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After 40 nearly identical conscripts, today's update is the opposite: all characters!

First up, we have the immortal Nork Dedogg, in glorious metal:





I'd been using basic Kasrkin Sergeants as my Tempestor Primes, so I finally painted up two of one of my favorite GW models of all time: the cadian commander!





Fun story: I showed one of these models to my wife, and noted that it was my favorite. She glanced at it, and said, "of course it is... look at that arrogance!" When we talk about "character" in models, this is what we're talking about. These guys look so confident and borderline smug, it just oozes out of them.

Next is a Zulu war British Chaplain from Black Tree Designs, which I grabbed for cheap and I think will make a fun priest for my Praetorians.



Hey kids, do you like Psykers? Of course you do!







How about commissar?

That's a great collection of character models. Nork looks a lot more Orky that I remembered.

Just a few more Praetorian units. First up are three sentinels:





A lascannon heavy weapon squad:



A mortar Squad:



And two veteran squads with plasma guns:

Whoa, you've been busy! I really like the camo on those Sentinels.

It's been a long since I've updated this poor blog! I've been busy, albeit not as busy as I was last summer. I'm going to post some highlights of what i've accomplished since my last post, and then I'll be trying to post more regularly again.

Today's highlights are for my Praetorian IG:

First up, some heavy weapon squads. The Mortar Teams are missing crew, because I used them to create crew for my FW artillery. This way, the same models can do double duty






I also painted up an LRBT in my more modern color scheme. I'm pretty happy with the light weathering on it:



Here's my army prepped for an RTT:


Here's my army at Armies on Parade:






While not really part of my WIP, I did take advantage of a rainy, cold day by snapping some pictures of my complete IG army. The infantry:

And the vehicles:

I took a break from warhams to paint some guild ball for a friend of mine. They're the hunters, but he wanted them to feature blue to match his other teams, which all match his Cygnar army. After some thinking, I decided to go with a winter theme:

Polar Bear! I"m not sure why they strapped tusks to his sides. I'm guessing that since this is technically a sport, and not a fight to the death, it's to actually limit how dangerous he is.


Traps. these were amazingly fun to paint. No clue what they do in the game, but I got to use rust effects, leaves, and snow on the same model.


It's not a puma.


He's got a blunderbuss and a thousand yard stare. Plus, a pelt for a hat. I'm not sitting next to him on the bus.


A large shaman. I respect his culture, that allows a beefy man to turn away from obvious career choices like "ax guy" to become a spiritual figure.


I like to think this is a happy couple that met on a "sneaking with knives" dating site.


A big ole corn fed arayn with a Bow.


The spear says he's deadly, the moustache says he's everybody's gym teacher from middle school.


I think this is a wolf, not a dog, but he's posing like he's at a dog show.


she has a similar face as an ex-girlfriend, which meant painting her unsettling.


He also had some mercenaries, which I painted less wintry. First up is this guy, who clearly missed the exit for the protectorate of menoth and joined a hyperviolent soccer league instead.


I love metal models, but not when they're like this. there are six parts to this model, and the joins are all terribly designed. Go to hell, Steamforged games.


I didn't even know Mankind had a daughter, but apparently she plays guildball.


If you can't enjoy painting a giant turtle with a treasure chest on his back, you might be dead inside.

I'm still working through a backlog of pictures, so here are some more non-40k models I've painted semi-recently.

The Shadespire Stormcast:



The Shadespire Khorne:


A muse/diviner I painted for my wife's collection of princess style models:

I'm taking another detour from my Praetorians to paint some Eldar. I've always wanted to build an army with second edition metals, and I've always loved the background for Biel Tan. I started with the most iconic battleline unit, the Dire Avengers:



The old Ranger sculpts had so much character to them:



I got this guy in a bitz bag a while back, it turns out he was one of the farseers from the 3rd edition Seer Council box. This is one of those models that is both uncommon and unheralded.



Just a good old fashioned warlock:


The same sculpt + green stuff = spirit seer!

