Hello and welcome to my first project log here on Dakka!
This was originally dedidcated to my Pokemarines (Below) but after the british weather has stopped me from base coating miniatures, I wanted to be able to date the thread more often and so decided that the thread would be shared between them and my beloved Tau! The thread will have fluff, tactics, painting guides (If people want them) and generally the random musings of my mind. So enjoy!
Spoiler:
In a recent discussion with a friend of mine, we started to talk about how fun it would be to see a 40k army based on pokemon, mainly for the laughter value, but also because it would be something very few people had come across and would be a very unique and personal army and it just so happens that I have a pile of Space Marines half painted from years ago.
Being the kind of hobbyist that I am, my head began swirling with ideas not only for colors, squad markings and fluff wanting the army to be not only fun but also, able to fit into the 40k universe! And that is the basics of my idea and the project.
I'm not the best painter or modeller in the world (Far from it) so that is why I decided to document it on here so that as the idea progresses different ideas and input from you lovely people can come through helping to improve not only the army, but also my skills in the areas I'm lacking. So as I wait for my paint stripper to arrive (Biostrip 20) the various number of undercoat sprays and some odd bits to help flavour the first squad, I'll use this time to type down what is in my head and begin to gather the fluff together.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Soft earth gave way as the yellow power armoured fingers bent to find something to grip onto, something to help bring back the strength that had suddenly left. Devrak couldn't recall what had happened, he remembered only the impact and his form bouncing across the ground as he hit, only his armor protecting him fro what would have been certain death. As his senses slowly returned, to normal state, he could hear hushed voices a few meters away, all talking at once and each filled with the sound of fear and uncertainty.
"You catch it"
"Me? Why me?"
"You're the one who seems to think it's a legendary"
The voices were young, thirteen, maybe a little older but none belonged to an adult and none held any dialect or accent he was familiar with. The strength in the Astartes muscles began to return and the shock of such a impact had all but gone now and with a grunt, Devrak rolled his body onto his back an stared up into the sky. White clouds hung low in the air but instead of blue, a ripple of purple backed the clouds broken only by the occasional, silent crack of lightening. What had happened? Where was he?
Donk!
"Huh? It didn't work!"
"Perhaps someone has already captured it..."
"I don't think so, even dexter has no information on it. It's a legendary, straight from the sky!"
Another clunk on his helmet followed and then several more. Leaping upwards, Devrak turned to face the small group of four boys reaching down and pulling free the bolt gun that still hung at his side, thank the emperor. With his weapon held forward, finger ready to pull the trigger, Devrak studied the now petrified children cowering in front of him. They were nothing that the Astartes had seen before, bright coloured clothes and various shades of hair that stuck up and out in all directions. Around their feet were a collection of red and white balls which is what he assumed they had been the impacts on his helmeted head. They didn't seem a threat and with no visable weapons, the marine slowly lowered his pistol.
"My name is Davrak, loyal servant to the god emperor. I demand to know where I am and where are my brothers?"
The children stared at the giant, his figure standing several foot higher than any of them and shoulders wider than all four side by side.
"I..i...it's not a... a... Pokemon"
One said as he burst into tears and collapsed onto the ground.
"You fell from the sky. Fell out of the meteor that made the purple come"
The eldest of the boys pointed towards the sky to emphasise his point and prove it wasn't a lie
"But now, a battle! You may be big but I'm a trainer and my Rattatta is in the top percentage of Rattatta!"
The boy stepped forward and threw one of the red and white balls to have it open up and with a beam of red emerged a small, blueish rat creature with fangs bared and ready to fight. Devrak lifted his bolt gun and within a second the rat creature was a crater in the ground, stained red with innards, bone and blood.
"I win"
Wow. Could be fun, but my first thought, is you must be rich:p to build a whole army as a "joke"...still though, I hope you do it! Could be a gas to follow this one go buy yourself a lotto ticket just in case
@ Bepo: Haha, not rich just lots of left over models from when I was younger, didn't have children and sent all of my disposable money on SM even though there was no hobby store in miles of where I lived! But if this does indeed pick up and I get lots of ideas going, I'll buy more for the army (If the boss says it's allowed, because, well... she's the boss)
@Xysis: Indeed it shall!
