along with a few pouches, seals etc. May yet add more when the rest of the squad is done. The way I see it, unlike their chainsword armed brethren, they'd need to carry a lot of extra stuff around to function effectively in the field. Plus being trained by Kain means they ought to be almost as awesome as the Sternguard, in this army that's signified by the amount of stuff hanging off your belt. Less rambling more pictures you say? Here:





Also, because focusing on one thing at a time is hard, i started my very own counts as Hyperios platform. I bought these little missile pods from Maxmini.eu, which also have a sprue option to become cyclone launchers, just because really. I also had this awesome base painted and lying around; it's a 50 mm one and was originally intended for my dreadnought, but it's just a bit too small. It is, however, easily big enough for two small missile pods to represent one Hyperios platform. Huzzah! Obviously only one of the pods is complete, but you can see where the next one's going. To me these make a bit more sense than actual Hyperios platforms which seem a bit bulky to be carrying around for the kind of strike force operations Space Marines are usually involved in, for the Crimson Tears specifically, they look small enough for an individual marine to carry one up to the roof of a shattered building in a war torn Imperial city and thus ensure no nasty surprises from the air as they clear enemy positions:




Well that's all for now folks, enjoy.

eldartau1987 - Appreciated!

MrMerlin - thanks, mate. I feel I need to do something else with a robe fairly soon so I don't forget how I managed the effect on his!

I really like the look of Kain's squad members. All that equippment gives them lots of character..... now build the rest lol!

Another smallish update and I won't accompany it with whinging about the state of my RL this time. Rounded out the Dev. squad to 5, painted an ally (can't show that here unfortunately, but it's one of the old Steel Legion officers with a skull mask), finished the first 'Hyperios' and went back to the objective (!).

Lascannon:
This guy was rewarding to finish as those power coils are labour intensive, but I love the way they look so when they get done it's a good feeling. If the areas around the skulls on the gun and pack look a little rough then I apologise but there was no way I was leaving the silly little crossed bones there (I hate those, Space Marines are not pirates! Skulls are grim dark, skull and crossbones brings to mind Johnny Depp pretending to be slightly drunk and wearing mascara).


Extra detail shots

Pile 'o bits that will end up being the rest of the Devastators.


Ally:
I've always loved this mini and when I saw it ebay recently I had to grab it for my nascent IG allies. Not sure the greatcoat came out quite as intended , but I still like it.



Hyperios:
Done, not a lot to say on it other than it was something nice and simple to do and I think it looks pretty decent as an alternative to the FW ones.


Objective:
After a little hiatus with it I've finally got back down to it. Here's 3/4 of a cultist/renegade. Should have a friend for him soon and then It'll be down to the blue horror they'll be summoning (and that the Crimson Tears must prevent from running amok in the city!). If anyone has any tips on painting daemons feel free to share. I think I get the principles required for a naturalistic skin tone (lots of glazing and blending), but hints and help are always appreciated.



Finally, I promised Mr. Merlin an army shot when I got to the half company mark. This is the best I could do with my ancient camera, still I think it's a pretty good testament to what is more or less a year's worth of work. I'm including the list in case anyone cares about a detailed breakdown of what's there. Included in the photo but not on the list are my Deathwatch Veteran and Boarding/Siege Marine.Technically speaking the Scouts are on secondment from the 10th, so they don't count for the 2nd's bodycount which stands at 51 including the 2 not accounted for by the army list.




Reclusiarch Bolt Pistol , Frag and Krak grenades, Crozius, Rosarius
Cyph Ezekiel (Gabriel Seth) Bolt Pistol , Frag and Krak grenades, Blood Reaver, Iron Halo

Troops:
Tactical Squad (9 Marines, 1 Sergeant) Bolters, Bolt Pistols, Frag and Krak grenades, Plasma Cannon, Plasma gun, Power Weapon
Assault Squad (9 Marines, 1 Sergeant) Bolt Pistols, Chainswords Frag and Krak grenades, Power Fist, Meltagun x2
Assault Squad (9 Marines, Sergeant) Bolt Pistols, Chainswords, Frag and Krak grenades, Power Fist, Plasma Pistol x 3
Scout Squad (5 Scouts, Sergeant) Sniper Rifles, Missile Launcher, Bolt Pistols, Frag and Krak grenades

Elites:
Techmarine Artificer Armour, Servo-harness, Bolt pistol, Frag and Krak grenades, Servitor (x2)
Sternguard (9 Marines, 1 Sergeant) Bolters, Bolt Pistols, Frag and Krak grenades, Special Ammunition, Power Weapon, Heavy Flamer x2
Chaplain Plasma Pistol , Frag and Krak grenades, Crozius, Rosarius

Heavy Support
Dreadnought Twin -linked Lascannon, Bloodfist with Heavy flamer, Smoke Launchers
Devastator Squad (4 Marines, 1 Sergeant) Bolters, Missile Launcher, Lascannon, Frag and Krak grenades Storm Bolter, Power Weapon, Signum

Total: 1,886

Cheers for looking!

Merlin - Heh, I will, I will. Alas, highlighting weapons and giving tthem belt accessories extends the process somewhat. Settle for an army shot in the mean time?

Hey man!

I really like your colour scheme, and i can see you put alot of time into your models, like poses etc.

Keep it up! Looking forward to see more, maybe some vichels?

That lascannon looks great with these blue highlights, and thanks for the army shot!
also digging the guard sheme!

Finally managed to get enough done for an update after a pretty busy few weeks. I'm going to be starting a new job soon so my updates may continue in this smaller, more infrequent vein. I'm hoping to crank out the devastators before the start date, speaking of which:

Missile launcher guy + two ablative wounds well on their way to being finished


Alongside them I've finished my two renegade guardsmen for the objective:
New guy

Together


As a reward for being good with my ongoing projects, and after The Yak reminded me I haven't touched this unit for a while, I did another boarding marine:



Cheers for looking.

Charky - welcome to the plog! Cheers for noticing the effort, I'm not the best painter so I do try and up the look of my models with some decent posing and conversions. I do have 5 Rhino chassis waiting to become predators/razorbacks and one more dread to do (it's a Forge World Ironclad needing a fair bit of attention to fill some holes) so there are vehicles in the future of this army, I'm just not sure when.

Mr. Merlin - as my most loyal feedbacker you're most welcome for the army shot and I continue to appreciate your compliments for my stuff. Must say, the guard scheme looks better each time I look at it and I'm tempted to divert and do a few more of those instead of marines for a bit. I've been a bit undecided how to include them as well. I don't own the IG codex so I'm not sure about unit composition or anything like that. I might use them as Grey Knight Warrior Acolytes to keep the units smaller.

Wow! I have missed a lot! You are doing a great job of posing these guys. They look great! Thank you for sharing!

Those are two good looking traitors. I like how you turned that roll of bandages into something completely different, lol!

Also, fantastic pose on that boarding marine!

Finally, I have something tangible to show before starting to work 7 days a week for a short period. I suffered quite severely from project ADD since my last update and so the Devastators and Objective still aren't finished... so much for clearing my work desk before the new job!

That's not to say they didn't get any attention at all:

Firstly, I put the finishing touches to a couple of Devastators to maintain the 1:1 Heavy weapon:ablative wound ratio



Secondly, I started in on the Blue Horror. He's been base coated for ages and it was a bit daunting to finally start in on him. He's turned out more sinewey (that's totally a word) than I initially intended, I'd be interested to hear what people think because although it's not the image I had in my head I quite like it.


Now the distractions. Razblood's great Flesh Tearers prompted me to make a start on something I've had in my mind. I want to paint up a marine from every branch of the Blood Angels tree, just because really, and this is the first offering -



Death from above/Protection from above! No army using the BA codex is complete without a Sanguinary Priest or equivalent and sitting around looking at my bits I cobbled this guy together as the first of the Crimson Tears' Protectors. As their chapter name suggests the Tears are no strangers to loss and sorrow, so wherever possible they attempt to minimise casualties and this has resulted in the Chapters Apothecaries seeing far greater and more aggressive use in the field. Known as Protectors they accompany strike forces into the heat of battle to ensure that as few marines are sent to the Emperor's Grace as possible. With that in mind I wanted this guy to look as though he was coming in to land, ready to hack or to heal. He needs a Jump Pack and some accessories but the main body is done. As he can't jump around by himself expect further flying angels of death in the immediate future.
[ur


Thanks for looking, all comments welcome.

eldartau -Glad to give you something worth seeing upon your return. As ever, thanks for the kind words. I do try hard with the posing so it's always gratifying to have it picked up on.

Merlin - cheers buddy, it's amazingly gratifying when you find inventive uses for bits. I'm sure you're more than familiar with this, being an Ork player and all. I'm hoping to get at least a combat squad's worth of boarding marines done by Christmas, doing this guy made me realise I'm probably at the point where I can do them justice.

It's been more or less 2 months since my last update, real life blah blah busy blah blah etc. But I'm back now(!) with a solid 2 and half week block to be working on things, courtesy of my new job as a sort of teacher, which is cool. As it stands I've used the last few days to get some stuff to a postable standard:

Firstly, the Devastators are now 95% complete. These two are the last ablative wounds/bolter marines for the squad:




I spent a good while scratching my head on how to individuate them, hopefully I've achieved the goal of keeping them distinct from the others in the unit. They will soon (hopefully), be joined by the final Lascannon marine who is currently in many partly painted pieces that equate to half a marine in my mental progress log.


Something I've actually fully completed, though, is my objective! (I know, right? About time...) As much as I like the end result I don't think I'll be starting a demon army anytime soon as I'd be 6 feet under before I even finished half of it. The Blue Horror required a great amount of care due to the sheer amount of small detail that I'm not really used to dealing with.
On its own:



As part of the objective (sorry for slightly blurred photos):


It feels pretty good to finally get that done. I haven't helped myself by getting distracted again...
Perhaps partly because I've been painting a demon for a while I decided that my allies should no longer be Imperial Guard but Grey Knights. WAIT! Don't turn away in disgust, there will be no actual Grey Knights involved. I like the idea of Inquisitorial retinues, so I will go down the Henchmen squads route. To that end I've started in on an Inqusitorial Storm Trooper and a Techpriest (counts as Jokaero)




I've also been making a start on my Forgeworld Ironclad Dreadnought, which I'll be equipping as a Siege Dreadnought. I actually bought this months ago and it's been sitting around for ages because it has a lot of little bubbles that I thought I could fix, but never had the appetite to get around to. Finally built up that appetite and here's the progress so far:



The torso's in a similar state and really I should've just asked for a replacement, but it was my first Forgeworld order and I got all excited about being a 'proper' hobbyist and sorting out a resin kit myself. Oh well. That's it for now, hopefully with a bit of time on my hands, for the next 2 weeks at least, it won't take me another 2 months to have something worth showing.

Nice work as always, sock. I like the skin of that horror, well done mate.

btw what are you teaching?

My oh my oh my sockwithaticket, these models are absolutely bloody gorgeous! I can't believe I forgot about checking in on this thread and responding to your awesome updates. I've just spent the entire length of the latest Dying Fetus album reading over this thread and your astounding attempts at this very original force. It is very inspiring. I love how your freehand comes out and how you can pull off quarter/half designs so well. Your white is also very very smooth, something I have never ever pulled off. Please, please oh please! keep up the work and paint the rest of that company. It'll look fantastic once complete. Consider me subbed!

Ayo there. just read through your topic.
Man this is just awesome, and the improvement you've made is just astonishing consider me subbed , and waiting for news to come asap !
i do think that what you show to us is worth the time it takes for you to post them anyway !

can't wait to see more of them comming! Keep It Up Man, those are -once again- fabulous !

First day back at work :( Figure it's time for an update before I get too stuck into the term, give you a look a what I spent the holidays doing. On another forum I'm a member of a painting competition has started up and I've pledged this little lot to complete by the 31st March:



The Inquisitorial stuff in the background isn't part of the pledge and so what this equates to is one 1x Siege Dreadnought, 1x Protector (Sanguinary Priest) and 5x Assault Marines. Hopefully that should pose no problems, it's a pretty big window and that's not a huge amount of stuff. At the very least it should guarantee more regular updates on here than enjoyed over the last 2 months. I've made a start on the Siege Dread and it's coming on pretty well. Before any serious painting went down I decided to go a little magnet crazy:



That's right, even the elbow of the assault drill is hinged with magnets! Possibly slightly more work than I needed to undertake, but after the amount of effort required to fix the guy up with greenstuff and what with being a Forgeworld Model, I wanted to do it justice. Without anymore rambling here's how I'm getting on painting it:

Head


Power Plant


Legs


WIP torso


The Siege Dreadnought only has the Assault Drill (with in-built heavy flamer) and Flamestorm cannon as its armaments, but I've included the Heavy flamers that the MK IV Ironclad comes with, because you can never throw enough Promethium at the enemy and because they look too cool to replace with targetter bits.

