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You have a really cool painting style, I am digging it.

I look forward to seeing more, it might just encourage me to get passed the bulk assemble I am doing to finally add some paint

 Ezki wrote:
The earthshaker might need a bit more weathering, but maybe that's just me. I like my Krieg muddy and rusty.

I did go back and forth on whether to weather the Earthshaker, but ultimately decided that I'll reserve the heavy weathering for my Renegade vehicles.

Speaking of which, I marathoned one of the two Leman Russes in the Renegade force last night, and realized that the greens from the infantry applied via zenithal highlight, with an additional lighter edge highlight, accidentally created a spot-on Death Guard scheme. So, I guess these guys are Nurgle now. Tonight I'll finish up the weathering and get some pics.

Minigiant wrote:
You have a really cool painting style, I am digging it.

Ah, that wonderful moment when my over-use of one speed-painting technique turns into a 'style' In all seriousness I really appreciate the feedback, I put a lot of R&D into figuring out how balance quality and time spent per model so I'm glad to see it's paid off.

In other news, the secondhand Fire Raptor I got on eBay is a warped, unsalvageable, likely recast soon-to-be piece of terrain. It was basically a bonus in an army lot, so I'm alright with cutting my losses. Instead of trying to cobble it together, I ordered a Redemptor Dreadnought as a substitute, so I'll be building that and painting it up in Deathwatch colors once it arrives.

And here's the first Leman Russ- probably the most enjoyable painting experience I've had to date.

The same colors that I used on the infantry worked well here. Basecoat Green Grey, then a zenithal highlight of Pastel Green straight down. I then got a lighter green, almost an off-white and annoyingly also called Green Grey, and edge highlighted the whole thing. Metal bits got painted in with the same metallic mix as on the infantry.

Then I applied Smoke via a sponge for weathering, and painted the treads in Flat Brown. Then the whole model got gloss varnish, two thin washes (1:5 Black Glaze/water), drybrush on dirt, the same sequence as infantry for the lenses, and it was done.

Took all of six hours. I'm very pleased with the results.

Really crisp paintjob! Looks very realistic.
Painting leman russes, or pretty much any Astra Militarum vehicle, sure is enjoyable.

Lovely work throughout the thread. Hoping to see more.

Got the last of the three Christmas presents done- a Redemptor Dreadnought for my buddy's Deathwatch army.

I'm not very pleased with how the macro plasma incinerator turned out. VGC Gory Red and Bloody Red are both awful, terrible paints, simultaneously excessively thick and insufficiently pigmented. I know reds are generally bad, but I don't remember any of Citadel's reds being this bad.

That said, this is my first time ever applying decals, so I'm quite happy with how those came out, as well as the zenithal highlighting.



While I had the lightbox out, I took the opportunity to photograph all the painted Renegade Militia:



Making progress! I think my plan at this point is to focus on painting up the rest of the renegades (to-do: two infantry squads, two vehicles, two characters, and a unit of Ogryns), then assess from there what I want to focus on.

That's a really sharp looking dreadnought. Very clean-lined. I feel you on the VGC reds though. When ever I use them I need quite a few layers for even really small things, and i'm normally just doing squad icons and gak. It's unfortunate, because the rest of the VGC paints i've used have been stellar.

Your renegarde force is really quite smashing when assembled like that. Lovely cohesive look to them, without just every model being painted exactly the same way. And with the lovely glowing eyes they start looking like the creepy zombie dudes from fallout: NV with the green eyes.

 Snrub wrote:
That's a really sharp looking dreadnought. Very clean-lined. I feel you on the VGC reds though. When ever I use them I need quite a few layers for even really small things, and i'm normally just doing squad icons and gak. It's unfortunate, because the rest of the VGC paints i've used have been stellar.

Your renegarde force is really quite smashing when assembled like that. Lovely cohesive look to them, without just every model being painted exactly the same way. And with the lovely glowing eyes they start looking like the creepy zombie dudes from fallout: NV with the green eyes.

Thank you! Hmm, I've been meaning to replay New Vegas, I never played the DLC with the zombie guys. Was that in Dead Money?

I thought I had posted this, but I guess I forgot- someone pointed out to me that Deathwatch canonically have silver left arms, and typically the right shoulder pad is from their original chapter. The intended recipient is big into lore accuracy, and I also wanted to fix up the macro plasma incinerator, so I went back and tweaked the model.

