Probably for me more then anything I've decided to make myself a blog for the army I'm currently doing, I find it helps motivate me to complete
painting miniatures which is always a plus and I'm very often easily distracted when without motivation. I also love getting feed back on my
painting and conversions as well as taking pictures and interacting with the miniature war gaming community. Between work and living in
the middle of nowhere this is one of the few outlets I have for doing that.
Blog Contents Due to the fact I will be constantly updating the initial post of this topic
with my progress I thought I'll add a little contents table to show how
the blog itself is laid out for ease of navigation.
- Fluff & Army Lists
- Completed Miniatures
- Works in Progress
-
Fluff & Army lists
Fluff
Spoiler:
Coming soon.
Army Lists
Spoiler:
At the present moment in time I have two army lists so far, a 1000pts and 1500pts based around using a spartan assault tank as it
feels only kind of fitting that I should use one in a heavily spartan themed army/chapter that has access to a massive array of equipment.
I also include allies though I tend to see them more as privileged elements of the same faction. Minotaurs are notorious for taking from
other space marine factions they are sent to fight against and have an almost limitless supply of funds I highly doubt they would have any
such actual allies as opposed to simply producing their own stuff. So although you see allies on the list I like to think of them more of
being regular Minotaur marines with 'confiscated' equipment and such.
I will be looking to go to about 2000 or 2500 points army, with a variation of options so that I can alternate and swap around things for
my army list so I'm not playing the same thing ALL the time.
Still very much looking for a way to get the Minotaur special characters in whilst still remaining semi competitive and not overly spammy.
And I'm not overly fond of massively high model counts though the prospect of them having their own little high lords of terra sponsored
Imperial guard division is also kind of a fun idea.
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SPACE MARINES - Minotaurs
===========================================
===========================================
Army List: 1000pts
List No.1
HQ points used: 235pts
TROOP points used: 230pts
ELITE points used: 225pts
FAST ATTACK points used: 0pts
HEAVY SUPPORT points used: 315pts
--- Total points used: 1005pts
HQ(s) Lord Asterion Moloc
(Deploys with Terminator unit)
So far I only have a handful of completed miniatures done, I have been rather slack so far, hence the motivational blog combined with weather and bad spraying conditions
I haven't really been able to get too far. But here is what I have so far!
This is one of my favorite 40K models I've done so far, the black was initially a real pain in the butt but it pulled through eventually, I had already shared this in the painting and modelling area
so I won't put much detail about what I did here, but you can find the topic here: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/560122.page
My first completed regular marine. It could have come out better I feel like the application of silver for the base didn't go on as well as it could have done, and the models coming out since this
are doing so with a better more solid color to them. But I quite like the way it came out. I don't use any specific gold merely a ironbreaker silver with a two washes of Seraphim Sepia highlighted
with silver once again and then a finer highlight of mithril.
Robed variant, more of these to come to add a little flavor into my tactical unit.
I nice group picture of my progress so far! The heavy weapon is coming along, not there yet in this picture.
Works in progress Lots of WiP images and text so I put it into a spoiler ^^
Spoiler:
This is a WiP of a variation of marine I will be adding into the army. I've always liked the way dark angels had robed veterans and such so I simply figured "Why not take some of those and
put them on Minotaurs! I think it came out fairly well honestly. The mud around the bottom doesn't look all to great at the moment and a bit orange but it does eventually turn out darker
like the bases of the ones I've done so far.
This is one of my command squad as an alternative to using terminators. You can see, him like the rest will all be fitted with relic blades. I'm currently looking for a
decent right arm to place on him that doesn't look odd or out of place. I may have to convert myself a whole right arm. Idea behind these is for them to be more like
chosen the command squad, I always liked the personality chaos chosen could achieve by all hailing from different places and such, namely abadons. And
considering these will be with the chaplain I figured they should all have their own kind of crazy to them.
Also working on a librarian right now as well as I don't like any of the current terminator librarians going at the moment. Mostly because without it being a specific
pre-defined faction the only one available is the same one thats been available for YEARS and I find it real boring.
HOW TO!
How I paint my minotaurs step by step.
First bit to my how I do these.
Step 1: Base coat robe bleach bone
Step 2: Fill in the base colors, which for this is usually mephiston red or evil suns scarlet. I tend to go for the brighter color if there is less of the armor being shown. Chaos black for the rim / flat of the foot and silver for the non-colored armor. Ink the robes with Agrax Earthshade.
Usually pretty rough when doing this as you'll see there isn't any real reason not to be for times sake.
Step 3: Ink the belt with Agraax again, ink the armor two times, once then dry, and then once again that is with Seraphim Sepia. Once is a light burnished gold so you have to do it again to get that almost brassy dark golden color.
Step 4: edge the golden metal with the original ironbreaker metallic and then highlight an even finer edge with Mithril silver and then stipple on some muddy brown on the base. t looks a bit orange at this stage but as you can see from others Ive done it really darkens down later on.
At the moment some of the washes, the belt especially came out shiny on account of I forgot to shake it up enough, so that was a bit of a mistake. Thankfully any shine that is there will go with the matte varnish at the end.
You'll probably see this and be like "Woah.. that is rough" Ultimately it is at this stage mostly because I do my marines in bits, you'll see no head arms or anything its just the body. Touching up and detail will come when the model is basically completely assembled and then those edges and worn gold to silver effects will be properly put in. Its hard to really go in and do detail from the start with miniatures that are painted pieces at a time because you don't have the full composition to work with.
Yes I know the cloak could be 1000x better, but I want an army I can use asap, so I'm doing cloth the cheap way. (also If I weren't It would probably be red because colored cloth is waaay easier then white imo.
The head was kind of awkward to show because there isn't all that much I do.
1: Base coat silver.
2: Wash twice with Seraphim Sepia
3: Base the eye slots moloc green
4: Add highlights with iron breaker metallic
5: Wash around the eyes with Thrakka green until a noticeable hue difference can be seen.
6: Add final highlights to metal with Mithril silver
7: Lighten the areas nearest to the eye and inside the eye with Moot green.
8: Finish off with a black wash around the eye to darken the non-focal areas and add some slight gradiant
9: Touch ups.
10: Black wash in the grill / mouth piece.
Thats pretty much it for the helmet. Not a lot of work really but the eyes give me trouble just because they can become 'thick' too easily.
you'll notice I add some battle damage to the side of the face as well, simply done with a scalpel during the paining process. I use it whenever I think
something could do with being added or paint doesn't settle particularly well or does so in a way that makes me think "That might look good a bit damaged"
Thats all I have for the time being, I hope this will help me to remain motivated and I'd love to hear some feed back on what I have planned and have done so far ^^
Ooooh, now this I like. Most marine blogs be all like "Yo dawg, I heard you liek ultra smurfs, so imma paint up some ugly-ass blue crap." But not this one. This blog marches to a different drummer. Like a 20 minute drum solo like the guy from Foghead. GUGUDA GUGUDA DUH! None of this boom-boom-tiss stuff.
But for real, nice work on the posing and conversion, and a solid job overall.
bossfearless wrote: Ooooh, now this I like. Most marine blogs be all like "Yo dawg, I heard you liek ultra smurfs, so imma paint up some ugly-ass blue crap." But not this one. This blog marches to a different drummer. Like a 20 minute drum solo like the guy from Foghead. GUGUDA GUGUDA DUH! None of this boom-boom-tiss stuff.
But for real, nice work on the posing and conversion, and a solid job overall.
Thanks lol.
Ultimately the idea to do Minotaurs came down to a few things.
1: I wanted some badassery.
2: I'm not a big fan of the over-use of space marines in all their variations.
3: I like killing space marines.
4: I'm not big on chaos
5: I wanted a small but elite model count.
--------------------
I found pretty much all of that in Minotaurs. With the 300-esque theme they have going all I have to do is revisit that mind numbing hour of violence-of-a-movie and come up with plenty of cool ideas for these guys.
Little Update.
Completed the robed proto-type. It'l be much easier to finish off the other 3/4 of these now I have the general idea of how im going to do them down.
I went for a simple bone and ink setup for the robe as I generally don't like how dry brushing highlights turn out, and I didn't highlight blend it because with such a bright color I feel like I could be there all year. I've been stuck in that void of collecting, painting, never completing and as a result never playing with my miniatures for so long now, I'm willing to accept less then perfect robes.
(added to origional post)
I couldn't get a picture I was comfortable with to show the glow of the eye, mostly because the hood and the pose of the gun and such blocking any good clear shots.
Thanks! I'm glad to hear it! I'm really trying to go for a warring state, not rusted and weathered as opposed to dirt, grimy with a decent amount of battle damage.
Some conversions I'm currently working on right now I was hoping to get feed back on.
This is one of my command squad as an alternative to using terminators. You can see, him like the rest will all be fitted with relic blades. I'm currently looking for a
decent right arm to place on him that doesn't look odd or out of place. I may have to convert myself a whole right arm. Idea behind these is for them to be more like
chosen the command squad, I always liked the personality chaos chosen could achieve by all hailing from different places and such, namely abadons. And
considering these will be with the chaplain I figured they should all have their own kind of crazy to them.
Also working on a librarian right now as well as I don't like any of the current terminator librarians going at the moment. Mostly because without it being a specific
pre-defined faction the only one available is the same one thats been available for YEARS and I find it real boring.
Still on my regular marine miniatures at the moment. Contemplating showing the step-by-step painting process of those to make it pass a little better. I really can't do much until these are done but when they are we can get onto the fun things.
Step 2: Fill in the base colors, which for this is usually mephiston red or evil suns scarlet. I tend to go for the brighter color if there is less of the armor being shown. Chaos black for the rim / flat of the foot and silver for the non-colored armor. Ink the robes with Agrax Earthshade.
Usually pretty rough when doing this as you'll see there isn't any real reason not to be for times sake.
Step 3: Ink the belt with Agraax again, ink the armor two times, once then dry, and then once again that is with Seraphim Sepia. Once is a light burnished gold so you have to do it again to get that almost brassy dark golden color.
Step 4: edge the golden metal with the original ironbreaker metallic and then highlight an even finer edge with Mithril silver and then stipple on some muddy brown on the base. t looks a bit orange at this stage but as you can see from others Ive done it really darkens down later on.
At the moment some of the washes, the belt especially came out shiny on account of I forgot to shake it up enough, so that was a bit of a mistake. Thankfully any shine that is there will go with the matte varnish at the end.
You'll probably see this and be like "Woah.. that is rough" Ultimately it is at this stage mostly because I do my marines in bits, you'll see no head arms or anything its just the body. Touching up and detail will come when the model is basically completely assembled and then those edges and worn gold to silver effects will be properly put in. Its hard to really go in and do detail from the start with miniatures that are painted pieces at a time because you don't have the full composition to work with.
Yes I know the cloak could be 1000x better, but I want an army I can use asap, so I'm doing cloth the cheap way. (also If I weren't It would probably be red because colored cloth is waaay easier then white imo.
The head was kind of awkward to show because there isn't all that much I do.
1: Base coat silver.
2: Wash twice with Seraphim Sepia
3: Base the eye slots moloc green
4: Add highlights with iron breaker metallic
5: Wash around the eyes with Thrakka green until a noticeable hue difference can be seen.
6: Add final highlights to metal with Mithril silver
7: Lighten the areas nearest to the eye and inside the eye with Moot green.