Alongside the dread I finished off the first two official members of my Inquisitorial Henchman Warband


Techpriest (Jokaero)



Stormtrooper (Warrior Acolyte with plasma gun)


Well, that's all for now. Happy New Year, everyone.


Merlin - cheers, mate, given how long it took me I'd expect it to look OK! I'm currently teaching anything that comes accross my desk. I'm basically a cover teacher, but only at this one school as it's big enough to require cover lessons everyday through various staff members being off ill, doing training, being pulled out for meetings etc. It's pretty cool; in the morning I could be trying to teach Abstract Art and by the afternoon I'm helping conjugate French verbs, very varied.

crimsonfist832 - stop it, you'll make me blush! Or carry on, my ego's enjoying your praise There's no way I'll abandon the goal of the company, but my tendency to get side tracked means it could be a little while 'til it finally finishes... Hopefully by participating in the painting competitions a certain other forum runs I''ll keep up the pace. Once again thanks so much for your effusive praise, it means a lot to have these models received so well with the effort I put into them.

Faust - thanks man, always nice to get another visitor to the thread and get some feedback. So happy you've enjoyed what I've posted, I hope to continue improving and providing updates for those of you who like my stuff will continue to enjoy.

Man this is one of my favorite blogs on Dakka. I always am impressed with your work! I really like the counts as Jokaero.

De nada mate, i'm sure you will.
I'm impressed of the quality of your white though, using a similar spectrum of colors for my own marines i'd be happy to know how you achieved such a result, i'm not sure if you already answered that question before, so if you did sorry to ask again.

Anyway keep up the good work ! I/we can't wait to see more of them coming !

Promising start on the Dread buddy, cannot wait to see it finished.

Looks great!

An update of three distinct parts this time chaps.

First up some LPC business with some more progress on the dread (I'm totally going to meet the deadline at this rate... yes...):

The seemingly random pin is for a shoulder mounted frag grenade launcher I've just primed. The Ironclad kit comes with two little missile launcher pods, but the noses of mine were a bit rubbish to say the least so I've trimmed them down, will paint them green and treat as the frag launchers. The amount of time I've spent on the smaller details on display here, particularly the brass etch pieces on the siege drill arm, is ridiculous. I should probably try sleeping a bit more and then I'll actually do stuff right the first time around. The good news is although he's still in pieces all I have left to paint is the right hand side of the torso now and I'm looking forward to seeing him fully constructed.

Then for a bit of variety I've made a start on a couple more assault marines.


In between my LPC I've been modelling some additions to the Crimson Tears' elites. Got my hands on some Space Hulk Termies:


and an old metal Corbulo:

His chainsword was bent and snapped really easily when I tried to straighten it, but it was a pansy 2nd ed. one anyway, much better to replace it with one of the brutal looking forgeworld ones. His Narthecium looked a bit blunt too, so I snipped it off and replaced it with some pinning wire. An improvement?

Still need to tidy these up a bit and figure out when exactly I'm going to paint them, but they were fun modelling distractions.

Further distraction from the LPC came in the form of my Inquisitorial Henchmen allies. First off I stripped these guys:

Note the crusaders carefully flanking the daemonhost, it seems that my unconscious self posed them like that. The hobby may be taking over...

Secondly I decided to paint up another warrior acolyte, but with a slight twist. It occurred to me that the Ordo Xenos must have operatives that aren't in the Deathwatch so I painted this guy to represent that, though he sticks to a sort of Deathwatch scheme. I'd be interested to know your thoughts on this as I'm tempted to do a full squad to accompany an Ordo Xenos inquisitor. His right shoulder indicates he's from the 39th Cadian, who are apparently known as 'Xenobane'. He's standing on a Dark Eldar Knife, just in case any enemies should happen to make a lunge for it.





eldartau1987 - appreciate you continuing to swing by and compliment me, man. You're definitely always welcome here!

Faust - thanks for the vote of confidence. I probably have answered your question elswhere in this thread but it's simple enough to repeat - 4-6 thinned layers of Ceramite White, 3 -4 thinned layers of Vallejo Model Colour white (this one is the key to the brightness of my white). If you want to go a step further then the white on my Gabriel Seth counts-as also got a wash with Vallejo Pale Grey Wash before being highlighted back up with Ceramite white and VMC white.

Biohazard - I'm sure you'll be on the other forum to see it's getting there.

Wow, crisp and awesome! Can't wait for more!

Lucarikx

"May our enemies tremble, for Brother Raphael has been awoken from the hall of ancients and once more will he lead the Crimson Tears into the breach. Truly these heretics and traitors will know fear before his cleansing fires just as surely as they will perish. Bitter tears of regret will they shed for having turned their backs on the Imperium. Remember, brothers, to follow the Ancient's directions and victory will be ours this day." -Protector Sammael addressing the Crimson tears breaching force before the assault on St Josmane's Hope's main complex during the 13th Black Crusade.

Here he is in all his glory, interned in a Siege Dreadnought, Brother Raphael:



The Ancients go to war, Raphael and Uriel side by side:


I'm really happy to have finally finished him, having had the kit in my possession for a number of months and having to do A LOT of clean up work on him it's nice to have all the effort pay off. I like to think he looks practical enough for breaching, but ornamented enough to be marked out as the legendary warrior he is.



Lucarikx - Thanks a lot! Hopefully this'll suffice as more.

Totally forgot I haven't been by here in a while! I've got plenty for what should be for your viewing pleasure.

First of alI I made some new bases for the remaining models of my painting competition pledge and a couple of others just for fun. I wasn't happy with the cohesiveness of the original bases I selected for the squad and these have been designed specifically with uniformity of appearance in mind (it also made me question why I've spent so much on resin bases when making them is actually pretty easy...). So here they are:


Did a bit more work on the 2 assault marines, now all they need is their jump packs.


After a frenzied couple of days during the Half Term break (got to love working in education) Protector Sammael is ready to rake to the skies:


Unfortunately the melta bomb came off and I can see that the way I reattached it isn't at enough of an angle to convey momentum, but I don't want to break it off again in case it requires prepping and painting a new bomb. Not sure about using battered gold for the cruxes on his pack and i possibly should have filed them so that they were more flush to the panels they're on, but you live and learn eh? Other than that though, I'm pretty happy with him. This guy's the old metal version of the model so I've had to weight the base quite significantly to stop him from continually falling over and chipping.

This is now all that I have to complete before the 31st of March deadline:

The packs need highlights and there are clearly a number of things left to do on the marines, but not enough so as to be insurmountable. Hopefully...


Now for other things!

For a while now I've had a pile of part painted bits sitting on my desk and I finally got fed up with them being there. Turns out they make a Boarding Marine and a Devastator:



Bonus shot of all 3 Boarding Marines together:


I'll be aiming to get them up to at least a combat squad soon, here's a sneak peek of the next member:



Last Lascannon:


Devastator Squad Kain in all their glory:


I've also finally started on my Librarian. It seemed silly not to given that I had the blue paint out and have been wanting to have a crack at him for ages. Still very WIP, obviously. Any thoughts on how the robes are looking?

Just read this entire blog, great work and very striking colour scheme. I'm amazed at how white you have go your white! i can't even get close to that pure. Your painting style really makes the details on the miniatures pop. Keep up the good work buddy!

Not a lot to add with this tiny little update. The little at my school have been carrying various forms of plague and I've been all but laid low with the fearsome man flu. That said I did finally manage to finish off the final four assault marines. As two of them only needed their jump packs doing I've only bothered with individual shots of the other two:



No rear shots because, frankly, the back of a jump pack is even less exciting than the front and sides of fairly bog standard assault marines. However, there is this shot. Jumpers ho!


Group shot of the Dread, Priest and Assault Squad. That's my painting competition commitment done and dusted:


uk_crow - cheers, fella. New people to the log are always welcome, particularly if they leave compliments White like mine involves 4 things : Ceramite white, Vallejo Model Colour White, thin layers and the patience of a particularly placid saint!

A rather unusual update from me today in that it has a lot of modelling WIP rather than paint. I came down with a particularly bad case of man flu over the last 6 or 7 days so rather than mess up a paint job by coughing and sneezing all over it I stuck mainly to cutting and sticking a variety of things which means my work desk list now reads:
Boarding Marine #4
Second Half of assault squad
Librarian
Honour Guard
Librarian with Jump Pack
(Mephiston?)

That should be plenty to keep me busy for the next couple of months at least.

So without further ado the WIPS for these going in order of least to most paint:

The basis of my future Mephiston. The design on his shoulderpad is replicated on a Legion of the Damned back pack that I am going to try my damndest to track down (short of buying the failcast LOTD box containing it) as I feel nothing else readily available is suitable for the Lord of Death himself.


Future Jump Pack Librarian whose base has been carefully constructed to make him look like he's landed on top of a pile of rubble and which should make him stand taller than many other marines.


The Honour Guard will eventually consist of Blood Champion, Sanguinary Novitiate, Deathwatch Veteran, Mk. 6 Veteran, Powerfist Veteran (here there is a potential Mk. 6 Powerfist veteran who I decided to start mocking up just for fun).



Remnants of the assault squad where once again dynamism was a design watch word. the second flamer marine is missing because I don't currently have any running Mk. IV legs (come on Forgeworld, release that destroyer squad already!)



Now for some serious paint, bits of finished Librarian (black highlights aside).



Finally got around to giving my other priest his jump pack. It's a heavily rehabilitated finecast chaplain jump pack (apalling cast quality, one of the pieces that made me swear to avoid the material at almost any cost in future).



The only thing I've painted in full is a Black Templar Sword Brethren member (hence the red robe and bronze chainsword) for a long planned Deathwatch unit.



Not a bad result for a week of man flu. 'Til next time.

Looking as great as can be

Lucarikx

I really love your color scheme and the execution of It is ace
Special mention for the dreads, top notch

I can't wait to see a couple (or more ) termies in your army.

Just a quick one:

Assault squad sergeant touching down:


He's followed by a fairly new recruit. This guy was an ebay marine and I've cleaned him up as best I can, including replacing his head and arms (which were just so badly positioned given how the rest of the body has been assembled...).


The other major thing I've done this week is Boarding Marine Team Leader (denoted by his slightly different shield)



A bit more work has gone into the Librarian too, a few highlights and some work on the left shin decoration should mean the body's finished fairly soon. Rationale behind the blue/grey skin is as follows 1) Crimson Tears pretty much always wear helmets. When they don't they're usually aboard a ship or in their fortress monastery. They don't really come into contact with UV rays all that often. 2). Space Marines are old, members of the command structure even more so. 3) Space Marines are genetically modified freaks! 4) The Crimson Tears are loosely connected to the Blood Angels in my head and what says space vampire better than blue/grey skin?


Lastly I decided to jazz up a command squad chainsword with some brass etch:


So, not the most exciting update, but I'm still plugging away at the 2nd Company a few marines at a time (unfortunately we can't count the Boarding Marines as they are attached to the 4th Company).



Lucarikx - why, thank you, good sir.

SelvaggioSaky - glad you enjoyed what you see. There will be terminators in the future! (But I can't promise it'll be any time soon with the number of things sitting on my work desk).

Still loving your job and I can wait for the termies, don't worry

There's some big news about to be dropped here; my librarian is finished!!! He's been a labour of love (and a little hate, particularly when fixing a couple of mistakes that spilt onto his robes). Might have to have a look at the grey highlights again having looked at the photos up close but other than that I'm happy with him. I decided to go for two crimson pads to help set him aside from the rank and file a bit more and the black winged tear just to try something a little different as far as my insignia go. Here's a whole bunch of shots:


Next up are the two assault marines I've made most progress on out of the four remaining squad members. The latter two have had work done, but not enough to warrant display at this point.




Finally started in on my Dreamforge Eisenkern. Probably going to have them count as Warrior Acolytes with bolters for the most part. This guy's just a test, so far all the edge highlighting feels like a bit much for a grunt...


Oh and this kind of happened

The start of a Furioso (Plasma Cannon is not for him), waiting on a frag cannon and some talons now.