I suppose I had better start with what my initial ideas are with the army and what I want to gain out of it.
My first thought that it is going to be a very troop sized model heavy force, fitting in as many tac squads that I can with each having a different theme. The chapter symbol is going to b a pokeball (Could it have been any other?) and that will be the main thing that will tie the whole force together, as each squad will have unique armor depending on the pokemon they are based on.
These are what I have so far:
Tactical Squad Pika (Pikachu) - Yellow armour with 'ears' made from tau antennae with the tip painted black. The exhausts on the marines helmet will be painted red to represent the electric pouches and brown spikes on the lower leg to tie in the tail aspect as marines with tails, might look odd.
Tactical Squad Mander (Charmander) - Red armour with bold orange highlights. Mouth grill will be white/grey the same as fingertips for charmanders teeth and claws. Fire markings up the lower leg and two flamers as special weapons.
Tactical Squad Urtle (Squirtle) - You guessed it, blue armour with the backpack a shell colour and groin upwards the same shell colour for squirtles underbelly. Not sure what to have on the lower leg here, maybe water drops or a swirl pattern for squirtles tail? Will have to think on it and see how brave I am to attempt freehand.
And that is the three squads so far. In terms of basing, I am going to look more in depth at the battles in the pokemon games, as they have a circular piece of land beneath the pokemon, so I'm going to try and copy that to some degree. My ideas are all over the place at the moment (So the posts will be too) but there is a sort of base to it all
I'm still waiting for post to get started and my fingers are twitching because of it. But so far, fluff wise they were a chapter created during an early founding (Ten, eleven, maybe) and every hundred years, sends a company to Mars to help in searching for lost technologies... like those small white and red balls that somehow seem to capture Daemons >.>
So, I thought a nice 1500pt goal would be a decent size to aim for and as I said before, I want LOTS of infantry sized models. Here is the list I have just come up with along with a few notes to better explain my idea for each, subject to change (Alot of change).
HQ
Not too sure what to do with him. I was thinking of maybe swapping him out for a libby and doing a floating pose with Mewtwo colors. But that is far away yet, the tac squads come first so lots of time to alter this idea.
Troops
These will be based on the badge associated with the gym in the town, choosing pokemon that fit with the color theme. The only exceptions are Pallet town and Lavender Town
Tactical Squad Viridian (Green)
x9 + Sergeant
Bulbasaur. Dark green backpack with lighter green armor. Lower left leg will have the darker green spots. Some pretty awesome modelling ideas could happen here, vines bursting from the ground anyone?
Tactical Squad Pewter (Grey)
x9 + Sergeant
Geodude? Golem? There is a distinct lack of grey-ish pokemon that will translate well onto SM I coould also get away with Machoke, with a greyish blue (SW grey?) with the gold belt buckle and darker groin area
Tactical Squad Cerulean (Blue)
x9 + Sergeant
Squirtle. Blue armour with backpack painted as a shell. Front of chest plate to be a mid town skin color with swirls on the bottom left leg to represent his tail.
Tactical Squad Vermillian (Yellow)
x9 + Sergeant
Pikachu, the squad which began this project. Yellow armour, tau antena stuck to the head and tips painted brown for Pikachus ears. Brown jags on lower left leg for the tail. Thunder hammer?
Tactical Squad Cinnabar (Red)
x9 + Sergeant
Charmader. Red armor with flames up the lower left leg. White fingertips and perhaps toes painted on to represent claws.
Again, quite difficult. I was thinking Drowzee as the purpley-brown legs over the yellow could be quite striking. Will have too think some more on this one.
I have seen some robotic winged backpacks somewhere on the net and instantly thought of Zapdos. This could be effective if I can model each squad member with beakie heads and paint the beak as the, well, beak.
Assasult squad Celadon (Rainbow)
x9 + sergeant
Pidgeott. The same site I saw the robotic wings, there was some feathered wings too. I could paint these up various colours at the very tips and maybe find some plumes to stick on the marines head to represent the plume on the pokemon.
