Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Inspired by Aventine (and others) I've been working and playing the Lamenters chapter of the Space Marines.

My current method is white primer + Army Colour Primer (Daemonic Yellow) + Gryphonne Sepia for a basecoat, with a good deal of detail work.


(a little fuzzy, as my flash was out of power)

I completed weathering and painting a couple of rhinos.



I engraved and cut the rhino doors / hillbilly armor and top with a laser cutter, and then primed and painted over them. Decent results considering my lack of handpainting skills.

The whole gang:



I've got more info on 40K armies both here and on my website: The Wolfling Project

That is very nice! The rhino's look very very good. The mud/dust tracks give a great effect. Was the checkered pattern on your hatch freehand? If so, wowzers!

The units look great too, but add some water to your yellow. Yellow is extremely difficult to paint, it looks a little thick. Watering it down a bit will look much better, sure you will have to do multiple coats, but worth the extra work.

I do like the tanks, they are really good!

However i'm not that enthusiastic about the marines, such a logo requires lots of skill, although i imagine you must have some after all that marines! Kudos for the effort, but besides the logo on the shoulderpad, the thing is that the painting is dirty to me, lack of definition on some parts; the skull on the bolter, the yellow on the ammo of the bolter, and its no assembled correctly.

No mean to be rude, but you look to be a good painter but not understandly all the effort you put on the tanks feel to be elsewhere when painting the marines.

Some little extra work will make the model look really good. Some yellow on the logo shoulder pad, repainting the metallics and its done!

Keep it up! I like the looks of this!

"EDIT: By the way, take a look at that!

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?automodule=downloads&showfile=388"

I made a bunch of errors painting the Marines as I was figuring out details and color scheme (as well as doing this as my first army). Not sure how many I'll fix or redo, as I have more to paint.

The overall scheme is pretty dirty / cityfight-style, amplified by a generous amount of wash. The models don't look clean up close.

Thanks for the advice! I'll try to improve

Good work :thumbs up: I like your dirty yellow technique personally. It's a hard colour to get right, but I think you've pulled it off there. The freehand logos aren't spectacular, but very people can paint to a high standard at a small scale and I'm certainly not one of them.

Yes, I haven't found a good way to paint the square centimeter or so of a Marine shoulder pad ... the first tries were pretty horrible (freehanding checks). Does anyone have any workholding or pattern-tracing advice?

Thanks, BTW for the decal link. If I can figure out a way to print them, I'll try them out. For larger areas (vehicle doors), I'm going to stick with my laser-etching method.

I like your Rhino battle damage!

Re : battle damage -- easier than it looks!

A few jewel saw cuts right into the plastic. The more chewed up it gets, the better, as long as chunks are still connected. Paint the exposed interior black, the edges and flats boltgun metal, wash brown or black as needed.

Fluff wise, I was going for Tyranid claw damage.

Nice start. Some more highlights on the yellow would finish them off nicely. Kudos for all the checkers too.

Nice work, especially on the black and white freehand.

Seeing as you said its your FIRST ARMY... Great job man.. my first army was orks.. and they were dark angels green wiuth snakebite leather and blood red.. and they were bloby and bad lookin.. so Great job on ur first army

Two photos of an Assault Marine. I tried to incorporate the suggestions here and use some more highlighting.





Thanks for the advice!

More info: Lamenters Space Marine project

Nice, looks good. You should really clear those pebbles off the base edges though. Also I highly recommend investing in a micron pen (like $5 or so) to use to black line all the cracks in your marine's armor. It looks very striking.

I can't believe I missed this blog, I am on the verge of starting my own 1st company Lamenters army. Nice to see more Lamenters out there. Keep up the good work.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, add your pics to the Dakka Gallery!

Any suggestion for a model of pen? I've tried art pens before but had ink "melt" even days after drying when I applied a sealer (Testor's Dullcote). :(

Looks great.

I've used pens before but haven't sealed any of those models yet.

These guys are great. Your drybrushing and highlighting technique is great. Your freehand lettering is wonderful and I like what you've written on the Rhinos; all of your stuff is well-painted and characterful. The writing and free-hand work give your Lamenters a really distinctive look and flavour that makes them a pleasure to look at and you do a good job of using dirt and weathering.

...of course, I'm also a sucker for those beautiful checkered patterns. Is there anything they won't make cooler? Good job.

The yellow look smoother indeed! Wash is much cleaner as well. Really hooked on this paint scheme.

May I make another suggestion? For the checkers on the shoulder, try using painters tape, there is extremely thin width tape (I believe mine is 3mm width). It is rather inexpensive too, I used it all the time and it works wonders. What is the smallest brush you have also? 0/10 is wonderful for all those tiny tiny areas especially if you use the tape.

ghost11 wrote:Any suggestion for a model of pen? I've tried art pens before but had ink "melt" even days after drying when I applied a sealer (Testor's Dullcote). :(

KFJLKDJFKLDJS I am NOT a fan of pens. They are better with large scale objects such as the tanks, but for units, the wash is your best bet. Just use a small brush will very little wash, but repeat about 2 or 3 times to get a good wash effect. You may not take my advice on this one, but I have tried pens before as a test, epic fail, I have a steady hand too.