Moved the whole force so far to a new location and it actually looks like a lot more than I realised (horrendous photo, but the back of the cupboard was too dark not to use flash):


Libby, Ezekiel
2 Chaplains
2 Jump Priests
10 Sternguard
10 Tactical Marines
20 Jumpless Assault Marines
6 Assault Mrines
6 Sniper Scouts
10 Devastators
2 Dreads
4 Boarding Marines
1 Honour Guard (Deathwatch Vet.)
Including HQ's but not Scouts that's 67 bodies. Discounting HQ's it's still 61. 61/100. Getting there!

Selvaggio - it may be a while at this rate!

That Librarian is very impressive, good work

I really like the OSL on the outstretched hand and the pallid complexion.

Your white is so... so... white, It's unbelievable.

Great Libby, loving It.

I'm back with assault marines and other things besides, hoping to get a reasonable amount done this week as it's half term.

The chaps are now in this state:



So it is time to get to work on their pads and packs and then I'll have my first proper assault squad done. Given that my lot are loosely based on Blood Angels I feel slightly ashamed that it's taken me this long to get some done. Almost by way of compensation for this laxity I went through my bits and realised I've acquired enough parts and models for a 10 man melta squad (who will all be in Corvus armour) a minimum of 5 Vanguard Vets, 5 Death Company, Lemartes, a Jump LIbby and Jump Chappy. So at some point the Crimson Tears 2nd Company will have a legit airforce (emphasis on "at some point"...).

As a side thing I decided to start knocking together some different dread options.The only one of them I finished is my FW multimelta arm that's been lying around for months:



There is an Assault Cannon, a Plasma Cannon and Missile Launcher arm that I've undercoated and magnetised that I'll be attempting to do every time I've got the right colours out.

Other stuff I've been doing includes finishing a warrior acolyte with bolter (Eisenkern Stormtrooper with Sub-machine gun and grenade launcher attachment) to add to my nascent (read tiny) Grey Knights Henchmen allies:



So much edge highlighting! These guys are so well detailed for a plastic kit. It's awesome to do, but time consuming. Not sure baout the colour I used for the pack.

He was joined in non-Crimson Tears endeavours by my attempt at an Angel Sanguine. I tried to forgo edge highlighting for this guy just to try something a little different and to try black in a way I'm not used to. I'd be interested as to any thoughts people have on the result.



Last, but by no means least, a vision of the future:



Furioso w/ Frag Cannon, Blood Fist (that strangely resembles a Talon) and Heavy Flamer
Honour Guard w/ Blood Champion, Sanguinary Novitiate, Power fist x2.

The B&C is running another painting competition and this is my little contribution for the honour of the Blood Angels and their successors over there. It might not look like much, but I can see this taking a while what with all the details on the Honour Guard.

That's all for now folks, other than to say that the continued attentions of a few of you is both flattering and very much appreciated and thank you for receiving my long laboured over Librarian in a positive way,

Went through this thread and your work is feaking epic! I will be following your progress from now on

Good to see some more great stuff.

I really love your new black (very Necromunda style me think)

How did You do that?

It's been a lot longer than I thought since the last update, but here we are eventually. Blame the odd days of nice weather we had In England for putting me out of sorts and slowing everything down.

First of all I have finally brought my assault squad up to strength. I have definitely spent much longer on these guys than was necessary, but here they are, the final few in their individual shots and then one nice big one. Until it came to photographing them I didn't notice that I'd made the last four guys into two sets of chainsword twins, the quirks of design we sometimes subconsciously come up with can be quite interesting, don't you think?

]

Death from the skies!



In between trying to make myself finish those guys I have been attacking competition vow. The at times horrendously cold then bafflingly humid weather we've experienced here in the last few weeks has made it difficult to prime so while I was planning on getting the Fragioso out of the way first I had to start on the Honour Guard instead or risk falling behind,

Here we have the two Honour Guard members in Corvus armour. Unlike the rest of the chapter where each squad is very uniform even down to chestplate I've decided that the Honour Guard have earned the right to wear unique suits of armour with plenty of adornments.Also, unlike the rest of the army so far, I've actually painted lenses for these guys.


I haven't neglected the Fragioso, though, his talon/fist has been completed with a couple of minor conversions. I experimented with a flamer bit from a Puppets War walker arm inside the fist part to replace the external heavy flamer, but decided it wasn't obvious enough. However after making my Siege Dreadnought from the Forgeworld Ironclad kit I recognise that external fuel lines for such a weapon would be daft in the 41st millenium and figured they could very easily have an internal one running through the point of contact with the sort of forearm part, chopping off the fuel line happens to make it alot easier to attach, too. Also, chain blades


Got to work on the base too. Decided to add a few large empty shell casings as it's going to sporting a Frag Cannon. There's a couple of smaller ones on the base you might spot to give you an idea of how big they are (thank you Zinge!).



That's all folks, thanks for looking.

Nashbashem - thanks, chap. Can never hear compliments too often.

SelvaggioSaky - The new black method (or rather the black method for one off models as it's way too time consuming to do on a regular basis) involved, suprisingly enough, black undercoat and then a base layer of Army Painter Matt Black. Then I painted over it using Vallejo Opaque Heavy charcoal. Leaving recesses and and the most immediate parts to them black. Then with the marginally lighter Vallejo Model Colour German Grey painted most of the area covered by Charcoal Grey, leaving some of it showing towards the recesses so that you should get pure black in the recesses and German Grey at the edge with some Charcoal Grey showing in between. Heavy black wash over this to tie in the colours and make the gradation between them even more subtle. Basically: Start with black and use two greys that are slightly lighter but still very dark, wash black. Done.

Ah man those look awesome! Can't wait to see more

It's that time again, I'm increasingly finding I only have weekends to paint on at the moment so my progress is crawling along. Still, if you crawl long enough you'll get where you're going. As such I have not one, but three entirely finished miniatures to share with you all, one mostly finished and a couple of barely started. Yeah I know, big woop. Picture time:

The Corvus Honour Guard are both complete. Here's a couple of shots of the first guy with his last part attached:


Second guy with more bits and pieces than you saw on him last time:



I really, really like the power fist guy. I took a surprisingly long time over him, but I feel it was totally worth it. The left shoulder bling won't be for everyone, I wanted to spruce up that area without adding anything to the pad. It works for me and I guess in the end, as part of my army, that's all that counts.

A third HG marine is now also almost done, just an arm and pad to go. While painting the belt accessories it struck me that I was using far more colours than one might think to paint just this one mini and I counted them up. Including washes I have used twenty-seven paints on this model!!!! 5 for the base and 6 different washes means maybe we can knock it down to 16, but even still... It also occurred to me that marines with power fists (as this one will be) must have incredible difficulty changing bolt pistol clips.


Moving away from the marines I opened my little box of Grey Knight Henchmen and they all stared angrily at me demanding paint or assembly, so I relented and came up with one Death Korpsman with meltagun seconded to Inquisitorial duty and the basis of some storm bolter acolytes using Maxmini greatcoat legs, torsos and arms, Puppetswar Steampunk Guardsmen heads and Anvil Industry firestorm carbines.





It's got the bug going again to do the allies, but with the Honour Guard and Fragioso deadline being the 15th of august I can't really afford to get distracted. That's all for now, hope to have some more updates before I head off to europe mid-august.



Nashbashem: Cheers. I know Honour Guard aren't great in game, but fluff-wise they should be epic warriors so I'm devoting quite a lot of time to them and hopefully that's coming across.

They look awesome Really like your DK as well. Love to see how this comes along

Been really having a go at the Honour Guard to try and clear them off my painting desk and here are the results

First up a couple to show the second power fist marine completed:



Blood Champion:



Can I just say how much I hate working with finecast? I bought this guy when I first started getting serious about the hobby again late in 2011 and I hadn't thought of a use for him. Despite not having any major casting flaws in terms of bubbles and deformities the surfaces were really quite rough when they should have been smooth and this made highlighting even more of a nightmare than it usually is. Grrr. Obviously this isn't a new revelation for anyone, but I needed to vent.


Sanguinary Novitiate:


This guy is an amazing model, but he has one too many vials!

Here they are, the five of them altogether:



That's all for now, my Fragioso is staring at me pointedly from the painting desk.



Nash - Thanks, buddy. I really enjoyed painting the DKOK guy, wish I could afford a whole army of them as they are awesome models.

All of your miniatures are just beautiful and very inspiring... after browsing through a few pages I was suddenly struck with a sudden urge to get into modeling some of my own once more.

I am loving this colour scheme, and idea to use Dark Angels, Blood Angels, and Black Templars for your fluff.

I always loved the idea of having marines painted half and half in two colours, but never got around to do it, these have given me a boot up the backside to get down and try it!

Following Closely!

Awesome work so far, I had to go back to page 1 and go through the whole lot when I stumbled onto the thread! Particularly liking the Librarian and the assault squad, the black and white is such a striking combination and you've made a great job of it. That Angel sanguine is looking great too!

Absolutely amazing paint job mate, I love your marines and color scheme.
I know I keep saying this, but is the truth

Today, for your viewing pleasure I have my Fragioso:




The second front shot is there because the first one is quite bright and while it shows off most of the details really well it's washed out the shading of the white, the second slightly duller photo actually details this much better. Partly inspired by some of the excellent fluff from a few posters recently I decided to add some of my own:

Revered Castiel served for three centuries as Sergeant of the Second Company's Vanguard and under him this squad earned a fearsome reputation even within a chapter renowned for and dedicated to close combat superiority. Castiel was mortally wounded on the agri-world of Chiros with the Crimson Tears having finally forced the elusive Saim-Hann Eldar to fight following a long pursuit throughout the Segmentum Pacifcus. The Storm Raven carrying Castiel and his squad was ambushed as it streaked to catch up with Drop Pod insertions that had inexplicably launched ahead of schedule. As the Storm Raven pilots sought to crash land the veterans bailed out of the stricken transport right into the path of a flanking Eldar force the greatly outnumbered them. They fought a running battle against aspect warriors and guardians until they reached their downed Storm Raven, hoping that some of its ranged weapons might have survived its landing. Upon being met with mere wreckage Castiel instructed his brothers to expect nothing other than death, but to sell their lives so dearly that none of their pursuers might inflict any harm upon their nearby brothers.

A bloody victory was carved out by the Crimson Tears that day with heavy losses sustained after Eldar sorcery played havoc with troop deployment, the consequence of which was that Castiel and the remains of his men would not be recovered for several days after the initial landing. He was found lying on the wrecked Storm Raven's wing, his armour pierced in many places and with one Eldar blade still lodged in his chest. Strewn for as far as the eye could see were Eldar corpses with the occasional black, white and crimson form of fallen battle brothers. All but one of Castiel's veterans died that day and he wept openly for their loss as Captain Sariel of the 6th Company congratulated him for the feats of his brothers, promising that their heroism would never be forgotten.

Quite aside from becoming indelibly marked into the chapter's collective memory, combat logs from the fallen and Castiel's own first-hand account of how jump pack assaults and formation changes were utilised to break the enemy set a new benchmark in the chapter for combat doctrine and as much as he is now a weapon for war Castiel is also an invaluable font of knowledge to whom all sergeants of the chapter, even those not leading assault squads, continuously refer. He has admitted to chapter veterans seeking his guidance to missing his jump-pack, but that he greatly appreciates the exponential increase in damage output his walking tomb confers. The majority of his sarcophagus is black in remembrance of the brothers he lost on Chiros, while many of the battle honours adorning his armour incorporate wings or the aquila to denote his past as one of the chapter's most decorated Vanguard Veterans.

This might be my last update for a while as I'm heading off to Europe for a couple of weeks in 6 days time.



Marine_With_Heart - that's probably about the biggest compliment I've been given, thanks a lot!

HoeJarris - same to you really, for someone to say I've inspired them to give something a try is really humbling. Thanks for taking the time to have a look and share your thoughts. Painting the two colours can be a bit of a pain from time to time (especially when one of those colours is white!), but it's very often distinctive and the end product is generally well worth it, so by all means have at it.

BurnHeretic - cheers, I'm glad it's some of my more recent work that's grabbed your eye (always like to feel that you're heading in the right direction), I really must finish that Angel at some stage, he's been shamefully half painted for a little while now...

SelvaggioSaky - I certainly don't get tired of hearing you say it, so, by all means, carry on!