8: Finish off with a black wash around the eye to darken the non-focal areas and add some slight gradiant
9: Touch ups.
10: Black wash in the grill / mouth piece.
Thats pretty much it for the helmet. Not a lot of work really but the eyes give me trouble just because they can become 'thick' too easily.
you'll notice I add some battle damage to the side of the face as well, simply done with a scalpel during the paining process. I use it whenever I think
something could do with being added or paint doesn't settle particularly well or does so in a way that makes me think "That might look good a bit damaged"
Automatically Appended Next Post: Not very good with these guides I think xD Am just entertaining myself a little while I do these. so they are a bit sloppy as their done as I'm doing the actual model.
A WiP of my to-be plasma guy.
I was thinking of having red -heat-like energy forming into a blue like plasma through the tube you see there, but still a little unsure if I can pull it off.
As for the rest its still in need of final touches, vents being brought out some uniforming to the silver and such. Its trickier with larger flat areas like this tend to look a touch dull. Might have to add some damage.
These look really great! I love the base tie in with the scheme. Brassy and muddy. Very cool. Good use of real metallics, simple yet effective osl and a tight scheme. Good job. Subbed for sure!
Cheers
BB
Awesome! Thanks for the compliments! Always happy for more subs!
I altered the miniature a few moments ago, the blank open space was bothering me and while I usually save this step till last I decided to add some damage.
Makes the miniature a lot better looking so far for me to have the detail of the damage there.
As for how I did it, I simply use a soldering iron and put the oxygen intake close to the miniature to increase the temperature to a heat that its about to break down and melt without actually doing it. Which caused the back pack to go to a state where it looks like he just took a high AP shot to the pack and is still going. Can even see where some of the plastic beneath has been left that bit longer to cause it to bubble up almost like the internals of the pack have been forced up or as though part of the bolt is still there.
awesome paint job! the battle damage looks great, especially on the helmet. but in my opinion, the top part of backpack looks like you used hand-me-down bits.
Thanks ^^, I'm not sure, the damage looks fairly convincing for this I think, considering its a plasma weapon renowned for overheating. I wouldn't use the same damage effect on anything else though I think.
also looking to acquire some bits by trade so, shameless plughere: Up for trades
For some reason, the Minotaurs have really captured my interest recently. I've done lots of research around them, and this is one of the good blogs i've found
Glad to hear it!
They are pretty cool, the fluff alone brings a lot of badass factor to them.
One of the things I like the most is the way that they aren't liked much by the other space marine chapters, and that they manage to keep them on edge as well because they are like, extreme killers.
In the fluff hecaton was caught by accidental fire from imperial guard allies, and he turned around and massacred the entire lot of them not stopping for anyone but the leaders command, which to me is just beastly just the way the entire chapter takes literally no gak what so ever from anyone.
The fact that chapters they beat down for the high lords of terra are basically stripped of artifacts and tech and have it all added to their own armory makes for more cool badass fluff and even makes for good themed army. My list uses dark angels 'allies' but in actuality they will be painted as regular minotaurs and instead of being allies fluff wise they will just be mino's with 'reclaimed' artifacts.
And as for the preferred enemy space marines on the tabletop with how many people play space marines? xD Good times.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ill be adding more to this soon, its a pain but every 3 days out of the week im virtually unable to do anything painting wise.
Awesome so far, I've always liked the minotaurs and that first marine looks brilliant!
I like to use this technique for gold armour too, to me it looks better than a full on gold paint job
Thanks ^^ More will be coming tomorrow, plasma cannon guy will be completed and working on the next. Then I'll switch to batch painting because this is all taking so long just for the base marines xD
and I really struggling not to skip to Moloc or the spartan assault tank
i like the idea behind the plasma gunner. But i hate to say, its idea does not, at its current state, convey what you want it to. It looks like an old bit thats been melted by accident. Even though its not, and you mean for it not to, youre going to have to verbally explain that one a hundred times over. My suggestion is to further paint more battle damage effects so its really very obvious that the backpack has been damaged on the field of battle, and not because you left the bit on the radiator. Its all great work, dont get me wrong, but im a big proponent of the fact that sometimes realism doesnt transfer over well to a mini, and it needs a bit of unrealism, to get the point across. Does that make any sense? lol. Anyways, its great work, the army will look fantastic when its done, but i think with some painted on battle damage, that backpack will look alot more jacked up, and not just melted slightly.
Not overly experienced when it comes to making 'exageratted' effects, the same goes for edge highlighting and OSL I struggle to put strong effects into place, mostly through inexperience. But here I've attempted at least to rectify the accidental look of the previous.
Glad to hear its an improvement ^^ I dried to give a molteny damage affect to the areas, its how I imagined they would be fresh and still smoldering.
I've had a bit of a setback because of spray can not working, the weather as always has not been good enough for me to spray because I have to do so in the garden on account of all the fall out.
SO! I actually got an airbrush from a bootsale about a year or two ago for 5 pounds, so I've finally hauled that out with some compressed air and had a go at using vallejo surface primer. It felt pretty good using an airbrush :O an odd sense of professionalism and I found it fairly easy to get a decent coverage. I may, in my excitement gone a little overboard and layered it up a touch too much (its kinda dark where I was spraying) but am generally pleased with how it went on.
So I might start venturing into airbrush territory and put up a few experiments here! I doubt that my 5 pound airbrush will be any good for doing smaller details but I might be able to pull off some decent gradient changes and shadow if all goes well xD
Automatically Appended Next Post: With the airbrush running, after a few tests I'll be getting round to doing a few of these I hope if I can get silver to work through the brush as well I'll be set to increase the speed of painting these I hope.
For tomorrow!
Yes Moloc will also be in the works soon :OOOO
Even if your £5 airbrush is only used for priming, thats a bit of money saved buying cans of spray and the convenience of being able to prime regardless of weather.
Yeah it is really nice being able to prime regardless of time or weather and it costs a ton less, barely use any of this vallejo surface primer compared to how quick I seem to be able to go through cans.
I've had a bit of a hold up though, I spend the entire day painting a plasma cannon and I borked it. Really cant stand how it came out and with the damages added Im not going to bother stripping and trying it again. So I have a brand new plasma cannon in the works that will be ready to begin painting in a few hours, probably do this side by side batch painting with a few normal marines to get them under way as well. Really have taken too long on this heavy weapons guy.
I just couldn't recover the actual plasma generating area itself so I trashed it to start over >.<
My attempts to speed up my painting a bit you can see here I've started batching. I don't think I could do more then three at a time for this before I begin to 'rush' myself and make mistakes >.<
Also re-doing the plasma as you can see, to try and finish off this heavy weapons guy asap.
Looks good. Does the red legs denote a veteran or something?
Batches of 3 are a pretty decent size. I've been painted guardsmen for the past week and settled on a batch size of 3, too. Small enough to make considerable progress each day, and perfect for mixing paint and using it all before it dries
The red legs were something I actually got the idea from on Dawn of war. Which is were I came up with how I was going to do the coloring. The solid brassy/bronzy/goldy effect all over came across really dull so I picked from their heraldry colors and such which are basically gold, white, black and red featured and ultimately took a nice color that would draw the eye from the constant metallics.
Vets get the red mohawk-like head bits and the special shoulder pad for their right shoulder as opposed to the base space marine one.
Terminators and more elite troops also begin to have more red on them covering arms and such also so its a theme that runs throughout.
Yeah its good. I really do like the look of that "gold". Its very simple yet very tidy and clear. It really looks great.
Dont feel that you should rush the heavy weapons guy. I use models like that as a reward not a hurdle. Its a chance to add a splash of detail and color to the squad. You're making just fine progress, enjoy the process
Brief little update, been working so I haven't had a chance to do much.
I do have this problem though when it comes to batch painting. When it comes to detail or blending I get suckered in working in and out of the detail until its 'presentable' which causes some issue because as you can see xD The model with the base completely left the others behind. But I guess its as close to batch as I can manage.
I know what you mean. When I was painting marines, I would batch paint most of it, then get caught up on one model and finsih it well before all of the other models xD
I'm just really not good at leaving things looking 'incomplete' With the base colors its fine, because while in complete its properly blocked in and etc, but with blending (there is blending on the 'finished' legs) for the red I can't just do one shading and leave it be, one thing it is easier to blend while the paints are wet, but aside from that it doesn't look good until its done. Which sends my ocd wild.
So I end up going further and further and further, and well. You can see that one pair of legs has jumped forward a good few steps ahead of the others lol.
Another minor little update. I managed to get this done the other day but didn't put it up yet. Just starting on the arms now so those should be done by tomorrow and hopefully the heads!
Anyway~ Another picture. Because I'm pretty fond of taking them xD
Automatically Appended Next Post: Hopefully xD the close up on the red better shows the blending I do. I prefer a more passive shift between colors. I find a lot of the types of shading people do to be um. Violent? Bold? Surreal?
I like my shades to pass from one to another seamlessly so they are actually formed more from multiple glaze-like layers to a slight edge highlight. Not that you can really tell the edge highlight is there. Which is good. xD
Ah you and a share a similar neuroses. Mini painting OCD. Unfortunately, wet blending is your only path to true salvation. having patience helps too good pix, share more! I enjoy all your updates.!
A small update >w< I am still alive!
Just been rather busy. Picture quality is a little meh I didn't have much chance to set up proper lighting or anything so this was taken in a pretty dark environment and a little rushed.
But I just wanted to show some progress being made. I recently got my new guard codex for an allied force alongside them. probably to be part of the high lords of terra's private army.
Could also do with a little dusting >.e is what happens when the proper casing hasn't arrived for them yet and I'm too busy to pay them that much attention.
A big group shot will be coming soon upon completion in a few days where the first group of 5 will be completely done.
Everything looks great so far. The red shin guards on the new guys are great. It adds a lot of color to a scheme that is generally very monochromatic. Subscribed!
Another update! So far all this has been doneeee I actually forgot to put the transfers on the shoulders xD so I will need to re-do that bit and seal it manually without spray, which is a bit of a pain.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wanted to add a quick shot of the transfers, not that you can really see them much in the previous picture but I can at least sort-of show how they are.
I treat transfers like paint markings, so generally they aren't super refined printed tags. Like a lot of military gear, at least how tank symbols and such seem to be painted they aren't done with the utmost of care and only being a paint layer are subject to taking a lot of wear. So the same generally goes for my chapter symbols.
It's a little tricky to see I know >.<
Automatically Appended Next Post: For anyone thats curious, I lay the transfer with water just like any other transfer, make a few slits to allow for folding / the bend of the shoulder pad.
Then I use isopropyl alchahol over it a few times to get the damaged worn down effect similar to its use on paint. Being 100% alchahol the degrading effect is a natural side affect of its chemical nature.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also got a custom foam come through for it. But it looks like I may have to chop into it a little to account for the more accentric weapons and characters.
It's to hold 5 Terminators and Moloc, will probably need to chop into the termie slots for some of the weapons.
10 Space marines with regular weapons.
4 Centurion devastators
1 Librarian
5 Scouts
And the chaplain.
I do need to add some foam padding in the bottom as its 2 inches deep (for the centurions while the rest of the miniatures dont need that much depth.
They look fantastic, mate. They make me want to do minotaurs even more (already got a minotaurs project lined up for the future - and this blog is definately a place of reference!).
