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love the battle, happy my marine took part, despite theplasma gong crazy hahahaha!
also love that sergeant! looks awesome

To be completely honest I like the tranquility campaign pattern better than what they have in the IA book. Grey and black would probably bore me befor I even finished one squad.

I have been watching this thread since i joined and was and still am amazed at these miniatures bloody awesome dude !

Yeah, you know... just seems right to me that all of my trades actually fight in my army before they're "official" and are sent off. WM's actually saw quite a lot of action before he was finally reassigned. Good to see both these troopers get their feet wet before being shipped out as well... and the fact that every plasma shot overloaded & even Inushi's 3 power sword attacks failed to either hit or wound is just too ironic (I have a reputation as a miserable dice roller).

Speaking of which... here's the man himself... ready for re-deployment. May his last run of bad luck be his last run of bad luck... um... you know what I mean.





@Zasamel: Thanks for your interest Zas, I always appreciate it when a lurker is moved enough to post! Hope my latest entry doesn't disappoint! Welcome!

Awesome, I think it's fair to say that's your best work yet, frakking sweet Gits!! Love the maroony purpley pistol as well, nice to see different gun case colours for a change.

edit: I really need to start looking properly the first time, those gems Yet again, amazing!! (CH pad looking sweet as well)

Nicely done. I love the colors.

great work, the marine is awesome! love it!

Nice going Gits, I much prefer the blade like this compared to before.

Love the shoulder pad, love the healmet. great work!

Inushi turned out great, Gits! The gems and shoulder pad are top notch. Great work.

OMG! He looks awesome. Great job Git! I can't wait to see your whole army painted to that quality.

Hey everyone!

@Vitruvian: Thanks! Yeah... kind of decided to go with gem eyes on both the helmet and shoulder pad. It's a little more passive aggressive than the standard glowing marine eyes which I think fits a predator like a mantis better. Nice thing about the purple housing is that it echoes the pad (which I repainted a bit... looks better now). Probably spent more time on that plasma pistol than any gun I've done in a while... just wanted to get everything right.

@samwellfm: Thank you sir!

@Sage: Thanks my friend!

@Len: Yep, definitely the better call.

@wolf: Thanks wolf!

@Moltar: I'm convinced that a big trick with the gems is to get the gloss coat just right. Add just a smidge of water to make it a little more fluid & put it on thick in one quick go. Then when it dries it acts like a real glass lens and reflects whatever light source is around as a natural highlight.

@Ice: Ahhh, the one opinion that *really* matters. You and me both brother! Do you want me to do some source lighting around the plasma chamber? I think I can do that much without messing it up.

Gits

Whoops! Nearly forgot.

One more pic for fun... to prove you can teach an old dog new tricks... it just takes a long, long time. (about 18 years elapsed between these two figures)

Git you can do whatever you want to do to your marine. Glowing chambers are cool though.

LOL, Thats awsome Gits. I love the 'before and after' pics.

Hrm...

Maybe I hould post one of my original SW in my P&M thread...

Not at your level, by any strech of the imagination, but TBH < I think I'm waaaaay better than I was when I quit. Way more patient now. :-P

OK Ice, I'll give it a try.

@wolf: You should do that! You never know what young goob is reading your blog and thinking that it's cool but way over his head... maybe if they see where you were & where you are now, they may be inspired to keep trying!

Progress
Really is inspiring! Love all the work you've done! Hey i hope your dice rolls improve!
Wish I could join you in reviving iconic chapters but I lost my entire collection to an apartment fire!
Seeing stuff like this reminds me how much I love this hobby and can't give it up (but I Can wait for new codexes and try other armies! lol!)

Thanks Mukkin', very sire to hear about your loss in the fire. That would be terrible.

Well, last pic of Inushi. I tried to give his plasma chamber a glow. I don't like it... just looks like a sloppy paint job to me. I did tweak it a bit at the very end by painting the purple back into it a bit... that helped, but I still don't like it. Oh well...

Eyes are particularly good mate... I've finally got around to basecoating the Vanguard for you, and now I have to get it up to that standard! As for the glow, try a very light drybrush white first, then drybrush your "glow" colour, maybe?

According to the Badab War book 2 they have yellow pouldrons

Traditionally they had green pauldrons with a mantis head encircled in yellow (see my old beakie above). I've changed it with my MW's to reflect the changes in the chapter after their exile and crusade... 100 years AFTER the events of the IA-10 book take place. Don't know why they changed the pad to yellow but I assume they just expanded the roundel (which have fallen out of favor with GW artists) to cover the entire pad.