I've been gone a little while and in that time I have completed:

1 Grey Knight Henchman with Storm Bolter.



The main thing I've been working on, though, is my epistolary with jump pack. No son of Sanguinius should be without a jump librarian and it is a travesty that the Crimson Tears have been bereft for so long. I love the Sevrin Loth model, but hopefully I've done enough to make him a Crimson Tears librarian rather than Sevrin in different colours.






I've also entered yet another Bolter & Chainsword competition with the first half of an assault squad all decked out in Mk. 6 armour (from various sources) and Reclusiarch with jump pack and powerfist:


Here's a base I did for one of the marines which combined my desire to paint something different with the need not to get side tracked from my main painting focus.




Oh and the Angel Sanguine finally got some weapons (plasma pistol because I have so many of the damned things lying around):



So that's that, hope someone out there enjoyed it and that I'll be back with more fairly soon.

Such greating looking models man, love the coulor scheme and how you pulled it off.

Really clean and smoothe lines, great paintjob!

These models look great mate Really loving the force weapon
Care to share how you achieved it?

Small update today, couple of assault marines from my next squad.The sergeant is done and I'm pretty please with him, used a couple of bits from the new Vanguard kit.




The only thing that annoys me about this model is that I misjudged how much of the tear drop on his shoulder pad the jump pack covers up, as its one of the better ones I've done. I had to modify the claw a lot because I didn't like the amount of scroll work on it and the small power cables were ruined by being one of the sprue attachment points.

I've also started in on the squad melta-gunner, given that he won't be wielding a chainsword I've tried to make his bolt pistol look a bit more deadly with two different drum mags. In my head he keeps stealing from the Sternguard ammo locker, hence the mags. His lower half is from an old metal death company model that was sacrificed in my quest for varied Mk.6 running legs. Similarly the Sergeant's legs are from one of the OOP metal vanguard. Hacking up metal models like that and grafting plastic/resin torsos to them


Given that this'll be a melta squad I imagine them as being one of the most important squads in the second company, hence why their sergeant is so decorated and why its members get to wear the older armour marks.


I did do something else over the last two weeks, my Baal front plate.


At this rate I should have the Baal done by next September.

Charky - thank you very much, always nice to see a new face on here.
Nashbashem - cheers, fella. No problem:
1) Xereus purple undercoat,
2) black wash
3)purple wash
4) re-apply xereus purple as a fairly broad edge highlight, purple wash
5) xereus purple again. Then add white and edge highlight your way up to almost white, with each highlight becoming thinner.
6) purple wash.
7) final almost white highlight.
8) run a line of black wash down the middle of the dark purple .

As usual these guys look great
and thanks for the painting guide

As ever, it feels like an ice age has passed since I last stuck some pictures up on here. Unfortunately for the Crimson Tears the rugby season is in full swing now and there have been some really good matches on recently that I've actually watched instead of simply having them on in the background should things become interesting. I have managed to get a decent amount done on the assault squad, though. No one's 100% complete but these two fellas are almost there:

Meltagunner



With the blood vial on his shoulder pad I've tried to make it look half full, but that all the jump-packing and running around slaughtering the Imperium's enemies has splashed it all up the sides.

Standard assault marine



I really liked the empty holster on the metal death company model I butchered to make the meltagunner, so I've tried to recreate it accross the other squad members as you might notice above and below.

Next two grunts





Part of the reason these guys are taking a bit longer is my determination to equip them with belt accessories (and constant tinkering with poses). Painting these and placing them always takes longer than I anticipate, I think it's worth it though. Unlike the previous lot, these assault marines look like they might be in battle for at least more than an initial strike what with with ammo pouches and grenades. Hopefully they're all looking dynamic, different and realistic. Without wishing to slam anyone I can't abide assault marines who don't look like they're in motion (unless there's a really good reason), yet at the same time my lack of proficiency with green stuff means avoiding awkward, unnatural poses can be quite tricky; as I'm sure you all find it's a constant struggle to come up with something satisfying.

Lastly, I gave the flying tank otherwise known as powerfist Reclusiarch a bit of attention:


That's Astorath's shoulder pad in case anyone was wondering. I cut off the muscle line things to make it look more like a normal pad.


Nash - no worries, dude, least I can do for your continued viewing.

Your models are always a treat for my eyes Looking forward to seeing your flying tank

Haven't visited your blog for a while now Mr sockwithaticket, your work is as usual brilliant i think the boarding marine team leader is one of my favourite from your impressive collection, the pose, the differents kits the parts are from all make a fantastic model!

Grunts ho! The half built grunts from last time now have arms, heads and pads.

The third guy skulking at the edge of the photo is just there to prove that he's wearing his chapter colours (lest he get a rebuke from the company chaplains).


That's been where most of my effort has gone in the last couple of weeks. But I have also done some other things, like build these:


They were part of my first BIG Forgeworld order which also included 2 more tarantulas (HB and LC), Jump Pack Destroyers, MK IV. Despoilers, Commander Culln, Mk IV Dread, Chaplain Dread, a couple of Dread weapons, Phobos bolt pistols and chainswords and a couple of other things. That's way more stuff than I need for right now, but having seen some of the price increases on things like dreads I figured I should get most of what I want now before it gets even pricier. Most of it is conversion fodder for the future and thankfully it all passed the QC check with the only problem being a bit of mold slippage on the despoilers.. After the ordeal with prepping my siege dread that was a massive relief. They threw in these free badges, which are kind of cool, I guess they were left over from Games Day and this is an easy way for them to get rid of them?


Besides making a start on my FW goodies I finally made some inroads on my jump pack Chaplain, now known as Barachiel, Reclusiarch seconded to the Crimson Tears 2nd Company. He will almost always lead the jump pack equipped troops in battle and has taken over their offensive manoeuvres training from the company's Vanguard squad, his centuries of experience marking him as the only candidate for such tasks.


Obviously there's still a long way to go with him, but I'm pretty pleased with the start I've made.

Having just painted another little blood vial on one of the grunts I came up with a bit of fluff about them:
++Recovered data fragment from [-expunged-]++
Among certain members of the main battle companies a belief has taken root that ritual drawing and sanctification of the blood ensures the Emperor’s protection. It is then worn on the marines’ person in small vials of hardened plasti-glass to keep the divine favour they have been granted close at hand. This belief is most often present among the assault squads, whose members are usually in closest proximity to the enemy and thus have to deal most often with the prospect of their own mortality.

There is a degree of tension between the chapter’s chaplains as to whether this practice should be encouraged, with the Reclusiarchs evenly divided over the issue. Those opposed suspect that such veneration of one’s own mortal blood could attract unwelcome attention from the Inquisition at the very least and at the worst could lead to such horrors as the Blood Angels and their successors are rumoured to perpetrate and suffer from. In the rival camp it is thought that the practice encourages devotion to the Emperor and acceptance that one’s fate and safety are in his hands. The rest of the command structure have agreed not to contribute to the debate, though doubtless they have their own views and there are rumours that the 5th company have been prohibited from wearing the vials in combat by their captain; not least because relying on such superstitions feeds into their reputation for and belief in being cursed with misfortune.


That's all for now!

Nash - Hopefully the start I've made meets with your approval.

uk_crow - well, welcome back and thank you. I've said it elsewhere, I really do try my very best and it's gratifying to receive comments like yours.

I've already said it, but this colour scheme is great!
I love the fact each marine is slightly different with their armour colours, and that fluff is great! Can't wait to see the chaplain when he's done

Yay Forge World goodies! And the Chaplain is coming along nicely still a fairway to go but he will be epic
And great

This post is going to be something of a showcase one and about time too!

First of all the assault squad I begun quite some time ago:






I'm really pleased with how they've turned out; a variety of poses, all the right gear and all in mk. 6, they're exactly how I wanted them.


Now I present High Reclusiarch Barachiel, fully equipped and ready to murder anything that gets in his way:




I decided to break up jump pack highlights by doing something a little different:


Deathwatch! Now although this is still more black I used a much, much darker grey to do the highlights, busted out my purple for a different accent colour, tried a less red and very dark brown for his pouches, and white gold for some of his details. I decided that everything except the Chapter shoulder pad would be absorbed into the deathwatch colours, so although he's got a couple of Raven Guard symbols on his person they have gone silver rather than white.



HoeJarris - Cheers, fella. I do get a kick out of picking which armour segment to paint white and which way I'm going to do the helmet, it helps to keep things interesting. what do you think now the Chaplain's all done.

Nash - Hopefully he's now achieved epic status. The problem with Forgeworld goodies is I want to build them all right now!

He has matched my expectations!
Very very nice edge highlighting and I like the way he has more red on him than the others.
I also love the way you paint your powerfists, how do you paint them I'd love to know

Yes he does look as awesome as I hoped
and loving the Death Watch guy as well

It's allies day today.

My Deathwatch Raven Guard marine is now ably supported by a Crimson Fist ready to lay down fire as his brother advances


I've also finally finished that Angel Sanguine I started an unspeakably long time ago.



HoeJarris - excellent, mission accomplished then. Powerfists are done more or less the same way as my power weapons; base colour of VGC Imperial Blue, Drakenhof Nightshade wash, re-apply Imperial Bluen in a broad edge highlight and then highlight up using VGC Glacier Blue. However for the fists, as there are many more edges and muhh less space to work with I have to use a much, much thinner brush and fewer highlight steps. The contrast is more broad so I then use Gulliman Blue glaze to tie them together better and hit it with a final edge highlight of pure Glcaier Blue. When I'm doing it it doesn't sound quite so complex as the written instructions do...

Nash - good to hear I'm keeping my audience happy, hope you enjoyed the new DW chap too.

Looks like heresy to me...
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Sons_of_Malice

Deathwatch guy looks great as does your Angel Sanguine Nice to see him finally done

Ok, so it's been a little longer between updates than I would've liked, but that always seems to be the way. I've largely been chopping, varnishing (for resin) and priming my way through a mass of bits. That was, in part, a way of avoiding doing any painting. My mojo deserted me after I accidentally dropped and then stood on my Mephiston conversion meaning that the fragile finecast has snapped at the foot. I haven't yet had the heart to try and rescue the situation which is annoying as I'd finally psyched myself up to tackle him. It has, though, spurred me on to actually pick up a brush again and the results are the beginnings of my boarding squad leader, another piece of Baal Pred., a Blood Drinker and an Inquisitor.

This guy is, hopefully, looking suitably brutal and badass even before I've armed him. As the Breaching squad sergeant he needs to look downright mean. There are fluff reasons for being clad entirely in black and the icon on his pack, they will be disclosed when he is finished. He's based on a SoH Reaver because I really liked the rather haphazard extra armour plates of their Mk. IV compared to the more uniform alignment of the Destroyers extra plates.


One side panel of the Baal down now, one more and I can start piecing it together! This took a surprisingly long time and I'm still not overly happy with the highlights on the exhaust stacks.Just noticed some paint flaking on the exhausts where I'd been gripping them


As a result of all the white, black and grey I wanted to use some colours that I love but that are also very different to what I'm used to so I started in on an awesome Inquisitor model I've been holding back for a little while:


Turquoise robes and a jade/emeral cloak. You will certainly expect the Inquisition when this guy's around! He also has a face. This is a problem. My previous method for skin was a bit of a fudge and only really suited my pernially armour clad, space-ship dwelling marines or similarly bizarre genetic entities like my tech-priest conversion. Throw in the fact that I caved and finally bought some stuff for Malifaux it turns out I need to learn how to paint skin. Reaper Master Series fair skin triad seemed like just the ticket to start off with (head on the right with minimal layering) and then I thought I'd try something a little different and added a bit of brown to the Fair Skin Shadow and layered up properly up to a 60/40 mix of Fair Skin and Fair Skin Highlight (Head on the left). I know which one I prefer, but I would certainly appreciate the input of the community. The other thing I would like some input on is the colour of the Inquisitor's armour; I was thinking a dark silver or a silvery-gold, but would like to hear what others feel would look right with my other colour choices.


Additionally I've been painting up a Blood Drinker as I attempt to go through the Blood Angels extended family, the Blood Drinkers have chosen to show great respect to the Crimson Tears by sending a member of the 8th Company's Honour Guard as an emissary to the younger chapter (hence all the gold and purple!)



Cheers for looking.



BrotherOfBone - shhhhh! The Crimson Tears and the Inqusition get on very well, we don't need any scurrilous rumours destabilising things (again), thank you very much.

Nash - Cheers, fella. I've got a Minotaur being prepped to join the Killteam and hopefully I won't end up taking quite so long over the Blood Drinker as I did his cousin.