You've managed to break up the bronze with the red perfectly, without using too much red to suggest it's the primary colour. That sarg's helmet crest really makes the model, imo.
Why not get pluck foam? That way it can be whatever shape/size you want it...
Zambro wrote:They look fantastic, mate. They make me want to do minotaurs even more (already got a minotaurs project lined up for the future - and this blog is definately a place of reference!).
You've managed to break up the bronze with the red perfectly, without using too much red to suggest it's the primary colour. That sarg's helmet crest really makes the model, imo.
Why not get pluck foam? That way it can be whatever shape/size you want it...
Z
Thank you for the kind words >w< they are inspiring to carry on with these hehe, help my motivation! And yes, I thought the flat bronze armor of the minotaurs to be tooo dull? A little plain, so I figured
adding the red would help the eye move about the model better. I know, from a lot of the necron armies that too much of a single metallic can give a bad finish. Grey knights have gold to offset the silver which helps a little, and the red on there bolter weaponry and such really helped.
I was looking through minotaur scheme in the actual book and they included red here and there quite a bit. Usually small bits however so I really just built upon that ^^.
I didn't get pluck foam because to me it looked a little messy, I wanted something nice and easy I could slot stuff into (go figure I still have to make some exceptions for various models >w<
shingouki wrote:Great mini's i had to save the pic with the eye lenses shown so i can practice my own.
I hope you find it useful, I can provide the process if your that interested in how I did it. I made my lenses rather easy to do by not going as in depth as some others while keeping the same
general effect and feel.
Sageheart wrote:Yeah that foam looks nice, where'd you get it?
Great looking minis. The colors are really a delight to look at. This is probably my favorite Minotaur army of all the ones I've seen. The color use is really ace. I've never been a huge fan of the Minotaurs simply for their color scheme, but you've made it engaging and interesting to look at. Great job! Look forward to the next update!
shingouki wrote:Great mini's i had to save the pic with the eye lenses shown so i can practice my own.
I hope you find it useful, I can provide the process if your that interested in how I did it. I made my lenses rather easy to do by not going as in depth as some others while keeping the same
general effect and feel.
1) I start with Knarloc green as the base for the eyes.
I also use it to go a little around beneath the eye itself which will be used for the OSL glow effect of the eyes. Be sure to actually do under the top lip of the eye but not over it.
2) I give it a generous wash of Thraka green. With this though I overlap all of he Knarloc green and even go a little bit further as to tint the color of the armor around the eye more softly beyond the green.
3) In this I paint the the very center of the eyes with Moot green. This I do with a really thin brush and drag the brush stroke from the very inner most point of the eye/face to the outer. So right eye is right to left, left eye is left to right.
After that I use the same moot green to do a sort-of edge highlight around the eye itself on the armor, going a little way into the Knarloc green we've already painted around the eyes.
4) Another wash of Thraka green! This tends to work somewhat like a glaze by the second wash, the armor will be tinted even more like before and it will act to bind all the greens together.
5) Back in with the moot green! Now with this you don't take it all the way across the eye. In a similar brush stroke to before though you do paint mostly the very center of the actual lens itself.
A very minimal edge highlight on the very closest parts of the armor to the lens.
6 OPTIONAL) you want to go a little more you can also venture to adding a slight brighter green dot on the inner side of the eye to lighten it even more, but for a table top standard I don't really think that more is better for this. As eyes are so small so long as a hint of OSL is there and you've remained within the lines things are fine.
How to recover if you messed up a little?
The hardest part is staying 'within the lines' when eyes are concerned, if your brighter layers have over stepped the boundary of the lens its quie easy to just give it a nuln oil wash in the most recess areas around the lens to give even greater definition about the eye, encase you've smudged a bit or done too much.
-------------------------
I think I might do some pictures on this xD I still have 4 more normal marines to do.
Automatically Appended Next Post: If you take into consideration that they eye lens itself isn't completely illuminated, then against some of the OSL lighting tutorials I've seen I would assume and believe that the light itself wouldn't necessarily be illuminating even the recess areas of the lens itself, somewhat like an LSD light, the lenses don't have flood lights in them so the fact that the glow would mostly be centralized to the middle of the lens kinda makes sense.
Other osl stuff would suggest the lens itself would be the complete brightest source of the light in which the recess around the lens then should also be quite brightly flooded with light, which I don't think it should >w<
Another small update. With that last bunch done its time for some more. I'm being a little more ambitious with this >w<
Still have the weapon of the devastator marine / heavy weapon guy to be completed and will be with this batch because!
The second plasma cannon guy will be in with this next lot as well I plan to do both the plasma cannons together.
Also in this you'll see two with capes! Thats the promotional web exclusive marines by GW I plan on using them as alternate Sergeants for my marines in the off chance that I will give them power fists and or unique stuff. I also wanted to try my hand with free hand so his will be a first time ever for me when it comes to those two in particular I will be having a go at 2 free hand banners.
I'm torn between White, black and red. I think red with the shin guards would be too much. The only other colors lent by the insignia's are white and black trim so it would probably be between those.
I'm more inclined to go with the white as I think it would reinforce the golden armor more.
Thanks for sharing the how-to on the eyes. Always good to know good painting techniques. Even if you dont use them, you can always adapt / experiment with the stages.
The models in progress look cool. White cloaks are hard, so if you take that route, I wish you luck I just did a quick google image search for minotaurs. Overall, the models are painted with quite a dark palette. Maybe a black cloak would be better?
Either way, i'm sure you'll nail it. (You could even do both, one on each... )
Sasa0mg wrote: I'm torn between White, black and red. I think red with the shin guards would be too much. The only other colors lent by the insignia's are white and black trim so it would probably be between those.
I'm more inclined to go with the white as I think it would reinforce the golden armor more.
I definitely concur with your thought process. I think a nice, deep off-white with gold edging would look good. I'm envisioning almost a cream color.
Zambro wrote:Thanks for sharing the how-to on the eyes. Always good to know good painting techniques. Even if you dont use them, you can always adapt / experiment with the stages.
The models in progress look cool. White cloaks are hard, so if you take that route, I wish you luck I just did a quick google image search for minotaurs. Overall, the models are painted with quite a dark palette. Maybe a black cloak would be better?
Either way, i'm sure you'll nail it. (You could even do both, one on each... )
Some of the reference material that I've been going from. Now, the color of the bronze to me seems more gold, as I have done, and doesn't appear to be as dark as a lot of people have been painting the miniatures...
While the color presented in the logo is of a dark bronze brass to me the minotaurs seem like they should be colored more like the brazen minotaurs, more gold then bronze. I mean, they were originally bright yellow and red as well.
Darth Bob wrote:
Sasa0mg wrote: I'm torn between White, black and red. I think red with the shin guards would be too much. The only other colors lent by the insignia's are white and black trim so it would probably be between those.
I'm more inclined to go with the white as I think it would reinforce the golden armor more.
I definitely concur with your thought process. I think a nice, deep off-white with gold edging would look good. I'm envisioning almost a cream color.
I was thinking of making it a little off-blue shades within the white, I can't find an example off hand at the moment, but I was thinking to go for a more pure white, simply because the robes being used by the robed marines are already a bleached bone / cream.
Gahd, on holiday from work and I've been insanely ill.. Hopefully though I can put out a proper update tomorrow or within the next few days as it seems to be dying down >w<
Tiny update.
Getting back into the swing of painting.
Need to clean my stuff up a little I've notice dust and random bits of junk getting into my paint, its a little aggravating but unseeable for most people.
Anyway~ Still on the marines. I will be incredibly happy when I'm done with the basic guys
Some eye candy for the time being, can see how sporadic my painting is!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Woo Progress~
Battle damage to come, Silvery highlights, black in the rubber and etc then its onto the next one!
Doing another 3 at alongside this one, 2 left to do this with.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And well, touch up the green a little.
I These pic are super up close xD the little spots of dust and crap annoy me, but with battle damage and bases mud to come its not that big a problem, though I will have to sort out this work space before the next ones.
Damn I've been so busy!
Mucho Update coming soon >w< I am still alive. Jeeze.
Okay. I have a lot of new stuff in for these guys, I halted a little partly because of the new 7th edition rules I'm giving my list a little re-think before certain things are painted.
Tempted to go with running IG allies in place of the Dark angels for the psy peeps!
I haven't checked in here in a while, but the updates are pretty cool, the scheme is excellent and I look forward to what you do with the ltd ed models.
Getting back into the swing of things still.
The remaining WiP's of the last 4 marines.
I feel so rusty with only a week or so's downtime in painting. But they are coming along fairly well. Tomorrow will be a big painting day I'm going to try and get most of these complete leaving just the two plasma cannons for wednesday if I can.
Thanks >w<
Got some better pictures here of my most recent batch.
Sorry its all basic marines at the moment D: nothing super interesting but after these its moloc and his honor guard so some fun to be had there.
Not as fast as I would have hoped to have these done already by now, I guess xD I keep getting side tracked which is making me pretty slow at this.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Ltd ed models will come after the honor guard >w< They don't fit directly into my army lists and I really want to get this going with some bat reps and etc!
Batreps with models this nice would be a treat, I look forward to them. And Moloc is just one of the best models ever, so it'll be interesting to see him.
Okay in light of the new edition, and more recently what I'm really feeling like doing for this I'm looking into army lists for my army!
Moloc is in progress now as far as painting, the regular marines are almost complete but there will be no visual updates in this post!
Now back to army lists!
I play to win almost as much as I do to have fun, while trouncing people isn't fun winning in heroic fashion is quite enjoyable so to me the army list writing phase is a big part of the game and without that much disposable income I try not to buy miniatures I won't be using.
So firstly I've done my lowest point list. Hitting in at just 1000pts this is what it looks like
SPACE MARINES - Minotaurs
===========================================
===========================================
Army List: 1000pts
List No.1
HQ points used: 235pts
Non-Slot used: 280
TROOP points used: 170pts
ELITE points used: 0pts
FAST ATTACK points used: 0pts
HEAVY SUPPORT points used: 315pts
--- Total points used: 1000
Detatchment One.
HQ(s)
Lord Asterion Moloc
(Deploys with Honor Guard)
HEAVY SUPPORT(s)
Spartan Assault Tank
Armoured Cermite
Yep, its pretty small. I could have gone for a cheaper HQ, and lots more troops, removed the LR and gone for numbers but
thats not really the minotaur way so I chose to go with a bus. It was a decision of whether to go terminators or honor guard.
In the end I went with honor guard because I find them much more exciting and personal in terms of modelling as to me I treat
them more like chaos chosen vs standard terminators.
Also from a game perspective I think they are really strong. With artificer armor most things high enough AP to kill them out right is shooting. Anything melee that can do it will tend to strike last against this unit especially ever since power weapons dropped to AP 3. Anything that strikes after them is unlikely to survive to do it.
The 7 alone are running 2 attacks basic, 1 for the chapter banner and assuming they get the charge (coming out of an assault land raider they should) thats 4 attacks each coming in at 28 str6 attacks. With no iniative penalty whatsoever because of moloc even if they charge a unit in terrain they will not suffer any penalties for it.
Moloc on top of that is bringing in 5 str 6 hits all of his own and against marines is providing rerollable 1's to the entire unit (which it will only take 2+'s to kill regular marines so...)
