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Hi everyone,

I've been a lurker here on dakka for a while and I thought I'd try and change my status from "moocher" to "productive member of the community" by sharing the project that's getting me back into Warhammer 40k. In the past I've played Chaos Space Marines, Space Marines, Eldar and Sisters of Battle, but last year I was forced to give up gaming for a while to honor some real life commitments. Now that the new Guard codex is out and I've found a good local group to play with I'm getting back into the hobby by starting the tank-heavy breakthrough Imperial Guard force that I've always wanted to do. I work upwards of 60 hours a week, so I'm not left with a whole lot of free time and my environment isn't really conducive to hobbying, but I'm going to see this project through.

I've got several goals in mind for this.

1) Make constant progress - I'll be scraping to find time to work on my guard with all my commitments, but I must keep momentum on this project so I can keep motivated and see this through. Something I'm shooting for is biweekly updates with pictures.

2) Have it all painted - I'm not an great painter, nor am I a good painter, but having a respectable color scheme on all the models in your army counts for something and that's what I'm aiming for. Due to time constraints I'll be speed painting most of this army but with prodigious use of drybrushing, Foundation paints, and GW washes I should be able to make my army look decent.

3) Maintain standard - Every model in my army will have mold lines shaved, be based and at the very least have a head swap. I'm really trying to work on the modeling aspect of the hobby and these simple things will advance the hobby over time. Sure plenty of people have used the Pig Iron heads before and my basing isn't great, but it's little things like these that make the difference between a dedicated hobbyist and a 13 year old who just slapped his models together.

4) Have fun - This is my relaxing/leisure activity and I really think I'm going to enjoy seeing the finished project and playing games as the force builds up.


All kits needed for project:
2 Company Command [1 Assembled and Based] [1 Painted]
3 Shock Troop Squad [3 Painted]
5 Heavy Weapon Teams [5 Painted]
1 Chimera [1 Assembled]
2 Leman Russ Battle Tank [1 Painted]

For the obligatory picture ..,.


I apologize for the poor quality of the picture, but I'm relegated to using a friend's iPhone while I try to find my camera.

Thanks for reading and any comments or criticism appreciated,

The Walrus

*edited for update

Its looking very promising and its good that you can find some time to put some personal hobby life, im just curious - what head swap did you use? and what is the colour scheme that you are going for. Keep up the good work and get painting

Hmm blue armor and white helmet?

Looks like Dire Avenger color scheme

@Gutteridge - I jumped on the bandwagon and used the Pig Iron Militia heads. For a color scheme I settled on a tan and red scheme. I got a test mini done last night so I'll put some pictures up later today.

Currently they're sporting the shiny grey and silver color scheme.

As always, thanks for reading.

So, I managed to get a test mini done last night. This color scheme wasn't what I originally planned on (black and green) but it came out fairly well, is easy to paint and I like it a good bit.

What do you think?

i'm doing a Platoon of Pig Iron Cadians too.
my hat's off to you, yours look great! can't wait to see more!

Good start.

I think the models need some focal details. Maybe a decal or too? Some extra zang.

I would also pay a little bit more attention to basing and the narrative you can carry with good basing

Looking forward to more.

Thanks for the replies. I managed to get some painting done last night so I'll have more pictures up later today.

@migsula - Were you thinking of something along the lines of a unit marking for some extra zazz? I'm not a fan of decals and my freehand ability is limited so I could pull off some numbers, but probably not much else. I'd love any suggestions you could provide for what I should do with the base. On a side note, I'm a huge fan of your work and what you've done with the Alpha Legion truescale and operatives is genius!

How are the pig iron heads going for you? do you find them easy to fit? nice scale? as they have caught my interest.

i like the colour scheme as the test model does look very promising! but i agree with migsula - a little more oomph and these models will look great!

Gutteridge wrote:How are the pig iron heads going for you? do you find them easy to fit? nice scale? as they have caught my interest.

