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What I mean is that the primer did not coat evenly and it has some cracks in it. The humidity down here is crazy. I am in the process of moving so I will try to get something posted soon.

Looks like a promising start, keep at it, you'll find what works for you.

Why don't you try "lining" in the wash rather than washing it all over the figure. It takes more time, but the results are excellent and it's really the only way to do a good white without an airbrush (and frankly, I can't do a good white WITH an airbrush).

Eggroll's reds are deep and rich... phenomenal. Yes, he uses an airbrush... but his results are unquestionable.

@Eldartau: Gotcha. I thought you were referring to my minis, hence my question. No worries. Moving's a pain; post pics when you have time.

@whalemusic360: thanks for checking out my blog! And thanks for the comment. I think I'm getting closer. Patience and practice, I keep telling myself.

@Gits: That's good advice. I didn't do that on the test minis, and I see my mistake now. Especially for the Sepia, I plan to line the recesses.

Has anyone tried the new glazes? I understand they're supposed to coat more evenly, unlike the shades/washes, which are supposed to pool in the recesses. I'm wondering if the Bloodleter glaze over Balor Brown would result in a decent red-brown. I think it might go more smooyhly than the Carrouburg Crimson.

Hey Yellowbeard... check this out: Camelson's Pedro Kantor

It's another professional painter, but you might take a whack at his technique for your red. As far as I can tell, he must prime black, they paints in thin layers from dark red to bright red... but only on the exposed surfaces, leaving all the recesses the original black. The end result is very dynamic and accentuates contrast throughout the figure.

Wow, that is... really nice! I'll have to keep that idea in mind. What color is the rest of his armor? Is that yellow? Bone? Oooh, bone armor. Oh damn, now I want to paint Star Phantoms.

Thanks, Gits!

Well, I need to pick up a couple more paints to try, so in the meantime, I put together a couple of tactical marines:



Loosely inspired by the WH 40k 2nd ed box cover, I think this one came out the best. My wife said of him, "He looks mean. His hand looks like, if he scratched his head, his head would explode."









I focused on two things putting these guys together: 1) cleaning mold lines [Fail!] and 2) more dramatic poses. I think I did ok on #2. I don't really like the Bolter-across-the-chest pose, so I tried to open up therir arms a bit and give them something else to hold: pistol, missile, scanner, etc. My first attempt at converting and green stuff work. I added some cork to the bases for more interest and to help tie the sqyuad together. Thanks for the idea, Gitsplitta.

As always, C&C welcome!

Excellent work on the poses & basing. Need to get in there and get after those mold lines again. I know it's tough, but nothing screams like a mold line to draw attention away from a nicely finished figure. Also... drill those gun barrels! It'll make a huge difference!

Looking great so far! Can't wait to see more work from you!

There is more dynamic poses (to open them up, which I agree needs to happen) but you need some across the chest to balance it out and add diversity. Also, remember that the poses all have to look natural, at present some (The auspex and the melta gun) look forced. When not using your bolter you would have it at rest/ease, so lowered not held out from your body while a meltagun will be heavier than a bolt pistol (I know they're marines and as such are super-strong, etc, etc- but they are still human and have common sense in a battlefield situation) so once again it looks slightly odd. Otherwise it looks good.
And you are right to take your time with the painting, if you launch in you will be unhappy half way through and want to change your mind.

Camelson's Pedro Kantor's red is on the orange side. I thought you wanted to be on the blue side?

His yellow is more gold. No doubt this guy is a GD winner.

SO now you have 2 GD winners to emulate. Get cracken!

@Gitsplitta: Thanks! I tried drilling some gun barrels and messed them up, so I was a little, um, gun shy on these.

@Demdiddydizzy: Thanks!

@Imperial Monkey: That's a good point. I think what I need to do is figure out how to pose the arms and head so that it looks like the marine is firing rather than standing at attention. I agree with you on some of the posing; it is awkward. I was disappointed with the melta marine, too. I wanted him to be holding the gun straight up and resting on his shoulder. I made the mistake of attaching the arm first and then the gun. I think if I had attached the gun to the arm first, I would have seen how to attach the arm better. Thanks for the pointers!

@SL: Still looking for the perfect scheme. I posted Wappel's stuff as a possible direction. I do really like that purplish red, but I think that to achieve it I will need to mix paints. I've thought about that some more, and I'm not sure I'm ready to mix a lot of paint. So, I'd like to try to use exisitng mixtures for consistency.