In total if that bus charges its going to be hitting with about 33 str 6 attacks (rerolling 1's vs space marines)
The spartan assault tank, 5HP's 14 armor all around with cermite plating to nulify melta's next to nothing is going to be able to cause this to explode let alone break through it in just a 1000pt game. The quad lascannons should give it plenty of return fire however and with machine spirit it should be good for firing as it carries the big group up the map.
For 1000pts although being low model count I think the eliteness of the units used should give any army a run for its money, but I'm looking for some constructive feedback for it. As I'm also looking at how to proceed the list to 1500 and 2000pts brackets.
Also if anyone has any input on how good they think this is: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/F/fire-raptor.pdf It seems kinda cool >.< I don't like putting in fliers because they seem flimsy to me, flimsy and expensive I don't like taking much out of my army in order to put them in but I would love to have one in some pointage D:
The hardest part of expanding my list that I've found is the points to have everything I want is too much (obviously) so I find myself with a set list per-say of the must-haves and instead of including all that I want, having to setup various duplicate army lists with changes to allow a variety of additional setups / alternating of units.
The Spartan is going to be brutal at 1000, and considering it's scoring as well, that's a bonus. I agree about Honour Guard vs termies, they're just plain better when using a transport. Moloc should help them hit like a train, the only thing to be aware of is leaving them in the open- they will likely wipe a unit in one turn, so make sure that, if you can, you flat-out the Spartan to block LOS to them from the biggest threat, otherwise you're only an Ion Cannon and a poor consolidation roll from losing the whole squad.
For expanding, I'd suggest grabbing Rhinos for the tac squads, simply so they can provide mobile covering fire for the honour guard, and maybe another tac squad or some Sternguard to bring up the numbers a bit.
Yeah! Thats what I was thinking when considering the spartan. Last edition it was a so-so choice because its such a big chunk of points in 1000 the fact it couldn't score before generated problems.
Now I just have more reason to take it and I'm happy about that.
What I plan for the honor guard is to make them somewhat chosen like. Each one will have a dynamic pose of awesome, they will all look different in some way physically because they will basically be the best of the best since the beginning. Meaning they've been around a long time and will have all kinds of warped personalities I may even do back stories for them because that kinda thing is cool!
For painting them I was actually going to take a death company approach. Keeping the red shin guards and the red shoulders I was going to run their main color as black and unlike the regular marines their eyes will be a warp red-ish glow.
They don't carry conventional relic weapons either they are all over sized / ultra-greatsword class weapons which lean more towards chaos / elongated butcher knives to swords.
I envision them as terror inspiring, more so then moloc himself. His entourage are to be something of nightmare, monsters that in most degrees would be had up by the inquisition as heretics themselves being some of the longest surviving cursed chapters members. They won't be chaos worshiping but the urges that drive them will be painfully close.
The indiscriminate killing of marines to them, will be enjoyable. They will sort-of be demons within themselves, a group of marines so focus'd on killing, achieving victory and hardened that even Moloc's paranoid mind can't lay accusation to their loyalty.
Also I think it would be enjoyable to have in the same insta-re creative technology that moloc himself benefits from. When they are slain their memory is instantly transmitted from time of death into a new host instantly.
As for over 1000pts. I had neglected the idea of using rhinos which I may have to look at. Bringing in another tac squad was a given I do plan on using those.
I had completely forgotten sternguard's special ammunition and such I need to look into those.
I do want to bring in Ivan the minotaur chaplain, I also would like to bring in the minotaur contemp dread as well. Having a dreadnought with fleet, seems like fun.
Beyond those other options to me seem to be, that flier I posted before. Centurians (I kinda like them) A plasma devastator squad, with rhino. thunderfire cannons.
The idea simply is to take two primary detachments, one led by Ivanus another lead by moloc to allow me to have more of the heavy support I seem to sway toward, the only limitation is the points which would force me to make a handful of lists and switch stuff around to swap between the things I want.
Yeah honor guard don't take up a slot on the force organization chart ^^
Ivanus can do the same, I could essentially have a powerhouse melee army that doesn't take any slots on the force organization chart xD Would be dumb though.
Sneak peek of a pre-assemble Honor guard with the chapter banner. The first of seven.
Its a pain that the banner covers the miniature as much as it does but I chose this banner purely because its size will allow me to delve into doing free-hand.
Whilst the banner doesn't actually require any hands to hold I also thought it would just be more badass to be represented this way as opposed to having a tiny flag on the characters back.
Love all the work you have been doing. The chapter is comping along marvelously.
The conversions here and there are a nice touch. I used to do battle damage on about every fifth marine. Its a great way of making your army stand out. Really nice.!
That banner is massively awesome and awesomely massive. Should accurately convey the amount of badassery that comes with being in Moloc's personal wrecking crew.
That weapon is awesome! The banner is cool too. But maybe you should do something about him looking at the back of the banner. He is looking at the back of the banner, not the enemy he is going to cleave in two.
The head isn't glued in, its just tac, so I will definitely be having him looking out at the field, not behind the banner xD
The poses of the rest will be much more dynamic and action filled >.< His setup is some-what static, even the style of vision restricting armor that he has ment he was basically begging to be the banner bearer. Once I have him done and know what I'm doing with the others you will get some in jumping poses and all sorts.
Full tactical squad update.
Only thing missing are the heavy weapons, will be done tomorrow hopefully.
I freaked out so hard just now though. The three that I was working on, I spray sealed them against better judgement and they went snowy >.< with watered down gloss varnish and a small matt layer on top I think I've managed to rectify the problem.. re-doing them with what I have left to do is out of the question, thankfully I think I've minimalized the damage a whole bunch >.<
If you can't pick out the damaged ones from these pictures I hope that means I've done a decent job xD
The crests came from sergeants in the sternguard group? Or something? I found them on ebay and mass bought a bunch, need them for my honor guard as well.
These guys are coming along great. Where did you get the transfers? FW? I'm probably going to put together a small Minos force for my wife, so your stuff here is an ongoing source of inspiration. I might have to try and do the same thing with the crests - it's very effective at adding that Greek look to the marines, and very clever and appropriate use of that CSM helmet as well!
Azazelx wrote: These guys are coming along great. Where did you get the transfers? FW? I'm probably going to put together a small Minos force for my wife, so your stuff here is an ongoing source of inspiration. I might have to try and do the same thing with the crests - it's very effective at adding that Greek look to the marines, and very clever and appropriate use of that CSM helmet as well!
Forge world actually sell the left shoulder pads which have the sculpted mino's decal. They also sell a full set of transfer sheets, more then you will likely ever use so you only need 1 sheet thankfully!
Glad you like the use of the chaos helm! I was wondering if anyone was going to call me on using chaos parts xD Haha.
The idea of having the honor guard / chosen with bull horns and stuff really interests me, I think they should be a personification of a minotaur, raging power houses that strike fear into those that meet them.
So obviously having minotaur like horns just made sense.
So, I decided to take a little break from the minos and decided I'd paint a goblin. It's base is still in the mail as I'm pretty bad at doing bases I tend to use resin ones as starting points.
But anyway here for your amusement, and mine, one of my goblins.
Random I know, only 139 more to go for those. But thats for a different blog perhaps.
Now back to the space marines.
For those that are interested though.
I think they made the skull pass goblins smaller then the boxed set..
Azazelx wrote: These guys are coming along great. Where did you get the transfers? FW? I'm probably going to put together a small Minos force for my wife, so your stuff here is an ongoing source of inspiration. I might have to try and do the same thing with the crests - it's very effective at adding that Greek look to the marines, and very clever and appropriate use of that CSM helmet as well!
Forge world actually sell the left shoulder pads which have the sculpted mino's decal. They also sell a full set of transfer sheets, more then you will likely ever use so you only need 1 sheet thankfully!
Glad you like the use of the chaos helm! I was wondering if anyone was going to call me on using chaos parts xD Haha.
The idea of having the honor guard / chosen with bull horns and stuff really interests me, I think they should be a personification of a minotaur, raging power houses that strike fear into those that meet them.
So obviously having minotaur like horns just made sense.
Thanks - I'll have to get hold of the transfers next time I do a FW order. What is the recipe you've used for your brass armour?
And nice work on the goblin. You've also hit on the reason I never finished painting my own gobboes..
Haha xD Thanks.
A little update.
Moloc is getting there, I'm done with work for a few so I'm hoping to have him done soon, as well as the two plasma cannons!
Wooo! Can't wait to have that lot done.
In addition I've purchased all the bits I need for the Honor guard and they are on their way. They are looking to be a bit more challenging to paint then the regular minotaurs. A part of the reason I went and did a goblin was to work with black.
For these guys I have that deathcompany-like theme to them, a lot of their armor is going to be black so I wanted to have a little practice. I think I'm fairly comfortable with how their going to come out so they have the go ahead.
I HAVEN'T BOUGHT IT YET.
The spartan assault tank. I really want to, I keep going to. But at £100 I keep telling myself no! *slaps wrists* no until I'm ready >w<
After the honor guard they will be done!
Though off in the distance I may have, fallen slightly to chaos. I can feel the pull of nurgle tugging at my wallet, he's already forced me into buying the calas Typhus miniature from FW and I fear, in time, their might be more to come.
I've just checked out your OP - I see the recipe. Now I might need to get hold of some of the new GW paints to match up. I've been buying bits for my wife's Minotaurs army for about 18 months-2 years now, so it might be time to actually start on them with a break from work in 2 weeks....
Yeah it does stream-line the process quite a bit as well as give me a lot more control as to how light or dark I want the armor to be.
Moloc for example is a layer brighter then the regular marines. I figured he should stand out some, so he is going to come out a much lighter golden which is achieved by one less wash over the silver.
Prime white. Base coat Silver [depending on what silver depends on how bright their going to be as well] then wash with Seraphim Sepia for the gold. Once for a light, burnished gold / bronze look, twice fora much darker more rich color.
Three times may also provide a much more brassy bronze look but I haven't gone that far, I imagine the ink would start reacting funny at that point.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Moloc's work in progress pic, decided to give a sneak peek >w<
Work on Moloc hit a brief Hiatus after I realized that I work the 19th-20th-21'st of this month.
My painting competition's hand in is the 21'st which means I have until the 18th/19th to hand it in, as the 20-21st I really cant make it to hand in.
I dunno if I bothered adding any info on this xD But basically it was a lucky dip as to what you drew to paint.
I ended up getting a Tau person, I know NOTHING about. And I found his miniature rather annoying in that its very static, no room for much changing and I didnt want to cut it up or anything as I only had the one model to work with.
I couldn't figure out for the life of me what scheme to use so in the end I just went with the default Tau color scheme.
This is where I'm at so far. When I'm done I plan on using realistic water effect to replicate rain on the miniature as well as the base. He will basically be addressing a bunch of tau showing off his knife in the middle of a rainy storm before a battle, or something.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Images are rather close up, I don't feel it really does it much justice xD But oh well.
A white cloak and red (dark red for more contrast?) armour would be pretty cool, and of course the white gives you plenty of chance to throw on some simple freehand, which is always worthy of bonus points in competitions.
If you're using a helmeted head (does that model have a helmet option) the cloak could also work in a pale blue, which would be easier to shade/highlight than straight white.
Nawh the miniature comes helmetless, I did think about using a helmeted one but I literally don't own 'any' Tau beside this miniature now.
Basing unfortunately is also becoming a concern >.< on account of I don't know what to use, even though I have an idea for how I want to finish the miniature off with it being raining and such.