Nice take on the classic Eldar!

It's nice to see those old metal models getting some attention. Eldar was my first army back in the RT days, and those chunky metal models still look better to me than any plastics.

Good stuff man I really like your farseer, Dire avengers are some of my favorite models. the paint looks like it was supposed to be there.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Nice take on the classic Eldar!

Thanks!

JoshInJapan wrote:It's nice to see those old metal models getting some attention. Eldar was my first army back in the RT days, and those chunky metal models still look better to me than any plastics.

The super early RT models are a bit underdetailed and have a slightly different aesthetic, but no army can mix models from across time like the Eldar. Even Space Marines, which have kept a pretty consistent look, have evolved enough to the point where the differences are jarring. I've had opponents be suprised that the Dire Avengers are even metal, because they just assumed they were current!

alabamaheretic wrote:Good stuff man I really like your farseer, Dire avengers are some of my favorite models. the paint looks like it was supposed to be there.

Thanks! Outside of the green crest, it's pretty bog standard codex pattern, but I like to tie my aspect warriors into my craft world.

Those Eldar warlocks have actually dated rather well.

Otherwise, get back to the Praetorians! That's what we come here to see!

 Ketara wrote:
Otherwise, get back to the Praetorians! That's what we come here to see!

I've been working on tanks mostly in the last few months, but I'll try to get some redcoats up at some point. For starters, here are some Chimeras"



A hellhound:





A Griffon:







And some Leman Russ Demolishers:

Blimey, that's an old school griffon. Don't see many like it these days.

Some more armor, starting with some bare bones LRBTs:



And the "not a STUG" Destroyer Tank Hunter:

Just been checking out all your Praetorians, they look great! I want to see more

Okay, I"ll post some actual Praetorians!

I tried to take some WIP pictures on the last two squads I painted, but I basically got three steps.

I work over white for them, due to the large amount of bright red. Even so, it takes a few coats of thinned down dark red paint (Reaper #277 Splattered Crimson) to get the base coat. The blue of the trousers is Reaper Nightmare Black, which far from black, is actually a mid to dark blue. Odd, but I like it. The bases start with a few coats of dark brown craft paint.



The yellow of the braiding is again Reaper, starting with #006 Fire Orange. I then wash the red and yellow with red wash. The lasguns get a dark brown base, with Bolt gun hardware. The webbing starts out with Reaper Ghost White, and then I was it and the trousers with Payne's Grey. The boots are painted charcoal, then washed black along with the lasgun. the helmet is painted Reaper Green Ochre and washed with flesh tone.



After that, it's mostly layering up. The red goes up through the dried blood triad, the braiding goes through the next two yellows, the lasgun stock is hit with intense brown, and the trousers get a light dry brush of a mid blue.

The green optics are reaper Pine, Leaf, and Pale greens, with a wash of Vallejo black-green after the base coat. The plasma coils are Vallejo Ultramarine, washed with paynes grey, then drybrushed with Arcane and Lightning blue, with a final Skink Blue drybrush.

Thanks for posting these photos. Your WIP models are very, very clean. I admire your patience.

Holy just scrolled though cool to see some old models

JoshInJapan wrote:Thanks for posting these photos. Your WIP models are very, very clean. I admire your patience.

Thanks. I try to stay within the lines.

Emperors will wrote:Holy just scrolled though cool to see some old models

Yeah, my zest for older models is like 30% nostalgia, and 70% being cheap, and buying stuff used. I also like my stuff to match.

So, I know everybody is here for the Praetorians, but I'm working through my backlog of photos that I've never shared, and today's batch are Primaris Ultramarines, painted in the full, early 3rd edition retro color scheme.

First up, Inceptors. Hard name to spell, hard models to build. Getting those goofy little stands to line up properly was a PITA. That said... they look great, IMO.





Hellblasters:




And the surprisingly fun to paint Primaris Ancient.







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Another project I never shared was my buddy's guild ball engineers. These were painted to match his Cygnar, which is why you get the glorious bright blue of the true king Leto, and the obvious accent of brass.



