By the way, Camelson has a blog, on which he has posted his Pedro Kantor and other work as well as a How-to-paint-space-marine Tutorial. His example marine is wearing turquoise armor, but you can get a sense of his technique and the paints he uses for other projects - airbrush and Vallejo paints. (I suspect there's a lot of VMC Desert Yellow on his Pedro Kantor.)

I'll have to go check that out!

Seeing your poses in person . I think your on the right track. They do show as individual figures.

Be careful that you don't all make " special " figures you can't field due to codex restrictions. Nuff said.

SL

I like the models should look good

Hello Yellowbeard

I'm not sure if this helps you any but IMHO that yellow tester Marine looked like a very good test piece. It's a clean and well executed 'yellow' Marine in it's own right.

I wonder if Raatcharch'syellow Marines will help you with your ideas? He uses Vomit Brown as a base, and it gives a more orangey, earthy tone.

ALSO

Painting flames. I too dislike this BUT I find what makes things much easier is painting them as little 'S' symbols, then linking them up at the bottom. Does that makes sense? You can elongate the S's as you see fit to get a variety of flames.

P.S. Your wife's comment on the Sarge made me chuckle, and I like your homage to 2nd edition cover art too.

@SL: thanks! I really appreciate your help and feedback. I think I'm ok on the figs: sarge, special weapon, and heavy weapon in a 10-man squad should be ok, right? (I still need to build a couple of models....)

@warrior lord: thanks! I'll try to get some paint on them this weekend... if I don't get sucked into buying new LotD figures. Speaking of, if you don't already follow Gitsplitta's Mantis Warriors log, you might want to check his new project: Spartan LotD.

@Jihad_Ragsta: thanks for checking out my blog! And thanks for the comment on the marine. I learned a lot playing around with him, but he's not quite where i want to go. I have a couple more ideas to try out...

That's an interesting color on Raatcharch's marines; I'll have to look at them more closely. Recently, I've been thinking of a paler yellow, such as on Camelson's Pedro Cantor. I picked upsome Vallejo Sand Yellow I want to try. I wish I had more time to paint!

Thanks for the tip on the flames. That's actually what I was trying to do. A little more practice, and I think I'll get it.

Yellowbeard wrote:(Fifth post down. Sorry, I haven't figured out how to link directly to a specific post yet.)

See where the post's date is, right above your screen name? To the left of the date there's a little pic of a piece of paper with a bent corner. Click on that and it'll take you to a screen of your post, but the URL at the top of the screen is the URL for that post, not for the entire page of the blog. Copy & paste that and you'll be fine.

What! How on earth did i not know that! lol

The poses are very cool indeed. Liking this project so far!

@Gitsplitta: Cool! Thanks.

@Vitruvian: Thanks! Glad you checked out the blog.

Small update. (No pics. Sorry.): Cleaned up some of the mold lines on the minis above (new xacto blades are wonderful ) and drilled the gun barrels.

Played with some paint: Black primer + Vallejo Lite Rust + Carroburg Crimson wash comes pretty close to the color on the FH terminator in IA9. Not sure where to go with highlights from here, thoguh. I have some Korne Red (Scab Red), Wazdakka Red (Red Gore), and Evi Sunz Red (?), so I may just try using these. I'm afraid it might turn it much redder than what I have now. I may also try to get some Vallejo Black-Red, Burnt Cadmium, and Red and try those. I think the Vallejo paints would be darker overall.

Also, Doombull Brown (Dark Flesh) is a very nice color as is P3 Sanguine Base. Sanguine Base has a nice purplish touch to it; a purple wash may come close to that purplish red I like. The P3 paints seem a little thinner than Citadel paints (though I still found it useful to thin them some). Has anyone tried them in airbrush yet?

Pic's or it didn't happen... (also kind of necessary when making color judgements).

P3 paints are supposed to be excellent to airbrush. You can dilute them with ethanol which is nice too. I bought some just for this purpose but I haven't tried them yet.

Yay! You are back!

Gitsplitta wrote:Pic's or it didn't happen... (also kind of necessary when making color judgements).

PM Blog after all!