Your Boarding Sgt does look badass already and I think the Inquisitor will be a nice change from black, white and red for you. The flesh tones look great and your Blood Drinker is look regal

Boarding sergeant is looking great so far and the red on the Blood Drinker is perfect!
What colour is it that you use for the highlights on your black?

Some plans fell through today thanks to the foul weather we're currently experiencing (I know, I know, a Brit moaning about the weather...), the consolation being that I had the time to do this:





Sergeant Azazel, Breaching Team 2, 4th Company, Crimson Tears.

Like many prominent members of the Crimson Tears Azazel’s story is one of heroism and tragedy. Two centuries ago he served in the 5th company’s vanguard detachment. The 5th are renowned within the chapter for their lack of fortune and so it proved once more on what turned out to be the Necron tomb world of Trantis. Detecting imperial distress signals from the planet surface the company deployed en masse from their strike
cruiser, Righteous Vengeance. What they found upon landing was a massacred Adeptus Mechanicus exploration team. After two days of securing the site the planet's Necron denizens attacked. A week of brutal fighting occurred, during which the company fought against bewildering odds, before a long enough pause in the conflict for the company’s remaining storm raven to make a safe descent to pick up survivors. 13 marines made it off Trantis. Had Azazel not been gravely wounded and unable to fight it is doubtful he would have left; his wounds were sustained whilst defending the bodies of his squad and he struggled against Chaplain Moriar as that revered leader attempted to rescue him.

As the 5th rebuilt, Azazel sought out Captain Ezekiel of the 4th Company and requested a transfer into the ranks of those siege breakers and ship breachers. Knowing of his combat prowess Ezekiel gladly accepted his new recruit despite the concerns expressed by Moriar. The Chaplain explained to the Captain that with his beloved company decimated and not one of his squad mates having lived through the carnage on Trantis, Azazel now had a death wish, which is why he sought such fierce frontline action as that routinely seen by the 4th. Ezekiel acknowledged Moriar’s concerns, but believed that Azazel would nonetheless be an asset to the 4th. And so it has proven, Azazel has risen to lead his own breaching team and his personal kill tally is the like upon which legends are built. Moriar, despite remaining with the 5th, is in constant consultation with the command structure of the 4th about his displaced brother and he is perturbed to learn that Azazel has in recent years abandoned the use of a siege shield, preferring instead to wield a second close combat weapon. His death wish would appear more pronounced than ever and yet, despite his recklessness and thirst for
battle, his formidable combat prowess means that he very rarely sustains so much as an injury. This frustration at being denied the emperor’s grace is
increasingly matched by his guilt at losing battle brothers. The longer he survives the gruelling missions of the 4th the longer the list of former squad mates becomes. Outside of issuing commands during missions, Azazel rarely speaks, but to his Captain and the various chapter chaplains who attempt to see to his spiritual needs, to diminish both his guilt and his desire to die. The marines under his command respect his combat record, martial prowess and tactical acumen, yet the aura of sorrow he radiates chills them all.

He has been granted undue leeway to alter the colours of his Angel of Death icon, changing them to resemble those of a
Penitent. It is hoped by the Chaplaincy that such a move will help to exorcise his chronic guilt. Indeed, over the last few campaigns he has begun to sport a buckler on his right arm. Ezekiel has used this to try and persuade Moriar that Azazel’s near suicidal disregard for his personal safety is slowly being eroded.



Hope you enjoy. Oh, feel free to answer some of the questions posed in the previous post, too! I really would like some feedback/discussion.


Nash - Excellent, everything's going to plan then! Blood Drinker's next to be finished and I would hope to able to manage that over the next few days.

HoeJarris - Cheers. I must say finding a satisfactory red for BA's and their successors sounds like it's a massive challenge for people and I feel pretty happy that this one just happened to be in my posession already.. It's vibrant enough to still look classic, but still fairly muted. Black highlight on the sergeant is Vallejo Model Colour Basalt Grey and on the Blood Drinker it's Vallejo Model Colour German Grey with a secondary highlight of Basalt Grey. Just in case you missed it I gave the powerfist process a couple of posts back ( I do eventually reply to stuff!).

I do love the holidays, plenty of time to get things done; particularly when you don't have running water for 27 hours and can't see any friends because you've had to skip effectively two days of showers... (the water's back on now and I am up to date with personal hygiene in case any of you wanted to know)

I have finished my Blood Drinker:

Now I'm halfway through the loyalist Blood Angel Successors (though, if we count Flesh Eaters and Knights of Blood then I'm only 3/8). I might shoot for an Angel Vermillion next, Lamenters are definitely going last. As much as I love the yellow step-children of Sanguinius' lineage tha,t checkerboard pattern combined with painting a decent yellow is too much of a headache to even contemplate right now.

Finishing Azazel prompted me to swell the ranks of the breach team with this chap.

With the pose I was shooting for nonchalant/ "you're shooting at me and I really couldn't care less", hopefully I succeeded.

With the water in my paint pots becoming increasingly murky, having been unable to replenish it (see above), I started on the bases for my future demi-tactical squad that I wanted to model as if they're involved in a close range firefight, hugging cover and shooting through/from that cover. So, bases:



Cheers for looking.
.

Great stuff! I like the direction Azazel is headed, excited to see his red parts get done.

More Breachers!

The new guy's been finished and, if I do say it myself, he looks plain mean, really happy with how he's turned out.


When putting him on the shelf with the others I noticed this guy again

and, frankly, he sticks out like a sore thumb. I still like the idea I tried with him of turning to a source of fire mid run but I don't think it's very well executed and his pose doesn't fit with the motion of the others who are very obviously charging forward. So I chopped him in half, rotated the torso and made up any damage to the paintwork.


That's 6/10 breachers now, might actually finish them over the next year!


Moltar - Cheers, but that's him done, or at least I thought so! What do you think is missing/in need of finishing?

They're looking great! Keep it up!

Happy 2014, everyone! May all your hobby endeavours go to plan. A new year means taking stock and planning ahead, but before we get to that here's a couple of things I did in the final day and a bit of 2013.

Having refreshed the breacher marine I decided to update one of my fabvourite models a little bit. Here he was originally:


Now since that photo I dropped him and his angel broke off the top of his pack, plus I've got better at painting so I redid the crozius, rosarius, pistol holster, eagle trinket on the left leg, tabard and angel icon as well as neatening up some of the highlights. Here he is now:


I've also done the first of my fire-fight tactical marines, this guy is reloading in cover and trying to look over his shoulder at the same time. They're not particularly noticeable, but I scattered shell casings around his feet to emphasise his action:


As for taking stock of what's been here is the state of the army on December 31st, slightly understrength 2nd company (70 marines, 2 Sanguinary Priests, 2 Chaplains, 2 Librarians, 2 Dreadnoughts) with detachments from the IVth (Captain Ezekiel, 6 Vanguard Veterans w/ Storm Shields and a Siege Dreadnought) and Xth (6 Scouts) companies totalling around 3,500 points :



For the future we definitely have - demi-tactical squad, demi-assault squad, Baal Predator, breacher squad and Inquisitor. After that, who knows? I certainly have more than enough unpainted models and bits to come up with something!


HoeJarris - cheers, mate. Happy New Year.

These are really cool minis. I feel like they would benefit from some inks or diluted washes to add some shadowing though.

Love the colourscheme man. And i can see you put alot of effort into poseing your marines, which i think is awesome. All your models look dynamic and well posed.

Bases are good, painting is really slick and clean, looks nice. You got some nice edge highlighting going on as allways.

Keep it up bro - cant w8 to see more!

Everything looks fantastic and smooth as always. Really looking forward to seeing this squad

Looking great! The army looks awesome when all together!

Just a quick one, my holiday hobby frenzy was halted by the return to work so I've noit got too much done, but there's a new member for the tactical squad, the idea is supressing fire before hurling a grenade:


I've also finished another side of the Baal, so it's now starting to look like a tank:



Krucho1986 - thanks for stopping by and from the pics I know what you mean, all I can say is in real life they do look much more shaded (particularly the white bits) it's just that my ancient camera, inadequate lighting set up and poor photography skills wash a lot of it out. The way they look here is just the best I can do to represent them, I really do need to learn how to sort that out...

Charky - thanks a bunch, man. I've said it others before, I'm always really pleased when people pick up on the posing because you're right, I do spend a lot of time on that aspect of my minis and it's always nice to get the recognition for that as well as my painting.

Nash - cheers, mate. Me too, not least because tacticals can be a bit dull and I don't want to take too long over them!

HoeJarris - thank you, my friend. I must admit seeing the whole lot together makes me swell with a little pride, 'I did that!'. Then I look at the vast amount of unpainted stuff and pick up a brush again.

Looking great buddy, still loving the idea of the squad being modelled in cover.

A break from Black, White and Crimson, I introduce to you Inquisitor Jordaan Constantijn



Constantijn comes from a long line of merchants on the Reductus Sextor world of Esko. He was set to follow in the path of his forebears until his city was all but obliterated by the summoning of a Bloodthirster by Chaos Cultists, the beast rampaged for two whole days before combined Ordo Malleus and Ordo Hereticus forces descended upon the world along with nearby reserves of the Dark Hunters space marines. By this time more warp creatures of the Ruinous Powers had sprung up and the Imperial forces spent almost a year eradicating every trace of the fiends from the planet. In the immediate aftermath of their arrival, Constantijn, half mad with grief he begged several Inquisitors whose audience he sought to join their retinues. Lord Inquisitor Abram Van Lecht saw in Constantijn a raw pain that could quite easily be converted to zeal. With a grim determination born of despair and vengeance he solicited the deadliest warriors Van Lecht had gathered and persuaded them to train him in the arts of war. Such was his perseverance and resolve that his martial proficiency increased exponentially. After seven years Constantijn rose from a lowly acolyte to an Inquisitor, somehow surviving campaigns that dragged him from Esko to the Eye of Terror and myriad other war zones besides. Still fairly young he follows the example of his mentor Van Lecht by maintaining retinues almost the size of Imperial Guard platoons and seeks to use them as such; notable by their vast numbers are Imperial Guard veterans from an array of regiments and notable by their almost total absence are scribes, sages and other non-combatants that permeate other retinues. Such recruitment tendencies are underpinned by a belief that it is the duty of the Inquisition to take the fight to the enemies of the Imperium. He scorns the complex scheming of many of his elders as sedentary and passive, not in keeping with actions of an Inquisitor.

His path has crossed with the Crimson Tears on many occasions, most notably in the Eye of Terror where the chapter have frequently assisted against the periodic Black Crusades. He greatly admires the martial outlook of these astartes and their unwavering pursuit of heretics. Indeed, the Tears' focus often brings them into conflict with agents of Chaos both human and not, which thus makes Constantijn and his well trained cadre of Daemonhunters quite useful to them. The Chapter's company commanders all maintain amicable relations with the Inquisitor who clearly relishes the opportunity to fight alongside them and whose status and connections can prove useful at smoothing ruffled feathers should the Tears intervene unbidden and unannounced as they are wont to do


Cyber Mastiffs (archo-flagellants)


Constantijn rarely travels without a pack of cyber mastiffs, quite aside from the intimidation factor they convey, the genetically modified, cybernetically augmented beasts do not quail. Constantijn has experienced firsthand how even the most hardened of his retinue may flinch or take a backward step (but only the one) in the face of the enemies he sometimes bring them in to contact with and he values the mastiffs' fearlessness highly as a result, that and their boundless ferocity.


Bio - Cheers, fella. I'll be back on them presently after this little diversion.

I have finished the Baal chassis! So much edge highlighting... Now, I get to focus on the (comparatively) fun stuff of turret and sponsons. I'm not too happy with the alignment of the top with with frame, but the super glue dried too quickly for me to make serious adjustments and it's not so bad that I'm willing to jeopardise the paint job. The adornments might not be for everyone, but vehicles on the IA books always seem to be covered in trinkets, sometimes in odd places, and I quite like that. As you might be able to tell I'm struggling to find a way of lighting the darker parts without washing out/getting too much reflection from light parts, particularly the white so the photo of the front has been darkened. Not entirely happy with it, but at least it shows the shading on the white icons.

The Baal is already looking really cool, I also love the random bits and pieces that they have in the IA books, there's just something about a tank with purity seals on it that look like they're blowing in the wind that is really nice to look at.

