Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the blood pact log of my humble self. So allow me to explain what is to occur here, over the past few months i have been steadily rebuilding my love for the hobby, as well as parts of my life. around six months ago i came to a head with a depression that had, unknowingly to me, been crushing me for over a year. Suprisingly what pulled me through was just one moment, just one model. The grot tank. It inspired me to build over 3k+ worth of works, and paint around 1-1.5ks worth in just 5 months. However, there comes a point when you hit a limit with an army and even my love of greenskins can't overide the fact that they've become, since 5th edition, one of the lesser races. It also didn't help i'm become a complete tread head. So, i asked myself, whats the solution?
I used to be an iron warrior fan of epic proportions (at one point i had a serious volume of armoured might, including two baneblades back in the days when the plastic kit was only a few months old) but since 2007 i haven't been able to use them with codex; not quite chaos marines. It would be a.... an act of heresy against the dark gods to do so. But there is something else that niggled at me. Chaos. Chaos has always been one of my major draws to the hobby, in fact probably the largest, and in 2007 i made an armoured fist company and a few test models for the Blood pact. This was the result:
At the time i was happy with them, but i got sucked in to orks when the codex came out and i was forever chosen by gork and mork to be a vessel of their will.
But khorne cannot be so easily dismissed, and since i am no longer grapling with my depression on a daily basis, but instead finding ways to beat its causes, i now find the voice of chaos whispers to me. So it was i commited myself to my next major project. How major you ask? Very. Insanely big, to the point where i'm not sure i can justify the expenditure, but at the same time i need to do it. So What is it?
Well, the title sort of gives that away. I want to build a major blood pact armoured division, with a host of lemans, chimera, artillery pieces and super heavies. I want to bring the full might of Gaur to the field, and i want to fulfill my urge to own an armoured company. So next week, as a christmas present to myself, i am buying the models to complete the following 750 list;
++ heavy support ++ 255
Leman Russ, heavy bolters, heavy stubber
Hydra
Total 750
it's got a lot of blast template potential, enough armour to worry people and enough anti-tank/monstro creature to put down anything too hard.i know the stubber is an unusual choice on the leman, but when i worked the points out i had 10 going spare so i thought to myself... get a stubber, and the leman is the only tank in that list that's going the ability to use it with an increased chance of reaping its points cost back.
I've managed to find a mini i could paid without any draw backs to future progress, one of the rogue psyker units i got off a friend. I've decided to make him a Gore Mage (played as part of the battle pysker unit). This is how he looks;
Allow me to explain my scheme; standard pact, red cloth, dark iron/black armour, however in this case i've gone with a lot of blood. a hell of a lot of blood. The reason is; gore mages use blood to envoke daemons and do dark rituals, so whilst not strictly a psyker they tap into the warp. The result of this, in the case i'm using is that rivers of blood flow from them whenever they begin a blood ritual, and since blood in the realm of khorne is usually boiling, you can see why it's melted the snow theme i'm running with. The skin has turned blue from lack of blood/oxegen (which wouldn't be fatal unless he got perils of warp and was exsanguinated)
C&C welcomed on him, i'm quite happy with the rivers of blood thing, since this is a khorne army it kind of makes sense...
Update time guys, this is something i've cobbled together out of a few bits. I've decided to redesign the heavy weapons teams in my armies, giving them more mobile fact responce feel as well as avoiding the boring tri-stands the corpse worshipers use. I'm also testing out the basing technique i plan to use
Now for the update, in 8 days i have an apoc game, and foolishly i decided to roll guardsmen. since i ownly own 2 lemans russes that haven't been... remodelled my Gitzkrieg i need to make more. PAPER TIMEZ ahead. i need to make 7 standard pattern russ, and one more of these bad boys;
Thats right, i'm rolling a 3 man tank sniper squad. Apoc is the perfect scale for these guys to work at, since i've never been able to justify them in normal games. I've remodelled an old russ i got from ebay in that squad, since it had No spons and needed a new turret i've rebuilt it. it needs some work before its complete (any some heavy bolters) but so far i'm happy with the framework for it.