Soft earth gave way as the yellow power armoured fingers bent to find something to grip onto, something to help bring back the strength that had suddenly left. Devrak couldn't recall what had happened, he remembered only the impact and his form bouncing across the ground as he hit, only his armor protecting him fro what would have been certain death. As his senses slowly returned, to normal state, he could hear hushed voices a few meters away, all talking at once and each filled with the sound of fear and uncertainty.
"You catch it"
"Me? Why me?"
"You're the one who seems to think it's a legendary"
The voices were young, thirteen, maybe a little older but none belonged to an adult and none held any dialect or accent he was familiar with. The strength in the Astartes muscles began to return and the shock of such a impact had all but gone now and with a grunt, Devrak rolled his body onto his back an stared up into the sky. White clouds hung low in the air but instead of blue, a ripple of purple backed the clouds broken only by the occasional, silent crack of lightening. What had happened? Where was he?
Donk!
"Huh? It didn't work!"
"Perhaps someone has already captured it..."
"I don't think so, even dexter has no information on it. It's a legendary, straight from the sky!"
Another clunk on his helmet followed and then several more. Leaping upwards, Devrak turned to face the small group of four boys reaching down and pulling free the bolt gun that still hung at his side, thank the emperor. With his weapon held forward, finger ready to pull the trigger, Devrak studied the now petrified children cowering in front of him. They were nothing that the Astartes had seen before, bright coloured clothes and various shades of hair that stuck up and out in all directions. Around their feet were a collection of red and white balls which is what he assumed they had been the impacts on his helmeted head. They didn't seem a threat and with no visable weapons, the marine slowly lowered his pistol.
"My name is Davrak, loyal servant to the god emperor. I demand to know where I am and where are my brothers?"
The children stared at the giant, his figure standing several foot higher than any of them and shoulders wider than all four side by side.
"I..i...it's not a... a... Pokemon"
One said as he burst into tears and collapsed onto the ground.
"You fell from the sky. Fell out of the meteor that made the purple come"
The eldest of the boys pointed towards the sky to emphasise his point and prove it wasn't a lie
"But now, a battle! You may be big but I'm a trainer and my Rattatta is in the top percentage of Rattatta!"
The boy stepped forward and threw one of the red and white balls to have it open up and with a beam of red emerged a small, blueish rat creature with fangs bared and ready to fight. Devrak lifted his bolt gun and within a second the rat creature was a crater in the ground, stained red with innards, bone and blood.
"I win"
Haha! Glad you people are secretly cruel inside too
I was going to have him grab a Pikachu and, well, squeeze. Maybe next time.
But on a model front! I am at my mothers house, she's nuts and hid away my marines but I'll be getting them out over the nexttwo days and then can start stripping and sorting for next week when I can FINALLY get some modelling done on this project!
@ Sir Samuel - That.Is.Awesome!! If I can get my force looking that magical, then this will all be worth it!
@Bubble - Soon, work will commence very soon
I had a rummage around today and found just one box of the three that I have stored away. It isn't the full force but three tac squads, two rhinos, a dreadnaught and a landraider (Pics to follow) so all that is left is to strip and then I can get started! Fething excited!!
This is what I managed to find today, so the stripping will begin tomorrow and then hopefully through the week glueing the pikachu ears onto the first squad ready for priming!
Well, what started as a comedic army is getting pretty serious in my head, I even wrote about a Rattatta getting a boltgun shot right in front of a innocent child... Dark times are ahead I think, very dark times.
That Pikachu makes me both happy and sad at the same time... I now really want to watch the Pokemon movie. I may be able to justify it to the boss as research!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Stripping has begun!!
That would be a seriously big undertaking! Perhaps I could do each as a side thing if I can pick up some very cheap models on Ebay to keep the costs down...
Col. Tartleton wrote: From the title I thought you were going to do one marine for all the Pokemon. That would be a whole chapter at this point. Scary stuff.
Might be less extreme if you started with the original 150(1), rather than all...
First squad now completely stripped, drying and the second batch has been placed in the goop!