Oh! Yeah the red would be dark, the rest of the miniature especially if there is a white cloak there will be waaaay loads of light as it is.
Thanks!
My plan for the base is going to be like, some midst of forrestry with a sort of rock formation with water inside. So the middle will be completely full.
The tau guy will be standing over looking the ledge, the bonding knife in hand somewhat as though he might be just about to drop it into the pool.
Within the pool itself I plan to use the night bringers upper body beneath the surface, the water will be kind of-cloudy so you wont be able to make much out within the center of the pool and the night bringers face will be slightly pushing out of the water but not in the same way that water works. It will be more like a warping of reality in that the waters surface is being bent upward like a barrier preventing the ctan from entering.
I figured I would try and play on the "C'tan" over "Tau" fluff that I had seen floating about, almost as though the dropping of the bonding knife into the water would be capable of breaking the seal to awaken the c'tan bound beneath hence his urgency to get at it.
Thanks, really appreciate the ups ^^
Hoping to place well at least, but it comes down to a judge panel, the reason im going to that extent with the base is because creativity gets points, and I drew a miniature that cant be reposed without hacking it into pieces >.<
That idea for the base sounds awesome. I've not seen any fluff linking the Tau and the C'tan, but I can certainly see the Tau unwittingly unleashing a C'tan simply because they didn't understand. I kind of think of Tau as a rather naive race with regards to the cultures of the other races, so accidentally releasing a C'tan because of 'oh, shiny' syndrome is something I can imagine easily enough.
Plus, Rule of Cool!
And chopping up the Nightbringer for a base is some serious dedication to the cause, if the judges don't reward that they need their brains tested.
Thanks! ^^
If I remember right I think its in the necron book not the tau one. It may have been in the old necron book though, I don't remember myself xD
I think it has to do with "The outsider"? or some such caused trouble with having a hold over one of the ethereals. My knowledge of tau isn't very good honestly, I just delved a little to try and find something to make an interesting piece xD.
Also as it seems to come down to who made who.
Did the old ones make Tau? The profile doesn't fit as the tau aren't psychic at all which is apparently one of the major traits to races created by the old ones.
Where as just like nectrotyr the tau seem pretty static in that department.
Since the awakening of the Tau their progression in technology from being primal to fully technological is shady at best as well and not to mention the freak storms that protected them from the emperium when they were still a primal state had to of been caused by something perhaps.
Most of all, the Tau have next to no involvement with the warp, other then it being used against them. Which C'tan also cannot go within the warp. Warp access being another trait of the old ones.
Also >w< If you look at the models, necrons could totally be skeletonized Tau with the heads they have xD
"Tau" has three letters. A triangle has three sides... Tau is Illuminati?
I don't recall the Tau being created by the old ones, though the older codex never states otherwise overtly, although it does mention the Eldar, and heavily suggests Orks (Krork). Possibly humans too? Not sure about that one though.
Bottom line, C'tan face base sounds awesome and totally legit
Best I can do in 3 days, some of the symbols are more basic then I would have liked. But I only had 3 days to do this in so it was somewhat rushed. I ran into a good few problems I couldn't completely fix so I did my best to work around them.
Having no spare parts or time to fully strip things that went wrong and things made this hard.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Feel free to vote! Curious what people might rate this as~
It's a Cadre Fireblade, by the way, which is a sub commander. The "real" commanders get Battlesuits; so do some sub commanders. But Fireblades (Shas'N'El in Tau) never do.
Sorry, Tau are kinda my thing right now. But, the more you know
'Hey, guys, I found this knife over here. Anyone lost a knife? No, I don't care if you've got a Pulse Rifle, you keep hold of your equipment, dammit!' Attributed to Shas'O'Stabby, M41
The finished piece looks great, and the effort is obvious. It's clearly not rushed, and given the model's fairly strange pose and difficulty to convert, it's a worthy achievement, especially as I guess you've not painted Tau before. I have to say, there's no way I could pick up a completely new type of model and do something like that with it.
Any chance of a shot of the pond, just so I can see exactly what you've done with the Nightbringer?
Paradigm wrote: 'Hey, guys, I found this knife over here. Anyone lost a knife? No, I don't care if you've got a Pulse Rifle, you keep hold of your equipment, dammit!'
lol!
Fantastic piece of work! Especially considering your time restrictions.
liquidjoshi wrote:It's a Cadre Fireblade, by the way, which is a sub commander. The "real" commanders get Battlesuits; so do some sub commanders. But Fireblades (Shas'N'El in Tau) never do.
Sorry, Tau are kinda my thing right now. But, the more you know
Meep xD
Paradigm wrote:'Hey, guys, I found this knife over here. Anyone lost a knife? No, I don't care if you've got a Pulse Rifle, you keep hold of your equipment, dammit!' Attributed to Shas'O'Stabby, M41
The finished piece looks great, and the effort is obvious. It's clearly not rushed, and given the model's fairly strange pose and difficulty to convert, it's a worthy achievement, especially as I guess you've not painted Tau before. I have to say, there's no way I could pick up a completely new type of model and do something like that with it.
Any chance of a shot of the pond, just so I can see exactly what you've done with the Nightbringer?
I don't, its been handed in for the competition now! Though I will admit I wasn't able to fit the nightbringer in. The lack of time made it virtually impossible, the water effects wouldn't set right, the nightbringer was too biggg needed to be re-worked in. In the end I made it a marsh-like ditch.
And yeah thats the first tau in that scheme I've ever done, and the first one since I've become what I would call an adequate painter (i.e not like, 12 yrs old)
Zambro wrote:
Paradigm wrote: 'Hey, guys, I found this knife over here. Anyone lost a knife? No, I don't care if you've got a Pulse Rifle, you keep hold of your equipment, dammit!'
lol!
Fantastic piece of work! Especially considering your time restrictions.
Thanks!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also my first go with painting in those colors. I literally went into the store and bought the paints I used specifically for this as they had yet to touch my pallet.
Gorthor Brown
Skag Brown
Fenris Grey
Baneblade
Screaming Skull
Tau Light Ochre
Zamesi's Desert
Rhinox Hide
Those are all the ones I had to buy that come to mind. Also used a variety of reds I already use on my Minotaurs.
I did it in 3 days, even with the drastic measures I had to take to fix the gun and wrist, I managed to pull a win at the painting comp.
Soooooo happy!
My first ever painting competition, held by GW Eastbourne.
Squee xD
Really motivating to paint more, and get my minotaurs out and start work on my deathguard, and get them out as well! Just to show off my armies and painting more!
I feel bad for winning partly, am not to well known to my local gaming community because I don't have a complete army to play with, so I am rarely if ever down there, soon to change I hope ^^ But what better of an introduction xD
Shows you're willing to put in the time to make your stuff look good at least. Hell, better than the sea of grey that was my Grey Knights back in the day... So yeah, don't feel bad about winning.
How many points do you have painted so far? If you've got a squad or two done, it might be worth seeing if the store ever runs Kill Team games, as that'll allow you to get involved sooner.
Hmm, I have one tac squad done, heavy weapons not yet done but will be soon. Ivanus Enkomi and moloc on the way. That could probably do a kill team, how many points are in kill teams anyways?
Moloc is done, mostly. Not to the same quality as the tau guy i think, I didn't want to spend 'that' long on him, as I really want to play xD
My next project featuring chaos virtually 'EVERYTHING' will be being done to the best of my ability.
Not to say I'm deliberately rushing these but there will be a quality diff ofc.
My only question now is do I put in the cloak... because I like how the back looks without it, and moloc's cloak is particularly awkward to place >.<
I probably will go through with finishing the cloak but ugh, Half tempted to save it for a conversion I have in mind!
Okay I confess xD my idea stems because I watched the sequal to 300. It wasn't that great but the most inspiring thing was having a female lead a force and this has inspired me. Using a tartaros style terminator armor it wouldn't be too far fetched to believe a female could occupy one of those.
Given the influence of the high lords of terra as well I would imagine it wouldn't be unpractical for one of those, namely a female one with an interest in the grit and grime of live war as well as some psyker capabilities to back it up to 'pay' herself a place in the elite Minotaur army.
Okay so simply, I was looking at making my Librarian female in terminator xD
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also deliberately left him one shade lighter then the average marines and such who take an extra wash to get that more brazen goldy look as I imagine he would be kind of like the 'shining tip' of his force.
Looks plenty good to me, and the base is fantastic.
As for the cloak, if you have a better idea for it, then use it on that (you can always give it to Moloc afterwards if the idea doesn't pan out). Capes in general are awesome, though, wherever they go.
Interesting idea on the female HLOT, far better handled than a lot of attempts to get women into a SM force. However, have you considered using her as an Inquisitor (rules-wise) instead? You can still get the armour and psyker powers, but I think the stats would be more in-line with what the character would have.
Paradigm wrote: Looks plenty good to me, and the base is fantastic.
As for the cloak, if you have a better idea for it, then use it on that (you can always give it to Moloc afterwards if the idea doesn't pan out). Capes in general are awesome, though, wherever they go.
Interesting idea on the female HLOT, far better handled than a lot of attempts to get women into a SM force. However, have you considered using her as an Inquisitor (rules-wise) instead? You can still get the armour and psyker powers, but I think the stats would be more in-line with what the character would have.
I have!
But if you look at the break down of factions and forces of authority within the Imperium of man you'll see that to the left of the big table there is the high lords of terra and in the far right which separates is the inquisition. I assume by that, they don't really see eye to eye as a lot of the classifieds noted around are those two controlling elements keeping secrets from one another i.e the existence of the minotaurs as a whole, where they went, why they have returned and moloc in general is a well guarded secret that even the inquisition can't obtain information on.
Reference to this: Page 11 of the Dark Millennium supplement provided with the 7th Ed rule book.
--------------------------------
Thats not to say I couldn't do a counts as and honestly I have always thought about doing counts-as grey knights allies because I would then have an army fit for fighting all manners of marine, normal and chaos alike. That said I don't know if inquisitors get terminator armor?
It's not beyond the high lords of terra's ability to 'obtain' Inquisitorial equipment and field it as their own given how much they are able to get away with only the emperor himself would really be able to draw the line for them.
I think I might have to look at the grey knights rules I know they are a little out dated now, but the more I think about it, and the more I remember how powerful daemon summoning has become the more interested I am to have her act as a counts as small inquisitor force however
instead of inquisitor they would be a part of the high lords of terra's private army and with the ability to include guardsmen within a grey knight detachment makes it even more appealing as nothing fills gaps between the high point cost expensive elitest gear of the minotaurs then a shamble of disposable guardsmen or well, astra militarum w/e they are called now.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The way I see the inquisition and the lords of terra are like that of olden times in which inquisition was a factor then.
The high lords are kings and the inquisition are well, inquisition. Forced to coincide alongside due to their faith however always watching their backs.
Because what could to one person be seen as a 'master stroke' could easily be turned or warped into heresy by the over stimulated imagination of another.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Erk I totally missed the bracketed (rules wise) you included in your post XD ignore my debate about inquisition not fitting etc.
If you're open to counts-as and allies, then there's a few options open to you.
The Inquisition codex (not GK, the Ebook one from Black Library) gives you 1-2 HQ slots (Inquisitors, counts as HLOT) and 0-3 Elite slots for Henchman Warbands (could be HLOT guards/private army ect). It also doesn't take up an allied slot so you could still bring Imperial Guard as allies for mass troops.