This update is well overdue, it contains some of the work that will be popping up. Now before i start there are several errors i will correct; the rivets are mishappen because i've only just glued them on (and i wont have time to file them to size before i can return to the tank in a weeks time), and one of them is missing. However, those asides, i think its a good way of showing how i'll be taking the tanks down unique and varied pathways as i attempt to create several generations of tanks in the same force.
Sweet cultist on a popsicle stick this thread took off fast! Ok... replies then an update;
Rogue Wolves wrote:this is awsome, how did you make the mask on the ogryn?
Sculpted it, just good old fashioned greenstuff and guitar wire.
MajorTom11 wrote:Great job!
Why than you kind sir! you work is impressive, i'm glad to see you've taken an interest
Rogue Wolves wrote:TOM! I wonder where you went to, dont want to go off thread to ask you soo many q's, but when will you start your genestealers again?
pm's dude... pm's.
swampyturtle wrote:this thread is awesome. So very heretical but awesome. My favorites have to be the orgyn and the HWT set. Thats just cool
you can bet im subscribed!
thank you my kind sir! i hope to provide much more awesome things to come.
storag wrote:I'm normally indifferent to chaos armies but this guys look fresh and well-themed without using trival decay/horns/tentacles-stuff. Good job so far!
thanks man! yeah, i'm grounded in the dirt/dark and blood soaked themes. i have 3 policies to 40k; Make it dirty. Make it rusty. Make it decayed through wear and tear.
Rogue Wolves wrote:^ thats why if i ever did chaos it would be the bloodpact
Well hello again wolves welcome back for the third time. glad to see your a keen pact fan, i find it rare people know enough about the pact to actually care, so i'm glad when people take a keen interest.
Llamahead wrote:How did you do the wheels on the Heavy Weapon Team?
hey llam, i used two different sizes of tubing i got at a DIY store, then ran a rig through the middle of two plasti-rods. once they set, i cut the front legs of a normal set, and stuck the pin/back leg onto the plasti-rod axle. then LGS'd the feth out of it.
Ok, update.
C&C welcome, i'm happy to explain the process or design choices to anyone who's curious.
Joking aside, i like that heavy bolter a lot. The wheeled carriage is great, and the drag marks are a very good addition. What other heavy weapons do you have planned?
A Kvlt Ghost wrote:You're going to drill out that HB barrel, right..?
soon as i can find some replacements for the broken drill bits i have, yeah. having a hard time atm, i can't get out to nearest large scale DIY store since i don't drive and my local town stores are having a hard time stocking things (wierd thing to be short of) due to the weather and a busted cargo boat.... admittidly, good excuse since shops here are running out of food.
Update time, sorry for the bad photos, its hard to get good lighting in the evening. the grotesques do look better in the real world, but the close ups that'd show the detail are causing my camera to have a fit. This is my command squad for the small scale army, and its WIP chimera. I've also made a Eviscerator priest, though he's a dark mechanicus reject.
There just awesome! I like that dark mech priest. Very orginal and creative!
The CCS is really well done and the Blood pact feel is there in full force. I like how you make the Company command with the spikes and the helmets have been filed down to give them a proper look instead of just plain cadian heads.
I'd love to play against this army using my Tanith and Allies from the Sabbat world Crusade (Phantine Skyborne and Padrus specfically)
@swamp; oddly enough i've got a match against tanith in jan. i'm trying to get a 750 finished in time for a skirmish match.
Update time; i forget to take pics of the vendetta i'm working on, so here is a fixed two hander priest, my new priest WIP with a two- hand...er weapon, and lasgun servoskull, a modifed lord commissar who's a lot better looking IRL and the first of the melta veterans.
Update time, not including infantry, light support or budgies, this is where i'm at with tread-power.
and this is a chimera i'm working on with magnetised weapons, the autocannons more of wish from the IA1 chimera, used a heavy bolter, and the multi-laser for WYSIWYG games.
I've got alot to do to get them up to scratch, i need to rebuild 3 of the lemans, finished chaosing most of them, and refit my baneblade from its iron warrior build to a blood pact build.
after about 2-3 hours of painting, this is my finished chimera.
I'm rather happy with it, the weathering is amidst the favourite i've done, and i'm in love with auto-cannon chimeras, so much so i've gone back and retrofitted a magnetisation to my command chimera so it can have one too!