Anywho, after that little "anti-pen" rant lol Nice work

Keep more coming sir!

If you have a steady hand and used a pen how did you fail? Not steady enough?

Truly like the rhinos man. And the assault marine is indeed a progress from the heavy bolter marine. Keep it up.

over and out avach

ph34r wrote:If you have a steady hand and used a pen how did you fail? Not steady enough?

A pen is too harsh of a color transfer. Steady hand or not, a line in a crevice, with no gradient, looks like crap. The clear difference between the pen and the color of the marine is so evident, unless you use a dark base color for your marines. I have used multiple different color pens depending on the base color of the model, and no matter what, the harsh line (with no fading) into the base color is just so ugly and unappealing. Again, this is just my personal opinion, but if you want a more realistic and professional look, you steer away from the pen.

Washings allows you to have your base color fade into the darker color of the crevice or nook, much more realistic and much better looking. Washing is more difficult but a much better result.

I find harsh highlighting to be a good look with the fading wash in the crevices, it gives it a better type of striking.

I like it, only thing is like others have said try and clean up the lines just a tad for the black and white otherwise im sold

When making your checks, did you make an outline in pencil first? My Ticonderoga Black Warrior #2's sharpened to a needle point took over the paint without leaving a visible line beneath the paint - I was even able to use the eraser very lightly where necessary. I found it indispensible for the little bit of freehand that I've done.

I also used the smallest, finest point brush I own and thinned the paint to more of an ink consistency. Small and smooth strokes help keep things "in-between the lines". Keep a larger brush on hand, dampened, to use as an eraser if you make a mistake. Patience is key, along with a stable and steady hand!

All that said, I love the yellow, the freehand is great for a first army, and the tanks are just beautiful!

Gavin Thorne wrote:When making your checks, did you make an outline in pencil first? My Ticonderoga Black Warrior #2's sharpened to a needle point took over the paint without leaving a visible line beneath the paint - I was even able to use the eraser very lightly where necessary. I found it indispensible for the little bit of freehand that I've done.

I also used the smallest, finest point brush I own and thinned the paint to more of an ink consistency. Small and smooth strokes help keep things "in-between the lines". Keep a larger brush on hand, dampened, to use as an eraser if you make a mistake. Patience is key, along with a stable and steady hand!

All that said, I love the yellow, the freehand is great for a first army, and the tanks are just beautiful!

Where did you get that pencil fine sir? My hobby store does not have any :(

Gavin gives even better advice than my idea of thin painters tape, good looking Gavin.

next tank WIP: the Razorback "Cor Semper Fidele."

You can see the Schoolbus-of-Death base color in this photo. This is before washes, drybrushing, or weathering.

More info on this WIP for those interested.

As far as shoulder pads go -- I will try the very-sharp-pencil method of outlining. I've used it on larger items with some success, but I like masking better for vehicles. However, I don't think I'll enjoy masking the curved surface of a tiny shoulder pad, so I think it's a better idea for individual Marines. I'll also steal the wet-brush eraser idea. Thanks for the advice!

I think your Lamentors need to come face my eldar

FINNALY A LEMANTERS PLAYER!

LaniGuy wrote:

ph34r wrote:If you have a steady hand and used a pen how did you fail? Not steady enough?

A pen is too harsh of a color transfer. Steady hand or not, a line in a crevice, with no gradient, looks like crap. The clear difference between the pen and the color of the marine is so evident, unless you use a dark base color for your marines. I have used multiple different color pens depending on the base color of the model, and no matter what, the harsh line (with no fading) into the base color is just so ugly and unappealing. Again, this is just my personal opinion, but if you want a more realistic and professional look, you steer away from the pen.

Washings allows you to have your base color fade into the darker color of the crevice or nook, much more realistic and much better looking. Washing is more difficult but a much better result.

I find harsh highlighting to be a good look with the fading wash in the crevices, it gives it a better type of striking.

Personal preference I guess. I love black lining just about anything that it can be applied to. I also like super-contrast highlights.

I like where your trying to go with this, and the laser etching is awesome, your lucky to have that kind of tech at your disposal.

However, on the shoulderpads, your freehand needs a bit of work. Get a piece of white cardboard and just paint the lamenter's symbol on it, not to do anything with it, but to practice painting the symbol. It's very hard to paint anything freehand at that size, just get some practice in, and then start painting. Hopefully you'll be awesome at it by the time you get up to your command squad.

Now experimenting with a Fine Speedball nib and permanent India Ink for the black squares on the shoulderpads. Going to pray that it doesn't interact with GW Purity Seal on my test model.

Easier to control than an Insane Detail brush (equiv of 5/0 or so).

The first test looks cleaner than brushwork, but won't be perfect at 3x+ zoom (high quality web photos). I may also look into the decal route; computers are good at this stuff in bulk

You can get those pencils from your local big-box - an art store may have them, but probably not a hobby shop. They're painted black so should be easy to spot, otherwise use any hardwood, hard lead pencil.

ghost11, one major problem with decals is they don't wrap around the curved surfaces of a SM shoulder pad easily without cutting. I've thought of using a micron pen for checks, but haven't had great success with them in the past. I ruined one lining my monolith and really don't like the idea of spending $3.00-5.00 to get a new one...