I have also decided that, although using older models would be cheaper, I'm going to buy a tac squad tomorrow because, well, I want/need new toy soldiers >.>
Went to my local GW today and they had no Tactical squads :( So I picked up some GS instead, the first step towards getting some actual modelling done (It was bound to happen some time) is going to be rolling out lots and lots of round balls to create Pokeballs that will be used as decoration on bases and stuck to the waist of the marines, further implementing the pokemon theme. Pokeballs, Great balls, Ultra balls and a singe Masterball ahead!!
Did you think of swinging by a craft store and checking out the sections for beads and beadworking? I'm sure they have a ton of tiny spheres you could use and just repaint rather than rolling all that greenstuff!
@flutter - I know!! I stood there for a good ten minutes in shock. I have never known tacs to be sold out, after all, they are the stores love child. It's like subway, with no bread!
@Chemical - I thought about it, but after some debate in my head, figured GS would be much easier to score the line to separate the top and bottom and also, punch the middle hole. And if i decided to sculpt the details of the other balls onto it, would make that much easier too.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I wasn't lying, I have actually been doing something towards this project!
The first set of tester GS work has begun on what re to be the pokeballs. Just waiting for them to cure little before I go adding some details and perfecting the shape
I took a trip back into GW today (As it is ten seconds from my work, woo!) and they had some tac squads back in stock! Wooo!
These guys are going to be 'Squad Vermillian' and make up the Pikachu aspect of the army. Expect some pretty rad pictures over the next few days. I get paid in a few days and that is when new paint is to be ordered and I can actually show some painted work in this thread!!
I think this has got to be the most face-slappingly heretical thing since somebody made those my little pony marines. Or the vocaloid tau. Please, sir, continue. This promises to be quite entertaining
So uhh... just a thought, a dreadnought with the right bits... kind of a reasonable approximation for the shape of a blastoise? If you put the guns on the back
I'm so glad people are liking this!! There will be little to no updates today as I'm taking my tau out for my second ever game of 40k tonight. But I may stick some pictures of them up here when I get back home... just because I can.
subscribed, my oldest son(6 at time i am wiritng this) LOVES pokemon and i grew up during the orginal out burst on the GB so i cannot wait to see osmthign from thie
GrimDork wrote: I think this has got to be the most face-slappingly heretical thing since somebody made those my little pony marines. Or the vocaloid tau. Please, sir, continue. This promises to be quite entertaining
So uhh... just a thought, a dreadnought with the right bits... kind of a reasonable approximation for the shape of a blastoise? If you put the guns on the back
I love this game, don't care what the GW haters say, 40k is an absolute blast to play! So my Tau got roped into a 5000pts a side game with some other guys and it was my Tau, Grey Knights and Eldar vs two Blood angel players and a dark angels player. Match opens up with night fighting a with the whole of the opposition moving upwards, one of my pathfinder squads gets shot and whittled down to just two men. Our turn, those same Pathfinders scurry their lil' buns out of danger and go to ground in a abandoned building to stay safe. Fast forward four turns, both sides have taken casualties and I'm faced with Dante staring down my unti of firewarriors, his axe already drowned in Tau blood, his eyes screaming for more. He had one wound left and charged... Those two pathfinders, after being forgotten about all game, fire and hit two sixes, sixes to wound and Dante takes his armour save with a grin, only to die... with snake eyes. EPIC!!! I'll post some pictures if anyone is interested.
Dreadnaught? I was thinking Snorlax. Also, in the far future and I have the money to spare I'm going to buy the High Elf fire bird/ice birdy thingy kit for Articuno and Moltres.
Glad to know it was fun! That is the most important part about gaming. It doesn't matter about the online trolls and the bitching... if you play the game and you have fun? That is what matters.
Yeah, it most definitely is!!
Should be doing some more modelling tomorrow for Squad Vermillian and as I have dug out my green spray, I may be able to start the bulbasaur inspired squad if the weather holds out.
I didn't get to do anything hobby related yesterday as I spent the night watching movies with the lovely lady and chopping things up on FFX. But to waste my lunchbreak, I visited the GW and now, I want to do a 'Nid army as well as my Tau, Pokemarines and the plans foor a Blitzball miniatures game :/ So many things, so little money to do them with hehe.