Time for an update of sorts... found myself visiting an old warhammer stockist who stopped when gw put its embargo on international trade, amidst other anal moves. they did however have a few old models, so i picked myself up one of the warhammer khorne campions... who's on his way to becoming my Colonel 'Iron Hand' Straken.
C&C?
-skrall
p.s little bonus i'm working on, a horus sculpt commission.
Capitansolstice wrote:That is a nice sculpt skrall!
thanks man! taking a bit of time because of constantly sculpting and reshaping it to get it right. horus is hard, but its a commission, so needs to operate at terminator scale as per the request by my client.
Now for the big family bumper pack update. 3 of the tanks are now 98% complete. some touch ups on the freehands and 'brass' paint for the icons needed, but largely done.
They look awesome. Was gonna do blood pact put couldn't find a good way to model my guardsmen to blood pact, made spikes but they looked bad and I can't be bothered doing all that filing and stuff. But very nice, hope to see more.
Update time, i've decided to strip back the original test trooper, not least of all because, as one of the last photo's shows, he got white spraypaint all over him. I've also began to knock back the snow, since when its had a day or two to dry the baking powder becomes a lot more powdery and thus comes off easier.
And as a christmas present to one and all my kind viewers; here's my army at present, taken on my new 16mega pixel camera.
In an attempt to provoke the four people currently logged into the internet into commenting, here's some shots that hopefully show that each guardsman has his own unique grotesque.
This is a very encouraging start - the tanks are turning out very well and the snow effect looks excellent (particularly now that you say you've 'knocked off' some of the excess).
The Blood Pact are turning out very nicely - great work on the grotesques. What amuses me is you have even more Blood Pact armour littered in the background of these group shots - please pick up that Leman Russ
I think if you maintain this kind of momentum the company will look stupendous.
Jihad_Ragsta wrote:
This is a very encouraging start - the tanks are turning out very well and the snow effect looks excellent (particularly now that you say you've 'knocked off' some of the excess).
The Blood Pact are turning out very nicely - great work on the grotesques. What amuses me is you have even more Blood Pact armour littered in the background of these group shots - please pick up that Leman Russ
I think if you maintain this kind of momentum the company will look stupendous.
Ragsta
Hey dude! thanks for the comment, i'll try and sort out some shots of the snow on the tanks now its knocked back a step. As for the background... i tend to treat my russ' like scrap until i get around to painting them properly, at which point i take care of them. i do plan to add dirt effects to this army, well more, using a technique i used on this stompa a while back
And as a bonus, here's my option riddled tank, with its 3 turrets and six guns.
Now, asides from a chronic case of the productivity bug, time for a close up of the second gen scheme for my blood pact, still working on it though, trying to get it to a point i'm happy with;
and a cookie for the first person to guess why a freshly base painted (thus PIP) steel legion tank is in this log.
-skrall
p.s attachment to skip post merge and also to show the basis for my rough riders...
thanks for the comments guys! glad you like the progress i'm making, and that there's still people looking.
here's a tutorial i put together about... 4 years ago for making grotesques, the basics i use today are the same, only a little more practised.
grotesques
firstly, apply a basic layer of GS over the mouth of the guardsman. then, using a craftknife, cut the the square for the mouth. once your happy cut in as many teeth as you want, here i've gone for a subtle four.
Once your happy with the mouth, the next stage it to score in the mouth creases at the side. if you've done it like me, theres a little too much gs, not to worry, just push this up to form the fraimwork for the nose. you'll need some more gs, tiny amount, to add the notch to the chin, and then the nose itself, done simply by pushing the sides of the nose down, and then pushing in a pair of nostril's, giving it an enlarged look.
finally, as a detail, i always add khorne symbols on the shoulder pad
easy to do, just add a square peice of gs, cut in the basic symbol, then remove the excess. if its a bit spindly, like mine was, press down the gs, and then use the craft knife to neaten up and add the central triangle.
and you finished trooper should look like this:
hope this helps you guys, and maybe gives you reason to return as i progress!
Return,I never left awesome tute I finished the Sons of Sek squad and deep down I know it is not 100% legal to use max-mini heads no matter how cool they are.
But then again I never play so what the hell do I care,but I would love to give scuplting my own a shot.
