A new commission job. Mayan/mesoamerican theme.

Absolutely gorgeous. The free hand is phenomenal and the bases are eye catching without being overly busy. I especially like the marine launching from the tree.

Could you share the technique for achieving such a nice shade of turquoise for the shoulder pads/chainswords?

Whomever receives this squad is a lucky individual!

The turquoise is Vallejo model colour blue green, highlighted by adding a little game colour heavy blue grey,

The only freehand is the triangles on the double-edged chain sword. Everything else is decal work.

Fantastic, I really like the theme. It's recognizable, but not over the top (I've seen a few other mayan/aztec themed marines, and I always feel they lean too heavily on lizard-men bits).

Great colour pallet as well.

These are fantastic, nice shading on the white and the turquoise is awesome. The mace and head on the sergeant give him a real characterful feel.
Bravo.

Beautiful models. I love the Mehico/Mayan theme, never seen anything like that.
Bravo to you sir.

These are great! reminds me somewhat of the original Deathwing theme (IIRC the idea behind them was Mayan/Mesoamerican).

The original death wing were Native American ( more the North American end though).

winterdyne wrote:
The original death wing were Native American ( more the North American end though).

Ahk, my bad. Awesome work man!

Awesome work as always. A hugely characterful squad.

Amazing work

Fantastic. Great color scheme to match the Mayan motif.

Wonderful!

I go YEARS gritting my teeth looking at miniatures that have had flight pins and clear flight rods shoehorned onto them, ruining an otherwise stellar paintjob, and all of a sudden I get to look at TWO minis that have the flight apparatus hidden in as many days?! It's a Jesus miracle!

Amazing work. Probably the best assault marines I've ever seen. Is the flying marine glued to the tree, or is there a pin involved? If so, how far up his leg/into the tree does it run?

Very nice, I realy like the detail in the theaming.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I go YEARS gritting my teeth looking at miniatures that have had flight pins and clear flight rods shoehorned onto them, ruining an otherwise stellar paintjob, and all of a sudden I get to look at TWO minis that have the flight apparatus hidden in as many days?! It's a Jesus miracle!

Amazing work. Probably the best assault marines I've ever seen. Is the flying marine glued to the tree, or is there a pin involved? If so, how far up his leg/into the tree does it run?

The pin holding the open hand on is extra long and bent around into a 'thumb' to grip the branch of the tree he's on. That was then hidden with foliage. His knees are in contact with foliage but this is more by accident than design- he's clear of the tree armature itself.

I don't think it's got as much movement as one I'd did that's supported by his chain sword in an Eldar victim...

The paintjobs are thoroughly excellent, but it's the basing that really makes these guys impressive. Great job!

Holy creamola foam!! These are phenomenal, I thought that all the deatiling like the chapter esign was freehand work until you said it was decal.... I am totally gobsmacked... You always astound me with your great painting.

Dang like the paint job. They look good. Would consider them master painted.

Absolutely amazing dude. Every time I start to get a bit big headed over my own painting, I see something of yours and realise I'm a complete novice.

These are really pretty simple though, although I am pleased with the decal work, no silvering at all- I used a dedicated gloss rather than klear this time round and I think it's better.

Did you print your own decals?

I am looking for celtic knotwork style decal for my Space Wolves and wonder if you know of any good places to find either designs so I can try to do my own or a good decal supplier

Yeah, those are self-printed. Just google Celtic knot work and get some photoshop practice on the go.

Great work, winterdyne.

I'm curious as to how you produce the pictures you do? What kind of camera, lighting and software.

I am a fair painter, but a photographer, I am not.

It's a 3.5MP canon. Lighting is two 6500K photo studio lamps into a 36" light tent. This usually produces a fairly grey image, but with a nice white balance. Since using the photo lamps and tent, I've not had to mess with colour balance, so things are far easier to get consistent,

That is thrown into paint shop pro 7 (ancient, but has done what I want for more than a decade). Usually it's a case then of bump the brightness/contrast, then knock back the saturation. This normally leaves the white white, and the blacks dark enough.

Resize appropriately. If necessary put a quick sharpen image filter on (if the large image was slightly out of focus). Then it's just cut and paste (if needed) into the end result image.

Fantastic. My hat is of for you man. I just love the non-mainstrem themes. You should continue this!

Absolutely love it

Another squad done.

Excellent as ever!

I love the color scheme! absolutely awesome! I followed your old thread on the venerable dreadnought commission and im glad to see some more of your work winterdyne! cant wait to see more!!

