STC_LogisEngine wrote:So, that update I promised was detained by our old friend Beer and BBQ-Party all weekend. But now it's here.
Getting that sword, scabbard, hand and hilt to line up somewhat properly was an effin' nightmare. So you better damn well like it!
Legion of Damnation wrote:Beautiful model as always, glad to see the legion again.
Ps, I'm Alpharius
It's true!
On topic - awesome as always.
And I love the fact that you're doing Raven Guard too - I was a big fan of the RG long before their stories become somewhat foolishly intertwined in the HH series of novels.
Plus, it is always good to see someone paint and highlight a nice black armored Space Marine!
Thanks guys. the cloak is indeed from the dark elf corsair kit and the scabbard/sword is the long machete you get with the catachan heavy weapon team box so I took one without a scabbard and cut it. removed the hilt from the one in the scabbard and put the pieces together.
So, I got three alphas with plasmaguns in the pipeline; one mk IV, one mk V and one mk VI. I'll finish my deathwatch captain for Inmygravenimage's little P&M challange first though, got off to a flying start there. pics soon to follow.
Make one of what Miss Dee? Clarification is requested.
Thought I'd share some wip pics of my deathwatch captain that I'll be entering in Inmygravenimage's painting challange.
Dead as Salvar Jim, .75 cal mass-reactive to all major joints, lower spine blown out and finally one in the head; point-blank, execution-style. Carbon-scarring from the muzzleflash clearly visable around the entrywound.
I'd say someone wanted them dead really bad Jim. Those shells went through-and-through, necrodermis blown all to hell. I'd guess Kraken Penetrator shells, hard to come by and as expensive as Macharius' underpants.
Now that's high praise right there Gitsplitta, just you wait untill it's finished.
Hmm, so you want a straight copy built then miss dee? I guess we could work something out if I just can remember all the pieces I used. I'm a bit like an orc mek in that department, things tend not to be replicated even if I try.
Hmm. Sure, let me think a little and I'll try to make a bitz list for him. But since you want it for a Carcharodons army he should have Mk V 'Heresy' pattern armor, or Mk III 'Iron'.
Just a professional oppinion.
STC_LogisEngine wrote:Thanks guys, I use Gale Force 9's 'Grey Stuff' for sculpting polari.
So, small update.
I managed to almost finish the Mk V ''Shooter''. He's gonna get a scope and a silencer on his boltgun to finish him off.
Mk IV guy is ready for a basecoat and some paint.
Mk VI 'Support' is also ready for the paints, very satisfied how this one turned out.
Groupshot.
Mk III is in the works.
So, what do you guys think so far? I guess it will be more eye-pleasing once they get their Alpha Legion paintjobs done. Have at it!
I'm very fond of the Mk IV armour. Is that the one nicknamed the 'Maximus' armour? The colour scheme is dark and menacingly awesome!
The conversions are absolutely unique and they appear to be really well finished. The 'Support' model looks utterly brilliant.
Loads of character. I can't get enough! Thanks for posting mate!
STC_LogisEngine wrote:Hmm. Sure, let me think a little and I'll try to make a bitz list for him. But since you want it for a Carcharodons army he should have Mk V 'Heresy' pattern armor, or Mk III 'Iron'.
Just a professional oppinion.
Man, you have actually inspired me to get some CSM models and start Alpha Legion... Wow! Awesome work on everything again, great Raven Guard (I think) AND Alpha Legion!
GiraffeX: Mmm the model is, I had intended to shave off the skeletal decorations,on the right pad and fly him as either a Salamander or a Fire Hawk but entering a large field of bright green (salamander) or deep red/yellow (fire hawk) would completely screw up the colour-composition of the piece. It would look awful simply put. So I opted for picking out the flames in polished copper and just make up a suitable chapter-name and fitting iconography and insignia.
Imperial Monkey :Yepp, shaved off some mini-skull clusters, cut and hacked off the left pad so I could fit a Deathwatch pad. A gakking nightmare since every piece of this model and it's yet-to-be-fitted parts is white metal and not failcast.
Urien_Rakarth: Good luck, just go easy on the chaos insignia and the horns, No hornes I tell you! That's for those snivveling, gak-head Word Bearers. The sons of Alpharius are pragmatists and it's tricky to sneak around with a pair of 5-foot deamonhorns on your helmet.
Your models are absolutley stunning, I can't give praises high enough
and as a side note, my whole Platoon now listens to Two Steps from Hell: Heart of Courage at 0400 in the morning!!!
We even train to it. . . man us NZer's are sad. . .
redkommando: Of course you can! Try it, superlative praise and detailed CnC oils the machine and makes it paint more.
So, Deathwatch Captain is done! Please tell me what you think of it. Don't be afraid to be nit-picky (I don't like the red lenses, you should have made them orange!) -like that.
I am quite happy with how it turned out, I was aiming at a 'Eavy Metal -esque look and it didn't go all that far off. I should really get a proper lightbox to get better photo-quality and get rid of those annoying lightflares that keep messing my pics up.
Next update will be Alpha Legion again. .. Seriously. I promise.
++++//Image Carpet-bombing commencing+//+Brace for impact: Brace for impact //++++
Technically speaking, your painting ability is nothing short of perfect. every highlight is crisp and precise and as a whole the model has a very professional, subdued look about it.
However, from an artistic standpoint, the colour choice is a little...off. I understand you're limited to the Deathwatch palette, so there's not much room for diversity there(armour has to be black, left arm has to be silver etc).
However, the minimalistic approach you have gone for leaves the model looking unfinished in places. For example, I really like the cream coloured cape, but the highlights are a little too subdued, so it looks like you didn't finish it, as does the filligree. I think picking that out in a nice pale gold or something would go miles towards making it look more complete. Also, the highlights on the black armour I feel could stand to be a just a little bit bolder, as the silver of the gun and arm dominate the model, and make it hard to focus on the rest of the piece.
I guess what I'm saying is that I feel the white wings and silver arm are TOO bold, and I feel as though they are dominating the model, and just adding a spot colour to the front or back somehow would give it a certain je neu saix qua. Its just missing that little extra pop.
Again, this is all my $0.02, I'm not a very good painter, I'm more on the theoretical side of it than the practical, so take it for what it's worth.
Again, the limitations of photographic endeavours without a proper camera or lightbox.
I do concur that some spot colour both on the cape and the model itself would subdue the white but here we are sliding into the mire that is painting to fit the photographic situation, wich is one severely lacking in hardware. The main problem here is that I am unable to counteract the natural flare-effect wich 'eats up' the neuances in the bright surfaces of the metallics, white and cream. These are better defined (even if only little) in reality and I am loathe to over-highlight to make it carry through the residual flare.
I could write pages in the intricate and sometimes arcane ways of painting black since different end results require quite radically different approaches. ''Bolder'' is a term slightly hard to translate in this case because you can never really make black a ''bold'' colour. Essentially, but this is not always true; the brighter highlight used the more ''polished'' the surface appears. But this also makes it increasingly sensitive to placement, dynamic interaction with previous layers and above all thickness of highlights. Because the brightness of the extreme highlight directly corresponds to the width of the darkest highlight layer so the brigher the highlight: the narrower the highlights must be or it will look like crap.
What I was going for here was not a high-polish, but rather a more neutral black to match ''studio'' colouration. I have concidered adding a few fields of free-hand designs to sneak some more detail onto the model (heraldic design to a kneepad, some kind of design along the hem of the cloak etc) and perhaps paint up and slap on a few purity seals as well as adding some scrapes and dents but that would be something i will have to come back to. Alpha Legion models have been assigned priority due to the high risk of a new codex around the corner. Also with the release of the first Horus Heresy book in October from our friends at Forge World I really need to get them out of the way to clear space for my Heresy era army.
I think you did a great job, I love the subdued black. If only I could paint black half as good......
