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Like the look of the double wings BH, and Gits, that dread is quality Beautiful job in the way it all pulls together.

I think the winged guy should be leaning forward a bit. Kind of like he's getting ready to flap away...

Words cannot descripe how awsome that jump pack is. Great work.

just becaus i cant submit an empty post. my moment of silence for that piece of awsomeness

......................

oke thats enough silence for me

Gits that is wonderful. You really have mastered your chosen yellow, it nearly glows. Keeping the colour scheme as just black and yellow with only a small amount of additional colour on the details was a great choice, keeping all the colour as primary's even more so More impressed with every bit of new work you put up.

@Ifalna: Thanks Ifalna, I appreciate the kind words and feedback from an artist's perspective. Doing all of my Tranquility Campaign figures has been this weird combination of art and discipline. In a way I'm limited in what I can do by my decision to stay true to the original RT artwork.



At the same time however, I have to interpret the design onto forms that are new and come up with some way to make things "pop" visually. Of course black and yellow contrast nicely, so it's not a particularly hard job... still it took some experimentation. I think that's where my "reverse highlighting" technique came in. It's not really reverse highlighting... but I brighten the color at the center of the plates and shade it to the edges. So what you get is kind of a glow effect for each plate, rather than a sunlight-implied lightening of the plates as a true highlight (though in shaded areas I do this technique to a much lesser degree). There is edge highlighting on the metal parts (gold and steel) but I decided not to confuse the shading on the plates, and luckily since most of them are trimmed in gold, it wasn't really an issue.


For the group:

The next step I had planned was to have banners (really just very large scrolls) hanging from the bottoms of the autocannons, sort of like this...



Since I've used this particular banner already, I was planning on making the banners for this figure out of GS... actually have one done already though it wasn't really sized to fit, so I may do up a new one. Anyway, it leads me to a couple of questions...

1. How do you guys like the idea of these large banners hanging off the guns? I really like the ones on my other dreads, but with everything that's going on in the figure already, will they be a distraction? I figure as this is a venerable dread... it might well have litanies or whatever on the guns to inspire the marines around it... but I don't want to sink the figure in extras if it stands alone as-is.

2. As you can see from the previous photo, I used a red backing on the banner to compliment the green of my standard dread. Any ideas what would be a good color to go with the yellow? Black again, or something else?


I will probably make the banners anyway & then decide whether to use them or not, but I am interested in everyone's opinion before I begin.

Thanks,
Gits

Whilst I like the idea, I agree that it could possible distract; perhaps hang them from below the ammo barrel instead? As for the banners, maybe a sky or foliage camo, so it sorta blends in thematically?

"Boss, is dat a big flag over dere?"
"Nope ya stupid grot, it's a tree."
"Boss.. boss... it's gettin' closer..."

LOL... or perhaps like...

"Boss, is dat a big flag over dere on dat giant yellow humie kan?"
"No you stupid grot, it's a tree on da giant yellow humie kan."

To some degree I'm not worried about any "real" camo as for these guys, the field of Tranquility were left behind centuries ago. The camo, which in most imaginable combat situations would scream "shoot me now!", is worn as a badge of honor for those that served in that campaign, not because it's actually going to hide them (quite the opposite).

Pink, then. Seriously. Sense of an alien sky camo...

inmygravenimage wrote:Pink, then. Seriously. Sense of an alien sky camo...

Thank you graven, I'll take that into consideration.


Now for God's sake will SOMEONE please make another suggestion!

Nope. Pink. Do it.

I don't even *own* pink paint...

I'd go for red backing again, red yellow and black are a good combo.

If you are gonna have stuff hanging from the gun barrels, the parchment with red edging, however i think it would look more like the dread was waving a surrender flag if you put them there, especially if you pointed the gun barrels up the way in any fashion.

Maybe like a loin cloth, or use lots of purity seals or long thong parchments... like the old preheresy oaths of moment things

Or if you really want to add something to the gun barrel, a chain of skulls from its more famous kills

if your doing the marine swap gitsplitta id like to get a marine next weekend and do one up in tranquility armour if your interested? id just like to paint one and it would be a shame to have it sat on a shelf?

Hey Dantay... good point about the banners, though that's a problem with any hanging banner on a movable platform. The big banners on my other dreads look fine though, so it may not be as big an issue as we think. I'll have to think about that in any case. I have been considering a loin cloth... maybe I'll start with that and work my way up from there.

@CL: I would be happy to do that, but I'm so far backed up in my trades that I can't in good conscience accept any more at this point. I'm such a slow painter that it just takes me forever to get anything done.


OH, one more thing... Anyone have a good idea for a non-standard searchlight? One didn't come with the kit and I was thinking of something special for him.

The ironclad comes with a cool SL.

Looking at the bits merchants... it's exactly the same as the normal search light, unless they're mis-labeling (but I see the same light from 4 different sellers).

Maybe the ven dread kit then?

Yep, that's the one... I'll see if I can snag one of those... Thanks WM!

How about the sentinel one with the smoke launchers attached?