There's a lot in this job and some very unusual pieces to come.

I will keep tabs on this. That is a very cool color scheme. Works really well with the OSL too.

WOW. Nothing more needs to be said.

Awesome! Love the scheme, very original!

So amazing, just amazing! My personal favorite one is the guy going through a tree!

Subtle details that convey tons of meaning is always a hallmark of the best work. You hit it out of the park on these models. Well done!

Yup, lovely work.

These marines are awesome Can you share the recipe for the eye lenses?

Great job. The clawed eye of the marine helmet is a very cool detail.

 Chief wrote:
These marines are awesome Can you share the recipe for the eye lenses?

Yep, it's very quick:
VMC Blue Green (bluish turquoise, same as the basecoat on the shoulder pad) in the eye socket.
Mix in a bit of white, highlight the eye.
Repeat again, more white, use this to highlight the eye, brow, upper edge of the cheek / faceplate, and the front edge of the sides of the helmet.
More white in the mix (almost pure white now), highlight the eye only.

The trick to good OSL is to keep it subtle, and remember that any highlight for that light has to be in line with the light source, and lighter than the base colour you're putting it on - do full highlights from any major light source first (ambient/overall or environmental).

The broken one was done with dark grey instead of blue green, and was highlighted gem style before 'cracking' it with a line of darker grey and dotting white for specular reflections.

First Storm Raven completed. Had to respray the thing after ballsing up the wash - there's a reason you do oil washes on big stuff... ah well, it's a 'learning experience', lol.

Quite pleased with this; could spend a lot of extra time doing more weathering / chipping but I don't think the model really needs it:

This is awesome stuff. I love the freehand work. Keep it up!

No freehand on that, it's all decal.

Excellent as ever!

I really like this theme and also how it is done. Excellent job!

Finished the 2nd Storm Raven. It's come out a little lighter than the first (probably I did a better job with the pre-oil gloss), so I might dust them both up a bit to unify them at the end of the job. Or I might not - it's quite handy to be able to say 'I'm shooting at the lighter one', or the 'lighter one has these troops in it', despite the fact they're numbered.

Anyway, pics:

Good looking models! Bases are fantastic.

Love the tone to it.

The freehand work is superb and the glow is spot on. I applaud you. I would have made the red on the gun slightly warmer in temperature, but thats merely a matter of personal opinion and taste.

Fantastic work man!

What freehand? It's all decals.

Another squad done. Individual pics to follow as I edit them
together.

Absolutely beautiful

The sergeant's back on the desk for some tweaks to see if I can get the head to pop a bit more (whilst it's 'correct' at the moment, it's a bit indistinct). Here's some individual shots of the rest of the squad:







Automatically Appended Next Post:
And the tweaked sergeant:

What are you using on the bases for ground cover.

Static grass, tufts, leaves, and moss?

Coarse turf, tufts, kitty litter, few birch seed dividers.

Every time I click on a thread by Winterdyne I know it's going to be worth the time. Incredible work man.

Love these guys! Always great to see an update from you!

Too cool for school.

Excellent work, that army is going to look brilliant when it's done.

D

The way you've done the eyes is amazing, so much better than painting them like gems. Could you give me a quick rundown of how you did it? Would love to replicate that in purple for my Mantis Warriors!

The main trick is to ensure you're never applying a darker colour onto a base to do a light effect. So it depends very much what you're painting over.

Briefly though, it's basecoat the eye socket, then highlight the eye and facing edges, leaving a bit of that base showing to outline the eye, then highlight the very centre again, with a very bright highlight.

And another squad. The marines are basically the same as you've already seen, the Sergeant is a bit more interesting.

I don't mean to be rude but something just doesn't look right about them I think it's just the lack of battle damage they look to clean for me.

The whole army's pretty clean. I can always add chips and scratches, but over the airbrush blends I can't easily get rid of them. If the client wants things grubbing up at the end of the job I'll do it in the final tweaks phase.

Stunning mate,
A++ in my books!

Great models! Although i am reminded of Lizardmen

And the pants....they tighten .....


Really an inspirational job! Thanks for sharing

Awesome work, I love color choice and osl of the eyes, and the depth you achieved on the armor is fantastic.

This is some of the most inspiring work I have seen recently. Great job.

More work done on this longstanding job.

This is just...wow. Very impressive, but I always get sad when I see a theme I want, done so much better than I ever could do it lol.

I'm thinking of doing a similar themed army and I wanna ask, are those little designs, custom transfers or freehand work?