The GK codex gives you access to all of that, but you need Coteaz to take more than 1 Henchman warband, and you get Grey Knights as Battle Brothers. This gives you some super-killy stuff to add in, as well as Psychic shenanigans and other toys like Dreadknights. If you still go with the High Lords route, then you could almost get away with a squad of Paladins (Super-terminators with 2 wounds and extra badassery) as counts-as Custodes, as it's possible that the HL would have some kind of bodyguard assigned to them if they braved a battlefield mission.
Inquisitors (counts-as Lords) can get terminator armour, all manner of weapons and other gear, and psychic powers, so they would fill the same role/model as you have in mind, and with various options for tag--along forces.
It's also worth noting that, barring the FOC change, three relics and a set of Warlord traits, the content is identical to the Inq section of the GK book, so if you want to run GK at all, get that instead for only a few quid more.
Ah this is really difficult. On the one hand, the terminator option would be easier to get a nice GW accepted miniature for. A legitimate inquisitor would be far more difficult and require some chop shopping on my part (which I don't mind)
Rules wise the inquisition supplement doesn't offer much in the way of usage, I would be forced to ally grey knights or IG either way to get paladins or IG troops.
I do like the idea of having Paladin's as guard for her. I don't think someone of that intense value would be relying on a henchmen unit to ensure their safety.
While I want her to be psychic inquisitors aren't via the GK book, so it would have to be used as a grand master or something, a Grey knight librarian even to get the same level of mastery I want but that would throw her stats off horribly making her the likes of WS6, BS 5, S4, T4, W4 etc.
958pts or 973pts High lord detachment.
(Made of 2 detachments, the 2nd is optional but without it I'm unsure where the 1st would go
and how it would engage. Assaulting straight from a storm talon would be devastating while
the plasma syphon would greatly reduce risk of tau & eldar related casualties in turns to follow.
You're looking at Rad grenades to reduce the opponents toughness by -1. 4 attacks per
Paladin at str4 force weapons. Thats a 3's to kill other marines, 2's to kill anything else.
Not to mention, master crafted as well.
Null rod is an interesting option as well I thought.)
(1) High Lord of Terra Nyra Cirksena -129pts
- Ordo Malleus Inquisitor
- Terminator Armor
- Psycannon
- Empyrean Brain Mines
- Psyker Mastery lvl1
- 3x Servo Skulls
(2) Lord Attendant Slyvin'e -89pts or 104pts
- Ordo Xenos Inquisitor or Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor
- 3x Servo Skulls
- Ulumeathi Plasma Syphon or Null Rod
- Psyker Mastery lvl1
- Rad Grenades
(1) High Lords Strike Squad
Grey Knight Strike Squad -100pts
(2) High Lords Strike Squad
Grey Knight Strike Squad -100pts
(1) High Lords Personal Guard
4x Grey Knight Paladin -335pts
4x Master crafted
Apothecary
4x Force Falchions
Looks decent enough, the only thing I'd change is the Paladin loadout. If you have the points, relentless psycannons are too good to pass up and if you throw in the TDA 'inquisitor' you're putting out 12 S7 AP4 Rending shots at 24", not including the SB shots, so that's a lot of Dakka. It might be worth giving one a Demon Hammer too, just for some more AT.
Looking at this setup, I'd put the Pallies with the TDAinq in the Raven and go for an assault, while the Strike Squads DS for objectives and/or fire support for the Minotaurs. The servo-skulls will give them precision DS, which is great.
I'm not sure why you need to Detachments, as far as I'm aware you can take multiple Combined Arms Detachments from the same faction (Imperial), so as you've got a HQ and 2 troops, you've got a legal CAD here.
The attendant benefits somewhat by staying with the high lord, because the rad grenades are needed to make the falchions more effective against enemy marines (reducing the toughness)
As far as I can tell they can all fit on the stormraven
8 slots to the 4 paladins, 2 slots the high lord, 1 slot the attendant
(I'm not 100% on how Servo's work, but for only 9pts each I figured go nuts.)
The psycannon's increase the points cost of this to around 1018pts.
Which means that the total cost of this army will hit around about 3000pts with 2000pts of Minotaurs and 1000 of high lords. ofc this can be chopped around for lower point games.
I think its quite interesting because, I like that there is a low model count, and its very heavily melee based which is something you don't see often but with the high armor used it will be
quite fun.
OH! The high lord comes with the Daemon hammer, the terminator armor upgrade by default gives it to her.
Looks great now, not really anything I'd change. And from experience, Paladins are incredibly tough unless they come up against a monstrous creature, so avoid Demon Princes and Hive Tyrants and they should be kicking ass for a fair few turns in CC and at range. They seem expensive, but I rarely regret taking them (I take 10, the squad runs over 700 points, and they're just awesome).
Also, on a slight tangent, the silver GKs will look awesome on the tabletop with the bronze Minos!
If I recall correctly, the Servo Skulls give a re-roll to any friendly blast or DS within 6" of them, and also prevent infiltration/scouting within 12"(I think), so against scout heavy armies they're awesome.
Unsure how I will paint them though, seeing as they aren't really going to be grey knights xD but I'm not sure what color scheme the high lords of terra actually use.
Well, if it's completely up in the air, I think black armour with gold and red detailing would work. Suitably grimdark, contrasts with the Minos, noticeably not GK, and would look really, really cool.
That could work but I would probably need to change the color scheme I have in line for the honor guard. I was going to have them black armor red secondary to make them seem almost death-guard-ish.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Okay from what the interwebs has told me apparently it depends on what the high lord of terra is a part of as there
are habbit patterns determining to those decided places.
The ones i've found the habbits of are
Adeptus Custodes: Black
Adeptus Mechanicus: White
Adeptus Arbites: Black
Adeptus Astronomica: Blue
Adeptus Astra Telepathica: Green
Administratum: Black/grey/white
High Lords of Terra: Red
-----------------------------
Places high lords hail from-
The Master of the Administratum
The Inquisitorial Representative[1]
The Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum
The Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus
The Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites
The Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators
The Master of the Astronomican
The Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum
The Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica
The remaining three positions are most likely to be filled from among the following powerful leaders:
Lord Commander of Segmentum Solar
Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard
Cardinal(s) of the Holy Synod of Terra
The Abbess of the Adepta Sororitas
Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes
The Chancellor of the Estate Imperium
The Speaker for the Chartist Captains
Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy
Seeing as there are 3 places to which the high lords are unknown I suppose I will pick from one of those to have my custom high lord be a part of.
With that in mind the only ones I have colors for areeee...
I'm going to have her be a descendant of Constantin Valdor the head of the adeptus custodes. She won't be an actual lord of terra herself. Because of her station within the custodes I can't find any viable reason why she would leave the emperors side
(considering that is their job to protect him and monitor visitors etc)
She however will be very high up there an influence figure due to her relation the current Captain-General (High lord of Terra). However she will be harboring her own agenda!
Her retinue of paladins, will be Custodians of course, those specifically most loyal to her.
The plan for the miniatures. Now, Nyra Valdor herself will be in Tartaros pattern Terminator armor with more majestic shoulder armor and leggings, namely I will make use of the pre-herasy emperors children terminator legs, and the actual Legion praetor shoulders and arms.
Probably a modified dark eldar female head, or a custom resin one for her head. The armor I plan to paint mostly completely gold, something far brighter then the Minotaurs so there will be a big difference between her and those.
For her Custodians I'm torn between having them be red, or having them be gold as well. Looking at the art work they should be gold the same as her. In equally as majestic terminator armor, perhaps I will use Legion armor, and scribor miniatures helmes, the long pointed ones with the red hair coming out the top (nailed it). to match the artwork. Though if anyone can direct me to more majestic looking terminator pads please let me know xD.
Her personal agenda though, which I think could be quite cool, and slightly heretical would be her desire.... To see the emperor removed from the golden thrown. To bring about the 'end'. Either allowing him to ascend or ultimately unleashing chaos into terra, either way the end would follow once and for all. Which binds in the Minotaurs quite well, their mysterious re-appearance as well as their skilled ability to combat other marines makes them the perfect tool to overpower the emperors guards and finally see him moved. Because, such a goal would not be very easy to achieve, bringing experts in dispatching loyalist marines would just make sense. Of course a plan like that to unfold would never just happen it would take decades of preparation. And at current Id like to assume the Minotaurs no nothing about it.
In other news! Dododooo
Done at last. So the heavy weapons will be complete soon. I went with a red shoulder to make them stand out a little more, red shoulder, golden Minotaur symbol.
Also means I can actually work on Moloc's honor guard, Hnghhh I have been waiting so long to start these!
SIDE NOTE!: Just occurred to me, if anyone is selling a paint clogged or otherwise defunct Marneus Calgar in terminator armor I would love to purchase the chest piece >.<
Of course, if your LGS is a GW, then they're not usable. Anywhere else, though, they'd be fine, and run you little more than a box of Paladins and extras.
If you can't find them, then maybe look for High Elf White Lions helmets; they have a similar tall and plumed look. I can't find any on Ebay, but a Bits seller will probably have them.
Thats pretty awesome.
I might be able to use some of those terminator ideas.
I'm thinking of making use of the praetorian terminator bits from FW, I imagine her personal guard to be wearing pre-heresy goodies, only the finest for such important body guard.
I will keep that to hand though I think It will come in pretty useful.
Your Minotaurs look great. Ive tried to start this army several times but got stumped. I used a metallic color with 2 coats of wash to get the dull brass going. Looks great on infantry models. My problem was the pooling on tanks. I read you use a similar technique, have you tried it yet on tanks? Have you solved the pooling problem? Or had one? Just curious. Thanks.
40kFSU wrote: Your Minotaurs look great. Ive tried to start this army several times but got stumped. I used a metallic color with 2 coats of wash to get the dull brass going. Looks great on infantry models. My problem was the pooling on tanks. I read you use a similar technique, have you tried it yet on tanks? Have you solved the pooling problem? Or had one? Just curious. Thanks.
I've yet to try on tanks, but I will have to soon for the Spartan assault tank.
I've got a few ideas in mind to tackle the pooling. The first is to air brush the ink over the silver for a more even distribution. I think this should fix the pooling, but gravity is a bitch and doing it on the whole model in one go will still cause pooling.
My solution to this really is going to have to be doing the tank in bits. Get as many flat pieces as I can and do them separately. So the sides, tops, etc of the LR will all go through that inking step separately. It will likely work for brushes as well
A big flat edged tank brush just dragging it across will do. Keeping in mind that the resting place of your brush will be darker then the start have it so edges of the tank that will be higher are the starting point of the brush stroke so it will, by pooling
and the travel of the paint result in a self-made gradient.
At least thats my plan. With inking required on such a large scale I really can't see any alternative other then to reduce it to much smaller pieces where pooling can be avoided. I may actually be making a start on this soon enough as well though if I can't get it to work
there is an alternative. And thats to paint it like Ivanus's personal Stormraven as shown here: http://img3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130801171258/warhammer40k/images/1/1b/Fortuna_Mori.jpg Or something similar in which the amount of bronze needed is simply reduced
drastically.
