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Seth is looking great, the eagle really works with the theme.

Maybe make the shoulder trim gold rather than yellow? Might clash a bit less and would tie in with the helmet and sword hilt.

Incredible stuff, my friend.

On the commenting, blogging and feedback thing...

I'd say you shouldn't be discouraged by the slow/little commenting issue. On one hand, it takes time to build an audience, so to speak. On another, most visits are "look only", and that does not mean the work displayed is not appreciated...

Or, there are people that only actively speak up when they fell the have something of value to add, and stay away from the "plain" wows, greats or 's (I, for one, tend to do that!) even though some times the poster would be pretty happy with a pat on the back every now and then...

(My own problem with that is, by following the Blogs of some awesome builders, painters and modellers, than I usually do no feel up to "adding" anything, so I just don't comment at all, but that's just me).

Further (and great) reading on the topic can be find many times around the forums; I'd recommend this one if you can spare the time: Git's Tips on making a P&M blog: Building a better blog

Your work is great, BTW, keep it coming!

Nice stuff.

Are we going to see some more Lamenters in the future? Bias as I am

I need to kill this Red Hunter's Squad then it's on to the Lamenters.

I use an airbrush for my base coats, and I have a ton of assembled support, but I am waiting on some flamer sponsons for my Predator and then it's gonna be an airbrush session.

I tend to get really bored batch painting squads, but I love the single miniatures, so I tend to drift to smaller projects when I find the batch painting to be so dull I can't stand it.

The Red Hunters are so close to done it's driving me nuts. I have a game this weekend and want them finished for it.

I can really sympathize with you on going nuts when you are close to finishing a squad off. It can be really frustrating, that's why I tend to really cut corners on the rank and file and try to go nuts on characters or models I particularly like.

fireangel wrote:
I need to kill this Red Hunter's Squad then it's on to the Lamenters.

I use an airbrush for my base coats, and I have a ton of assembled support, but I am waiting on some flamer sponsons for my Predator and then it's gonna be an airbrush session.

I tend to get really bored batch painting squads, but I love the single miniatures, so I tend to drift to smaller projects when I find the batch painting to be so dull I can't stand it.

The Red Hunters are so close to done it's driving me nuts. I have a game this weekend and want them finished for it.

I bounce around a bunch to keep myself entertained. I'm working on 8 more Marine bikes, 7 foot special weapons marines, 2 GMS and an Imperial knight. I do what fancy's me at the time, I try to limit the number of project so I don't stray too far, but I have put things away if I get blocked or wait to learn a specific technique.

All in good time. Excellent more Lamenters!

So……

Yippee, wonderbar, all praise the Emperor, jump for joy, hot damn, WTF! My Red Hunters Squad is FINALLY 99.1% done (Disclaimer: The damn decals are pealing a bit so I need to remedy that with Microsol as I think I jumped the gun last night with it and messed it up, and I need to eventually put a Tactical Squad decal on the right shoulder pad, but other then that they're done and I can move on):

This is the first complete Ten Man squad I've been able to get this close to done in my life. I decided when I started these guys back in like April that they had to be assembled, painted, and finished as a group. Here are some pics, and background and then I will offer my own critique of the squad at the end of the post:

+++Red Hunters 2nd Company Squad Alpha, Under the command of Praetor Alpha XIV. As deployed alongside Inquisitor Seth and The Lamenters in the Lucem Uprising directly following the God Emperor's forgiveness of the Lamenters' sins. 'Please note that this squad is the only battle worthy fighting force from the Red Hunter's Chapter still in operation from the policing action of The Lamenters' 100 year penitent crusade. His Holy Order did not anticipate the arrival of The Great Devourer, however despite heavy loses alongside The Lamenters the Red Hunters have managed to maintain one fully functional squad alongside a few support marines, a dreadnaught and a transport. The extent of the 2nd Companies loss on this crusade will not be known until the Chapter is able to fully asses the last century of their service once they are relieved of their current mission, however the Chapter leadership currently considers the entire company lost. Also of note is that it was only Post Badab War that the Red Hunters felt confident enough to deploy the Cohibee Pattern Power Supply in a battle field roll. These power packs can be seen on squad Alpha in their post crusade deployment. These units function by implanting an override switch into the machine spirit of the user's power armor that is slaved to squad leader Alpha and the Inquisition. If at any time a member of the Chapter is expressing heretical thoughts/actions/behavior this switch will be tripped, the power for the armor will be shut of, and that machine spirit will actively start cutting off life support from the wearers environment. In the time of 2nd Company's deployment alongside The Lamenters this feature was only used once, and it was at the mercy of the wearer to speed up his return to the Emperor's light after being left behind on a planet recently claimed by the Tyranid threat.'+++







Squad Leader Alpha XIV




I'm happy I'm finally learning how to freehand scrolling text and not have it look like crap on purity seals etc. I have started using blue as opposed to black and just kind of letting a very small amount of the paint mixed with future floor wax flow across the surface. It seems to work well.



Squad Alpha 2nd Company



And the final results on the more involved laser cut bases. I am really happy with what the laser cutter has to offer my hobby and I particularly like the man hole cover…

A bit of background on this squad: I decided to laser cut the bases which was very positive and produced a good result, but I also decided to use them as filler for my army as a stand in marine squad when I need one in games, and as a way to learn how to batch paint. I literally tried to cut as many corners as I could on this squad and it still took my like four months to finish. This is as close to "table top" quality as I think I am able to get.

The other thing I tried to realize with this project is that I decided to silk screen my own decals for the squad. I wanted an off white skull with =I= logo for the chapter symbol as noted in the fluff, and I wasn't willing to settle for the skull on the SM transparency sheet. So what did I do? Well I pulled out some of my inkjet decals and I decided to silkscreen my image onto them. I am happy to report that I managed to get a good decal of the Chapter Icon for every member of the squad but it was a friggen nightmare. I was seeing a 10 to 1 ratio of failure to success on the decals for this squad and to tell you the truth when I saw that the decals were pealing a bit after my photo session I got super depressed and almost killed the squad by stomping on them…

If there is anyone out there that can teach me, or show me what equipment is necessary to print white transfers I would love to hear from you. Because I spent more time silkscreening these damn skulls then I would have painting three character miniatures…

So I would love your thoughts. These guys are now done, and I am moving on. They are my filler tactical squad for my army when I play 40k and I think they rock, I'm rather proud of them to be honest Throughout the course of the project I read every bit of fluff I could for the Red Hunters and I think they exemplify an =I= mandated chapter that was created to police the Imperium. That's why I chose standard armor, and standard marines for every build. I picture them being the dullest most by the books marines in the 40k Universe…But still very capable warriors…

Thank you for looking.

Please take the time to click on the images and zoom in if you are upset with their size! I am keeping them on the Dakka page for ease of quick viewing but they are high res photos if you want to take the time to look closely at the squad.

They look great, sorry to here you had problems with the decals. I think I one of my mates might have had the same problem, I'll ask him how he dealt with it.

I've been making my own decals since quite a while.

Because I was wary of the non-permanence of injets, I ise laser jet decal paper and just print them at a print shop or bettery yet, *work*cough*cough*, something stuck in my throat there... What was I saying?

Ah yes, when printed it's absolutely crucial to fixate the decals by spraying the sheet with gloss varnish. And then you can cut and apply them as usual.

To make the design I use Photoshop, but any ol' graphic program will do.

Nice touch on those backpacks!

Nice work!

Thanks everyone for looking and for your thoughts.

Meph,

I've designed my own inkjet decals in the past but what I am not sure how to accomplish is "white" using an inkjet or laserjet, which is why I went to silkscreen.

All of the research I am doing says I need what's known as an ALPS printer to print white and they are pretty difficult to find as it's old technology.