The Pig Iron heads are fairly good. The detail on them is great, they don't require too much filing, and the scale is right, the only problems I have with them is that sometimes the back of the helmet catches on the neck guard, resulting in an awkward head pose, and the joint between the body and the head can be a pain, depending on how you clip it. Something I'm considering is using a small bit of green stuff between the head and neck so I can get an appropriate joint.


Nor for the models I finished last night ...







Yesterday I went to the hobby store and picked up some Mecherite Red and Badab Black, and while I'm happy with how the Mecherite Red has turned out versus the Scab Red I was using, I think that the black ink I used on the test model (the one to the right) does more for the minis than the Badab Black does, though that could be me. Only more painting will tell.

Once again, thanks for reading.

I've been using the Heavy Infatry heads from Pig Iron and came across the same problem. However I think its really easy to jam a bit of GS in the gap between the helmet and the torso. If you position it using a knife you end up with a rather wrinkled looking section that looks a lot like a fabric/polymer joint between the helmet and the armour.

You might just be able to see it on my Lieutenant here

Thanks Flinty, I think I'll be doing just that with any future infantry models I put together. Now to just add that to my ever increasing list of things to get at the FLGS ...


With an entire day to myself, almost unheard of in these parts, I managed to make some more progress. I'm still stuck on what I should add to the models to zazz them up some. I can see myself putting a 1/46 on the shoulder but that seems to overdone and too Cadian. Looks like I'll be doing some more brainstorming. For the bases I've decided to put some snow on there to add a little spice to the models and I owe a big thanks to grey_death for writing a great tutorial on snow basing.

I think I may have overdone the Badab Black wash on these, but oh well. It's a learning experience.










Thanks for reading.

Walrus,

Have you pinned the heads on the models?

I had problems with dropping mine and losing heads. I pin all of them now.

You don't need to put numbers on them. I am planning on sticking some kind of divisional marking on mine, but not necessarily numbered. Find a flag or an icon that you like the look of and run with it

I think the wash your doing is coming up too blotchy with rounded surfaces (eg. shoulder pad) but with a quick highlight of the base colour it should fix it up nice and quick, good work on the bases and keep up the work (nice to have a full day off ey).

@Valhallan42nd - I actually hadn't considered pinning the heads. If their heads start rolling off I'll start doing that, but for the sake of speed I'm just going to leave them as is for now.

@Flinty - I was thinking about doing something based off of the 4th ID (the Ivy Division), but I haven't settled on anything yet. I'm going to try and do a test today or tomorrow.

@Gutteridge - Thanks for the tip, I'll be going back through and touching them all up when I finish the squad, which should be sometime this afternoon.

I tested out some divisional markings on one of my tanks, and rather liked the effect. The flag and tactical recognition flash will be used throughout my army (if I ever get around to painting the thing )

These are good. Jourans were from Storm of Iron weren't they why not read it again and use something from that for the decoration? For the Ivy Division why not paint an Ivy leaf as the division badge? Possibly a green leaf on the shoulders shouldn't be too hard.

Hi Walrus

These are really coming along. I've been thinking about migsula's comment and thought I'd chime in. In addition to your unit designation you've been thinking of, I think you could get some "pop" from painting the eagles on the breast plates and lasguns. I'd suggest Astronomicon Grey highlighted with Skull White, or Boltgun Metal highlighted with Mithril Silver.

Just a thought.

Cheers
Dave

@Flinty - I like the paint job and the divisional markings. I'm got a few ideas rattling around in my head, I just have to pick one and run with it. Also, I like the use of the Chimera chassis, it really adds character to the vehicle.

@Llamahead - Unfortunately I actually haven't read Storm of Iron, I just looked for famous IG regiments on Lexicanum until I found one that had fluff for the kind of army I wanted to field.

@davetaylor - Thanks very much for the suggestion. I'd actually considered doing just that in white originally but scrapped the idea for ease of painting. Though if I'm going to be doing a unit insignia, what's a little more white, eh? As an aside, I'ma huge fan of your work. Your Blood Pact and Infardi are awe-inspiring.