The only thing I can fault is it looks like you painted the cloak in a hurry, the basic shading on it looks a bit rushed, especially in the folds you could shade it a bit nicer (could also be due to the photo being from the side angle).
Black is a little trixy but once you get the hang of it.. you know, it's reduced to just being timeconsuming. And i concur with you, the cloak didn't turn out all that well in the photos. Rather nice in RL though, a bit flat seen through a camera.
On a completely unrelated note I should perhaps start to accept comissions again, I rather enjoy making terrain and doing odd minis. Maybe I should swing by my local GW-provider and snap some shots of all the terrain and black box content I have touched up for them. Especially the winter table since I did it as good as single-handed. Might as well do it this afternoon, I need new brushes if I am going to paint anything tonight anyway, the fine detail is beginning to fray and my small drybrush is close to desintegrating.
I can't really provide smart or constructive feedback like archmagos_amadeus, because I can't paint to save my life.
That said, he looks amazing. I agree that the eye lenses would look better Orange, but he looks amazing. It always staggers me how you manage to inject such character into every model you do.
Kudos man, brilliant work as ever.
It's okay. You make up for it with steamy, unabashed flattery instead Dave.
And now for something completely different: Found my Space Hulk genestealer sprues in a drawer today, I am getting very very keen on painting up the Broodlord just for fun. It's such a sweet model.
Actually, it think the model is near perfect. It simply needs a little something to make it pop as, due to the colour palette, it is quite a subdued figure. A little bit of OSL (and I stress the "little". You do not want to go overboard on it or you will ruin the balance) on the eyes would do very nicely indeed. That, and a little work on the cape as Amadeus suggested would leave you with one winning figure.
So I was bored an unmotivated, so I built and started painting this little thing.
Mechanicus mobile airdefence unit, with interchangeble Icarus laser an ''quad'' autocannon. Now I know it's per se not a quad due to just two barrels but I recon anyone who wants to bitch about that isn't worth playing against anyway. Model is in ealy stages of basecoating, just thought I'd share.
The wonders of having a way too large bitz-box, I am thinking of maybe bulding an AM aegis line to go with it so the skitarii and their magos (the primed/unprimed blurry guys in the rear of the pics) have something to hide behind. I have this kind of great but blurry idea of an engineering vehicle to go with them but it's not all that well-formed yet and a bit dependent on how many more track-lenghts I can dig out of the aforementioned box..
[One bitzbox is a lie, it's more akin to a whole closet full..]
I'm that way with my marine infantry bits... they fill up two large bins storage systems for screws and bolts and such. I suppose it's not really all that much compared to some, but it seems like an awful lot to me.
Have you noticed how the bitz tends to layer like geological strata? In the bottom corners you can find those odd bitz from the mid-90's while the newer stuff kind of floats on top. I blame material density, all those 2nd ed models still had a good portion of lead in them..
Well, Stripped out of any motivation to pick up a paintbrush and staring at my half-finished trio of plasma-packing legionaires I turned to my bitbox for som aimless rummaging for some odd bit. I think it was a meltagun fuel canister, you know the ones you get on the sm devastator sprue.
It went slightly overboard.
Wich you should be guessing, concidering that there's an update. With pictures.
So yeah, Skitarii. That's some darn fancy stuff. Sooo.. this is me, ignoring codex restrictions and ''what will I use these as'' and making my skitarii as I envision them. I am sorry J-Paint but hoods on skitarii? that gak's lame, they are not Magi or enginseers of the mechanicum you know..
They're soldiers. The most dangerous ones the imperium can deploy barring the adeptus astartes. Cyberneticly augumented with implant weapons from mankind's lost age of dominance, mechanised armor, chemboosters, noonspheric manifold communication grids and digital weapons. All of a greater sophistication and more advanced technological origin than any other found in the wider imperium. These are the men and women that literally fight in the shadows of the gross-displacement warengines of the Titan Legions and march into battle beside the city-leveling warmachines of the Legio Reductor and Centurio Ordinatus. To display them as mere guardsmen is a great injustice.
These two are ready for the primer, third in the pipeline. And yes, yes.. I know I forgot to drill out the boltpistol barrel, it has been done post-photography.
Not too shabby eh? I am very pleased with these ones, Got my Blanchitzu on.
After having finished Priests of Mars (which, as you said, was awesome ), and i never thought id say this, but im starting to lean towards this version of skitarii as well. Not only does it make the skitarii seem meaner and more of a singular combat purpose, but i imagine it would make the Magi stick out wonderfully in a full force.
really cool models! are those infinity legs? And great Idea 40king that cherib up, I have that servo skull and the cherib I think i know what im doing with it now!
Thanks, hmm the commander has a pair of necron Pariah legs and the other one has a pair from some old robot model. Maybe an early battletech thing, I have no idea. I can post a pic of one that isn't carved up so maybe you can identify it.
Got to see if ebay can supply me with more pariahs.. sure make for expensive skitarii.
Very nice Skitarii, the Pariah one might be a bit too robotty for my taste but to each his own.
Maxmini makes pretty cool mechanical body parts as well
http://www.maxmini.eu/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=12&products_id=101 Just put a small spacer in between those legs and they look pretty good, I've done a few marines like that myself.
Although on second thought, as they're kinda meant for marines they might be too beefy for skitarii.
vehicle crews, commandkits.. you amass a quite a mass of odd bitz over the years. Got to try to lay my grubbin' claws on the new gk bits, i do fancy those.. not the actual knights but all the odds and ends.. oooh yeah.
I am not quite sure, I want to try to step away from the AdMech red on the Skitarii because as far as all ''viable'' references to their appearance [Mechanicum, Priests of Mars -Graham McNeill & Titanicus - Dan Abnett] it is not the norm. Rather their appearence is a product of the culture expressed by their parent Forge World and by extention branch of arms. Skitarii clans attached to Titan Legions bear the heraldry, insignia and colours of ''their'' legion, special branches like the ordo reductor, Magos explorator and the houshold troops of the Centurio Ordinatus have their own as well intermixed with the ''regular'' clan insignia.
We have to keep in mind here that the term 'Skitarii' is equal to 'Adeptus Astartes' and so on. It refers to a body of troops that within it has vastly differing heraldry, reference the astartes librarius division that wear blue and the red of the armoury's techmarines.
So far I am thinking of a battleworn matte black with white and grey details, pale blue glowy parts but a little dark red as spot colour for the regular infantry, metallics in bronze and dark metal. I'm going to do some colour-testing to get a nice combination before I try out a testmodel.
Very good musings on the nature of skitarii colours, i find myself very much in agreement with you on the entire vision of the Skitarii. So much so, that i now need to rethink how im gonna do mine. So thanks for being an inspiration!
So I have been sick for a couple of days, not much has been done besides coughing, snivveling, cursing the universe, sweating like a waterfall and browsing the internets for cool minis and pictures of kittens.. and of course lots of sleeping.
But today I finished twomore skitarii and made final adjustments to one of my artscale marines that will recive a paintjob as soon as I am free of this damned disease.
Thanks, I have decided to pick up the grey stuff and the sculptingtools to fix partial visors, bionic eyes and a bit more cabeling on these four.. moar cables and no flesh must be visable!
Speaking of sculpting, I corrected some mistakes and added some new parts to one of my artscales and set it up with a primer coat. yes yes, I have textured paint to slob on the base.. don't worry. But this one.. this one will be Deathwatch.
...''-Because he has a Thermal Detonator!!!'' [-C3PO, Return of the Jedi]
But oh no, it's a Melta Bomb. So he will use it to clobber you, your pet carnifex and your collection of used rockingchairs to a wet and messy pulp and then proceeds to blow off the leg on your new and shiny warhound titan with the meltabomb. Because he's kind of an ass. Space Marines are like that. Huge asses.. doesn't like people having xenos pets at all. Or rockingchair collections. Think's it's some kind of satirical comedy skit about the Emperor in general. Satirical comedy is HERESY!!!