If they're transfers, where can I get them? And I really like the bald heads with ponytails...are those custom too or kitbashed?

Looks to me the ponytails is chopped from a goblin wolfrider sword, so Id say they are bashed
The khakish colour is lovely and the bright turquoise looks really neat with it, awesome work.

-Routa

I really like the theme, the colour scheme suits it down to the ground. I'm guessing you used custom decals?

It would be a crime not to compliment your work here. Well done all around.

Those are absolutely outstanding - I am not a big fan of Mesoamerican styled stuff usually, but that is so well executed it is hard not to love it.

Brilliant stuff as ever Winter!

D

Yep, fair bit of kitbashing. The double-edge chainswords are probably the most complex bit of work so far (other than leaping marine).

The topknot is actually from a chaos marine chainsword.

Decals are mostly based on various clip art and fonts found around the interwebs. Quick bit of photoshop work and a colour laser print and they're ready to use. Colour laser printers these days are cheap, and save a lot of effort in having to clear coat the decal sheets before use. I find the varnish step (essential for inkjet printed decals) is no necessary with the laser prints.

Stunning mate, great scheme and quality of work.

Librarian conversion based on metal Terminator Librarian.

Beautiful work, the red and blue triangle pattern is amazing, the attention to detail is spectacular!! You have immense skill. Those bases are fantastic, very natural/real looking.

I like the Aztec/Mayan/Toltec theme, Chapter master will have an enemy's bloody heart in his hand dedicated to the emperor?
Great stuff

Still pluggin' on this one. My consistency with paint is better than the camera it seems. I really can't spot these from the others without checking the unit marking or other small details.

Lovely stuff, this is one awesome and unique army! Do you have enough done/to hand to do a group shot of the force so far, or are you sending it off in batches?

Stunning!

Another 5 assault marines are on the go, then it's on to the meaty bits...

Wonderful concept executed brilliantly.

Superb looking army.

Amazing work there, good sir!

I have a very strong feeling that I've seen the Assault Marines before though. Is this an old job that you've revisited?

Edit: I knew I'd seen them before. 2014: http://www.platoonbritannica.com/index.php?threads/commission-5-suns-custom-space-marines-chapter.3315/

winterdyne wrote:
Another 5 assault marines are on the go, then it's on to the meaty bits...

I love that the meaty bits are still to come.

One of the best marine forces I've ever seen. Excellent paint scheme, brilliant paint - perfect amount of grit and (gasp) not overdone miniatures. Wonderful identity and theme. If you need some more aztec-y lizardmen bits let me know and I'll send any remaining sprues I have. Great stuff!

Elbows wrote:
One of the best marine forces I've ever seen. Excellent paint scheme, brilliant paint - perfect amount of grit and (gasp) not overdone miniatures. Wonderful identity and theme. If you need some more aztec-y lizardmen bits let me know and I'll send any remaining sprues I have. Great stuff!

Thanks very much - I do actually need to source more bits! The 'meaty bit' is going to involve a lot more heavy conversions (13 more terminators, all to the same level as the libby, plus a dreadnought) and my bits supply has taken a pounding, which is why I've been blasting out the troops as they're mostly stock. I'll PM you about that.

For everyone else, I managed to edit a larger group shot. Pain to photograph, starting to really fill my lightbox (which isn't small!):

Sent you a PM about the bits.

Very nice looking chapter, great job.

More assault marines. Without doubt my longest-term project.



And as usual, weapon on the sergeant is converted:

Damn, that's a cool axe!

EDC

Glad to see this still going! Sorry I never found those bits (sigh). How much bigger is this force going to get? I'd love to see more!

So, 3d printing custom parts for conversions. It's handy. Much quicker, more accurate, more repeatably consistent than hand sculpting. Means that I can do stuff like this:



and end up with:



Should make doing some of the work a lot easier. Now I need to figure out the shape of various other plates on the terminators for replacing...

Few more variant pauldrons, and the first spread of Storm Shields.




Soon I'll be doing some custom weapons to replace Thunderhammers and things should start looking good.

Now that's a cool idea.

Sweet pony of Sierra Leony...

I dig it. They look amazing.

Mat

Woah!

Beautiful army. Really nice to look through the pictures.

winterdyne - just wow, dude! I love the marines you paint so much! There was an Ultramarine Leviathan dreadnought you painted ages ago that was just awe-inspiring; these marines are certainly of a similar ilk. Great, great job!