Also, I'm extremely pleased with how the transfers have turned out. I'm just glossing the transfer site, applying the transfer after soaking it in water, and then glossing again. Once the final matte varnish is applied there's no visible seam.




I've just primed the remaining Company Commander, Priest, and Ogryn Berserkers, so those should be next.

Yeah, Dead Money sounds about right. The one where you're trapped in the resort/casino place.

The dread looks much better with the silver arm and blue shoulder.
I personally like the look of the red casings. It looks sort of rain-washed, like what you've got going on on the silver arm.

Time for an update, and back to my armies. I delivered the Christmas gifts last weekend, since the recipients were in town for a mutual event. All were pleased with their gifts, and the new owner of the Kill Blasta has decided to pick up a few boxes of Boyz and start an army.

I'm trying to gauge what my painting output looks like and how much I can realistically do in a week, so I started all these models on Sunday and have finished them today (Saturday), just in time, with ~10-12 hours total. I think treating a batch of this size as a two-week project seems more sustainable, so at this rate I should have the Renegade Militia done by mid-January.

Anyways- Renegade Ogryn Berserkers. I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, but if I were to repaint them, it would be with the thinner wash I used on my vehicles rather than the thick one I use on my infantry, which looking at the skin on the Ogryns was a little too thick. On the bright side, it's perfectly fitting for them to look extremely dirty, so I'm not too fussed about it.

















And as part of this batch, I also did the remaining two characters- a Priest, and a Company Commander (converted from an artillery crewman).





Also, in light of Chapter Approved, I got some Ad Mech and am planning to do at least 1K of them, while the Death Korps will likely go on the shelf until their rules get sorted out a bit better.

The only thing I dislike about the Ad Mech range is the Skitarii. While I like their design concept and aesthetics, the flat/untextured cloaks aren't particularly interesting, and I like the old fluff of Skitarii as no-frills cyborg killers, basically augmented Storm Troopers. So I got some bits and tried the fairly common Skitarii/Genestealer Cult Neophyte kitbash, with some modifications to the Neophyte bits:



I'm not yet sold on it. The ribbed armor doesn't match the plate style of the Skitarii bits, and the Neophyte armor and clothing is very non-uniform. I've also got some Scion legs and torsos on the way, so I'll probably give those a go as well. Thoughts? Suggestions on alternate kitbashes? Commentary that I'm crazy for not loving the stock Skitarii models?

LOVE THE OGRYNS! Well done.

I'm about halfway through painting the Hellhound and second Leman Russ, but couldn't resist painting up a test Skitarii Ranger.

(link to full-size image)



What do you all think?

Looking very good!
I really like your painting style with the matte surfaces (from the wash?) and crisp highlights.

Good work on that skitarii. Can't wait to see more!

Thanks Ezki. The matte finish is entirely from the AK Interactive Ultra Matte at the end; it takes a bit of time and effort to get a consistent flat finish but I think it's worth it.

In other news, I was able to put the AdMech stuff away for long enough to finish the second Leman Russ and the Hellhound. This was also a test for a lighter wash method; rather than a 1:2 glaze/water wash on the infantry or two layers of a 1:5 wash on the previous tank, I just did one 1:4 wash on everything, like I did on the Skitarii test.

I'm inclined to say it worked reasonably well, and didn't dull the highlights as much, but since I didn't use as extreme of a highlighting gradient as I did on the Skitarii, the final result is a little more flat/bland. I also made a few mistakes when applying the wash. Lessons learned.

Just two units of infantry to go and then I'll be done with the 1K of Renegades.

And just for good measure, the full current state of the army:

Stylish, very much so. What we are seeing next?

Ilgoth wrote:
Stylish, very much so. What we are seeing next?

Current plan is to marathon the last twenty renegades to complete the army. Once that's done I'll probably start painting up the 1K of AdMech I've been slowly assembling.

I have an outline for expanding the renegades to 1500, which is to add a squad of veterans, some sentinels, and a couple of Chimeras to partially mechanize the force, so I'll be coming back to them sooner or later.

Wonderful looking renegade army! Just love them.

After a week long marathon, I got them done! More pictures (and the full army) tomorrow, but one shot for now.

catbarf wrote:
After a week long marathon, I got them done! More pictures (and the full army) tomorrow, but one shot for now.

It is beautiful!


