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 Elnibbus wrote:
Yeh I'll just airbrush it. I have a free evening on Friday so I'll try it out then. Now to just find a way of painting realistic skin tones...

Helmeted marines all day everyday

I agree with helmeted Marines- doesn't make much sense to have all that armour and then leave your head exposed (derp) but the Abaddon sculpt is rather nice- I'm going to try bruising and such on his face...

Woop! 1am hobby-itch well and truly scratched: Put paint to mini and staryed on the Commander!

Death guard?

Very glowy power fist! Cool!

@Ustrello, nah these are going to be my own chapter- a post heresy founding so still using old Mk armour but I won't be using the heresy rules.

@Paradigm, cheers!

I took some better photos this morning after doing some work on the sword and cleaning up some of the streaking effects:







Note that I have mucked up slightly on the sword hand- that's what happens when you paint everything seperately... Will go back over the hand with the white colours to get a more subtle effect

Ah okay, they just have a scheme very similar to the pre heresy death guard. White washed with watered down sepia and re highlighted with white.

I just wanted white marines with battle-damaged armour. Will have completely different markings and such when finished.

Nice, nothing wrong with the death guard though. They probably have the best color scheme in the horus heresy

Indeed not- they are my favourite of the Traitor Legions. I like their no-nonsense approach with just a Marine and his Bolter (and mass use of chemical weaponry). My goal was to do a Marine army that was more focussed on the soldiery rather than the stupid "warrior-monks in space" religion rubbish that GW have foisted upon everybody. So no purity seals, no scripture and no Aquillas if I can help it. This means exclusive use of Mk.IV and Tartaros armour. I think I mentioned in an earlier post about being a big fan of Storm Troopers- these guys are it folks and they take no shizz...

I am actually writing the rest of my fluff now and it centers on my knights and guard fighting the death guard just so I have an excuse to paint them and maybe get some forge world models of them for S and G s. But I like that idea making them very business like.

Ah cool. I noticed the dead Death Guard under the foot of one of your Knights. I may write some fluff up for the Marines but still don't have a name for them. Don't suppose it matters much- I see them having the ambiguity of the Alpha Legion.

Opinions are required folks! I'm thinking about the tabard and pauldron... Tassles... A dark brown perhaps? I don't want to do black as some of the marking on the armour are potentially going to be black (perhaps a shade similar to the old Dark Flesh?). Plus I'm considering doing away with the orange I wanted so desperatley to incorporate but I may find a space for it yet (perhaps on the left pauldron? With a white skull denoting HQ?).

Dark flesh is one of my favourite colours and will contrast very nicely with the colours used so far, serious awesome work btw the shadowing is especially good!

orange seems very starwars-y I think I've seen marines like that somewhere before... a simple black skull would work well if you decide not to.

May I ask what colours you have used so far on that chap?

Everything looks great so far. I love the gritty style of DKOK and you have done it justice too.

Can I ask what models you will be going for in this army by the end?

@OMN, thanks very much, that comes as high praise indeed. The star wars-y theme is kinda what I was aiming for: somewhere between that and HALO/Destiny/Mass Effect etc. Something definitely "sci-fi" but with a modicum of realistic appearance. If that makes any sense then I'm amazed! Colours are all VMA:

- USAF Medium Grey
- USAF Light Grey
- White Grey
- White

@Alphabet, thank you also. I assume you meant for the Death Korps? Predominantly Grenadiers with an infantry platoon as a holding force, backed up by Hellhounds and LRBTs.

I had the urge to try out the orange and this is it:

I think that orange actually works really well with the model. i'd keep it like that.

Thanks Ustrello. I think I might do the chapter symbol on the right pad but not sure if I should revisit the design from the one on the recon marine a few pages back?

Also, I'm outta Dark Flesh D:

Paintjob is top notch buddy! And those colours really sit well together! .... ALMOST..... makes me want to paint a figure..... haha! But for now I will just sit and watch you rock this one!

Yeah, that looks excellent! The white and orange really make the weathering pop!

Haha! You are too kind Biff You should definitely put some paint down, your stuff is fantastic.

Cheers Paradigm, I'm so far quire pleased with the colours and weathering.

I have this morning ordered some Vallejo paints- a couple of skin tones from the VMC range and some Shadows Flesh from the Panzer Aces range as it looks incredibly similar to GeeDubs old Dark Flesh. I aim to try something quite realistic and technically advanced for the head (for me anyway, I'm crap at painting skin!).

I'm also designing a new chapter badge...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also I *might* have to amend my policy on the warrior-monk garbage. I think I'll still have the odd Aquilla BUT I won't be having the same overtly non-sensical bits of paper plastered all over the figures and devotional rubbish. I mean they are soldiers and they will have trinkets and charms, Emperor inspired sure, but I believe in function over form. They are Astartes of the Emperor after all! As a force, I see them being along a similar character to the Salamanders i.e. they actually give a crap about civilians and Guard (otherwise, what's the point? You'd end up being a douchebag Grey Knight...). All will become apparent!