Will be doing some modelling tonight for sure! So more updates later
Automatically Appended Next Post: So tonight I have managed to finish the heads of Squad Vermillian and also work out what I'm doing with the captain. He is going to be holding a power sword with the blade pointing towards the ground and a pokeball in his other hand, giving a very regal pose, hopefully.
Just some filing left to do on bolters and backpacks left!! Then I've got to wait until thursday to order some yellow spray and the true work can begin
Automatically Appended Next Post: Another update! I was debating on ho to paint these, either each part separately or with most of them constructed... and I decided with the latter. The backpacks and bolters are going to be painted separately and I still have no idea on how to do the bases as my original idea, to do them in the style of the pokemon game flopped, as they jut don't look as good in real form. I'm going to experiment with either a beach base or an urban theme, thoughts?
They're lookin' sharp so far. I like the ear-things. They gonna get some sort of jaggy-tail too or is that goin' too far?
EDIT - For the bases, why not do them themed towards whatever town they're from? Either the City/Town or the Gym?
Which means you'd have a couple Beaches but ah well. If you did it as the Gyms then for Surge you could have an industrial, metal, electric looking thing going on?
I think spiked tails may be a lil' odd for Marines, so I'm going to go with the brown jaggs at the end of Pikachus tail painted onto the lower left leg. This will at least add the tail to the design in some way.
That isn't oo bad of an idea for the bases... Hmm, will have to do some research! This research shall involve watching episodes and re-playing yellow!!
Paint the bases like Pokeballs!
paint them separately from the models, then glue the models to the bases.
I suggest, before gluing, that you make sure you scrape away small spots of paint on both to reveal bare plastic. The glue will hold FAR better with plastic to plastic than paint to paint or paint to plastic.
Eric
Automatically Appended Next Post: Oh... and, if you want to do psykers, I'm thinking MewTwo and Mr. Mime. LOL
The only planned Librarian at the moment is Mewtwo (And he is going to look AWESOME!) But this is me and I do lots of things just because I can, so I wouldn't rule out Alakazam! I've had ideas for a double power fisted Hitmonchan, Duel wielding wrist mounted flamers for Magmar and so many more that will never be playable, but would look cool.
And crazy idea for the bases, one that I will have to do lots of testing with... I had a thought of painting on each Gym leaders face onto the base because, lets face it, these marine are full of heresey so may as well take it all the way!
You'll be executed if you are either a small heretic or a big heretic so yeah, might as well go down as the biggest melon-fether there is
Tbh that idea seems interesting but I don't know if it'd look good in "practice": The marine would be stepping on his face, covering it. A test run would be nice to see if it looks cool. Either way, that'd be one heck of a free-hand challenge
I'm big on the Gym/Town bases. But that's mainly because I recommended them. >.<
If you want, if you google each town you can see how they've evolved in color and design over the years. I'd post them but 1) At work, and 2) Picture overload.
Yeah, I'll do one of each I think and see which is best.
I hate painting white... hate it. I've never had to do it before, but it is so hard to get a smooth coat so will have to do some tests to see if a grey base and then layering white would be better. I'm painting the captain for Squad Vermilian (Bulbasaur) He was already built though, so I'm not going for a full paint job and using him for some sick and inhumane experiments with blue ink and drybrushing :O So expect pictures soon!!
Why paint the faces?
Find a pic online, edit it into a circular shape the right size, put dozens on a page, print them out, get some adhesive & glue them to the bases.
Because that would be easy and I spit in the face of easy! Huzzah!!
Suppose I had better put something painted in here, ehh? With the one already basecoated marine I found, I began to try some techniques and ideas to get the right shade for the main body of Bulbasaur which has a blue hue to it. So he looks a mess.
He is still very much WIP and I may even end up stripping him. Looking at him now, I really need to re-think the darker green spots on his lower leg. The first time I tried them they were far to small and didn't pop out as much as I'd hoped and then they were too big. I'm thinking that if I strip him, remove his robotic arm (Biostrip20 removed plastic glue!) and place a proper arm on him, then the spots MAY look better climbing up the one side of his body... Will have to see.