Hmm. That could work, though if it's Ivanus' personal Stormraven, would it be black just because he's a Chaplain? I get the feeling a chapter stock 'Raven would be all bronze...
liquidjoshi wrote: Hmm. That could work, though if it's Ivanus' personal Stormraven, would it be black just because he's a Chaplain? I get the feeling a chapter stock 'Raven would be all bronze...
It would be black because he is a chaplain.
In place of that I would use the red though, which is seemingly the secondary color, at least for my minotaurs. That said I would have to do some bronze still.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I would also make use of weathering to get around the pooling as well.
The red would work. Of course, so could black if every vehicle follows the same scheme - Black Templars have black vehicles, and likely black for their chaplain's personal vehicles. Just pick them out with more pretty things.
I didn't think of painting vehicle in pieces. I tried spraying with the citadel spray gun, same issues. Air brush may work better. I'm also looking into just dipping the vehicles at once.
Also, gotta say your minotaurs are looking fantastic.
Zambro wrote:Your minotaurs are coming along great!
liquidjoshi wrote:Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiice
Though it does look like Ivanus is shredding some sweet riffs on his crozius in the top picture
40kFSU wrote:I didn't think of painting vehicle in pieces. I tried spraying with the citadel spray gun, same issues. Air brush may work better. I'm also looking into just dipping the vehicles at once.
Also, gotta say your minotaurs are looking fantastic.
Ty peeps >w< always glad to hear what people think, especially when its good!
I've come up with a test-ish piece for my honor guard, though I'm not 100% sure.
This red tint on the high edges of the armor is generally how 90% of their armor will be. The shin guards and shoulder bits that are red on the normal marines will still be there with the addition
of their left arm (the weapon holding arm) being golden bronze like the normal marines main color to add some variation. of course the robes will either be red or white, not sure on that yet either.
It's a tricky one >.<
Here's a quick peek though of what the red looks like on the black.
Bleh! I don't like it, I've decided against that idea after trying it a little more.
I have a better approach, but I need a finer airbrush for it, so I'll be getting myself an infinity and a proper compressor before I attempt again >.<
Until then I'll have to find something else to paint, perhaps the High lord when the parts for her arrive.
Dundundun!
Sneak peek of the high lord of terror!
Custom terminator armor.
Debating shaving off the III on the leg, because im unsure if thats an emperors children thing or not.
I've drilled out a spot to have a non-helmeted head as well. Just working out how I want to mount the psycannon.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Still some cleaning up work needing to be done, but thats a general gist of how its going to look.
Finally I think this works as a means to mount the psycannon. Especially given she doesn't have the stat line of a terminator it would make sense that she had some form of support that is more reliant on her armor then actual stature to be able to hold it.
I've also made needed modifications to the cloak to allow it to fit nicely.
Looks good, and I like the Psycannon support. Personally, I'd attach the gun in some way to the hand so there's a clear firing mechanism and so the hand isn't just 'floating'. But that's just preference, and the idea you've gone with is awesome!
I had tried that initially but every idea that I had was shot down by the size of the pouldrons and the actual size of the arms. These tartaros style terminator armor is significantly smaller then the grey knight arm mounts that grey knights have. And to be held in hand it requires two hands, one to hold the other to fire.
To me having it on a support allows more practicality in that, whens he's using the hammer the psycannon can easily shift back to be mounted folded up against her back while she fights in close combat.
The firing mechanism would be psy related. She is a psyker after all I would like to think that her suit is somewhat like a conduit for her own psy capabilities allowing her to manipulate and control the various parts using her mind. That goes for the actual arms control as well.
The floating hand is a pain, I didn't want to use a folded fist but at the same time, normal terminator sized hands actually don't fit the tartaros style armor so I ended up with a somewhat floaty hand, but then again she is a psyker so if anyone is going to be floaty handing its a psyker xD
Fair enough, you've clearly thought it through and the justifications make sense. I didn't realise Tartaros armour was that much smaller! I'd almost be tempted to turn the hand palm-up so it's as if she's channelling the power to the cannon. Just a thought.
OneManNoodles wrote:Really nice start to the high lord. Emperor's children are the 3rd legion IIRC nice work removing it , I had wonderd on the size of the tartaros
Thanks a lot! ^^
Paradigm wrote:Wow, that arm is alarmingly small. I know the Tartaros ones are pretty sleek, but that's still pretty damn small compared to Indomitus pattern.
I know right? I really wasn't expecting that kind of size difference. I'm incredibly glad I didn't try to mix different terminator patterns and stuck completely with the tartaros.
While its awkward that its so small I've fallen in love with this. I swear hands down this terminator pattern was designed for women, from the smaller frame to the
'bust room' in the torso and the sleek almost elegant design compared to the much chunkier robust patterns.
In other newssss
After lots of experimentation, the relic blade for the honor guard!
The next thing I want to try is adding some caked, dried up blood, as I want to see if I can get my honor guard to look a bit more 'gorey' then normal while I know that painting
blood in any way is a risk taker because of how difficult it is to make it look realistic. On other blades I will probably have elements of a non-rusted blade beneath as well.
This one was mostly an experiment to which was most constructively turned into a pure rusted blade.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Lazy pick I know, but its gone midnight and I feel like a bum!
That said xD I have next to no work space on account of not actually having my own room. So a mild incite into the clutter that I have to deal with!
Even typing at an awkward angle because of all the stuff out.
I like the rusty blade, not something I've seen before but it certainly looks like it could put quite a dent in something even if the edge is gone
For painting blood, you really can't go wrong with a pot of GW's Blood For The Blood God or Tamiya Clear Red (although I'd recommend the former). One coat of that, and you too can serve Khorne with minimal effort! It dries clear and 'wet', and is pretty much the best paint-on blood effect you're going to get. For dry blood, a simple drybrush of something like Mechrite Red (or whatever the new equivalent is) should serve you well.
I sympathise entirely about the lack of workspace, my desk too is absolute clutter with about 7 different projects on it in various stages of completion, enough spare parts to build a temple to the God of Bitz, and more paint that I think I'll ever need!
Paradigm wrote: I like the rusty blade, not something I've seen before but it certainly looks like it could put quite a dent in something even if the edge is gone
For painting blood, you really can't go wrong with a pot of GW's Blood For The Blood God or Tamiya Clear Red (although I'd recommend the former). One coat of that, and you too can serve Khorne with minimal effort! It dries clear and 'wet', and is pretty much the best paint-on blood effect you're going to get. For dry blood, a simple drybrush of something like Mechrite Red (or whatever the new equivalent is) should serve you well.
I sympathise entirely about the lack of workspace, my desk too is absolute clutter with about 7 different projects on it in various stages of completion, enough spare parts to build a temple to the God of Bitz, and more paint that I think I'll ever need!
I do have that tamyia red actually, just a little scared to use it xD.
As for the rusty blades I am tempted to put some silver edging along the blade to make it at least seem sharp-ish. though I'm not entirely sure whether its needed. A weapon of this size that I've used deliberately would cause more of an intense blunt trauma and being a relic blade of ap 3 its probably got some hidden relic'y power that gives it its cutting force maybe?
Ugh... Really want to splash in some blood though... probably going to have to take a leap with this one, perhaps wait until the mini is fully done so I know where I'm coming from, from a over all perspective. The others will be much easier on account of being in action poses.
I really like the blades you are using, but I think the rust is out of place. I've skipped reading a fair bit over the past page or two, maybe I'm missing some kind of explanation? I feel rust is more at home on chaosy/orky models than the Emperor's finest.
Having said that, the rust effect is nice. The rough surface and varying shades of brown/orange is very convincing.
It's just the idea behind a relic is that its an old historical blade, so I assumed some would be heavily rusted, others left so and such. This is by far the most rusted weapon in the army as xD I said I got carried away with it a little but, but the other weapons will be rusted in varying degrees.
@.@ Ugh Somewhat regret.
Just about to strip this, at least the bottom half (thankfully it comes apart)
I don't know though what to do. I want a strong gold gold, something that would stand out as being 'more gold' then my regular minotaurs. The non-metallic gold effect seems to look like it would work quite well but I think mixing metallic and non metallic painting styles within the same army would look dumb, so I'm back in search of a gold again...
Liquid gold gave me this, which did not work how I wanted or expected it to.
This is the comparison that I ended up with...
As you can see the 'test' leg that I painted up, while looking strongly metallic came out being brass -_- more so then the minotaurs themselves so thats back to the drawing board.
I'm in serious need of help for finding another gold something that will give a true gold look else I'm going to be forced into painting the terminator and the custodians exactly the same as the minotaurs and I really don't want that.
One way I paint gold that I think works to set it apart from brass/bronze/copper is to use about a 1:1 mix of gold to silver, and then add in more silver for the highlights. You get a much more yellowy gold than a brown one, although it can look a little 'soft' if you put too much silver in. I'm afraid I don't have any good examples on here but it does work, and certainly avoids the bronze look. In general, I do:
1:1 silver-gold 3:2 silver gold highlight 2:1 silver-gold extreme highlight dark brown wash
Hope that helps.
EDIT: It does end up a bit like Moloc's armour, so you might want to darken him/lighten the gold to set them apart.
Ok, big fan of the HLOT's Psycannon, Nice work there.
I can't offer any help on the gold I'm afraid, but it might be worth noting that blood, when oxidised outside the body, takes on a dark red-brown colour, rather than the bright red we usually assume it is.
Hey, sorry havent been caught up, new stuff looks good. If youre concerned with different golds, just add browns and purples to your gold mix and keep it watery and see what tones you come up with. ((this may be a completely uniformed responses since ive only briefly skimmed the last page))
I do have that tamyia red actually, just a little scared to use it xD.
As for the rusty blades I am tempted to put some silver edging along the blade to make it at least seem sharp-ish. though I'm not entirely sure whether its needed. A weapon of this size that I've used deliberately would cause more of an intense blunt trauma and being a relic blade of ap 3 its probably got some hidden relic'y power that gives it its cutting force maybe?
Ugh... Really want to splash in some blood though... probably going to have to take a leap with this one, perhaps wait until the mini is fully done so I know where I'm coming from, from a over all perspective. The others will be much easier on account of being in action poses.
Use a spare Sanguinary Guard Blade, or Power Sword blade. Rust it up and have a play with the blood effects to see what works best for you.
Sasa0mg wrote: @.@ Ugh Somewhat regret.
Just about to strip this, at least the bottom half (thankfully it comes apart)
I don't know though what to do. I want a strong gold gold, something that would stand out as being 'more gold' then my regular minotaurs. The non-metallic gold effect seems to look like it would work quite well but I think mixing metallic and non metallic painting styles within the same army would look dumb, so I'm back in search of a gold again...
Liquid gold gave me this, which did not work how I wanted or expected it to.
As you can see the 'test' leg that I painted up, while looking strongly metallic came out being brass -_- more so then the minotaurs themselves so thats back to the drawing board.
I'm in serious need of help for finding another gold something that will give a true gold look else I'm going to be forced into painting the terminator and the custodians exactly the same as the minotaurs and I really don't want that.
Perhaps get hold of some Vallejo Model Air Gold and use it for the highlights on the model as is?
The new test piece using some of the gold advice I recieved. Looks light enough to me. It's a different style of gold compared to the golden look the minotaurs have thats for sure, not entirely lighter but much more rich and golden looking.
================================================
Quick comparison
Automatically Appended Next Post: Adding a better look here.
Up close its a bit of a pain because the metallic paint seems to slightly texture the surface its applied to so it doesn't look as fine as the other methods of golding.