To bad FW stopped producing them.

And here's a photo of each discrete infantryman (full resolution here).



I forgot to mention in my last post that my wife got me a DSLR camera for Christmas, so these are my first attempts with a proper camera rather than my smartphone's camera. They're coming out a little oversaturated here, but I think I'm figuring it out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And lastly, here's the full army:

An amazing set of little men, well done. It's hard to pick a favorite out of them, they're all so... nicely creepy.

Little bit of a delay since my last post, but I've got a first squad of Skitarii done.

This process involved, at one point, getting sufficiently annoyed with painting red that I repainted the two arquebusiers to grey before deciding I was better off with red anyways. That made them take a little longer than they should have.

I did learn in the process that Pledge Floor Shine, which is also becoming my staple gloss varnish, is an excellent thinner for paint. It's more viscous than water but reduces surface tension, so it allows the paint to be a little thicker than if diluted with water, but flows and self-levels to avoid leaving streaks. This was the key that allowed me to highlight the red without driving myself insane.

Those are very nice and tempt me to get some of these myself. Love the bases as well btw.

Edit: checking out the GW skitari they look differnt. What parts did you use for this build?

 Singleton Mosby wrote:
Those are very nice and tempt me to get some of these myself. Love the bases as well btw.

Edit: checking out the GW skitari they look differnt. What parts did you use for this build?

They are very nice. I think GSC neophyte bodies and legs, Skitarii ranger arms, and Skitarii rustalker heads.

It looks like the ribbed areas on the neophyte armour has been filled in and smoothed off (with some kind of filler?), I know this possibility was mentioned above It definitely matches the Skitarii aesthetic better.

I think they nicely create a more battle-worn look. Would also be a very good base for a Dark Mechanicus Skitarii force with the more varied appearance.

Haighus has it- GSC Neophyte bodies and legs, Skitarii arms and backpack, Sicarian Ruststalker heads. Note that pretty much all the bits besides the arms have been modified, to various degrees.

The armor was filled in with a plastic slurry made by dissolving sprue in plastic cement. I used a sculpting tool to scoop out gobs of the stuff and smooth it into the armor. I recently picked up a cheap set of syringes which should make it a little easier to control.

The Neophyte bodies were also adjusted to be more upright, primarily by bending the legs at the knees and ankle to remove some of the hunch.

The cowl around the head/neck was trimmed down, as was the little bit of armor overhang on the sides (it interfered with the Skitarii shoulder pads).

I also sliced the backpacks off the Neophyte torsos, to replace them with Skitarii backpacks with the dangling cables removed.

Lastly, I removed the hoses from the Ruststalker heads, and replaced them with a simple nub of plastic rod for a respirator. Then I filled in the heads with putty since the sculpts aren't the complete heads, then I could attach them to the bodies with a blob of putty to form a neck.

...You know, I originally bought the AdMech thinking it would be nice to have an army composed of all plastic kits that I could just assemble without having to do a ton of work. What happened to that? Well, I've got another 15 Skitarii and the rest of the army already converted and assembled, so now it's just building five more Vanguard and then they're all built. Once that's done I'll do an army shot so you can see what other conversions I've cooked up.

The plastic cement-plastic gloop is a brilliant idea- I am going to have to use that one.

Did you just chop the sprue up small and dunk it in, or sand the sprue into dust?

 Haighus wrote:
The plastic cement-plastic gloop is a brilliant idea- I am going to have to use that one.

Did you just chop the sprue up small and dunk it in, or sand the sprue into dust?

Whole chunks of sprue, and with a bit of stirring they completely dissolved within a day or so. I did end up adding a bit of pure acetone to the mix to thin it slightly so that I could spread it more easily, but varying the mix of sprue and glue is a good place to start.

catbarf wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
The plastic cement-plastic gloop is a brilliant idea- I am going to have to use that one.

Did you just chop the sprue up small and dunk it in, or sand the sprue into dust?

Whole chunks of sprue, and with a bit of stirring they completely dissolved within a day or so. I did end up adding a bit of pure acetone to the mix to thin it slightly so that I could spread it more easily, but varying the mix of sprue and glue is a good place to start.

Thanks!

Two weeks, and another squad done- feels like a good pace.

Vanguard, this time.



I picked up a box of GSC Neophytes with some interest in collecting a small army of them, so I might give those a try next before returning to AdMech.