You've got some awesome, unique models coming along here, that guy with the skull is badass!

Aah, sorry, misunderstood ya.
In that case, simply get white injet or laserjet decal paper and made your decals with an outline. Either fuill contrasting like black or very subtle, such as grey. Seeing as you'll need to cut our the decal exact on it's shape.

Lips: thanks man! The Skull model will be finished soon.

Meph:

Thanks man, that's kind of what I thought. That's why I tried to silkscreen using acrylic silkscreen inks.

It worked, but the decal paper didn't hold up as well as I would have hoped, I think because the ink was much heavier then the typical inks used for decals. I am trying to learn how to do this process though so that I can make my own custom decals.

Hmmm, yeah, that might be to the nature of inkjets. In my experience, a colour laserjet works much finer.
It might be an extra cost to order laserjet paper, but if you have access to colour laserjet, work or print shop, it is definitely worth it in terms of quality of print. Especially on the kind of glossy paper such as decal paper.

Hmmm, one McGuyver tick to try might be to warm up the paper a bit with a hairdryer before printing. Maybe it might absorb the ink better?

Excellent results you have on the Red Hunter squad. It doesn't have to be fast when it looks that good. Very jealous, but then again I have banged out a 2,000 point army in the space of your squad so I feel we are at different ends of the painting spectrum.

Anyway, really quality work and eagerly await the next installment.

Meph:

I like that idea. My quest now is to find the proper silkscreen ink to print the transparencies using silkscreen as I have access to all of that technology.

I do use a laser printer for a lot of things at work though so I will try that on the transfers that don't require white.

Archer:

Thank you for the nice compliments.

I totally have modeler's ADD and I have like ten other side projects constantly going that distract me but I would LOVE to be able to paint 2000 points in five months. I'm off to look at your models now!

Hey Everyone,

Just some shots of my 3D printed Shipping Containers. These are available for sale and trade, please contact me via PM if you are interested. They are 45mm tall.









Hope to get some of these out here into the hands of gamers.

Put a figure next to them so prople can see the refrence.

Awesome stuff you got here fireangel! Really looking forward to seeing Inquisitor Seth in full, awesomely-painted glory

It's also good to see some more love for the Lamenters, as they're pretty under-represented on the table-top (which a certain chapter badge might have something to do with), I hope to see more of them soon
One little question: where do you get all the parts for your Inquisitors? I'd love to build a custom character that really stands out, but I have no idea where to start

A very good start! Looking forward to see all these conversions painted :-D

That's a really nice resolution you are getting on the 3D printer. I think they may be just a tad small for gaming purposes, but then again throw a couple of models next to them as previously said to show them off?

3D printed Containers:

I have an order for 12 of these guys at this size and they are a tad small when you factor in the base of the model, but they're to scale which is a bit of a bummer. I may scale them up after this order is filled.

Photos soon. I'm working on my Knight at the moment.

Ezra:

I have an extensive collection of 40k Bits I have accumulated over the years so I pull from this pile, plus I buy or trade for any model I feel fits into the theme of my conversions. Some things I've found that help expand your bits collection are:

+ If you EVER have a friend say "I use to be into that game but not anymore", ask them what they're doing with their models. A large number of people will simply give you there models.
+Ask stores if they have bits boxes that sell bits.
+Find online trading stores and focus your trades on bits as opposed to new collectable models.
+Have a bits trading session at the start or end of your game days with your buddies.

Cool containers. What program did you use to sketch them up?

Some lovely work going on here, the gold trim on the Red Hunters squad works well.

Antony

The Marines look nice, but good god does the Inquisition stuff you've done blow it out of the water! Those are some spirited and characterful conversions.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
Cool containers. What program did you use to sketch them up?

I model using Rhino. I am a newbie with 3D modeling, but in my other life I work as a 2D fine artist/printmaker/college professor. The 3D stuff is something I took on about a year ago, and I'm off and running.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts, it's much appreciated. I hope to have pictures of my WIP Knight soon.