More progress for today. I found that painting a heavy weapons team is tedious and not nearly as much fun as working on regular infantry. It certainly didn't help that my hands were shaking more than normal so I had to spend a good amount of time going back and fixing mistakes. I've decided that as soon as I figure out what I want to do for a unit insignia I'll be going back and doing that in white as well as picking out the eagles on breastplates and lasrifles. If I can work up the motivation tonight and manage to pull myself away from Empire: Total War and/or Left 4 Dead I'll clean up the red, which needs it badly on the autocannon gun shield and pretty much all the helmets.

On the topic of modeling, I'm satisfied with this squad. I've customized (if you can call a simple head swap that) every model, posed them all believably, and made the loader for the autocannon removable. For the future I'd like to greenstuff or pin the heads so they're held by something a little more firm than super-glue and integrate the removable gunner onto the heavy weapon base a little better.

The Autocannon with the loader


And by itself





The Loader




Group shot





I'm not much in the mood to get started on the next squad quite yet, so I've got this little project to keep me occupied for the next day or so.







Thanks for reading

-The Walrus

The group shot looks great - plenty of more where that came from i suppose
i cant wait too see what your going to do with the leman russ, what varient is it going too be and what are your plans on the tank, is it going too have a camo scheme? etc.
keep up the good work!

_


On a different topic - l4d + ETW = fun. (have both )

@Gutteridge - Thanks very much for the replies and the encouragement. I'm just doing a standard Russ for this one because building IG tanks is a new can of worms for me. I did, however, put in a nice order for some Forgeworld goodness for it.

Just a little bit of progress for tonight. I decided to go back and give Mr. Sergeant and some of the A-team another coat on the red to make it less dirty. After going back through and doing it I do like the results, but I'm not sure that it's the direction I'd like to go with for right now. It does add quite a bit but it doesn't keep me motivated, and I need my motivation to keep the project moving, so I think it's going to be a "go back and do at my own leisure after everything's painted" thing. Still have ideas rattling around for the white, but nothing's popped out at me yet as the perfect idea, so I'll go back and add that when I the idea dawns on me.


Thanks for reading,

The Walrus


The original picture



I apologize for the crappy picture, but it's dark out. He looks a lot better in person, I promise.

I love the scheme! The Pig Iron heads look really nice on those guardsmen, I need to get a bunch for my Valhallans- they look so good!

Very nice. This is pretty much the exact scheme that I use for my Cadians, so I'm a little biased here.

Only thing is maybe paint the eagle on his chest gold

@Arkaedin and Nerf_IG - That you very much for the replies and kind words. It means a lot to me and keeps me motivated when I get positive feedback.

@ghostmaker - I appreciate the suggestion, but what my plan is for the moment is to get everything I want painted then go back on work on the details, like the eagles on the chest and rifles, in white.



Unfortunately I have no new pictures for today, it was a hectic day at work and it ended up eating into my evening more that I wanted it to. That being I got part of my Russ together, so another day or so and it should be complete except for the Forgeworld order I'm waiting on. I was reading up on dragoons again to see if I could find any inspiration for the unit detail when I was reacquainted with the distinctive helmets of the dragoons (
http://www.gnwtc.com/arm601.JPG). I was thinking this could be a great addition and add some flavor to the army if I put it on the officers. The only problem with this being that my green stuff skills aren't good enough to sculpt something like that and I can't seem to find anything on the web that I could use to convert easily. I looked through the Perry Bros. miniatures and they have some Dragoons in metal, but if I can avoid it I'd like to stay away from converting metal. Does anyone know of any other 28mm dragoons?

Thanks for reading

The Walrus

Arkaedin wrote:I love the scheme! The Pig Iron heads look really nice on those guardsmen, I need to get a bunch for my Valhallans- they look so good!

You have seen the winter milita heads, no?

For snazzing up the models.

How about colouring in the aquilla on each model's chest and gun (white or a metal would work well).
Roman numerals for unit markings on left shoulder pad?