And Mist, an associated Union Player

Made some progress with the Imperial Guard. Nothing motivates like an event, and while I had two painted Manticores, they were in my old scheme, and had been somewhat hastily, if neatly, painted a few years ago. I was able to over paint them in timw for a tournament yesterday, were they did yeoman's work.

Before:


After:




Unfortunately, I got a grand total of one good shot of my army during the event:



the TO snapped a very similar shot:

I'm resurrecting this old blog, as I've got a huge backlog of pictures and progress, and I want to start sharing. For the next couple of weeks, It'll mostly be long finished stuff, but I'll resume more timely updates. thanks to my phone and Dakka's upload history, I can figure out where I stopped posting... holy cow, over a year ago? With my last consistent posts two years ago? Ooof

Let's dive into summer of 2018, when I was chasing that meta with a trio of Smash Captains. After extensive detours into older metals, non-GW models, and used stuff, building a modern GW multi pose plastic kit was a complete breath of fresh air. The BA doodads went on easily while adding a lot of pizzazz.



three cheers for zenithal priming, followed by a coat of Warcolor Red 5:



I layered that red up with further Warcolors, and really liked the rich red I got.



While doing all of this meta chasing, I was also engaging in high commerce, in a way that would make any Ferengi blush.

When painting the golden bois, I stuck with a pretty standard color scheme. the bike is based with Vallejo Model Color Bronze, highlighted with VMC Brass and lightly dry brushed with auric Armor. the riders were based in brass, layered with auric armor, and dry brushed with Sigmarite.







I also played a little, including this little scene in which an opponents Smash Captain faced the fury of dozens of flashlights!



As for the balance of that trade, I knocked out some Legion Rebels. They are fun little models, even if the quality is a bit dodgy.

Welcome back!

You guys like rescue jobs, right?

At a swap meet, I was able to grab somebody's entire collection of Imperial Guard vehicles. They had a wide range, and they were all kinds of painted, and in varying levels of complete.




I started with the basilisks and hellhounds:









In an unrelated purchase, I grabbed a painted Armorcast Shadowsword, sight unseen, for $25. I mean, how bad could it be.. oh. Oh my





I gave it a nice long back in LA's totally awesome, scrubbing every week or so until I got it as clean as I could. Zenithal primed in subassemblies, and then airbrushed with XV-88 and given a sepia wash:



The final outcome:

Thank you so much for saving these!

--Brian

 Briancj wrote:
Thank you so much for saving these!

--Brian

It was a pleasure, honestly. All of my tanks (save the Pask I'm working on) are the old LRBTs, so I pretty much need to go used with them. I do have two modern Hellhounds, but since the rules continue to favor the basic loadout of the classic model, I favor those. And the difference between the current and OOP basilisk are minor, and frankly the older version is a better model.

All of the original kits are better, just from a bitz standpoint. I have three of them left (boxed!) that I'm using for extra special projects.

--B.

 Polonius wrote:
You guys like rescue jobs, right?

Mmm, very satisfying stuff And great end results

Also holy hell that Shadowsword's surprise paint job

Time for a few more rescue projects. Since many used tanks are missing turrets, or have broken ring tabs, and since virtually all used tanks are basic battle cannons, the fix is to get extra turrets. That means FW turrets! The pictures below are a jumble of WIP and finished shots, but it's apparently all I took during operation Tank Factory!







And then some LR hulls to accommodate those turrets:









I took some old alt battle cannon turrets, and added coaxial storm bolters for some counts as conquerors:






Let's look at a rack of LRBTs:



and some Chimeras:






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 Boss Salvage wrote:

 Polonius wrote:
You guys like rescue jobs, right?

Mmm, very satisfying stuff And great end results

Also holy hell that Shadowsword's surprise paint job

thanks! Yeah, that was a bold choice.I'm just happy it came off! (Not that those old sculpts had enough detail to be lost with layers of paint...)