Btw, dont know if you've noticed, but there's a kickstarter for some pretty badass models, that would be a sweet stand in for Knights or other AdMEch walkers:
Good work, although I think you should try to defamiliarize the sm chest pieces. The paintjob might help eventually, but currently the legs and upper body look a little too "randomly kitbashed". Maybe removing the belt buckle and adding some vertical stripes of pcard for a Sam Browne or a harness could help. Have a look at the sm scout kits (snipers, vanillas, bike, lsp storm) they have some nice pouches, grenades and bandoliers that could break up the familiar look.
Mmm.. I dunno Vit, those walkers from Dreamforge are quite nice but they would require some major refits and rebuilding to slot them nicely into the Grimdark. Might just aswell Buy a Warhound and be done with it. Concerning the Skitarii you are quite right Baiyuan, I was thinking about adding some cables and other things when I have time to run them over with some greenstuff but I am still a bit on the fence on how to pull it off properly. I guess we'll see later this week since I need to break out the GS anyway to finish the last Artscale marine for my Deathwatch squad. 4 ready for painting and with just a little more plasticard-work their dreadnought friend will be ready for the brush too.
Just thought I'd mention that. Just been super-duper-occupied with exams and other crap. But with the Heresy having crested the horizon the Forge World fund will soon be cashed in for rediculous amounts of resin and then the madness will truly commence.
You just wait until FW delivers on those scimitar-pattern jetbikes, then I'll be spending an entire weekend cleaning resin-kits in the sink with a toothbrush. outchie my VISA-card, the shopping list as it stands right now is almost touching £500
Sorry Spears, the astral claws project was discontinued and the models rotated into different chapters. The librarian sadly remains unfinished.
But I has painted! Shocking indeed I know.
So, this is a testmodel to try out the colours for my HH -force. After a lot of mixin' and trixin' I arrived at this blend. It's just a quick 2-hour paintjob so it's a little splotchy and not all that sharp in places.
The blue on the model is perfect, though I do think he needs a little green. Perhaps a green Alpha Legion symbol on his shoulder. Just to break the blue/silver up a bit. I do really like the way you did the eyes. They've got a great turquoise/emerald green look.
Indeed, the blue-to-green and scale patterns only came around after the Heresy was ended and the defeated traitor legions went into hiding inside the Eye of Terror. Well, not the Alpha Legion though. They retreated into the galactic south-east. I am really annoyed at GW with the new chaos codex though, the Legion has always been the guys who does not use demons or hide in warp rifts but has cultists and sneaky skills instead. Also the sample Alpha legion army in that codex (also shown on their hompage) is god-awfully ugly. Seriously, who painted that crap? A pair of colourblind monkeys? Whomever it was they have no idea how to choose complementing colours and .. sheesh! just no taste or style whatsoever! As an Alpha Legion player I am seriously offended by that daft stunt they pulled there!
Anyway... Still waiting for my Autocannon support squad Forge World..
Yeah well, can't get everything I guess. Oh wait! You could. Remember this codex? The best one of all time? That gave you every plausible option imaginable and then some?
Best Chaos Codex EVER!
On another note Forge World still frustrates me enormously.
I must admit, that this is the thread that convinced me to finally make an account here. (Used to frequent another forum for a long time, but it's turning bland).
Either way, your Alpha Legion is phenomenal, though you are already aware of that. I've been planning on rebuilding my Alpha Legion, and this has inspired the new scheme, so thanks for the great pics, and also I apologize for stealing a lot of the scheme.
*Scrapes another notch on the laptop monitor* One more for the Legion.. Thanks man, always nice to hear that one's work is appreciated, and by all means steal away to your heart's content.
Now I will return to watching my UPS Tracking number every half hour to see where my £500 worth of resin and book is in the world. Forge World Supply drop currently sitting in Nottingham awaiting dispatch tomorrow.
STC_LogisEngine wrote: Yeah well, can't get everything I guess. Oh wait! You could. Remember this codex? The best one of all time? That gave you every plausible option imaginable and then some?
Best Chaos Codex EVER
OMG yes playing plague marines back in that edition when Plaguebearers were still Plaguebearers....
m
And forrgeworld that bad on deliveries? then I doubt I shall even try to get my Cataphracti Terminators....
STC_LogisEngine wrote: *Scrapes another notch on the laptop monitor* One more for the Legion.. Thanks man, always nice to hear that one's work is appreciated, and by all means steal away to your heart's content.
Now I will return to watching my UPS Tracking number every half hour to see where my £500 worth of resin and book is in the world. Forge World Supply drop currently sitting in Nottingham awaiting dispatch tomorrow.
This wait is unacceptable and I'm not the one recieving it
Looking forward to seeing what goodies you have bought!
Chopasaurus it's all practice, you should have seen my first painting efforts back in the mid-90's.. it was godawful..
Spuj; no.. not yet.. I was stupid and changed my order so they had to re-pack it and so it got bumped down on the to-do list and yeah, they are shipping tomorrow. I'll have it ''probably'' by the weekend. I really had to throw out the jetbikes for a storm eagle, seriously.
Not a little bored I have slapped together this sorcerer/librarian/somethingsomething for my 40k alpha legion.
I was originally going for a book in the left hand but it didn't look all that good so I swapped it for a skull instead. I would have liked to use the flaming skull from the empire wizards plastic kit but the flames billow in the wrong direction when compared to the cloak so I had to go for a regular one instead.
Also I have been tampering with my Raven guard to get a usable 2000-point army from the models I have assigned there, in the end I have to go with a Blood angels core with a sizable allied force from the regular space marine codex to avoid fast tanks and to be able to use my Storm Talon.
So, as you can see below it's a mechanised force with some reserved airsupport in the form of a Storm talon and storm raven, the raven will be carrying the captain-boosted assaultsquad and the dreadnought. A slightly converted forge world inquisitor model is standing in as the librarian leading the 8 sternguard who for no appearant reason are modelled as a deathwatch killteam with a inquisition-marked rhino.
For reference this is the armylist.
Codex: Blood Angels.
Captain with Jumppack & Powerfist
Assault squad (5) sergeant has power weapon and meltabombs
Scout squad (6) with sniper rifles & Missile launcher
Deathcompany (5) (I had 100 points over and needed a way to get the land raider into the army list while avoiding a fast vindicator)
Landraider transport
Storm Raven with Typhoon missile launcher & twinlinked Lascannons
Dreadnought with Plasmacannon & Heavy flamer
Allied from codex: space marines
Epistolary Librarian
Tactical Squad (10) with Plasmagun, plasmacannon, rhino transport. Sergeant has poweraxe.
I'm just not sure it really looks like a psyker (force weapon looks like a power sword, no psy-hood), but you might either correct this with the painting, or just say that Alpha Legion specialists tend to just blend in their comrades, without any specific feature...
Looks great the libby! I never actually guessed your alpha legion were chaos, its really weird! They're so clean from chaos... I guess YOU, (not GW) followed the fluff!
Well I am using the chaos codex to provide the army list for the alpha legion and their sorcerers don't have psycic hoods, the force sword will be taken care of with paint since I didn't have a model avalible for one.
Won't take too long, i have a cunning plan with this lot. For once I'll only assemble new ones when the previous batch has been painted. Thought I'd start with a contemptor and a 5-man squad that has been taking a bath and been scrubbed throughtly with strong soap and a toothbrush, so they'll have proper time to dry until tomorrow.
What's going to be a bit tricky is the damn uniformity of the legion itself, sergeants and officers don't wear identifying crests or decorations, banners are not used at all in combat operations and squadmarkings are rarely present. the only thing that differs is truly weapon and gear.
Wich makes me wonder how on earth I am going to represent my praetor's commandsquad's legion banner... sheesh.
Haven't posted here in ages but i've been happily lurking away.