Really great models dude! lovely scheme and executed paintjobs! everyhting just really pops out at you, the Baal is coming along nicely too! makes me want to hurry up and get tank painting myself as i've got about 5 to do on my shelf!

keep it up man I'm loving where the force is going!

With the grinding of tracks and an aroma of burnt fuel (those Lucifer engines wear hard) the Crimson Tears's 2nd Company's first Baal pattern Predator rolls into the vehicle hangar functional if incomplete. In other words, the turret is done!


Third tactical marine is also complete. The idea behind him was that his bolter has jammed and he's going to have to take his enemies as they get closer with his secondary armaments. Lots of time spent behind that old door for him! His homeworld fell to Chaos worship shortly after his induction to the Crimson Tears and he now seeks constant reassurance from the company Chaplain's that he is still pure enough of thought and deed to serve in the Tears' ranks, hence the seals.


HoeJarris - great minds and all that. I figure if we can cover marines in parchment and honour badges then their faithful, hard-working vehicles deserve to look pretty, too.

nerdfest09 - welcome to the thread, man, I lurk on yours all the time. It's awesome to have some Dakka royalty stop by, especially when you leave compliments! Jeez, I know that feeling, I've got at least 5 other rhino chassis and assorted turrets lying around waiting for me to do something with them too. The worst thing I've found about tank painting is finding ways to grip it without smudging the paintwork/eroding edge highlights. I have no idea how people do these fully constructed.

Looks awesome man - stunning paintjob, so clean and crisp!

Love that you spend some time making some cool bases aswell, sure makes the entire model popp alot more

What can we see next? Any Centurions, or the new sternguards?

He looks great! Love the pose and the crazy amount of purity seals on his leg armour!

Tank looks great as does your Marine. Even though it's only him it tells a small story. Keep it up

Aaaand done!

My Baal, is done and so is my fear of tanks. Now I'm simply aware that they can be quite time consuming.

So here are some final shots that best display the sponsons, the rest of it is all posted above so I don't see much point in clogging up the thread with repeat pictures.


I've decided to call it Deliverance as I feel that fits with the vague fluff I've developed regarding the Crimson Tears arriving as unexpected saviours and liberators of beleaguered Imperial forces. Here's a bit of an explanation behind the various decorations:
The Angel of Death on the front is an honorific earned for 50 successful combat missions, it is complemented by the winged sword and skull on the assault cannon mount which is awarded for in excess of 2,000 confirmed kills and is testament to the impeccable and invaluable service rendered by the tank and it's crew during those missions. As a mobile fire base, the firestorm Baal pattern predator (dakka Baal does not go down on official communications) is almost unparalleled and Deliverance's worth to the Crimson Tears 2nd Company is difficult to overstate, devoid as they are of land speeders and given that their tendency towards urban warfare makes precision air support difficult to effect. Each purity seal marks the decontamination and re-consecration of the machine spirit performed after engaging Chaos Daemon forces. Most of these clashes have occurred in the context of the various Black Crusades the Crimson Tears have assisted in repelling. The white winged blood drop on a crimson background mounted on the right hand side of the turret is a campaign badge awarded to vehicles that took part in the Vindicaret campaign carried out against Necrons around the Ultima Segmentum. The chapter plate towards the rear on the left-hand side were awarded for spear heading an assault against traitor guardsmen, on the now dead world of Piety, who had all but encircled the Crimson Tears' 2nd and 3rd Company's whose presence on the planet was the result of tracking members of the Chaos Space Marine warband The Reborn. For superb synchronisation with jump troops in a number of warzones Deliverance's crew were given the honour of attaching winged skulls to its armour so that all of the chapter might know of their skill.

Hope that was at least a little bit interesting for you to read.

I'm also continuing to trudge on with the tactical squad and here's the melta gunner almost done:


Having finished Inquisitor Constantjin I decided to swell the ranks of his retinue a little with a couple more warrior acolytes (still very WIP):




Charky - cheers, fella. Basing is such an important part of the model. You see so many good painters who neglect basing and it leaves everything so flat. I say that as someone who used to just paint the plain base grey (*shudder*, the bad old days). As for what's next, I did buy the new Sternguard and eventually I'll make a unit, but that kit is being used as bits rather than creating full minis. I run codex Blood Angels so there will be no \centurions for me, though even if I could use them I think I would come up with an alternative as I was not a fan of the models. What's actually next is a variety of Inquisitorial henchmen, the rest of the Tac. Squad, a Forgeworld Furioso and my breacher squad. And that's just the stuff on the work bench!

HoeJarris & Nash - thanks a lot, you guys.

Hey, look at this, it's the last couple of guys for my five man tactical squad:



Group shot:


Here's a mostly finished objective I started, too, an ad hoc Imperial Guard command post scratched out of the ruins and rubble of a besieged imperial city. It needs the skull doing and to have the lone Guardsman sentry added on, but it came together pretty quickly. I tried weathering the scanner a bit with sponge chipping, for a first effort I don't think it's come out too badly.


I'm also making some progress on another breacher. I used one of the chain axes from the Phobos pistol and axe set for this guy and it's come out looking more like a chain hatchet as, unlike the normal axes that I fit around a fist, it came already inside a fist which deprives it of some length. Still it doesn't look too out of place and I like how the pose is shaping up.

Looks great! How are you going to pose the shield for the above breacher? Looking forward to seeing your work man

Hello again, everyone, a mixed bag today as I attempt to clear the workbench. Every now and then it's nice to wipe the slate clean before covering it in half finished projects.

To that end here we have 'Hatchet Hal', the 7th Breacher (only 3 left to do)


He is followed up by the completed henchmen.

Now, I know henchmen don't have squad leaders per se, but the fluff I wrote for Inquisitor Constantjin indicated that he predominantly uses guardsmen in much the same way as in their home regiments and so I've modelled one using one of the Puppets War variant heads I that features a skull along with a scope and a relic to denote a marksman/sergeant. The last shot shows them with the test model for these guys. You might noice a smoother transition on the uniforms as well as keeping them darker, different cuffs, skin instead of gloves on the hands, brighter metallics on the helmet and face mask in addition to variant symbols on their weapons.

Lastly we have a slight rejuvenation of the Crimson Tears' first dreadnought Venerable Uriel. A few weeks ago he took a tumble and broke in half. I stuck him back together again and left it there. Then, the other day I was moving a few things around on my shelves and I noticed some paint chips here and there so started to fix them up. It also struck me: why the frack did I build him with a twin-linked lascannon and a dreadnought close combat weapon with heavy flamer?! Mistake duly rectified he's now a hellfire pattern dread with TLLC and missile launcher (frag and krak missiles painted as such), all the better to destroy the enemy from afar. He'd also lost the brass etch from the right hand side of the sarcophagus (annoying as it was one of my favourite bits from the sheet and you only get 2), so that's been replaced by a terminator crux.


When I finish the objective the desk will be clear and I will start my next Furioso, last 3 Breachers and my own Tycho.



rednecroncryptek - well, now you get to see and thank you very much.

Everything looks quite exceptional, but I'm really diggin' the breachers.

Not much to report this time around, just a few bits and pieces.

The objective is finished now that the comms relay has its sentry. You may notice a hint as to the misfortune that befell his predecessor...


I also whipped up the base for my incoming Furioso. It's a resin base from a now defunct ebay store (grrr, their bases were really good), with some extra rubble and stuff added on by me.



Oh, I also made a start on a certain 3rd Company Captain...


To make life really tricky for myself I decided to make my first attempt at double highlighting the black over an entire model (this will not happen again in the future! It's so fiddly and time-consuming.) and I'm pretty happy with how he's shaping up so far. His belt is still raw plastic so I can stick his various belt accessories on with plastic rather than super glue now that the legs and torso are finished (I've become really bad at sticking belt accessories on with super glue once they're completed).


Moltar - thanks, man. I love my breachers, too, got a special one planned for the next guy.

The breachers look great! And the objective marker is looking great too, I really like the badge on the guardsmans shoulder!
Also, this "Certain 3rd Company Captain" wouldn't happen to be Tycho would it?
He's looking brill already looking forward to him finished

Looking good

Nice and crisp as always, too The Henchmen look awesome!

Lucarikx

Captain Samael, 3rd Company, Crimson Tears



His origins are almost entirely unknown, doubtless they are consigned to the chapter archives, yet as the oldest serving member of the Crimson Tears none exist to impart information he would rather keep to himself. The relic status of his combi-melta, the Tigurus pattern bolt-pistol on his hip, the archeo-tech gauntlet known as ‘death’s touch’; Samael’s armaments hint as to the years that have elapsed since he first donned the black white and crimson of his chapter. Perhaps a few of the ancients in their dreadnought sarcophagi have tales to tell, but on the few occasions a brother has dared to ask they have kept their counsel, respecting Samael’s seeming wish for privacy. Much like his brother-captain in the 4th, Ezekiel, Samael sports a fearsome death-mask both as a badge of office and an affectation, its stern rictus aiding the aura of mystery Samael seems to cultivate.

Again, like his 4th Company equivalent, Samael’s has organised and trained his warriors in a particular style of warfare. Indeed, the Crimson Tears 3rd company are masters of mechanised warfare, never are they more effective than when racing their tanks into the heart of the enemy, either to deliver cargoes of marines whose chainswords yearn to tear at their enemies or salvoes of crippling close range fire. These tactics have developed in part due to decades spent pursuing and engaging the Saim-Hann elder craftworld. Honed against these swiftest and most manoeuvrable of foes, few other adversaries withstand against the massed armour of the 3rd and so their niche within the chapter was found

Samael is a restless hunter, ever eager to move on from a victory in pursuit of fresh prey. He also possesses a rage that is fearsome to behold, in a chapter prone to outbursts of fury and violence that legends can be fashioned from, his occasional lapses into frenzied wrath stand alone; as does he, when in such a state those under his command know well enough to let their captain be. Outside of these moments he is taciturn and stoic, a near perfect commander; no less than would be expected of a man who has held his position for almost four centuries.




Some new bases, too. Guess what they're for.





HoeJarris - cheers, man. I wasn't sure about the Guardsman's insignia, so that's good to hear. No, it's Captain Samael Hope you like him, done.

Lucarikx - thanks, I hope to get a few more done at some point, then my Inquisitor might have something worthy of being called a retinue.

Wow I'm loving Samael, he looks great!
The placements of each colour is really nice too, especially the mask

So, I've done some stuff. None of it finished, but there's quite a bit, nonetheless.

Furioso -



I swapped the FW feet for some regular dread feet. I don't know what it is about the FW ones, I just really don't like them. I've also tried to make the left greave look a little bit like a mini shrine somewhat akin to the old metal venerable dreadnought and the FW chaplain dreadnought.

Angel Encarmine -



Following the lead of their brothers the Blood Drinkers, the Angels Encarmine elected to send a veteran as envoy to the Crimson Tears, showing the newer chapter the honour they feel is due all fellow Sons of Sanguinius. The shade of red for this guy was actually surprisingly easy in the end, but the process of choosing it was not! He's actually had the initial colours completely painted over. I want all of the various Sons of Sanguinius I do to have different red armour and having already earmarked what it'll look like for a couple of others quite reduced my options for this particular angel. I'm pretty pleased with the final result, as far as I'm aware it's kind of atypical, which is always good.

Tactical Sergeant -




It's intended to look as though he's guarding the shattered doorway to the ruins his squad populate, aggressive defence (this may not be clear given that he has yet to receive arms...)! The contrast on the robes is a bit starker than I would've liked, but I'm ok with it. I go so long between painting robes that I don't think I've done any of them the same way, this is yet another different recipe (partly due to owning some different paints these days).



Bad news for the Tears is that I finally prepped and primed some models for a Malifaux Guild crew as an opportunity to do something really different. This may impact on my marine production rate, but I'm going to try and not let it, I do really love my boys in black, white and crimson.

HoeJarris - Thanks muchly, my friend. I'm pretty pleased with him, too. I LOVE me some death masks. I'd use them more often, but shaving them down is quite time consuming and I think it's fitting that they are preserved for characters (unless they become wargear available to sergeants in the new codex - whenever that may be - , in which case all of mine will be getting a facelift!)