@Blackhand: You're going to paint up some Mantis Warriors!! Cool! Can't wait to see them!

I'll start assembling and painting my two Razorbacks next, along with beginning the assembly process for the first of my Vanguard (the guys with the winged jump packs and double chainswords).

Dang it Gits. Stop painting gems so good!
I'll never paint my guy's lenses and good as yours

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:Dang it Gits. Stop painting gems so good!
I'll never paint my guy's lenses and good as yours

I usually scrape off my gems so I don't have to try and paint them. lol,

that is so not true.

Git you should definitely paint all the bug eyes like gems. I think it really adds to the bugginess of the amazing helmets that Blackhand created.

IceAngel wrote:

battle Brother Lucifer wrote:Dang it Gits. Stop painting gems so good!
I'll never paint my guy's lenses and good as yours

I usually scrape off my gems so I don't have to try and paint them. lol,

that is so not true.

Git you should definitely paint all the bug eyes like gems. I think it really adds to the bugginess of the amazing helmets that Blackhand created.

Actually it is, seeing as I don't have gloss varnish
It won't stop me from trying though.

Anyway, Gits has much more painting experience than me.

I want to make it clear that when I finally make my vanguard I GET TO KEEP IT !!! MINE, MINE, MINE!!!


So like.... who's going to sculpt me a proper 40k sized katana power sword? Nothing stupid... just a bit bigger so the blade can be painted like a power weapon and with appropriate power-gizmos attached.

Anybody up to the challenge/commission? Pretty sure it's completely safe IP-wise as I've never seen GW do anything of the sort (or I'd be buying it). Actually a set (katana & wakizashi) would be perfect! I'd love to be able to give each of my troopers a wakizashi as part of their standard kit (sheathed like this one)... but I think this came as part of a larger pack of weapons from the supplier, the rest of which I had no need for as they were much too small.

I can give somethin a shot. ill sketch out a couple of schematics and stuff and see from there...
Ill try to get a prototype up this week, though I can be a bit strange about when I do certain things... Its like I gotta be in the mood to work, if ya get what I mean.


Anywho, Dont let me stop anyone else from giving it a shot!

By the way, never mentioned this before, as I have never made much progress...

I am in the process of painting my Lamenters army, which will soon be ready for some photos to be posted. (Tac Squad and Scout Squad almost finished) Following that I'll be doing a Tyrant's Legion, including some Astral Claws, which I'll also be expandingon to make a separate Astartes-only force. I recently decided that all of my leftover marines after that will be Executioners. The only secessionists from the Badab War I won't have will be Mantis Warriors. I might have to paint up one squad, just for a sense of completeness...

@Ramos: Thanks my friend! Can you cast up multiples though? I don't need a million of them but I'd like at least a dozen katanas for sergeants, characters and the like. I'd need lots a wakizashis if I was to put them on each marine... well, at least several dozen... but at the pace I paint it might take me years to get through them.

Yes Fifty... you need to paint some Mantis Warriors... it's a moral imperative!

Fifty wrote:By the way, never mentioned this before, as I have never made much progress...

I am in the process of painting my Lamenters army, which will soon be ready for some photos to be posted. (Tac Squad and Scout Squad almost finished) Following that I'll be doing a Tyrant's Legion, including some Astral Claws, which I'll also be expandingon to make a separate Astartes-only force. I recently decided that all of my leftover marines after that will be Executioners. The only secessionists from the Badab War I won't have will be Mantis Warriors. I might have to paint up one squad, just for a sense of completeness...

What a coincidence...I just painted up a random Lamenter

Haha, had a play with making some weapons this last weekend while I wait for the parts to arrive to continue on with my dusk raiders army/blog.

The 40k scale katana sounds like an awesome idea! I might just have a play with that and see what I come up with! What are you wanting? Comparible size to existing power swords? comparible to chain swords? Do you want the scale of the real katana to be matched to a marine? Heroic (slightly oversized) scale? Just so people can have a play and see what they come back with. It's pretty small so it'd be easy for a heap of us to do it and you pick one

Ya I can cast multiples easy!
I got the stuff already (got a bit of practice), so it shouldn't be too hard to whip em up!

Im assuming youre wanting the sword by itself and not an accompanying arm?
As to the wakazashis, Ill prolly make several variations. Sound good?