Thought it was a bout time i stepped out of the dark again and gave you a big ole .
I do have a question though, the technique you have used on the Alpha Legion at the start, have you applied it to different colours? How would you go about that?
Alpharius wrote: The Legion would have some of that stuff for certain settings - formal showings, ceremonies, etc.
You can always model it up and paint it as you wish 'just because', or because sometimes the Legion wants people to think they know what's going on...
...because that's exactly when something else happens!
I like Alphy's thinking here. For example, the Night Lord winged helms have been described (by AD-B predominantly) as ceremonial, but you still see them.
Or... You could make multiple squads look like a command squad? If every squad is a command squad, then which one actually is [from the enemy's perspective]?
Just read legion for the 3rd time and only once do they mention any squad markings other then that the only time theres a difference is with omegon and his darker stealth squad armour.
So, Finished building stuff for the first round of painting. Casey's Law; I am not quite sure what you mean, it is just a highlight that uses a different colour in a lighter tone instead of a lighter tone of the same colour.
So, quickly realising that my command squad needed decent ranged weapons and lo and behold the little buggers could all (well beside the standardbearer) nick Volkite Chargers from the armory and start irradiating the countryside. Also, so could the Preator. Even better! range is a tad short at 15'' but the S6 Ap5 Assault2 and failed saves prompt a further save (possibly 2 kills from one shot) well makes up for it. Around here the glaring problem reared it's head; no Volkite charger weapon packs avalible yet. Boooo! Well suck it then, I don't want your stupid rayguns anyway forge world.. *grumble grumble*
So again, Conversion Time it was! Luckily I had some sniper rifles ambling around the bitz-box up to no good. Some cutting and glueing later they had a new existence as perfectly usable Proton Accelerator Carbines. (trademarked)
This one is the Preator armed with a freshly stamped carbine, sword and pistol.
Here we have the ''standard bearer'', without banner. There will be no banner. it's silly to mark out command elements like that.. so easy to find. Anyway he has a nifty plasma pistol and a very large knife that will be recognisable as a powerweapon once the paint has settled on him.
Here we have the entire squad and it's guns, guns, guns as you can see. Turned out quite nicely. Bases are still a work in progress though.
Contemptors, sooo lovely.. and such a pain in the ass to assemble! I think the next one will have a more dynamic pose than this one who had to settle with the olde 'advancing and lining up a shot'-look. a bit boring but it works.
Well, that's all for now. Need to go buy some more basecoat so I can start painting these ones.
Ah so good! I love a great load of unpainted pics from you! it means that you have to paint them :-) and that's where the magic happens! that contemptor is going to very popular with about a million nerds watching your blog! and yes they are the biggest pita to assemble! trying to position them and glue with super glue is horrible, I glued my fingers together then pulled them aprt and glued them to the coffee table which then ate into the varnish and ruined it!
Sorry my last question wasn't very clear, what i was wondering was: If you were going to use the technique with different highlight colours, oranges for example, would you also change the blues underneath?
Colour-coordination is your friend in that case, the basic premise is always to fade one colour into another and that means that they can't be too contrasting. For example using an orange base and highlighting it into a bright green would be disastrous to say the least.
In my case I am using a dark blue (necron abyss) as my lightest tone of blue. The breaking colour is Snot Green. the first broad highlight is made from a 70:30 mix of blue and green, a secondary 40:60 mix is used for the second followed by an extreme highlight of pure Snot Green.
the green is then mixed with a small amount of white for the last extreme highlight and is applied restrictively.
The key is using complimenting colours that are not too clashing with each other. Also to use a dark undertone and not let the main colour be too bright.
Black is the easiest because it can be combined with almost any colour but at the same time the hardest to blend from because it will result in a slightly crystalline look if done properly but, as always with black, will result in disaster and apocalypse if you miss the mark.
This is an example of how it can be done, this exarch model is taken from black through hawk turqouise to white in the manner described above and was painted a few years ago by me as an experiment with the style.
@STC- I just wanted to say I was very impressed with your modeling and painting. So impressed, I used your AL CPT as the basis for a project with a very talented commission studio. Hope you're not offended. Thanks for posting your amazing stuff.
Chronepsis: Cheers mate, it's completely ok to steal ideas and colours from my work. Being a source of inspiration is after all the highest praise one can get. If you do something based on my work then feel free to post it here to show it off.
ArchaonSon: The biggest issue with the contemptor is ironically enough the extreme posability of the model, not stability. Contact surfaces are exelent and I saw no need to resort to pinning the thing. I highly reccomend buying some blue-tac or equivalent to try out poses before glue is applied. maybe a pen to draw lines so you can recreate the pose once the adhesion-mass has been removed. My biggest advice is not to rush things, take your time with it and think things over otherwise there's a risk that you'll botch the whole thing horribly. I almost did.
Lucre: Mmmm.. it's a bit more complex than that, you still have to blend the blue into the green. I'll give you my recipie with pics.
Paint armor with Necron Abyss over a black undercoat and metal areas boltgun metal, codex grey on the armor joints.
Give the whole model a black wash, badab black, water and chaos black.. whatever you have. I prefer Badab black but I guess Nuln oil works just as fine if not better.
Roughly highlight the armor with necron abyss, don't overbrush or line but - HIGHLIGHT- ie. look how the light falls on the model under a strong lightsource and use that as a reference where light and shade shuld be.
Mix Necron Abyss and Snot Green 70:30 with some water, this mix needs to be a bit thinner than what you normally use and highlight with broad strokes. Then repeat with a 40:60 mix.
Highlight with Snot green.
Mix Skull white and snot green 70:30 and apply the extreme highlight. Then repeat with a 50:50 mix applied with extreme moderation are the end result will be too bright. Then Give it a protective shell f dullcoat or whatever matte varnish you use and you are done.
Thank you! that was great to see step by step like that! very helpful if i ever need to paint some AL myself (now all I need is an excuse!!) end result looks amazing :-)
Love your models man. They are all very dynamic and well put together. Nice converting/kit bashing and you got some really nice painting skills. I really cant wait to see the entire army done man, keep it up bro!
Again, I show that I truly need to build a proper lightbox.. anyone who knows how to without shelling one's wallet to kingdom come?
Flare, how you frustrate me.. oh well. Colours are all in place, we are ready to commence weathering, free-hand painting and transfer application.
But today I finished twomore skitarii and made final adjustments to one of my artscale marines that will recive a paintjob as soon as I am free of this damned disease.
Skitarii Groupshot
I like the disrobed skitarii, but they look a bit too much like cybernetically augmented marines to me.
I am very interested to how you paint them up so they dont look like ironhands/iron warriors.
Mmm.. well, Guess I'll just have to build my own light box then, how hard can that be? I am an engineer after all, should be no problem! (<-- Famous last words..)
Currently freehanding a lot on the contemptor, and trying to find ways to shift my 40k alphas through the new chaos codex while retaining some form of structural coherency.. not with any great succsess I might add..
So Chosen can't Infiltrate any longer, interesting that since that little thing has been there since the 3d. ed. Fun.. I can infiltrate D3 units if I roll the correct warlord trait.. So. That means that to achive any kind of accuracy with that I either have to take Huron Blackheart or Ahriman.. whoop-di-f**king-doo.. Also, Cultists, the sole perogative of the alpha legion in the codex of Awsome-perfect-no-need-to-ever-change-it or the 4th of it's kind, is in this codex the most useless things since.. something and has no buisness being used as legion operatives.
''the codex of Awsome-perfect-no-need-to-ever-change-it''
Right now I am musing about a spacewolf/ imperial guard -shaped solution to this issue.
So.. how would that work?
I was thinking along the lines of Grey Hunters without wolfguard (for 2 special weapons) for the legionaires, Wolf Scouts agumented with a wolfguard battle-leader (saga of the hunter) for stealth-squads. This would also give me access to land speeders.. yay!
then boost this with a couple of infiltrating veteran squads for fun and profits and it might just work.. using codex: SW feels a bit iffy but it's the best fix so far.