Good that your working thru the early items.. get it where you are comfortable then try a few more effects.. Like or discard and keep trying till you get another step in the right direction. One you got your formula it'll go quicker.

It'll be helpful for when you do the 3 LR's they are going to make you field!

SL

@eldartau: Hey, right back at ya. Did you get moved?

@Gitsplitta & Solar_lion: Thanks for keeping me on track!

So, right, pictures:

Gun barrels drilled:

Damned mold lines...

First up: Black prime, Vallejo Light Rust (airbrush), Carroburg Crimson wash


The picture is a little dark, but I thought it was pretty close to this


Not sure where to go from here, if I follow this pattern. Here are some choices

Picture isn't very good, but maybe it gives some idea of shades....

Next up, Doombull Brown


Followed by Korne Red


Tried for a thin glaze, but it was a little thick to start, so I had to thin it down some more

Follwed by Badab Black


I think this is pretty good at this stage

Finally Vallejo! Black prime + Red Black airbrush


Only second time airbrushing - plus the dark colors - meant I probably applied it too thickly, but I really like the color!

Followed by Vallejo Burnt Cadmium


I tried to airbrush this from about a 45 degree angle from above, to try to create some natural shadows, but inexperience shows again. I think the airbrush was a little clogged, and it was difficult to tell if the paint was actually hitting the model. The dark colors made it difficult to tell, too - and my old eyes. Anyway, a little more paint than I intended, but again, I like this color.

Thoughts?

I like the last one. With a little more practice you'll develop a lighter touch which will just improve the look of the figures.

I like to look on the termi (color obviously, mold lines still there, I assume it was a color test). I think the brick/rust color is perfect.

Personally I like the " Black prime, Vallejo Light Rust (airbrush), Carroburg Crimson wash " of the temi. IMO the color will align better with the flames you'll have to do.

second the Burnt Cad. Seems a bit too dark for me. For this I would like to see the black and metallics on. . My guess is that this might help lighten the model.

Termi is actually a some test figures I lent YB to practice on. Definitely moving forward.

SL

I did not get moved yet, but I did move a good deal of my stuff over last night. I have 5 big boxes of Warhammer stuff that I did not know I had. My GF was in pure awe...

@eldartau: lol. Finding 5 boxes of forgotten WH stuff must have been fun. Good luck with the rest of the move.

@Gitsplitta: Thanks. I like that one, too, but I don't know if it's a Fire Hawk.... I played around a bit more with the AB yesterday... see below.

@whalemusic: Thanks for your input. I was pretty happy when I saw that effect, too. It was easier than I expected, since I just washed the whole model. I still need to figure out highlights. I could just highlight it in Light Rust, but that might be too orange.

One thing I might try is to get a couple other of the Vallejo Panzer Ace rust paints - they make a Dark Rust and a Yellowish Rust in addition to the Light Rust - base paint in Dark Rust, Highlight with Light Rust and Yellowish Rust and then wash with Crimson. The highlights should show through the wash. (Am I thinking about this right?)

Oh, and yeah, just a color test. The model is actually, um, Solar_lion's....

@SL: Thanks. That's a good point about the flames. I didn't do black or metallics on the Burnt Cad yet as I'm still playing with the AB, but here are a couple more pics....

Following on the Burnt Cadmium mini from my last post, I airbrushed Vallejo Red:


I tried to airbrush from above, and I think I was more successful this time (though it may be difficult to tell in these pictures). I realized that the paint I was trying to airbrush the other day was not thin enough. This time, I had a better mix of paint and airbrush medium.

On top of this I added a thin wash of Vallejo Smoke to the recesses:


Man, that's a nice color.

Anyway, I also tried airbrushing P3 Sanguine Base and Sanguine Highlight. The paint is so thin, I don't know that you need any medium. I added it, to be sure, but it came out vbery thin and "wet". Unfortunately, it is so dark - a very thin purple, really - that you can't see it in the picture I took.

Finally, inspired by Meph's description of how he painted his Death Company, I tried mixing Warplock Bronze with Korne Red. It came out quite nice, but again, the picture was too dark to see what was on the mini. Sorry. I need a light box....

Hey Yellowbeard... change the background. Something neutral like tan or grey. There's so much contrast none of us are going to be able to say much about your color trials.

The marine looks good but I agree with Gits, you need a different background. What I can discern is progress! It looks pretty cool as far as I can tell!