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You need the black bases. The white bases makes them look like they aren't finished.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

+++ Removed by the Modquisition for Inappropriate remarks +++

Read the rules before you post folks -grey_death

@Ozy: Yeah the white bases are a bit of a drawback, but the black bases make them look worse to me. So they stay white.

@ Nevermind, deleted.

Death By Monkeys wrote:

Stelek wrote:I will take some pics and post it separately if I have time tonight.

Thanks, that'd be appreciated.

Here you go:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/217479.page

To answer your question, what would I do differently?

I'd see if instead of blending I could make different parts of the model the slight variations of the color that the heavy metal team did.

I did test it out, and from tabletop viewing it did not look quite right so I chose to blend it instead.

two_heads_talking wrote:very nice looking. They have come quite a ways from your original concept.

I like the concept. I really do. the problem isn't something you can easily fix though.

And it's all relative really. How real do you want it to look? If real is what you are going for, then you will have to highlight and shade each and every band of color. Also realize that no one can stand on molten lava, since it's liquid and all. but one could easily use hot "footprints" from the dripping lava over darker cooling thicker lava. again, that's not an easy fix, because you'd have to paint all the bases darker, except the footprints. Although the footprints would give your army a look of moving or motion..

Again, that's all just nitpicky to be honest. It's a bold attempt at a very difficult thing you are doing.

You are doing two things at once, using the relative heat of the areas to determine what color they will be and the heat of the surrounding area will also factor in. (although youhaven't done that.)

Your army will definately catch eyes. Even if when they approach they only do so to scrutinize and put down your effort.

I applaud you on a job well done. It might not win any medals but it sure is themed and all your models look uniform.

good luck in your games.

Thank you.

I will get a board made for it so the figs look proper. I really like how they came out.

my opinion still stands. lol. atleast its uniform?

Ok enmitee, we get it, you're down with the ban plan.

Finished! Yeah, wheres the pics?

Here you are, overall pics of the army.

very cool outcome really
Ozy is totally correct though. You have to do something about the bases. It just doesnt look right.

I was a bit sceptic when i saw your first "tries" with the scheme, but i think the overall look of the army works quite well.

Consider another one signed up with the fix-the-bases crowd.

Lava-guard...the end result is cool. Not something I'd paint personally, but looks cool.

From far away it does sort of give off a "white hot" kind of feeling, what with the white bases and all.

Like I said before, I really don't like the white bases, but as you stated earlier you'd probably have to get rid of the cork they are standing on, in order to have modeled each trooper as truly emerging from lava.

So, with that said, I see why you made the decision to go with white bases, and I agree. Rebasing everything would have been a pain, and quite a challenge in itself.

They all really do look nice when put out on the table.

I hope you do make some kind of Diorama or display board for them to go on.

Better yet, how about making a lava board for that Death World they're on?

Thanks, Stelek, for the tip on how to "unwater"down the paint, I will try it out the weekend after this one. Can't wait to see you minis in person Saurday.

Stelek, I was thinking. If you do your board mostly black, with the areas that the models are standing in being white, it would certainly pull the whole paint theme together. It would also, no leave them looking unfinished.

Although I realize in order for mostly black with white flowing lava, you'd have to have one huge arse board.

Perhaps have the places where the models aren't as cooling lava flow (showed in one of my earlier links) then each person would be standing in the molten stuff.

Just a thought..

Yeah I really dislike them. Looks like you slopped some paint on them and then came up with a reason why they looked like they do. The bases are pretty bad. They look like you did not have time to paint them.

If you painted the bases they would look at least look like you thought it out a little.

No offense Stelek... but this paint job must be an aquired taste... How does it score when you score yourself with the rubric?

frgsinwntr wrote:No offense Stelek... but this paint job must be an aquired taste... How does it score when you score yourself with the rubric?

It's more of a complete visual of the whole army rather than a model by model basis thing. If Stelek plopped that army down across from me I would be thinking "That looks pretty cool as a whole". I don't like the white at the bottom and for my own models I do prefer a more detail oriented scheme but seeing that whole army lined up next to one another on the table looks really cool.

Nice work man!

It's a really unique army. Visually interesting, uniform, and nothing like GW standard.

Of course, I often *like* GW standard. But what I like more is well-executed creativity.

Stelek wrote: unlike GW paints which tend to crap out after two years sitting around.

I hear they are better now. Still overpriced.

and i just read on the gw website that their paints prices are going up even more due to the cost of shipping doesnt that suck for us!!

The white comes out really well in camera exposure - it looks damn hot to me. Obviously that's all I've seen... I can imagine that the effect isn't 'perfect' at all, but en masse it's a sight to behold.

It's also kinda difficult to make out what everything is...

1)The servitors being guardsmen with guns look like they could be heavy weapon teams.
2)The sisters with WestWind heads look just like the guardsmen with the same heads.
3)It's hard to make out what weapons they each have, even the flamers and meltagunners standing next to each other look the same.

Basically, they all just blend together, which looks kinda interesting when the army is standing side by side, but during the game, I can see it being very confusing and frustrating to your opponents.

Up close (well, a table away) they are much easier to tell apart, the pictures don't do them justice. I had camera issues and got called into work, so I got almost no pictures yesterday.

I hate to say it as I always seem to be able to find something nice about an army, but I dont get it. It looks poor.

How did you do on painting?