Best 'counts as' solution to that problem I've seen yet, I think.
I was leaning towards Grey Knights with IG allies so I could also get a wacky Inquisitor and friends in there too, but I have to admit, I like your ideas as well...
Yeah, The wolf scout units is going to be interesting to convert. But it's the ''Behind enemy lines'' that really sell them, and with a battle-leader to agument them in close combat I think they can be very effective as long as you don't take small squads.
I would like to have a 3d with sniper rifles but wolf scouts with rifles goes for a whooping 18 points a pop, 180+ for ten.. so no, I don't think so.
Besides I need the 3d elite slot for my dreadnought.
STC_LogisEngine wrote: Mmm.. well, Guess I'll just have to build my own light box then, how hard can that be? I am an engineer after all, should be no problem! (<-- Famous last words..)
Currently freehanding a lot on the contemptor, and trying to find ways to shift my 40k alphas through the new chaos codex while retaining some form of structural coherency.. not with any great succsess I might add..
So Chosen can't Infiltrate any longer, interesting that since that little thing has been there since the 3d. ed. Fun.. I can infiltrate D3 units if I roll the correct warlord trait.. So. That means that to achive any kind of accuracy with that I either have to take Huron Blackheart or Ahriman.. whoop-di-f**king-doo.. Also, Cultists, the sole perogative of the alpha legion in the codex of Awsome-perfect-no-need-to-ever-change-it or the 4th of it's kind, is in this codex the most useless things since.. something and has no buisness being used as legion operatives.
''the codex of Awsome-perfect-no-need-to-ever-change-it''
Right now I am musing about a spacewolf/ imperial guard -shaped solution to this issue.
So.. how would that work? I was thinking along the lines of Grey Hunters without wolfguard (for 2 special weapons) for the legionaires, Wolf Scouts agumented with a wolfguard battle-leader (saga of the hunter) for stealth-squads. This would also give me access to land speeders.. yay! then boost this with a couple of infiltrating veteran squads for fun and profits and it might just work.. using codex: SW feels a bit iffy but it's the best fix so far.
I'll continue working on this..
Hi
Why not use the first Siege of Vraks book? It comes with Alpha legion infiltrators, renegade militia and infiltrating cultists.
Thank you for giving suggestions, but I am afraid I have already looked through all my Imperial Armour books without finding a suitable list.
The Vraksian renegade list is just that, a civilian uprising with civilian renegades. True there is an option to include Alpha Legion troops as elites but that is essentially just a copy-paste of the previous incarnation of the chosen squad from codex: CSM. I am looking for a solution to an army that is mostly alpha legion but with legion operatives as a supporting element. Legion operatives are highly trained and motivated soldiers, not civilian rabble.
I'd then suggest a main Chaos Space Marine force, supported by Imperial Guard Veterans and Storm troopers as more "elite" troops. That or you could use the Elysian Drop Troop list, showing the non space marine forces as mobile troops?
If only they'd just updated the ''the codex of Awsome-perfect-no-need-to-ever-change-it''. But it's an imperfect, backwards world where the best codex ever written has to be completely scrapped and written from scratch.
So, I have been slacking recently, well not slacking, but severe timecontraints due to an insanely huge graduation-project and exams over my ears has put somewhat of a dent into my hobby-time.
I'm currently scetching on a replacement model for the helldrake, I'd like to avoid falling into the Vendetta-shaped cheese-trap but the entire daemonengine-thing is extremely unsuitable for my alpha legion so it looks like I'll have to scratch-build something.
these are some initial roughs of the shape i am currently envisioning.
Nothin' fancy as of yet but we'll see.
So, I finished building the dreadnought for my artscale deathwatch team, running either an assaultcannon, twl. autocannon or mortis-configuration with two assaultcannons.
4 out of 5 marines for the squad is also done but the 5th, the techmarine, is giving me some grief. Not getting the pose the way I like it so I have to cut and re-do some greenstuffing later on.
That's all I have at the moment, now I am going to run outside and frolic in the snow, scandinavian style!
Love the dread, but I'm really waiting for your version of the Helldrake as well. That drawing is awesome, very reminiscient of oldskool bullet-hell shooter game planes...
Paints look great, I like the green highlighting. However I do have to point out that no troop should be displaying the Aquila on his arms or armor, that was an honor bestowed strictly to the Emperor's Children, It is kosher on vehicles in small doses because it is also a symbol of The Emperor's allegiance to the Mechanicum. However no troop is allowed to display it on their arms/armor.
Thanks guys, glad you like my stuff. I'm building an oversized gatling-cannon (really, length of a landspeeder so far) for fun and are also fighting a cold. Been trying to scetch up a technical drawing (of sorts) for the helldrake stand-in so I can decide on the general form of things and so on.
Various success with that.
Commander Cain: Yes it is a bit larger than a normal dread, I have cut up the legs and made both the shin hydraulic pistons longer and made the 'thigh' slightly longer. The hull has been bulked out with plasticard in layers to mimic the FW siegedreadnought and the sarcophagi scratchbuilt with plasticard and a helmet from the plastic venerable dreadnought kit. it stands a few centimeters taller than a regular dread and is quite bulkier. It has to be or it will look to small next to the artscale marines.
Brokksamson: Um, yes. None of my Pre-Heresy minis sports any aquilas. The only ones who does is my Captain for the 40k army (who wears one as an icon on his backpack) and the sorcerer for the same army (aquila on the brow of his Mk IV helmet). 40K system there, not 30k.
With the latest Horus Heresy books, it appears that while the Palatine Aquila was exclusive to the Emperor, the Primarchs, the Custodians and the Emperor's Children, all the other marines could and did wear an 'Imperial Eagle'. Will you be incorporating some eagles in as awards or decorations?
To be quite honest the 'huge pile of resin' will have to wait until FW releases a book covering the XXth Legion, and since it looks like they will not appear in the next one (Massacre - Istvaan IV Campaign) it might be a while. I want my Herersy-era army to be accurate.
I'll be re-focussing on the Alpha Legion army for the 40K setting until Forge World gives me what I want.
STC_LogisEngine wrote: To be quite honest the 'huge pile of resin' will have to wait until FW releases a book covering the XXth Legion, and since it looks like they will not appear in the next one (Massacre - Istvaan IV Campaign) it might be a while. I want my Herersy-era army to be accurate.
I'll be re-focussing on the Alpha Legion army for the 40K setting until Forge World gives me what I want.
I know what you mean, I wish FW would realise the books soon. Got a suitcase of resin crack waiting until Night Lords get the limelight
Well, lucky you then. The next book will feature Nightlords, Wordbearers, Salamanders and Iron Hands. Probably out sometime this spring if one is to take the vauge statments of Alan Bligh at face value.
Sooo, yeah. I am having some major issues with my ''heldrake- stand-in''. It's friggin' tricky to get some kind of finalization on the design, I keep making the mistalke to rationalize the design with logical and utilitarian ideas and that takes the over all look a step away from the design of the imperial flyer design of the Valkyrie, Thunderbolt, Avenger and Lightning. Frustrating.
You have to keep the design anchored in that blocky WW2-inpired framework to make it fit but I keep ending up in a way too sleek and aerodynamic design. I have bought a new pile of plasticard sheets, tubes and asorted goods though and I am looking at making a mock-up in paper just to iron out the basic framework in a 3D-setting. we'll see how it pans out.
Hey, that's a neat idea, well executed too. A tad too far from the shape I had in mind though but a good idea none the less.
Why does the damn things have to be so goddamned flawed in their design? It's a nightmare because I scetch something to make my design echo, say, the nose and airscoop of the Voss pattern Lightning, and then my brain goes completely 404 on my ass an point out that the damn thing sits so close to the ground that it would suck itself full of gravel, nuts, bolts, tissues and random rats every time it was started. Hence it would break down and be in dire need of repair.