High lordess of Terra's psycannon is complete! Came together much easier then I was expecting, and this terminator is soooooo much easier to paint in pieces. More coming soon!
Thanks! As nice as this gold can turn out, I hate using the stuff. Liquid Gold by vallejo gives amazing quality coverage and a really nice gold but the stuff as a substance is horrendous. You can only clean it out of things spiris / stripping solutions which means you cannot use it with decent brushes which greatly reduces how useful the stuff is. Contact with water immediately makes the stuff clam up into a thick almost rubbery mess. It fumes to high heaven so you cant keep the bottle open for long without ventilation and its shelf date can sneak up on you very unexpectedly by gradually giving harder and harder texture. This means that even while painting the liquid can be exposed for too long and begin building clumps.
I choose to sacrifice a cheap 10 dollar airbrush for the sake of giving a range of miniatures a smooth coat with this stuff. It will practically destroy the brush but save untold hours of heavy handed work with this metallic. They dry so damn fast I'll be glad when im done with metallics @.@
Automatically Appended Next Post: I've been thinking about my Ordo xenos inquisitor with the rad grenades for the high lords detachment.
One of the Inquisitor scale inquisitor inquisitors (lol) that I really have always liked would be this lady.
Seeing as my ordo xenos doesn't have power armor or terminator armor I think this would be the perfect look to try and recreate. But my knowledge of bits and parts I could use aren't very good, so help would be muchly appreciated.
Not the best when it comes to painting faces, I don't do it very often but I finally got to a sort-of technique I'm happy with. I need a good bit more practice with it but I think I can make it work, while my best attempt is rather pale for the moment but it does have some noticeable colors there. I think I made it harder for myself by not wanting to have your usual tanned med skin tone.
In addition though, I did want to add this in while its not minotaurs I'm kinda happy at how it comes out. I don't paint miniatures fully assembled but considering the size of the pieces and the fact its almost a pure single sculpt anyway I might as well.
I'm afraid I'm out of ideas for the Inquisitor kitbash, but have you looked at Reaper? They usually have something in the Bones or metal range to work from.
Yeah I think the second one in from the left at least on the camera has the better tones to it, but on the actual miniature you can see it not look quite so good up close, were as the far left more complete one is actually not done full justice by the camera.
There are some third party options, in which it wont be a kitbashed remake of that particular inquisitor, though what I have my eye on is very very nice >w<
As for bits if I were to make it out of custom parts Id expect or want to make it so it can be used at the local GW.
In addition the reaper bones thing doesn't have many pictures D:
Forgot about them. They could work if you can find them (as far as I know, they only come in the massive throne kit, although you might find them on Ebay. I don't know how often they come up)
I'm putting together a Gondor army for KoW, and cracked open two blisters of metal command troops last weekend. It actually made me a bit sad to know that they're gone. Something that in pretty much the same shape and format that had been part of my life for a good 25 years...
I am still alive!
I feel like I've regressed somehow though xD I'm really derping out when its come to painting red, of all things the airbrush is set and painting the black how I want has been achieved, even done my high lords weapon but for some reason I'm struggling painting red... I don't know why, I've done it SO many times before on all of these marines but for some reason I'm brainfarting all over the place so its taking a while before I have anything worthy of really uploading @.@
I'm hoping I can fix this all very soon because its quite annoying.
Least I can show the hammer, this is my first time airbrushing for anything much beyond broad highlights or priming soooo it could definitely be better. The lighting and setup doesn't really do it justice, it was a rather rushed image >.<
I only have the chest piece to go on the high lord now, but more importantly I'm working on my honor guard, which is proving to be a little difficult.
I also need to work out a 1500pt list for them @.@ because I'm hoping to take them to a GW event within the next month or two.
It looks pretty weird close up like that, its been protective coated and that close up lol, the angle doesn't help but it isn't too bad.
Had to strip and re-do the body cus red.
Automatically Appended Next Post: First world issues, the new red system ive come up with is working flawlessly, to the point where it might wind up looking too much better then the rest of the red on the army. I'll post a picture soon xD
One of the bigger problems I seem to have with red is keeping it clean with the shading. It's very easy to wind up having a dirty shaded effect and its a bit of a pain.
What I did on this was really super thin washes of glaze built up to produce shadow and highlight. It was a little dirty even still so I'm not overly comfortable with it, though I'm sure practice would help. Before hand the way I did it before produced similar result but really didn't seem to take to cloth overly well though while the result on armor was ultimately the same.
The way I base my miniatures though its very difficult to actually tell the difference only that for this the cloth has worked were as before my previous way of doing things seemed to fail.
Previous way of doing things being
- meph red base
- ink earth
- meph red again
- meph + evil suns red
- evil suns red.
where as now its multiple coats of around a 1:7-10 paint to water ratio coats. Just seems to work better for cloth.
Essentially the colors used are the same except instead of ink I used a combination of Mordian blue and Mephiston red to create the shadow/shade.
Looks very effective. I'm doing some red sashes on some figures at the moment and was going to use burnt cadmium red as the shade tone. I might trial using a mix of blue and red and see how it goes. Just want to make sure I end up with a deep red in the creases, and not a dirty one.
Well those are pretty close up views. I probably could do better, part of the reason I think I was struggling so bad with the red is because I not long got done with that display piece, and it was like the only real full model I've done since the tactical squad. And I'm not used to defining the difference between display, tabletop etc etc. Other then the amount of time i was wanting it to take.
So there is me giving everything the :/ unimpressed face, in the mindset of a display piece while trying to get things done quickly which ultimately ended up in me rushing parts and wanting too much from them.
As much as I would like everything I do to be display piece worthy xD I need to leave that for competitions, probably infinity (cus theirs only 10 miniatures in that) because I need to remember the idea of my minotaurs is for the first time in about six? or maybe ten years? to actually successfully paint myself an entire army and ACTUALLY PLAYTHEGAMEOMG.
xD
/endramblings.
Glad that it might be useful to you! It's a little time consuming, you have to use very thinned down almost water-consistency stuff thinner then what you get out the bottle from an GW ink. and build it up gradually, allowing for everything to dry fully before moving on to the next shade (best to do it in a batch process for that) Oh, and while you super thin it down, the brush should have no loose water on it at all, like what you put on should be such a thin layer its a bit crazy xD
Errors I found
Unclean brushes can lose bristles or old specks of paint during this process.
Repainting over un-cured paint causes the water in it to pick the previous layer back up causing a dirty un-smooth look.
You can speed the process up by using less thinned paint but at the same time you bring in the risk of transition lines.
Alternatively, wet blend.
I really need to get myself a box of gakky marines I don't plan on using and use them to practice certain effects on. I also need to write down recipes and such that I go through and generally have some kind of, 'painters journal' because I find that I sometimes lose confidence in my ability to paint techniques I have done before, purely because i cant recall 100% how I went about it or what the outcomes at various stages looked like.
You've already raised some good points, other things you could try is adding a little washing up liquid to your water (lowers the surface tension or using one of the vallejo acrylic thinners instead of water.
the armour looks ok, but the cloth could do with more contrast, the light is not light enough etc, try using black & white
Do the thinners improve the paint that much. I had been looking at using special thinners for paint but I had figured they merely replicate the effect of water.
I do use sometimes Glaze medium.
I did struggle I have to admit after a while either my patience gave out or the technique was slightly flawed as I seemed to reach optimum brightness. At the same time I could have added some yellow to brighten it more but I didnt want to risk going orange either.
I use a custom mix in a Vallejo dropper bottle. It's made of:
50% Distilled Water (supermarket)
30% Liquitex Flow Aid
10% Drying Retarder (Derivan)
10% Matte Medium (Liquitex)
It works well.
The sashes I'm painting are pretty small, not worth going into advanced techniques beyond finding an appropriate wash and a bit of a highlight. (it's a unit of LotR figures) One cloak in the mix, so I'll have a bit more of a detailed play with it on him.
Wishful thinking in the realms of new Sisters of battle miniatures, more so in the realms of female imperial miniatures. Sigh.
I did however come across something and now that my miniature arrived I feel xD I can put it up without not knowing what im
actually talking about.
Here are a few of the miniatures~
These are all made by a russian company / group called Svarog Miniatures and I just wanted to share them a minute but I do have
a slight concern. As mine has arrived I noticed a slight problem. While the miniature is 28mm it more resembles an infinity miniature
then a warhammer one. And so it slightly depressed me, because any one of these would have made an awesome inquisitor.
Size comparison!
The miniatures!
THIS IS THE ONE I HAVE!
I THINK THIS ONE LOOKS AWESOME, PROBABLY WILL GET THIS AS WELL IN THE OFF CHANCE IT MAY BE BIGGER (Wishful thinking)
To end off I guess I'll also xD seeing as it was partly seen, show how the initial design of the Honor Guard are coming along.
It's a little dusty in the picture, I find it hard to stop dust build up on things that I've been working or waiting on for too long. Also, a little lazy with the purity seals, I can do a much better job but I really want these done quickly and I think its starting to show.
That said it is the 'test' piece and they always seem to dip in quality compared to the ones that follow as I'm still trying to flush the process out.
Jeeze I keep finding myself too busy to do much. I have all the legs of the honor guard about ready to be done.
The initial 'test' / honor guard with the chapter banner has been done, although a few hiccups.
This has taken me way too long but now that its done I hope ill be able to batch paint the rest much quicker as I no longer need to wait for airbrush equipment, paints to arrive, all other sorts of inconvenience I've had to deal with on this first one and hopefully it hasn't come out 'too bad'
I'm not painting these minotaurs to the best of my ability so its not flawless, I'm just trying to get these ready to play! but heres the first of the honor guard!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Had to add a 2p to the base because he was just too top heavy with that huge resin banner.
The banner is actually 3 transfers lol, laid over a flat screaming bone or w/e it is coat, then airbrushed with earth shade. Pretty much all it took, a couple of matt coats between layers to give that 'not sure if transfer?' look to it. lol.
The sword is from anime tactics, shinigami I think?
I was happy to use the airbrush actually, one of the firs times used for shading and such. So it was actually a hail mary in regards as to how it was going to turn out, thats the first take. There are a few issues with it that could have been better, but I'm pretty happy with it.
I find airbrushing seems to work nicer with shades rather then flat colors i.e inks and such, but I may just need more practice getting the right consistencies. as it didn't work as well on marine sized miniatures.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nashbashem wrote: Very cool blog and love your Minotaurs Your conversions are cool and I love your banner. Look forward to more
Sasa0mg wrote: The banner is actually 3 transfers lol, laid over a flat screaming bone or w/e it is coat, then airbrushed with earth shade. Pretty much all it took, a couple of matt coats between layers to give that 'not sure if transfer?' look to it. lol.
The sword is from anime tactics, shinigami I think?
You've done a masterful job laying down those transfers. I'll have to pick some up when I do my next FW order. When is HH Vol4 due out again?
having patience helps too
Tartaros Arm next to a basic power armor arm, not even compared to a terminator arm 
Seeing as my ordo xenos doesn't have power armor or terminator armor I think this would be the perfect look to try and recreate. But my knowledge of bits and parts I could use aren't very good, so help would be muchly appreciated.
THIS IS THE ONE I HAVE!
I THINK THIS ONE LOOKS AWESOME, PROBABLY WILL GET THIS 