Was going to say aquilas should be fine as it is the symbol of who they are fighting for.

But seriously what right minded space marine would care about the guard or civilians

Well without the average civilian, what's the point? I think it adds an extra dimension- if the Marines don't care it's pretty much just a case of killing everything, then there are no complications to any given situation. If there is an element of compassion, it makes for a much more dynamic and troublesome route.

I've been to the theatre and I've had two pints so I may not be coming through clearly...

 Elnibbus wrote:
Well without the average civilian, what's the point? I think it adds an extra dimension- if the Marines don't care it's pretty much just a case of killing everything, then there are no complications to any given situation. If there is an element of compassion, it makes for a much more dynamic and troublesome route.

I've been to the theatre and I've had two pints so I may not be coming through clearly...

Nah was just razzing you. It does make sense for there to be an extra dimension to it, makes them seem more human. In the book Death of Antignos the author makes the Black Dragons seem like they care about civilians a little bit and it does add a whole lot to the story.

Haha! Well we'll see if I can get the aesthetic with these guys right


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I've also come up with a name for the chapter: Venators. Will possibly be using a black greek symbol, the choices I have are Lambda, Phi, Omega or Delta... Names of marines in fluff will be predominantly Greek/Roman in origin (like Daedulus, Panoptes, Demeter etc).

So during a particularly dull day at work, I jotted a few lines down...


Daedalus scanned the doors and windows as he stalked down the street. His battle-brothers moved with him, weapons sweeping back and forth searching for targets. The town looked completely deserted but there were signs of desperate struggles all over the streets- bullet holes and scorch marks from laser weapons riddled the walls and doors of buildings, bullet casings rolled on the ground as the Astartes disturbed them with their footsteps. Broken glass crunched underfoot as the Marines kicked doors from hinges and performed clearances of the buildings- shops, offices and homes. People lived, worked, laughed and cried here. People died here.

Something was decidedly wrong. There were no bodies anywhere.

Daedalus smashed a door to splinters and bounded up the stairs, his weight causing them to creak. He heard Gires move downstairs and then his message of “Clear down” crackle over his helmet vox. Daedalus consulted his auspex again: there were definitely three signatures registered on the display which were not his fellows and it looked like he was stood directly on top of them. He looked up as he noticed dust falling onto the screen and discovered a cleverly concealed hatch in the ceiling. Keeping his gaze on the hatch, he brought his bolter up and opened the vox link to his squad.

“Bolt-hole discovered. Wait out”. He disengaged the safety.

He drew his combat knife, pressed the tip into the gap between the ceiling and hatch and gently pried it open.

3 terrified faces greeted the muzzle of his bolter: a woman and her two children.

“Clear up. Three civilians: one adult female plus two children, male and female.” Acknowledgements were received from the rest of his squad.

Daedalus engaged the safety of his bolter and slung it over his shoulder. He reached up to his helmet and released the catches with a de-pressurising hiss. He lowered his helmet and looked back up to the people in the loft space and tried his best at a reassuring smile, offering a hand up to them:

“It is alright. We are the Emperor’s Adeptus Astartes, Space Marines; there is nothing to fear now."


I've decided writing for Marines is difficult...

Cool stuff!

Writing for Marines can be difficult, as you want to make them sympathetic characters but also get across their ultimately inhuman nature. The trick I've found it to pick an aspect of that and run with it, so instead of worrying that you're getting the balance wrong, have the confidence to say 'this is how I'm writing Marines, deal with it.' I has a similar trouble writing Sisters, but once I worked out my angle on them (with one on particular, not so much purity as constant fear/guilt that she might not be as pure as she could be) it fell into place.

Thanks Paradigm, I'll keep jotting stuff down and see how it evolves. I've tried to portray the main character as awkward without going so far as to make him a bafoon. Anyway, my paints turned up yesterday but I never got a chance to use them. I'll see if I can get a spare moment this evening to do some more painting- I want to crack out the airbrush again and touch up some areas and redo the sword arm. I've also settled on the greek letter Phi for the chapter badge:

Nice choice of symbol! Other than reminding me of the horrors of A Level Physics (it's the symbol for Magnetic Flux Density, which is as complicated/stupid as it sounds), it fits the no-nonsense theme better than a more intricate design, and should be easy enough to replicate.

Yeh, advanced higher physics (went to school in bonnie Scotland: go me...) is just a bit of a blur. I think I ejected all memory of it from my mind. Anyhoo, I was thinking of a black Omega (the right way round thank you very much Ultrabums) but I think I like Phi better. Also gets away from the Ultrabums as these are not a founding of their geneseed.