Hello all, another update is here. First things first, completions:

Angel Encarmine Ruax



Here he is alongside the other Sons of Sanguinius envoys:



Sergeant Eremiel



Eremiel is another survivor of the 5th’s decimation on Trantis. As the company gradually rebuilt he found it difficult, like most of the other Trantis survivors, to find his place among the new recruits, none of whom could fully understand the profound grief of the company’s few original members, try as they might. This sense of disconnection from his fellow Crimson Tears was exacerbated by the likes of Azazel transferring to other companies, weakening weakening his connection to the memory of his fallen brothers, and the years of inactivity that the 5th’s rebirth necessitated which provided more than ample time to dwell on such thoughts. After a decade, Eremiel decided to follow the lead of some of his brothers and transfer, reasoning that if he were to be a stranger to those he fought alongside, he would do so in a new company, away from ghosts whose passing he could only fully lament with Chaplain Moriar and the handful of Trantis veterans who remained. An exemplary combat record in theatres ranging from the ash wastes of Armageddon to the dead space near the Ghoul Stars meant that the 2nd did not hesitate to recruit him when an opening in their attrition ravaged ranks inevitably opened up. After so many years of being unable to fight and spurred by the desire to prove himself to new comrades as well as honouring the dead he left behind, he quickly proved himself a valuable member of the company’s tactical branch; so much so that his promotion to sergeant was swift indeed, particularly for a new-comer. He prefers to lead squads laden with melta weapons, keenly aware of the potential destruction enemy armour can wreak on his brethren and possessing an intense desire to mitigate losses having already lost so much himself. As with Azazel, Chaplain Moriar, now the 5th’s Reclusiarch, keeps up with his erstwhile charge, concerned about the potentially damaging effects of a trauma like Trantis. Eremiel, though, has proven himself in need of less monitoring than his brother, his squad command is exemplary and the only sign that he still mourns is a black right pauldron, but this is more a memorial than an indicator of ongoing grieving.

WIP stuff:

Parts of a breacher (I'm getting there with these guys, at the same rate as a particularly languid snail, but progress is being made nonetheless).



I haven't touched the furioso unfortunately and it looks like that might not happen for a little while. There's the small matter of the B & C's now annual Et Tenebrae Lux internal painting competition coming up and so I've spent the bulk of the last couple of weeks pulling together the parts for my pledge to aid the Blood Angels sub-forum over there. Here it is:




That's 10 Vanguard Vets (In no particular order, Sergeant with Glaive Encarmine, powerfist, power axe and storm shield, power maul and storm shield, thunder hammer, eviscerator (really big chainsword), power sword, lightning claws, infernus pistol gunslinger and power spear). I'd initially only thought to do 8 as I'm pretty slow as a painter, but decided to go for the full 10 as the BA forum could use even that small a boost, hence why 2 of them are in a separate photo. Those 10 guys are a whopping 530 points! I'm thinking I may try and finish them asap to try and squeeze in a Mephiston counts as (who has been refurbished after accidentally being crushed and broken). The Furioso may get a bit of love on the side, but he's too far advanced to enter into the competition and will be quite time consuming to finish alongside the main vow. It's annoying as I really want to get him done, but the honour of the BA comes first.

Had a go at knocking up some unique wargear for future vets/characters, too, while I was cutting and sticking things.

First update since the ETL III kicked off on B & C and this is what I've managed:





Yep, in 2 weeks I've got two vets done at 75%. Settle in, this could take a while...


While bored during my lunch hour the other day I came up with this key to various armour decorations:

winged sword – denotes having served in an honour guard. Each member of the Crimson Tears command structure chooses his own Honour Guard when he ascends to such position as requires one one.

Laurels – an honour bestowed upon those who have performed an act of exceptional valour or courage on the battlefield.

Gold Crux – for acts of notable martial skill, such as taking out great enemy warriors in single combat.

Skull – kill tally of 1000.

Aquilas – for inventive use of the jump pack (I like the idea they get bonus points from command for hammer of wrathing an ork warboss off a 4th floor balcony)



What I was working on before the official stat of the ETL was this:



Which may answer those of you pondering the future of the Sons of Sanguinius envoys.


Hopefully I'll be back soon with more Vanguard goodness.

Looking brilliant as usual, I really like the one with the laurel leaves on his helmet, can't wait to see him done!
The Knight Of Blood is looking really cool too!

Quikc stop with some finished veterans and not a great deal else, but here they are:



Shot to show off partially obscured shoulder pads



I went through about 20 different arms trying to find a pose for the axe guy that worked, turns out all I needed to do was turn the axe head around a bit and all of a sudden he looks like he's actually swinging it at someone. By happy accident the way the packs attached has accentuated their movements, which is cool.


I've also finished repairing my Mephiston counts-as after his tragic accident several months ago with the floor and a rolling chair





HoeJarris - Cheers, bud. That helmet was one of my favourites from the new space marine kits, really enjoyed painting up the laurel. The Knight is getting there, he'll likely be in the next update (hopefully with a few more veterans...)

Beautiful highlighting here, I like everything

2 nearly finished vets incoming! Hope to get them done over the course of the week. It's going to take a while to get all 10 done, but I'm really enjoying how they're coming together. It'd been so long since I did a non-troops model I'd forgotten how fun blingier (definitely a word) models can be





I'm not entirely happy with the job I did on the hammer's powerness (totally a word), don't have quite the level of transition I usually go for. Also want to give a late shout out to the recent Sternguard and Vanguard kits, endless awesome bits to chuck around and that crux wpad with the lightning bolts is tailor made for guys wielding giant hammers. In case you're curious, the replacement hammer head is from Maxmini's Mk. 2 Mechanical Hammers set. The only downside was that, being resin, it's edges weren't as uniform and smooth as a plastic bit might've been, but it's a massive step up over the usual thunder hammer design so that doesn't really matter.

With the Mk. VI guy I was trying to keep him as Mk.VI as possible, but that meant no crux pad on the left shoulder. Hopefully, I've solved that adequately with his dangly trinket.



Cap'n Facebeard - cheers, man, appreciate it.

After months of being away I return to find there's lots of goodies waiting for me to ogle All looks great

I am frickin' digging all of this! I love the creepy white face guy! that makes it just look great! and the other BA sucessors are top notch as well! simply brilliant work dude !!!


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I am frickin' digging all of this! I love the creepy white face guy! that makes it just look great! and the other BA sucessors are top notch as well! simply brilliant work dude !!!

Yeah, these are pretty cool. Remind me of a BT/BA mix, but better then both.

I've managed to get somef stuff done since I last posted: Here we go:











And now for something different:





Nash - I do it all for you! Thanks, as ever, for the kind words and welcome back. Where've you been?

Nerdfest - thank you so much, I assume creepy white face guy is Captain Samael? I love his horrible face, too. De-blinged sanguinary guard heads are awesome.

whalemusic360 - Cheers, fella. Better than BA and BT? The Chapter Master will be happy.

This is one of the best threads I've ever seen on Dakka. You have pulled off these colors incredibly well. The poses and individualism of each of your marines is quite an accomplishment.

It wasn't until I finished putting the parts together that I realised how many purity seals I'd accidentally placed in quite a small area of the Mk. 7 guy, his right arm is really blessed! His pose isn't going to be to all tastes, but I like it. I was going for a shooting sprint with the spear ready to be swung round wildly if required. This contrasts with the Mk. V marine who has already closed with the enemy and is about to make a slash I'd like to call some attention to their chapter pads as they had quite a lot of work put into them. The Mk. III pad on the power spear wielder incorporates a blood drop from a drop pod icon which was a real pain to remove and then file down, it was worth it, though, as I really like the final look (it's better than my freehand anyway). The pad on the other marine is a modified Sanguinary Guard pad, I think it looks a lot more Crimson Tears-ish now by dint of being a lot simpler (but then I would, wouldn't I?),






40kFSU - Wow, high praise indeed! I'm not sure I agree, but thank you very much. I do try to make my marines somewhat different (there area lot of the buggers out there after all), so double thanks for picking up on my efforts there.

Wow, I just went through this whole blog, and I'm impressed at what you're making here !

You went a long way from that :



To that :



Your skills have improved much, and the army is really impressive ! It's good that you managed to stay focused on that army for quite that long...

I love the use of FW bits in your models, and the way you try to tell a story with each of them...

I'll be following this for sure !

(Oh, and the "side" projects - Deathwatch, other BA successor chapters, =I=, ... - are really great too ! )

I've just done the same actually, and was just gunna say practically the exact same thing as Yggdrasil hahaha
I was going to say at the start I wasn't all sold on the miniatures, but as the blog developed I was in and teasing myself more and more with the awesome improvements in painting and use of kitbash and awesome posing and the narrative it provided.

You're painting has come such a long way from the start of your blog and it's consolidated the awesome Crimson Tears scheme you've stayed loyal to for so long, it truly looks badass Also the kitbashes take me back to my glory days of kitbashing the hell out of my ultras - well looking back they probably weren't my glory days...but where a hell of a lot of fun nonetheless

Great stuff, keep it up!

LDP

Your MkV is my new favourite just so badass

Awesome stuff sockwithaticket! Yggs, thanks for the side by side comparison too. Your work just keeps improving. I love the great dynamic poses and the contrasting scheme you've created. Keep adding the random bits of fluff too.

“We’re all going to die,” thought Sergeant Theck, “every single one of us. Just like I fething said.”

Crouched behind the smouldering ruin of a Chimera, with his fellow guardsmen mainly dead, dying or wounded in the partially collapsed administratum building to the right, it was an easy conclusion to reach, even without the unearthly shrieks and other bewildering, fearful sounds that danced malevolently through the air, filling the shattered city with a terrible sense of inevitable demise. This was not as uncomfortable a realisation as it might have been for Theck, death was a constant companion in the Guard and no one with any sense joined the ranks expecting to reach the end of their service. You might say none with any sense signed up, full stop. No, Theck had been ready to die for some time. All the same, it rankled that his life and those of his men should end this way: surrounded by strange, sinister nightmares from the warp, slowly being whittled down at the fiends’ leisure; a few isolated companies condemned by the stubbornness and stupidity of a CO whose appointment owed more to nepotism than experience or talent, who had decided that gradually being surrounded was an opportunity for heroic deeds and held off joining the retreating line until the decision was taken out of his hands.

Theck risked sneaking a look up the street though the viewfinder. Between ash swirls were revealed barely conceivable forms that contorted as they crouched over the fallen guardsmen who marked the previous day’s perimeter. Involuntarily, he shuddered. Their flesh appeared to writhe and shimmer even as they were still and the effect was nauseating, their very presence seemed an affront to physics and nature. He’d seen a lot in his short time in the ranks but even the Tyranids hadn’t been this downright awful. Something else caught his eye slightly behind the warp-creatures, a glimmer of deep red power armour. The ash cleared a little more with a sudden gust and the full hulking form of a corrupted astartes was revealed, adorned with blasphemous symbols and what seemed to be odd-coloured parchment nailed into its chestplate. To its left, an abhuman hefting a bizarre looking contraption covered in speakers, evidently what was filling the otherwise deserted streets with the oppressive, sanity-eroding noises that had already driven many to deliver themselves to the Emperor’s mercy. Another swirl of ash and they were gone. Theck settled back against the rear ramp of the Chimera husk and pinched the bridge of his nose. It made sense that something would be here to drive and control the daemons, they had been unusually reserved in their assault; Feints and probing attacks, followed by periods of withdrawal were not typically associated with daemons, but ones guided by super-human allies would certainly do those things.

Whistles signalling a new attack on the line wrested him from his thoughts. Within moments he was on his feet sprinting towards the nearest ruin where the remanants of his squad were wearily rousing themselves to man the broken windows and hastily constructed barricades. Some mumbled prayers while others tried to talk as if they were simply at the barracks, others still said nothing at all. Bayonets were obsessively, unnecessarily honed. Trembling fingers sought personal relics or clenched into fists in an attempt to deny the rising fear of facing another wave of repellent beasts. Eventually all fell silent, gripping their weapons ever tighter, straining their eyes trying to peer through the dust and ash that swirled continuously, simultaneously hoping for and dreading a glimpse of the monsters that would surely slay them. Minutes, or perhaps hours, elapsed on their section of the line, only the distant report of autocannons and heavy bolters gave any indication that they needed to be ready. The only other sounds in this stillness were the dirges and screams that had become disturbingly familiar.