I get that they wanted to combine the look of the ME-110 and the JU-87 Stuka and it looks cool, it really does, but a dedicated gound attack craft without armored engines? scratch that, with the engines being the lowest part of the airframe? with hard-bolted landingskids one foot high beneath? REALLY?! Ever heard of a thing called treetops and what they do to gasturbines? That's just sloppy design right there. Still cool though...
The solution would be longer landinggear or airscoops above the wingline rather than below, and I also have to take into account the whole vector-strike-ramming-things-with-the-wings too. That means some kind of swept delta-wing shape since if you tried that stunt with the archtypical 40k straight-wing design or, god forbid, a forward-swept design (as per the original lightning model) the wing would just tear off due to the immense instant stresses the wing would experience, with a swept design around 45 degrees or more a target would slide along the wing and forces would be distributed wider and more evenly along the wing. Couple that with, say, a sharpened adamantium blade running the length of the wings' edge, perhaps backed up by a matter-disruption shock-field generator (essentially giving the aircraft powersword wings) and we might be in buissiness.
Still, I have to keep in mind the placement of the airscoops of the engines so that they won't suck up scraps and stuff when making a vector strike and try to build in some kind of landing gear that need not be retracted into the fusilage. I might go with the FW-solution: stabilizer fins doubling as landing .. fins? it becomes less of an issue since the design has to be VTOL-capable (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) but it would still be nice to be able to represent some kind of hydralic shock-absorbation without adding acctual landingskids.
The infamously low landing gear of the Voss lightning. One foot off the ground, again! They sure must keep those fighterdecks spotlesly clean and shining in the 41st millennium..
Things does not always go according to plan, this weekend I had some spare time so I sat down with my box of plasticard after spending an hour of fruitless scetching on flyerconcepts.
A few weeks ago I made the barrel and the basic structure of the weapon's body so I picked up that and had at it for just for fun. Because building gak and drinking beer is fun!
I bulked out the 'body' with 5-mm H-beams, and after a looksie on a few pics of regular assaultcannons for reference built the underlying support and muzzle from 2.5-mm plasticard and plastic tubes.
Here I went quite long without taking pics (wich you who know my work is familiar with), anyway, the body has been covered (top and sides) with 1mm plasticard and a second layer representing armorplating has been added on the top and 'outwards'-facing side. the round thingy (possible powergenerator or something) is made from plastic tubing. the slits made in the armorpanel and generator is made by drilling holes and then connecting the holes by cutting out the plasticard between them with an exacti-knife and a steel ruler. It would probably have been a good idea not to have downed three 6.2% beers at this stage, but it is more fun that way. And it makes your hands steadier.
Skipping ahead again, I have done some texturework here with the beginnings of a heat-sink to the rear of the gun and powercables and stuff. The horizontal angeling hydraulic system was tricky to design but dead fun to make, it's still in a WIP stage and needs more detailing and covering panels and such but it works really fineand allows the gun to tilt 50 degrees above and below the horizontal plane. I'll be adding some kind of 360-degree rotatonal mount on top of it later and add more hydraulic cabels and stuff. probably need some kind of gunsights too.
So here are some defferent shots with mr. scale: the helpful size-defining space marine.
Since I know what I am doing (for once) the parts are not glued together but still stick together with the help of engineering trickery, the staple of us tricky engineers; that and beer. So the barrel spins and it will be sooo much easier to paint the damn thing whenever it now will be time for that.
Well, this far into production there was the inevidable question of what the hell to do with this gatling? seems a waste to just chuck it into a box and forget about it. I had an idea about using it for one of my daemonengines but it became too 'effin big for that.. So.. some kind of knight seemed logical. You can never have too few super-heavy walkers now can you? But then we will need another primary gun, at least! So after some thinkin' and leafing through my Imperial Armour volumes, the Horus Heresy vol.1 (Betrayal) and a quick read through the black library novels Mechanicum, Titanicus and Priests of Mars to iron out some details I decided on a weaponsystem to fill the secondary slot of primary weapons. Melta-Cannon!
We start out with an H-beam and two tubes for the barrels.
Then we build the basic shape of the gun from 1mm card and reinforce it with whatever we have, I would have liked to use more of the 45-degree angle sort but I was almost out and had to make do with some spare H-beams.
So, we build up the interior of the shell with card and then stick the barrels in there. Some plastic tubes are cut and added to the basic barrels. Why? well.. the original multimelta design liik something like that.. trying to be consistent here you know.
Now we cut some more tubing and build up the muzzles. Then we close up the gun with more 1mm card.
Textures! we needs moar of them. Spawn moar textures. 1mm card is your friend. About here it was early in the morning and all that beer insisted on that sleep was a very very good idea.
''So you got two huge guns and nothing to stick them on?"
I think I will go with a Warhound-inspired build though, I would love to try to build reverse-jointed legs and the image in my mind is some kind of fast vanguard/scout walker.
Tank you, I am quite interested to see what will happen too! ( I have only a very foggy idea so far)
Maybe I'll build a whole squadron of Knights, maybe I just paint a single marine and learn to dance lambada or maybe I go completely insane and make this the year the Ordinatus finally get put back together.
As Magos Fabricator Primus, Holder of the Seal of Terra, Bellatori Ultima of the Centurio Ordinatus and Master of the High Forge of the scandian hive collectives I can only state: I aim to please.
I firmly belive that this thread is the secret base of operations of the Alpha Legion here on Dakka, purely on the basis of the extreme amounts of lurking this thread sees. Noone lurks better than the Legion.
I am going to try to find a few spare hours over the weekend to paint my Legion sorcerer, for your pleasure and my entertainment, Alpharius.
I rarely stray into this modelling section of Dakka, takes a lot of time away.. When I do, I usually happen to find something cool. This is one of the coolest and most varied (non-ork) P&M threads I have ever seen. Read all 27 pages .
Keep up the good work, subscribed and exalted.
*GASP* Holy hell, are you building what I think you're building!??!
And I definitely need a couple of tips on how to make gatling guns out of plasticard. I might have to ask a bit more in detail when I start getting to work...
Well I don't know. What do you think I am building?
Probably something in the knight-class size-wise, I have no real-life reference of the warhound so I am a bit unsure on how big it's weaponsystems are. Pictures only gets you so far. I would guess that these weapons are about 2/3ds the size of the ones on the warhound.
You guys are welcome with questions though, I am happy to lend whatever aid I can.
Well, I didn't have any time to paint but I did think and doodle a bit about how to build the legs for that walker I need to build, for the guns that I did build. That will probably need an army to escort it.. *sigh*
Technical drawings ahoy! Because if we're gonna scratchbuild.. there has to be blueprints.
With a little zooming you might be able to read my silly notes too.
Sweet progress. But I'm a sucker for technical drawings. What course are you doing btw? You are doing a course right? I may be remembering that wrong...
Well, someone has finished and recived their engineering degree and will now again enjoy a measure of the strange and elusive medium known as ''free time''. Let's make the most of it.
I had a serious discussion about my projects with myself a few days ago and decided to draw up a plan for finishing at least some of them. The Legion 40k project is and will remain a slow going, I don't want to rush it just for the sake of being done and I will paint whenever the spirit moves me. The Ravenguard is a bit on the backfoot since I am somewhat lacking in motivation, all the models are based and primed, sitting in a box awaiting inspiration to arrive. The (not seen in this thread) Black Templars suffer from the same fate, allthough having a high number of painted models the lack of a playable codex will probably not see them resurface in a while. My Eldar is also awaiting a new codex, want to paint them but have no motivation to play them atm so thy'll have to wait.
So, that leaves us my Horus Heresy era Alpha Legion.. here the problem is materials and proper finance. I need finance to buy more kits so I can build on the pile I already have. That finance will arrive at the end of the month and then the madness will truly begin.
until then.. what to do?