Eisenhorn wrote:Return,I never left awesome tute I finished the Sons of Sek squad and deep down I know it is not 100% legal to use max-mini heads no matter how cool they are.
But then again I never play so what the hell do I care,but I would love to give scuplting my own a shot.
yeah, its easy, pretty fun once you get into the habbit of it...
Update time... found some gold paint, and i thought i'd offer a detail shot of the weathering.
and i've finished basecoating the steel legion tank...
still no guessing as to its function? why its here in this log?
thanks vitru! this weathering is the next step up, since red hasn't killed this;
Steel legion time; no one guessed the secret, so see if you can work it out from the clue in the final photo
I'm SO CLOSE to collecting steel legion atm it isn't funny. not painting red is fun.... and the scheme they have is about a 13.4 on the fun as feth meter.
thanks for the comments guys, no pictures today, but i have started looking into this steel legion idea a bit more. got to be honest.. had such fun with what work i've done on the first tank it seems wrong to stop.
Ok... so its time for an update, ive start work on the next tank, made progress on the punisher cannon, started rebuilding a turret and put down the basics to turn the tank crew into steel legion.
Since i'm doing both armies side by side, and because i've developed a love for steel legion tanks i'm changed this threads title to reflect it.
Update; i've run out of silver and black paints, so i've just been doing detailing and rust work. i've also tried out a new way of producing the lens/glass/thingy effects.
C&C? if anyone wants to know about any of the techniques i'm happy to share.
update on primary leman, this is about 98% complete now, theres some pigments on the way i need to finish it, and the driver needs to bebrought back a bit, but he is ment to be that filthy.
and this the third leman, this one will have magnetised options for the spons, incase of small scale games where i can't affford the upgrades, shown with both turret options.
thanks man! i consider it to be one of my better works.
Capitansolstice wrote:Are the steel legion tanks loyalist?
Sadly yeah, i didn't intend that to happen, but i've been having such an insane amount of fun with this i've committed to doing some SL. The blood pact arn't on hold, i've only just got the paints to finish the infantry groups off.
Ok, for those who've got any vague interest in tanks, paticularly in painting them with pretty patterns, i'm doing a tutorial over the course of this week on how to paint steel legion tanks, but the principle apply to all formats of tank from cadians to catachans. There's going to be a more perminant copy in the modelling forums, but i'm adding it here since it'll be a nice way to show my working technique,
Step 1; Prep the tank.
Now, usually people do the drilling of barrels before hand, but my drill bits bust, so i'm doing that further down the line. Otherwise, its standard modelling practise all the way. Before you paint it in your colours i advise a white basecoat for you tank, my techniques will cause it to darken considerably (i've been accused of being the Blanche of the modelling forums so...).
Step 2; base colour
Now your all whited up, you need to pick the tone and colour of your tank. in this case i've gone for my own unique concoction of colours to create a bluish grey. Apply this everywhere, get a good even coating, if your doing it by hand this will be a little harder, but if your looking for an excuse to buy an airbrush, then i'm happy to oblige.
Step 3; masking
I run masking tape for masking, i'm very very cheap, i will find the fastest cheapest way of doing things, more spare money means more paints, more paints > better model. If you have a specific pattern, then obviously take your time, but if your like me and want to slap down a crazy pattern, then tear your tape in two thin strips and apply it, breaking it every so often to change direction;
step 4; the pattern.
So, i thought i'd include a photo of my working set up here for this, see if it makes things easier for others before they start.
i use;
An old box from the company i order my mini's from as a spray box.
A hairdryer bought a thousand years ago which pumps lots of nice warm air out.
two lamps (general modelling rule for better quality of light)
The airbrush itself...
And now you've dried it and sprayed it, this is how you'll look before you take the tape off;
step 5; the peeling.
Pretty straight forwards, take your tape off, but i would advise be careful the paints fully dried before you do, i now have a horrible thumb print on my tank on the bottom (thank god) from where i put... well, my thumb in it when removing the tape.
Specific colours, if requested, can be listed, but i prefer to give people the tools, not the forumula, to making modelling magiks.
Hope this is helpful, any questions or specific points i'll try and put an FAQ up with Part 2, but this is the easy stage.