And have you thought about maybe pink for the banner backs?

Or a pink SL even!

I'll see if I've used my Ven Dreads Light (I never put them on the dread). If I didnt its yours.

Laugh while you can monkey boys... you guys are asking for it....


Thanks WM, appreciate it.

Green but dusty or dark so it doesn't shout out but is simply there lighter than dark angels but darker jade

Gitsplitta thanks to your amazing Blog, i've finally convinced myself to start my own.
Thanks for all the work...

Serouisly though I hope mine is as have as good as this is.

Any tips for making a unigue a DIY chapter?

Thanks, Dragonfire

@Santobell: I was thinking in that direction... my standard Mantis Warrior green is pretty close to what you describe, and it would help die the dread in with the rest of the chapter.

@dragonfire: Thank you sir for your kind words, they are much appreciated. I had a lot of help and encouragement from a lot of dakkaites to get my blog to this stage... I'm sure you'll get plenty as well. Just be open to people's suggestions and criticism and you'll find that people are very giving of their time and expertise if they thing it's appreciated.

As far as a new chapter goes, I have the following pieces of advice, do them in order, though #1 and #2 could be flipped.

#1) Look thought all the marine codeci and pick the one you think would be the most fun to play or is the most interesting... this will give you the basic layout and "feel" for your army so you'll know what units to work on.

#2) Find something that you are passionate about in your life (anything, music, a particular story... even if it's really not a 40k story, a favorite passtime, season, painting, whatever) and find a way to translate that into giving your marine chapter that extra special character that will make it stand apart. It will also help keep you passionate and motivated about working on your army which is really important as the models start to drag on forever and ever... and ever....

#3) Once you know your army's layout, specialties and the kind of vibe & rough back-story you'll have... THEN you can start thinking about an appropriate color scheme for them. Remember you're going to be doing a hell of a lot of it, so make sure that you like it and that it's easily repeatable.

That's it... the extent of my accumulated wisdom.

Gitsplitta wrote:That's it... the extent of my accumulated wisdom.

Which is some fantastic nuggets of wisdom! In three simple steps Git just laid out the formula for creating a great chapter, because without the one and the two, the three is almost irrelevant.

wow git that has too be the most straight forward but best guide too mrine armies. on a other note congrats with your 50thest page of this blog

Pink isnt that odd a colour for camouflage, i am sure i read somewhere that in WW2 the british long range desert troops (the desert rats) actually painted some of their vehicles a dusky pink as it blended well with the desert and skyline.

However i do think that red would be a better colour to use for backing and small details..... anyone remember the Jordan race cars in F1, esp. the one with the wasp/bug head design? Was mainly black and yellow with white text and tiny touches of red.

I think this is 1 of thwe designs http://www.design1s.com/dream-car-f1-jordan-vector

Well, the Adepticon list got a play-test last night. Lost everything except the ven dread by turn 5 (and it was damaged) and only did one wound and one weapon destroyed to my opponent. Not good. He had a chaos marine army. Stuck a squad of plague marines and an uber-character in a land raider, drove right across the board and the uber-character by himself proceeded to destroy one unit a turn until the end the game (and the LR blew up the other dread). I could do nothing to stop the LR, shot at it over and over and did nothing save knock a gun off. The rest of his army (lesser demons) didn't show up until turns 4 & 5 but he didn't need them.

So that list has be completely scrapped and another has been formulated in it's place. This list is much more robust... unfortunately it means that I can use only 1 figure that I already have painted (the ven dread), everything else has to be built from scratch.

*sigh*

In spite of the I did have a great time playing. My opponent is one of the best generals at our FLGS and I've never had the opportunity to play him before. So if you're going to get your a** handed to you it might as well be by the best! Most importantly I learned a lot about the list... which was the whole point of the game. That, plus advice from my opponent after the game was the spark I used to write up the new, still Mantis Warrior but much better list. The up-side is that the play style of this new list is much closer to the style I use for my "modern" Mantis Warrior Penitent army... so it should be familiar & easy to use.

The up-side for you the reader... is that you'll get to see a bunch of stuff get built and painted that you may not be expecting, and get to see me explore some new techniques (assuming the air brush ever arrives).



@dantay: I could see a dusky rose/pink as a legit camo color, but in combination with bright yellow I think it would look horrid.

Car looks nice though.

Lol, i was just trying to point out to the others, that pink isn't such a dumb idea as they seemed to be revelling in it (unless you are going to go for tentacle pink.... which is perfect for those slaaneshi lovers lol).

Yes i definitely would not mix pink and yellow unless its pastels or carebear marines and the car was just an example of how something like a touch of red or another colour could really enhance things (they did a snakes head version where the fangs were on the strut to the front wing.

Another idea would be a nice dark green as it goes nice with gold/ deep gold yellow or black. Plus it could tie it in with your other dreads.

I am gutted thayt your army got hammered by the csm, its not ana rmy i have ever played against.... i bet the feel no pain was a b***h to deal with.

As for me i beat my friends DE 9 kill points to 8 woohaaa!!