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Crew are about 99% finished but they are harder to photograph than the basilisk. I may have a go at photographing them tomorrow in natural light.

You may have explained it earlier inthe blog I went back through to try and find it, but how did you dot eh amrouring to slook so.. realistic.

Really detailed paint job so far, the weathering in particular is amazing. Awesome work, I'll keep checking here in future!

Time for another update. As promised yesterday here are the finished crewmen. The photos aren't great, I was hoping to photo them in daylight but I was a bit optimistic assuming there would be some today, afterall I live in the north west of England. Instead I had to use my Ott light which is a little harsh and bleached out the colours a bit. Still, you get a pretty good idea of how they look.

















The tiny little transfers were very fiddly to get in place but I think it was worth it, they really add to the detail of the models. I have also blended weathering powder into the crew's greatcoats, boots and armour. By using the same materials as on the tank I hope to tie all of the elements of the diorama together.

I also finished the oil painting stage today:









And finally, here's a little experiment. I was wanting to see if the techniques I use on tanks could be applied to space marines. Personally I think it works, what do you guys think? This technique should allow me to build up an army of marines quite quickly.



That's all for now.
TLH

Gorgous work, and I definately think it looks good on the marine.

I've just realised that the photo of the tracks is quite poor. here is a better one.



You can just about see where I've airbrushed soot onto the exhausts in this picture.

Ooooo... That's some of the best toned-down, weathered look I've seen! Excuse my ignorance, but have you done a lot of WW1-2 painting? The tank and crew certainly have that realistic feel! How do you do the rust?

I beleive that a lot of those techniques are taken from the Imperial Armor - Model Masterclass Vol One

Might I make a suggestion. The regiment number on their shoulder pads is a little too white given the condition of the rest of the clothing. You might want to weather it a little.

This is just a suggestion, but I suggest that after you put in the pink insulation, you could make a type of pit that the Basilisk could fit into, but make it to where the basilisk can back out of it. The reason its in a pit? so it can weather most of the incoming/artillery fire.

Kveldulv, I've not done any military modelling before. I started painting GW models back in 1995 with the old skeleton warrior set and I've been into warhammer and 40k on and off since then (I have a set of the new warhammer skeletons ready to be painted up at some point for nostalgia reasons). So far the only weathering that I've done is the paint chips (sponged on black brown) and some oil painting for which I used thinned down burnt umber oil paint (thinned with white spirits).

Muller is right, as I said at the beginning of this blog, I am using the FW masterclass book as a guide. It has some fantastic techniques in it and has improved my painting skills significantly. I've used techniques from it to great effect on my renegade militia (which can be seen in my earlier blog). I would highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in painting vehicles.

Breotan, I agree that the transfers are very white. I may try to combat that with some oil paint tomorrow.

Brotheralexos, I am going to place the basilisk behind a trench wall, I'm not sure if it would look right dug into a pit inside the trench. I'm willing to consider ideas though, what do you think?

I must concur on the excellency of the modelling masterclass IA book. I also own it and man oh man, it makes me want to make an IG army due only to the vehicles!

More work on the tank today. Here's the interior:







And the basilisk assembled:









The basilisk is nearly finished now, just the tracks to paint and a couple of details.
TLH

Excellent work, really inspirational.

You've taken the tips from the IA:Masterclass to create a really great tank.

Are you planning on doing something to the tracks? They seem out of place in the latest batch of pics.

DUDE! This is amazing stuff! Keep it up!

It's looking excellent. I love the heat bluing on the end of the gun barrel.
Think I'm going to have to get a copy of the model masterclass, I've fancied it for a while but didn't know if it was worth the money, but it certainly looks like it might be from this

The Lords of Decay

I've taken a little time off from the diorama to get back into army painting. Here is the beginning of my CSM army, the Lords of Decay. The Lords of Decay are a faction of the Death Guard who were encountered by Imperial forces on Vraks. I hope to build an army of these and maybe add my renegades and daemons to them at a later point. The advantage to collecting a CSM army is that I don't require that many models for an army and I have developed a reasonably quick method of painting marines ready for battle. The colour scheme is based on the images of the Lords of Decay in Imperial Armour 7. I modified the gold trim to silver as I thought thgat gold would look a little too 'bling' on the models. These aren't finished yet, I plan on adding red details to contrast with the off-white and add a little interest. The eyes will be red and dried blood will be caked around the larger holes in the armour. I also plan on adding a red symbol of Nurgle to the banner (again based on the design in Imperial Armour).

Here's a group shot of the plague marines assembled:



And the FW sorceror:



And with some paint:















My aim throughout has been to achieve a suitably Nurgle-esque look while maintaining a neat, tidy paint job. I don't want to go overboard with corrosion and slime and ruin the models by making them look messy.

WOW! I love the nurgle look that you are using, hmmmm, I might have to try that out. All your stuff looks totally sweet. Keep it up

Dude cool stuff, I hope you are doing a full army. or is this just for the diorama?

Nice Marine! you should do a tut. I think it would be cool for marines. When I had first gotten into the hobby I thought of marines as mini tanks (I was Eight) and I think that the battle damage shows on that guy.

Also, I meant that there would be a pit behind the trench, so as not to restrict troop movement.

As you may have guessed, I am rather fond of tanks and really wanted to include some in my Lords of Decay army. Here is my firsy one, a predator in progress. I wanted to go for a more realistic look than what I've seen on most CSM tanks. I've often seen the real-world military look done on Imperial Guard tanks and sometime on Space Marine vehicles but for some reason it isn't really something that is applied to chaos tanks. After searching on coolmini for inspiration I turned up a couple of ideas. Here's what I've got so far:





And it wouldn't be a chaos tank without spikes, but I didn't want to overdo it and cover the whole thing with huge spears as I've seen done on other models. I wanted to keep it subtle with small stud-like spikes as a nod to the CSM aesthetic:



TLH.

Awsome work.

You're making me want to get IA masterclass to try those weathering techniques on my BT.

Very realistic looking.

I'm with you on the chaos spiky btis on tanks. I didn't do anything about it - mine are hugely spiky. But I agree they are not especially, er, realistic.

Yes, I must request a tutorial for your marines, especially the first one. Brilliant work.

Simply exceptional!

Simply amazing work Hobbit! That basilisk is just perfect, everything about it looks so expertly done. You sold me on that FW Masterclass book, I'm going to HAVE to buy it!

I like your more realistic approach to the detailing. It gives everything a less cartoony look with less overexaggeration. I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Lords of Decay!

WOW! this is very impressive TLH! really very good!

The basilisk looks great and I LOVE dioramas so I look forward to seeing more of that!

And the Lords of Decay also look VERY VERY good! I wouldnt worry about the lack of spikes or anything as the Death Guard generally took a very minimalist approach where they'd only take what the need, not what looks good! but yeah, they look like the best plague marines I've ever seen! (if you want help with an army list then by all means PM me)

Seriously though, at risk of sounding like a suck-up, this is quite possibly the best non-lemmingspawn P+M blogs Ive seen!

Thanks for all the kind words. Those of you asking for a tutorial on the Plague Marines are in luck: I've just recieved some more Death Guard conversion packs from FW. When I paint them up I'll take step by step photos.















These are about 95% done now. The eyes need painting along with a couple of details, but nothing major. I also need to do the banner but I'm having a little trouble with that. I may invest in some decal paper for applying iconography.

More soon...

Nicely done there Hobbit, I like the looks of that stuff.

Plague marines look good, it's nice that you've kept the weathering in reasonable level and have not gone over the top.