Well.. I have a long-standing force in need of paint and assembly consisting of about 7 models. Perfect for the 20 days until pay-day.
Lets fire up the forge and roll out the Dark Mechanicum!
So right now we have a couple of Defilers, a really wonky piece that will be used as a Forgefiend and a close-combat walker that begun it's career as a AdMech eviscerator engine.. thesedays it's a dual-chainfist and flamer Hellbrute and then there's the I'm-really-a-Secutor Daemonprince. Well, we need two more hellbrutes, tank hunting hellbrutes. Twin LC's and a Missile launcher will do the trick.. let's see what we can find in the bitzbox shall we?
There, we have some defiler legs, lascannons, missilepods, wonky bits, sensorpods and random stuff, this will allow us to make them look uniform.
Now, how do we assemble them? what do we need to build from styrine sheet and tubes? Let's make a rough scetch.
Hmm.. almost, but not there yet. while we ponder the design we can splash some paint on the Daemonprince yes?
WIP-shot of the Daemonprince, or Magos Secutor as they call themselves. Still working on the metals but I added the glowy stuff so i can see how it interacts with the metallics. Useful so I don't make the metallics too bright. I'd say I am perhaps halfway done with this one.
I'll be back later this weekend with more updates.
Congratulations on getting your degree! In engineering too! Enjoy your newfound freedom!
And good to see you're back on track with the Alphas. I like the DP-dreadknight kitbash you have there - I absolutely hate the standard model and you've made it into something wicked!
Been doodling on a lot of papers and come up with this as a reference, each square is 5 mm, so 2 are 1 cm and 6 of them about an inch. This one IS drawn to scale so I can use this as a reference when I build the damn thing.
I'll try to build it in ''parts'' so that I can have it cast in resin to make copies, because I would like 2 of them and I am not confident in my ability to build two that looks exactly the same. Just have to find someone who knows how to cast stuff in resin and has the gear for it sometime in the future.
And no, the tail stabilizer is not drawn on that one, not sure how I want it to look yet.
Been throwing a bit more paint on the DP, painting high-polish bronze is tricky indeed!
I made some guardsmen testmodels for my 40k alpha legion army, I wanted a unit or two as legion operatives so I thought 2 veteran squads and a commandsquad would do the trick. Also guardsman Marbo, I need to make a model for him. Something of a one-hit wonder if you minhandle him but with some sneaky tactics he can be very very useful and a real nightmare for your opponent.
Le Guardsmen, because grenadelaunchers are damn cool and a seriously underestimated weapon for its pricetag in the guard arsenal.
What do you guys think? Are they looking up to task or do I need to re-think the concept ?
Speaking of the Legion, I have started working on the Heresy-era army again.
Also, I thought if we're gonna throw away serval hundred quid on resiny goodness (yeah dream on STC, the planned purchases will throw you up on a grand or so, don't lie.) one might just as well do things properly, and adress the scale issues with the models.
Some thinking, internet browsing for pics and measuring I concluded that the easiest way to fix the anatomical scale so it at least looks better without completely rebuilding the models would be three spacers to elongate the thighs and torso.
Let's get to it! these legs just won't do, the thighs are way too short in comparison to the shins. Leafsaw to the rescue!
We cut carefully along the line where the thigh armor meets the hip joint like this. Off with the legs!
Now, let's find some appropriately thick styrene sheet and make spacers, if the appropriate thickness isn't avalible (like for me) we just stack another piece on with a liberal helping of super glue.
Now, we need to wait a bit for that to dry so while we wait we drink a cup of coffee and build a base, we're gonna play most our HH-games on either an urban (cityfight) board or as (massive) Zone Mortalis battles, we tried out ZM using the tiles from 3 spacehulk games and proxed armies just to try it out and i can say that 2k ZM-games + HH is so much awsome win that you can't stop smiling even when you get half your army smashed to a wet pulp by a Worldeaters' Contemptor Talon with dual CCW's and heavy flamers.
Slap the legs together on the base just like so.
Add upper body and we're almost done!
Well, this won't do! Let's make this trooper a sergeant to handle the nasty stuff and point at things. Might aswell add a shot to show how much bigger that the regular guardsman these bous became.
I made some guardsmen testmodels for my 40k alpha legion army, I wanted a unit or two as legion operatives so I thought 2 veteran squads and a commandsquad would do the trick. Also guardsman Marbo, I need to make a model for him. Something of a one-hit wonder if you minhandle him but with some sneaky tactics he can be very very useful and a real nightmare for your opponent.
Le Guardsmen, because grenadelaunchers are damn cool and a seriously underestimated weapon for its pricetag in the guard arsenal.
What do you guys think? Are they looking up to task or do I need to re-think the concept ?
I think they're awesome! Are those Elysian heads that you chopped down to fit into cadian helmets? Seems awefully fiddly to me, but great job! Adds a great amount of character
Yes it is, I had a pile of them gathering dust since a few years back so I thought it would be a nice way to get rebreathers and a somewhat uniqe look, I mean who is silly enough to cut out the face of a regular cadian and then transplant the face from an elysian into the vacant slot?
Well, besides me that is..
Glad you liked them, the cadian plastics are so damn pedestrian and hard to pose without repetition so injecting them with some character are damn tricky. How do you like the up-scaled Legion marines btw?
Nice work on the up-scaled Marines I like the guardsmen, especially the addition of the bed rolls and other gear. Will you be keeping the winged skulls on the helmets?
I have been messing around with paints like a crazy person. I have been so angsty about getting this particular batch of colour juuuust right, I have made a whole mix-schematic and a paint-manual so I don't forget how to mix the highlight stages when I paint.
Been a bit silly to be honest. Anyway, now that things are starting to calm down and we are settling nicely into the office and so on I have had some time to paint with my new nifty paint!
Again, I apologise for the sub-par pics. phone camera, no lightbox and night-time lighting (ie; no natural light) makes these pics a bit brighter than in natural light.. oh well.
Alpharius, I know you have been waiting and I have been very unkind to string you along for so such a length of time.
So enjoy the fruits of the weekend.
THE LEGION COMETH
Sergeant and legionaire, 6th Company, -XX- Tactical Squad
Sergeant has a golden plasma pistol with redish coils because I thought I'd try out something fun. Worked out quite well.
Tactical Marine, nothing fancy here.
Painting is in progress on tactical No:2, just the blue is done and now it's all the detail and freehand left to do.
So, thought I'd do something with some marines I have to spare just for fun so I thought up this colourscheme and chapter icon, just playing around a little, might become something, might not.
Very nice. I was wondering if you had just made three separate-yet-enviable color schemes for your Alphas - your deep blue/green originals, the purplish like the books, and a more-aqua green type. By the by, what chapter is the lascannon guy from, or is it an original..?
So... the book-image scheme ones, are they to become part of an army, or just a test scheme to see if you could make them more illustration-true?
Either way... very pretty marines you have here. Really liking that turquoise/aqua lascannon guy, the more I look at him...
Yay for the update!! Great work on the Tactical Marines. I have to say that I prefer the Sergeant with the helmet on, makes more sense and he's harder for someone outside the legion to identify
Thanks guys, I am currently angsting over what to do with a portion of my new and improved income, (or rather, what type of resin product to buy for the allotted amount) and scetching on a display board that will also serve as a tile for my (future) Citoes of Death board. So a 2' by 2' board must be found.
I was thinking of using the regular RoB from GWor even go Rolls-Royce for FW's city tiles, however the RoB has silly hills that will be tricky to manage and the FW one (due to design) constrains what you are able to build on it. So I am currnently looking at foam insulation (don't know the correct term in english, it's a pinkish or blue, extremely lightweight but very stong insulative material used in house construction and it blunts knives like a bag of rocks) to provide the base that I wil then completely cover up using 1mm styrene sheet on the top and sides to add impact-protection and a sturdy and smooth surface to build stuff on.