Then, with a suddenness that stunned every man, foul forms of teeth and sinew thundered from the obfuscating swirl snarling and roaring with feral eyes ablaze. The chatter of a nearby heavy bolter shattered the men's horrified transfixion. They began to pour las-fire at whatever they could see, though it seemed only grenade launchers and the plasma gun were making any difference to the onrushing horde's numbers. So fixated were they by the throng hurtling towards them that the guardsmen did not detect a new sound in the medley that assaulted their ears, a dull roar that grew louder as the fiends closed the gap with their prey. Theck had begun to notice it, but his brain somewhat overrode it with the immediate concerns of survival. The daemons were close enough now that he could see every last flicker accross their flesh as they fought to maintain their place in real space. Close enough, too, for thrown grenades to be effective. He was reaching for one when the new roaring reached a crescendo and the ground erupted in a cascade of rubble and dust. He saw warp-beasts flying through the air and the mad, rushing advance faltered, switching focus to this new event. As the dust began to settle Theck caught glimpses of white, crimson and a crackling blue, a blur of motion before which the daemons fell away contorting and writhing, missing what passed for limbs or with deep and extensive wounds to their horrendous exteriors. Adjusting to the scene unfolding before him, Theck was increasingly able to make out the forms of the new arrivals: astartes! He had fought alongside space marines before, against a Tyranid splinter fleet that found its way to a vital agri-world, but he had not seen this. The Sons of Gulliman had lined up alongside the guardsmen, setting themselves in a static, unassailable gun line before which the swarm was broken in a hail of bolter shells and flame. In stark contrast the newcomers engaged the warp-spawn in a hyper-kinetic dance of death, moving with a lethal grace their frames belied. He witnessed those bearing swords thrust and parry with all the finesse of fencers he had once seen in a planetary governor’s estate gardens, each cut and slash, expertly delivered, seemed to fell a creature. At the same time the others, armed with axe, maul, halberd, power fist and monstrous chainsword, cleared their immediate area with every swing. Theck then noticed two more astartes at the fringe of the melee, one, sporting a pair of claws that crackled with the same blue-white energy of his brothers’ weapons, engaged in a solo display of deadly virtuosity, acrobatically contorting to bring his claws to yet more foes as they assailed him from all angles. The other one, armed simply with a brace of unfamiliar pistols, fired frenetically, fiends fell away with every shot, wide gaping holes showing where the astarte’s attacks connected.

Relegated to a spectator, Theck allowed his focus to wander. His gaze took in the icons and symbols adorning the crimson, black and white figures. Even by space marine standards they were heavily decorated. From conversations with Sons of Gulliman marines he had ascertained that such embellishments were honorifics commemorating great achievements by each battle brother. He wondered whether their actions here would add to these astartes’ war plates. This thought came as they were despatching the last of the blasphemous creatures. The beasts’ otherworldly sounds had completely ceased, the background din alone generated any noise. Amidst their scattered carcasses stood the astartes, still on guard, still looking for more enemies to decimate. Nothing but the ash and dust stirred. Suddenly, with barely a glance towards the men they had saved, they ignited their jump packs and ascended back into the heavens from whence they had come.





Squad complete!


Sergeant Simiel



Simiel has spent centuries with a jump pack strapped to his back. Beginning his service as an assault marine in one of the chapter’s many campaigns around the Eye Of Terror, his ascension through the ranks of the 2nd Company to become Vanguard sergeant was a swift one halted only briefly by a stint as Company Champion for a few decades. His skill with a blade is fearsome to behold and few who are privileged enough to witness the prowess with which he fights are capable of adequately relaying it. Whether it be the lithe, lighting quick Aspect Warriors of the Eldar or hulking Champions of the Ruinous powers, Simiel has fought against and bested most of the deadliest foes the Imperium can offer. This has resulted in a more than exemplary combat record and it has seen him ear marked for promotion by successive commanders, not least when the 5th required rebuilding. Each time, though, he has declined such advances, viewing himself as being of most use to his company, chapter and the Imperium at large free to roam the battlefield, bringing destruction to the enemies that cross his path. Captaincy or some other such command position would shackle him to the devising of overall strategy and direction of others during battle, restricting the possibilities of his sword meeting the enemy.

Away from the front Simiel drills his charges relentlessly, often encouraging and participating in duels in order to keep his squad’s skills at their optimal levels. He also takes an active role in overseeing the development of the company’s assault marines so as to keep tabs on who might be displaying the requisite skills to take up a place in the Vanguard. It is interesting to note here that in addition to each company maintaining its own veteran units, the Crimson Tears will promote talented marines to these units regardless of their experience levels.


Power Maul



Lightning Claws





The full 2nd Combat Squad




Yggdrasil- thank you very much (though I cringe a bit at the photo of my early work you included!). My little extra projects are probably how I've spent so long with the one main army, plus there's still a million and one things I want to do with this force that keep me motivated. Hopefully I'll be able to keep making them as unique as possible, as you identify, I like to tell stories with them where possible and an extensive bits box is helpful in that regard (got to love FW and their SM obsession).

lipsdapips - thank you, too. Very kind words about my progression. As I alluded to above, given where I am now my earlier models make me wince a bit, but then we all have to start somewhere and though I toy with the idea of going over them again I always leave them as they are a sort of monument to my starting point on this hobby journey (plus my un-painted pile is waaaay too big to go and refurbish 30 odd marines!) Glad you enjoy the kitbashes, I certainly do; it's one of my favourite things to do, trying to make my models look different to the next guy's Space Marines.

Nash - cheers, mate. Mk. V armour is very underrated in my opinion, all the studs really help lend an air of brutality that you just don't get from the others (except maybe Mk. III), but you don't see much of it around.

IceAngel - thanks a lot. I do try to keep getting better so it's nice when people keep telling me that I'm doing so.If you're keen on my fluff snippets, hopefully you enjoyed this update.

Truly excellent! You brought the squad alive with the stories and this new one. And seeing them together is just awesome. What's next for you?

Awesome writing! Immersive and badass Marines look great also, as always

Very nice indeed, both the writing and the painting. I think the lightning claw marine is my favorite. Great pose on him. Keep up the writing too. Sometimes I find that I spend more time on the fluff then the painting but after you spend so much time staring at a model and making it come to life, it's hard not to create a story in your mind throughout the process.

Ok, so, the B+C summer painting competition is over now, which means dusting off the half finished projects that weren't eligible for the competition and sorting through the bits to find something new. for me that's meant getting back to my breacher squad (I dimly remember promising to finish them before the year's out...) and picking up my Deathwatch side-project.



This Breacher will end up looking a touch different to the others with the idea being that he's responsible for clearing a breach that isn't quite as practical as intel suggested, so lots of meltabombs and some parts to indicate slightly heavier duty armour.



Like a lot of people, the Badab War books fostered in me an affinity for certain chapters, one of those being the Minotaurs, an affinity that was rekindled when reading IA: 12. In that book there were references to Minotaur assault squads fighting alongside Deathwatch insertion teams in subterranean catacombs and I imagine this marine being headhunted to join the Deathwatch ranks after they saw what he was like in the field.

With my Deathwatch hat on I've decided to expand on my existing handful of models and bring them up to a full 10 man squad + Watch Captain. Currently I have a Black Templar and Crimson Fist in stationary poses and a Raven Guard marine who's running. I'm going to model half of them in motion and the other half static so that a combat squad split is more obvious. The Minotaur is a first step towards rounding out the moving combat squad whose other members will be a Salamander (see below), Blood Angel and Silver Skull. The Watch Captain (see below) is going to be a counts-as Pedro Kantor Black Shield. Eventually I plan to give them a heavy-bolter or assault cannon Razorback and a heavy bolter Mortis Dread (they are Xenos killers, high rate of fire weapons with middling AP values seems about right to me).







To all of you who commented on the fluff thank you ever so much. I do some writing in my spare time and have a semi-done screen-play with a mate, so obviously I fancy myself as something of a writer, but I've never really tried to 'bring it' in my fluff until now and I'm really pleased with and appreciative of the positive responses.

Nash - cheers, buddy. The Deathwatch stuff I mentioned above is going to be a big part of my immediate future as are the remaining 2 (and a half) breachers), but I've also got four members of a tactical squad and a half finished Furioso still to do. Not to mention various other things I've got the parts for and are sitting undercoated waiting to be started like my Mephiston conversion. So, in short, plenty!

lipsdapips - thanks a lot.

Ice Angel - Thanks, the claws marine is a favourite of mine, too, he almost looks more sergeant-y than the actual sergeant. Three years since diving back into the hobby I think about fluff a lot more than I initially did and you're right, it does help sort of round off the whole modelling/painting process. Conversely, I find increasingly that a piece of fluff can help inspire a model rather than be inspired by one.

@sockwithaticket - I find that my motivation to create anything is usually fluff driven. I started writing a book a while back here on dakka, the inspiration being some marine swaps I did with people. I'm onto book two now and I have to say that more then half of my hobby projects are inspired by my own writing. It's all about "forging the narrative" right?

I like your breacher guy. Any time you can give a marine a chain axe always seem to make them cooler. What's that on his left hand?

Ok, update time after a little Malifaux distraction.

Minotaur is done:


He has a combat shield purely for aesthetic purposes. I remember reading that they are a particularly attritional chapter when it comes to close range fire fights and thought the shield would be a nice nod to that. Given that I was inspired by The Fall of Orpheus I thought I'd hint at it by giving him a Necron trophy. That head is from the last Necron he killed in the campaign.

Silver Skull is done:



Made a start on the Blood Angel Sergeant:


This sneakily allows me to try out a different red as I decide how to do an original son of Sanguinius for my envoys without having to d a full test model. I also tried out a different way of doing gems. After browsing through the BA showcase thread on B&C for the umpteenth time a remarkable Death Company Rhino by the user Taz caught my eye, particularly the green blood drop decorations at the rear http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/119231-the-blood-angels-showcase/page-46 and I attempted to do the Sergeants blood drop gem in a similar fashion. Mine's nowhere near as good but it was a change to how I'd normally approach a gem and I quite like it


I also cobbled together the bits to make a Deathwatch Librarian (because when I'm fixated on a project my actual work rate comes a distant second to my brain's rate at coming up with ideas)



Now, hands up if you use back banners. Anyone? Yeah, me neither, which is a shame as a lot of them have some pretty cool icons atop their pole. Once you've been collecting marines for a while you tend to acquire quite a few of them and they sit there unused. Until now! Ta-dah:


Banner toppers used to make some custom tilt shields. I first had the idea for the Deathwatch librarian as a way of getting the Epistolary symbol on him and then decided to run with the idea on the rest of the blank tilt shields I had lying about. Hopefully you can see the ones that were made out of already primed bits.

As for the Crimson Tears, I've finished the 8th Breacher:


I wanted him I to look like he's running up the rubble in front of a breach and is ready to chuck a melta bomb into the gap to clear it.


IceAngel - Oh wow, yeah that's really taking forging the narrative to it's fullest conclusion. Well done for having the dedication to undertake that! Thanks for the Breacher compliment and I completely agree with you, chain axes are badass; they just look brutal. The thing on his left hand is the shield handle, the Mk. III breacher kit comes with shields separate from the hand unlike the Boarding squad upgrade kit, it looks chunky enough to be a weapon on it's own, right?

I still love the breacher guys. I may have to pick up that upgrade kit. I grabbed the boarding marine kits and have enjoyed them but also been rather disappointed with the options. The breacher stuff seems to be a little more customizable. There really isn't a reason why I can't mix them all together for one unit any ways, right?

I completely agree with your banner bit too. I love a good banner, don't get me wrong, just not on my guys, lol.

Awesome ! !!

Woah, great marines, mate! Love the dynamic poses and individual little detail. Makes me want to pick the the RPG again...

Love this plog mate, great work.

Deathwatch Kill team done! Blood Angel and Salamander completed to bring the team up to 5.






Group shot



I've really enjoyed the opportunity the Deathwatch have provided me to play around with a few different colours (even if the majority is still black) and techniques, helping me add to my painting repetoire a little bit. The Salamander alone let me try out fire and yellow eye lenses, while I'm very pleased with how the Bronze on the Minotaur. Neither are things I have the opportunity to do with my Crimson Tears.

Thanks for looking.


IceAngel - Thanks, man. Yeah the boarding marine kit is rather limited in terms of posing. on the occasions I've really tried to do something different with one of those arms it's been a significant undertaking. Ha, yep, banners are for the Guard. They exist to be cannon fodder, right?

ghostmaker - thank you.

Meph - cheers, high praise coming from you.

kitch102 - thank you very much.

Amazing!

How do you go about doing your black?

I think there is something wrong with that blood angel shoulder pad, perhaps you should repaint all the red with a nice ice blue. Then it would be an Ice Angel! Much better......

Great work as always. Good call making the salamander carry the heavy flamer. What's next on your list of things to do?