First up, put down your basic boltgun metal colours to break things up, don't worry if they arn't too neat, at this stage its more of a guide.
Step 7;
The unit stripe was achieved using masking tape like before, painting a section red, then covering it and spraying the center of that white.
Step 8; Now unfortunatly my camera was being a little runt and decided to not take the photo of the pre-9 washed tank. however, it's worth giving the tank a quick colour wash, i use a mixture of my own design, tamaya black and scorched brow. When this is watered down it'll create a nice dark layer without giving that thickness that happens with Babad liquid talent black or the other gw washes (though they do well on infantry).
Step 9; Now, using a sponge (i use a car one cost 29p for the big bugger) dab paint of the paticular colour onto your pattern. this is usual best done with the darkest layer first, so i went with my grey (a mix of tamaya dark grey and light blue). It'll help deepen up the colour gradient so long as you don't try and cover the old paint too much, only dabbing to highlight and break it up. DO NOT try to be neat. the more adventurous you are, the better this pattern interacts with itself.
Step 10; same prinicpe, this time using tamaya JA grey and GW's Rotten flesh. this, if it dabs over the grey, will marry the two, rather than making them look to seperate.
Step 11; reapply the darkcoat. mentioned in 8. this will give your tank added depth, and depending on how much you water your wash, it'll have a dirty look.
Time for some steel legion work now, i've modernised two models to fit with 5th edition guard, so far we have a senior officer and a cadet-commissar (to explain why he's a skinny sod). there's also the obligator magnets eveywhaaaaa chimera.
Capitansolstice wrote:They look pretty sweet, The cadet is a skinny twig
yeah thats the old gw steel legion commissar, its just his scale means i have to justify (in my mind) why he's a midget... cadet commissar it is.
Update time, the first of the infantry is all but done. need some touch ups and the do the osl on the powersword then its done. the commissar hero shots are for my avatar, and so you get a close up of the average face.
Looks really good, although I think the weathering on the steel legion tanks is way too heavy.
Always loved the steel legion figs, especially the heavy weapon teams and that commissar. Struggling to not add a regiment of steel legion to my guard army myself
@illumini; its my personal stylisation, at the end of the day i love kicking the crap out of my tanks, and steel legion have the atmosphere to do that to a tank! as for the figures, i got a second one rescently, no idea what i plan to do with that commissar... yet.
due to the pigments i want to use not being in stock, i'm waiting on a resuply so the tutorial project is slowed now, however i can now present part 3;
First step take your freshly dried post wash tank, mix up a black/brown mix of about 40/60 so you get a nice dark brown. Take a sponge, i use a 29p massive car sponge cut to various sizes myself, and begin dabbing the mix onto the hull, your end result should be something like this;
Step 2, same thing basically, just using mithril silver. dab carefully but randomly over the top of your previous damage, trying to avoid some of the more subtle area's, the silver should only be a minor detail over the top in most places. results picture;
Step 3; dark rust pigments/powder time! i'm using forge worlds aged rust for this step, and two brushes. my advice is use a small but hard brush so you can rub in it to the nucks and crannies easier. this ones trial and error for most people, you'll find your way to make it work for you. results for me, and what you should be up to so far;
Part 4 coming soon, as always hopes this proves useful!
fair bit to do on all the models, but i'm now up to about part 2 on my own tutorial with regardes to progress. got alot to do, but feeling confident.... or more to say, i love painting tanks!!
thanks man, i've actually done a little more work to them, though they arn't quite showing off the battle damage in these photos. maybe a bit too well lit.
Looking good Billy Ray.
Here's a masking tip straight from Fine Scale Modeler.
Next time try silly putty as a mask instead of tape,thats how the military modelers paint their NATO camo
Eisenhorn wrote:Looking good Billy Ray.
Here's a masking tip straight from Fine Scale Modeler.
Next time try silly putty as a mask instead of tape,thats how the military modelers paint their NATO camo
nice idea, might be good if i were to paint clean tanks... but i'm quite a fan of the mixing that can happen. the steel legion camo (in the GW books at least) is never solid pattern, they tend to cross into one another, which is also why i use the 'dab' paint technique. i'm not really going for 'ultra-realism', i'm going for my paiting style, rust dirt and atmosphere
The putty is also great for masking odd shaped items such as lascannon,exhusts,ect.