So even though he isn't finished, there is now paint in the thread!
P.S- Ignore the mould lines. He is from the time in my life where I was foolish ad reckless, never removing the mould lines.
Ahhhh! I see what you did there! Very entertaining!
Me too, I was very reluctant to start as I have such awesome ideas floating around, I wanted to do them justice and because this guy (Named Alice) is just a test model, I'm breaking myself in slowly.
Indeed, pretty pleased with the Pokeball, just got to have the centre circle a little bigger and it'll be good.
Overall, I'm quite happy with the majority colour, just got to perfect the darker sots and I'll be bale to paint him up real good and with a base/other squad members, the look should come out alot more. I get to order yellow and red spray tomorrow for Pikachu and Charmander, so whilst I'm waiting for the rest of Bulbasaur to strip, I can start them and then momentum will see me through easily enough.
I LOVE the idea of Pokeball drop pods!!! Perfect for this force! I'm going to do that, for sure! Just pick up some styrene balls, cut them in half, make some kind of hinge and awesome sauce flows!
Sorry for the lack of updates over the past few days. With work, children and various social responsibilities (Boo to being social) I have had no time to model and with no sign of my undercoats arriving, no progress to be made and I managed to pick up some Kroot for my main army, meaning I've been trying to save them from gloopy glue hell. I'm hoping my paint will arrive by the end of this week and then some work can begin!!
Actually, I say no progress has been made, me and the boy child have started watching pokemon from episode 1 and that counts as research!!
Price wrote: I LOVE the idea of Pokeball drop pods!!! Perfect for this force! I'm going to do that, for sure! Just pick up some styrene balls, cut them in half, make some kind of hinge and awesome sauce flows!
Bonus points upon deployment saying "Sternguard I choose you!" and "Use meltagun attack!"
Haha there will be an awful lot of that! I'm also going to buy a hat so I can turn it around whenever I roll dice... and on that thought, I have to customise some dice to be pokeball colours!!!
Got my spray today!! Daemonic yellow and pure red for pikachu and charmader. The only problem? I didn't think they were going to arrive yet, so I brought a hammerhead, because you can never have too many railguns, and that is what I have been doing tonight.
So tomorrow squad vermillion will be sprayed and painting can begin!
Price wrote:Haha there will be an awful lot of that! I'm also going to buy a hat so I can turn it around whenever I roll dice... and on that thought, I have to customise some dice to be pokeball colours!!!
You know, Chessex makes custom dice. You could get them with a Pokeball design on the "6" side.
So as you may have seen with the thread title, it has changed. I wasn't updating as much as I wanted, so I thought I'd ram some of my Tau in here too! They were my first 40k army and hold a special place in my 'everyone is welcome' heart . So...
Indeed, he is pretty bad ass. He was one of my Crisis Suits and during a battle, his squad were utterly ripped apart, so I moved him into a forest to stop first blood. He was charged in the forest by a Demon Prince and won the combat... So after that, I brought a shiny new model, painted it up and he was promoted to the commander of my Tau.
I love narrative in my games, love stories like that.
Update!
With the weather improving, I had the chance to spray my marines!! I used Army Painters Daemonic Yellow and wasn't the best spray in their line, covered patchy and took several passes to even begin to cover the grey, but I got there in the end.
The base yellow has been washed with Agrax Earthshade and then various highlights (Two) with increasing white added. They are still very WIP and so only the bulk of the yellow has been done, the darker shades on the chest/shoulder ads, need work. But you get an idea and the Pokemarines have officially begun!!
Yeah they are. I'm going to yellow-ize(?) them with a yellow glaze which will even everything out tonight. Also with the brown going on, it will help the yellow look darker too. It is one of those things that will all come together, right at the very end. But I'm pretty pleased so far as this is my first time painting yellow!
Well you did the smart thing and sprayed a base of yellow first. That definitely takes a lot of the frustration out of painting yellow. If you do a glaze later that'll bring back the brightness a bit, so that'll be good. Looking forward to more.
Haha! I like the brown. That is well visualized there. I was wondering how you were going to do it, and that sort of White-Scars jaggy touch looks perfect. Keep up the good work.