22 pts. While most "table-top" quality paint jobs got 20-21 pts.

Art is in the eye of the beholder.

Either you 'get' it, or you don't.

Individually the army does not look good at 1 inch view mode.

Never tried to make it look like every other army.

Good or bad, there were alot of people looking at my army. I'm sure it would have been better received with a display board, but it was not to be.

Anyway:

whitedragon wrote:It's also kinda difficult to make out what everything is...

1)The servitors being guardsmen with guns look like they could be heavy weapon teams.
2)The sisters with WestWind heads look just like the guardsmen with the same heads.
3)It's hard to make out what weapons they each have, even the flamers and meltagunners standing next to each other look the same.

Basically, they all just blend together, which looks kinda interesting when the army is standing side by side, but during the game, I can see it being very confusing and frustrating to your opponents.

1) Yet they aren't crouching, aren't on large bases, and share the same overall pose as the servitor model. I see how it could be confusing. Especially with the Lascannon teams which actually are heavy weapon teams in the same army.

2) They are pig iron production heads. I'm not sure how a Sister model with a head swap looks like a guardsman with a head swap. Are your eyes allright?

3) Since there are no flamers in the army, I can see how it would be confusing. Sorry, the stormtrooper guns are not flamers. Might look like them, but they aren't. I tried a flask on the side of the gun and it looked horrible, so I removed it.

During the game, I didn't really have anyone being confused unless they were firing at retinues. They DO look alike, and are usually close to each other. So the 5 seconds it took to explain that didn't really faze anyone.

Explaining Hammer of the Witches, Grey Knights Shrouding, Sisters Acts of Faith...that all took considerably longer than what my models were (see, everyone seemed to 'get it' once I provided them an army list...which I did for everyone and happily answered any questions).

I get what you're trying to do, and I really dig the blending effect you've done from the lava. There's a couple of things that I find confusing about it, though, and I'd imagine that's why you're catching a lot of flak.

I can't really see that close, but are their faces covered in lava as well? As I understand it, they're supposed to be regular humans (albeit, totally badass) that are rising up from lava, and are living through having direct flesh contact from the Emperor's Will.

However, the complete coverage of the lava in one, non-textured layer over all the detail gives me the wrong impression.

If there was a very, very slight change in thickness to the parts covered in lava, contrasted with some parts where the lava has already fallen off, it'd get the idea across a lot better. I kind of want to do some Necrons like this.

Off the cuff, here's a basic plan I'd try:
1. Paint dude as if he was a regular dude, and not covered with lava at all
2. Apply masking in certain areas, more towards the top. Or small gaps where the lava's flow would create a natural opening. I'd leave the gun and face mostly masked, both because since that moves the most the lava is going to come off of it first, and because seeing it uncovered helps you and your opponent identify it from a distance.
3. Spray the entire model with textured spraypaint. Maybe even two coats to build up the thickness.
4. Yank off the masking, leaving your original paintjob underneath.
5. Paint the now-chunky parts of the model as lava, with a light drybrush of black to show flecks of cooled lava.
6. Use spackle or hot glue to build up small piles up their leg as the lava is flowing that way.

I realize that, even if these ideas are completely blowing your mind, they're still useless as you've already finished the army. I'd just hate to see people go "HURR NO DETAIL IT SUCKS."

I understand the effect you were aiming for, though I don't believe you were successful. To me, it just looks like an army painted uniformly in the same three bands of colour, regardless of what the models' "un-lava'd" colours would be. I would agree with despair that the paintjob gives the wrong impression.

Also, HURR NO DETAIL IT could be improved.

Indirect lighting should never be as overall bright as the lower half of your models. I actually think the upper half looks decent enough. If you had shifted that downward toward the lower half and transtioned to a standard paintjob toward the body and heavd -- with lava bases and even minimal table top standard it woulda looked pretty cool IMHO. As it is now, they look like Dreadnote's sig -- just a bunch of guys on fire.

Art is subjective, I'll give you that. What seperates Picasso, from kid 'fridge art', from those watercolors that elephants paint? Whatever the viewer sees in it.
Having said that, I don't like what I see to be honest. Not because it's different. That alone isn't reason enough to dismiss it. But because of the effect. I don't think it accomplishes the goals you set out for the project or the revised goals. I haven't seen the army up close, but from what I'm seeing I think it would be *very* difficult to tell what something is from more than a few inches away. The army list is a varied one, but the look of the models are not. I think this would be a serious handicap for an opponent who might get confused about what he's actually looking at, and in a game, that is a problem. I'm a huge fan of conversions & such, but it should still not take great concentration for the opponent to decipher what he is seeing- this scheme is a very real camoflage. It looks like it was painted very fast to knock it out, just a step above spray painting it a uniform color.

At best this is abstract art in a medium that doesn't lend itself to it. Something like the LoTR Dead is one thing, but this is just too far deviated from any kind of fictional reality to work.

They're your models, your time, your money, more power to you, knock yourself out. But I think it has pushed it to the point of detracting from the game atmosphere and an opponents' playing ability. Just too hard to understand what the eye is seeing. may as well have all pink with random blue polkadots. These had some good looking conversions from the begining of the thread, then they get hidden & forever lost to sight by this paint scheme. That's a shame. It's different, and it's made people stop & look & think & discuss, but I think it's an evolutionary dead end. Might have some uses for terrain or something, but hope not for 'people' minis.

just my take on it.