But I hear where your coming from,like I said looking great keep em coming.
Before i begin this tutorial, i advise people get a cup of tea, a beer, or some something of the sort, this is a bit of a doozie.
are we ready?
step 1; oil paints.
For this i've used just 3 colours, black brown and orange. i'd be specific, but when it comes to this stage your probably best looking at the colour ranges open to you. i'm also using low odour thinner, most of this crap i had lying around... (i did actually train to be an artist, graduating from the best course in the uk in the field of illustration, but 6 months on i've yet to take it up as a career). You can use any white spirit, i picked up a bottle for £1.29 yesterday with about a litre in, so plenty for the entire army.
what i've done here is to paint very thin layers of a darker colour into the area's i want, mostly door hinges and the excaust port. do not over do it, that's the best advise i can give. i've also done some orange over the top to boost the rust colour, though this not over the top of all of the dark colour, just parts to get a layering of oil/rust.
Step 2; Lens/glass
now while the oil paint dries (if you thin it down enough, it'll be about 20-1hr drying time) you can actually paint the tank's detail. i'm going to leave the basics to you, decals and so forth. this bit i'm going to show how i paint lens for these lads.
dark angels green, so far so simple.
dark angels and skull white mixes, 67/33 in the first light layers, 50/50 second. then highlight skull white.
this is where i painted it clear green, it'll always retain a shine, even when dry.
Now it's dried all you do is highlight any over structure, to ensure it actually looks sunk in to the kit.
part 3; Weathering extemis.
Your more or less done if you don't want to do this part.
To start; i'm using vallejo pigments, white and ocre. Start off by simply applying the colour to the affect area's, i.e lower hull and tracks.
then lightly brush over this with the ocre,
and that's pretty much you done.
and how it'll look on two tanks of different equipments;
its worth mentioning the photo's will stop working because of photobuckets 10gb viewing per month limit, i'm using my second account and no doubt soon my third will be created. however, despite that i've produced another tutorial, completing my steel legion/tank guide!
step 1;
this steps in before you do any enviormental weathering, start by painting the outline of you decal with thinned down white.
step 2;
highlight the upper area's
step 3;
create a dark brown, 70/30 scorched/chaos black should do it, then dab it on selectivly
step 4;
The same, only just Mithril silver
step 5; add weathering powder.
title says it, add any enviroment marks you're adding
results;
this was the same technique used for my punisher turret further back in the log (which thanks to the failtards at photobucket you can't see till feburary)
C&C?
-skrall
p.s here's a bobafett facebook picture to skip that failriddled auto-post merger.
Interesting, i always fully paint a vehicle (ie decals, markings details), then whether it all at once.
With regards to the photobucket issue, put them in the Dakka Gallery! People can vote and theres no limit to the amount of images you can upload, far better choice imo!
I love all the tanky goodness here! I have a scratchbuilt Ragnarok that I'm slowly putting together - once its done I'll have a crack at using some of your ideas to weather it up.
Personally, I think your Steel Legion would look at home alongside the Blood Pact if you ever wanted to boost the numbers - the weathering helps them look mucky enough to be renegade if necessary.
Are you still planning for a full company of Blood Pact tanks? I would be interested to see what your revised long term goal is now - though having had experience of your attention span to projects I may be slightly naive here
Horus commission WIP time, he's taking longer than expected, mostly down to the cost/balance issues. i pitched a low price based on a set number of hours work, so each time i do work on it needs to be maximum efficeny. not the way i usually run commission, but then i don't usually sculpt primarchs.
Capitansolstice wrote:Just wondering, is that a rough outline?
It seems a bit, well, rough
there's alot of refinement, the lower body needs alot of work done to it, when this photo was taken it was still curing, so it'll be this evening before i feel its ready to be sanded and refined. ther'es alot of issues atm, but its getting the physical shape down first before any refinement like that happens. at the moment most of its just 'bulk', even the fameing will be gw's and smoothed in order to get a more complete finish
welcome back for the third time. glad to see your a keen pact fan, i find it rare people know enough about the pact to actually care, so i'm glad when people take a keen interest.