I had originally intended to be lazy and just use the GW house-kits but after some scetching, measuring and going over the amounts of parts needed I came to the conclusion that it was simply not financially viable. one tile would simply consume such a masive amount that if done with the GW kits it would eat up at least an Imperial Sector bundle, 2 shrines of the aquila, a bastion and a skyshield platform and STILL need a pile of styrene sheet and tubes.. whut? you say, but see the average height of the main buildings will be around 2 feet (60cm) and will have luts of angles and stuff so the total surface-area will be huge.
So we will go down the road of mostly scratchbuilt from styrene sheet, tubes, angles, beams (lucky I have an ''oldschool'' modelling shop a short subway-trip away that runs Evergreen's full range and a bazillion other things too) and complement with FW's etched brass and just a few of GW's kits.
Thanks guys, I have finished another three marines and have repainted the Contemptor dreadnought with my new paintmix, it really did the trick. The freehand was meeean to get done though since I had o be so carefull.. took an age but I am quite pleased with the results.
I'll try to get some pics up tomorrow, I need a silver of daylight out to get good pics since I don't have a lightbox.
Sergeant and legionaire, 6th Company, -XX- Tactical Squad
Remi, the 'book' legionnaires are the first ones that I have finished for my horus heresy era army.
Aaaaand... YES! I can't wait to see these guys as a squad with vehicles. Between your Pre and Post(?), I like the pretty blue-green ones, but if we're getting an STC-quality Pre-H Alpha army... then I won't say no.
Darth Bob: I do concur, it is the fate of all marines to be bowlegged, acctually having full-length thighs for the first time makes this a bit more appearant.
I am tinkering with suitable countermeasures to negate the issue though.
Yepp, I got to just get the thumb out and buy myself one now that my finaces allows for such frivoltous expenses.
Well, here are some half-decent pics of my progress so far. As usual the lighting is bad so the colours does not flow into eachother the way they do in 'natural' light but it's still slight decent.
The text on the contemptors' gorget reads ''AXIOS''.
3 more Tactical marines and a re-painted contemptor packing a MM and graviton gun. All the freehand is killing me, but I am getting better at painting the Legion symbol at least.
*IMAGE CARPETBOMBING COMMENCING ::: DUCK AND COVER*
You know, some tassels coming down over their groins might help to mitigate the bowleggedness a little more. Regardless, all the stuff looks brilliant. The freehand on the Contemptor is brilliant. Also, didn't mention it, but I actually love the gold and red Plasma Pistol. Really makes him stand out just enough from his brothers. But not too much. Wouldn't want to have that.
Your models always make me want to start alpha legion. That and I could really annoy my opponent and say "you killed alpharius....oh wait that wasn't him." . Really great work on the paint job, love this newer color. The bases are excellent as well.
Just spend 1 hour looking at this tread!
Love it! Great work on all the conversions and paintjob and i just love the heresy models you did lately! Im subbed!
Right now I am (very impatiently!) waiting for forge world to get a grip and release the Legion Tartaros terminators so I can register my order and give them my cash.
I'll focus primarily on the Heresy-era army, the 40k iteration of the legion will have to take a step back, however knowing me there will be a lot of random stuff and jumping between different projects.
What is this? updates again? does he even go to work?
I have been painting for fun and no frakkin profit, gettin to grips with some of my =]I[=munda minis, this one has some showable proress. I have been using it to try out stuff and colours I ever hardly do so it was fun to paint something -REALLY- red for a change, and also a face, I havn't painted a face in years so I was a bit nervous.. Still PIP though, thouht I'd try out some ideas i have with usin blue and purple washes to make him look a bit more harrowed, I belive it is suitable for an inquisitor of the ordo malleus to look a bit sleep-deprived.
Not to gakky if I can say so myself.
Using my new kitchen LED-ramp was a vast improvement when using pictures so I snapped one of the Legion sergeant and 'lo and behold it is much better, the liht is a little too sharp though so the colours does not blend properly but now it shows off the indigo hues better instead of the other ones who the look a bit blue in.
Anywaaay.. work is underway with my city-board.. well.. the first buildin at least, it takes a bit time and planning because once you cut it will be hard to fix if you get it wrong. That Aquila was a frakkin' monster to make, symmetry is not all that easy with nothing but an exactoknife, a pen and a steel ruler. Also the bazillion of parchments was really reeeeeaaaally borin to make.. looks good though. second pic is provided with a guardsman to properly convey a sense of scale.
I am envisioning it as something along the lines of the Offices of the Administratum or a similarly place of forms, taxes and labyrinthine beurocracy. From the balcony, edicts of taxation, new policies for filling out forms and rules for waiting-in-line are dispersed to the masses and beneath it's shadow forlorn souls who have waded and suffered through years of form-filling, waiting in lines for months to aquire a single stamp of approval and survived many riots violently put down by the administratum's shotgun-armed clerks may pin their tax-return claims with blessed (and prohibitly expensive) nails of etched silver. Should the soft silver somehow fail to properly pin the sacred vellum (provided at the offices of the administratum, for a ''reasonable'' fee of course) to the rockcrete wall it is taken (by the administratum) as a sign of the Emperor's will that the petition not be concidered and be removed from the holy site.
OMG! Swedes are not just an awesome vegetable now! now they are just plain AWESOME! that is some costume he built and the bionic eye without the helmet just kicks all kinds of goals! I expect you to create a traitor version and wear it for all your painting sessions from hence forth!
GiraffeX wrote: Yeah just ignore and carry on they even had pre-heresy Dark Angels in silver whats that all about...
They're not silver, they're black. They've always been that way in the Pre-Heresy colors.
As for the Alpha Legion, keep in mind that they said they were going to be changing stuff for these books. You have to keep an open mind. Look at how they changed the World Eaters' chapter symbol. I think what they're trying to do is Badab War-ize the Horus Heresy. Give it all an updated, FW-look like they did in IA9 & 10. I prefer the old Alpha Legion scheme personally, though I do think the new look looks good too. The main gripe I have is how they changed the symbol to an Alpha & Omega symbol. The old symbol, an A with a chain across it, was simple and iconic. Didn't need to be messed with, I think.
That being said, I'd just keep trucking with the scheme you're using. It looks better and is more iconic, in my opinion.
Just ignore Forge World and do your own thang! ;3 I painted my World Eaters with blue arms, and they have since developed into an entirely new chapter (based off the BA Codex, ironically called the Blood Eaters), and I love how they look
I wouldn't care about FW! Isn't it Alpha Legions thing to change the colors of their armors whenever they see fit anyhow? If you look at it that way, FW's new color scheme could be seen as just one of the more common varieties being used over the years. Thus making your color scheme as legitimate as FW's (and yours precedes FW's new one anyhow).
Looks great. The pose and poor daemonettes on the base really work well. I do have a question, as you have built one. I want to build and magnetize one for my friends birthday but he doesn't like how far the chest sticks out in the front. Do you think it would be easy to adapt the model so it's a bit slimmer? Can't want to see paint on yours.
GiraffeX, I'll be adding it to my existing craftworld collection so it'll be a self-invented craftworld.
Here's an old pic of the colours adorning my fireprism. Mottled blues, black, polished bronze and white detail. The craftworld rune is (poorly) freehand-painted in white on the hull and turrent.
I would not reccomend trying to make the torso slimmer Lazarus, it isn't a solid shell but a lot of interlocking plates and parts that fit together in wierd ways to provide mutual support and if you start trimming in that jigsaw I will honestly say that you will, in all probability, ruin the entire torso.
I would not dare messing with that set-up and I seriously doubt I would be succsessful if I tried. My strong reccomendation is on't.
The rest of the marine is quite nice, too. Great work!
hotography
... O_o .... o_O... 
Holy hell, are you building what I think you're building!??!
