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.

If i have sterngaurd for Space Marines Salamanders army should i paint the shoulder pads and helm white?

Or solid black?

Pretty confused on whether or not the heraldry changes or if the white would even look right or if it would stick out on a table of Salamanders and Black Consuls like a sore thumb.

EDIT***

These are the converted models using bitz and sprue that i had left over. The shoulder pads in question are the bumpy ones that are SOLID WHITE for ultra marines etc etc.

Also would it look awkward to base them over water instead of lava as salamanders? CnC welcome.

I'd be tempted to paint the helmets black. Black will contrast well with the green, and if you have any gold on the model it'll look really good with that too.

Try looking through the gallery for inspiration.

Officially the Salamanders don't wear white helmets to show they are veterans. I however am doing it for my Honour Guard (second picture below) and I like the look. I do have a Sternguard squad painted in the standard colours (first pic is the sgt from the squad). I also tried a different way of doing the shoulder pads for the Honour Guard; black trim on a green base.

Basing them over lava is not necessary; I have only done it for the Honour Guard and the HQ going with them. The rest of the army is simply brown bases with some dirt. Water would look fine, how do you intend to do the water FX?

Asuryan those are bad ass!

i would go with a black, or gold, helmet...
white helmets make them look too much like Sons of Medusa...

cheers
jah

Oh yeah Jah, gold helmets would look badass.

Yeah, black helmets for vets and gold helmets for veteran sergeants. Hard to go wrong there.

 Asuryan wrote:
Officially the Salamanders don't wear white helmets to show they are veterans. I however am doing it for my Honour Guard (second picture below) and I like the look. I do have a Sternguard squad painted in the standard colours (first pic is the sgt from the squad). I also tried a different way of doing the shoulder pads for the Honour Guard; black trim on a green base.

Basing them over lava is not necessary; I have only done it for the Honour Guard and the HQ going with them. The rest of the army is simply brown bases with some dirt. Water would look fine, how do you intend to do the water FX?

Yeah but the rest of my army is on rubble and street and stuff bases, I think lava or water would look best no doubt. Just to make the vets stand out you know?

Anyway i picked up some testors clear parts cement and window maker, its EXCELLENT for over top of some 2d water to give it that splash. Pun intended. It takes a while to dry but its worth the wait.


--

Gold helmets doesnt sound that bad but i feel like without seeing it im scared to do it lol. And that White helmet doesnt look NEARLY as bad as i thought, though someone did point out it looks more like Sons of Medusa, which is true.


I could always do black with gold shoulderpads

begin by cleaning all of the flash and mould lines off of the models. They will look fugly irrespective of how well you paint if you don't clean them up.

Base them with the same stuff as the rest of the army, or at least the same theme.

also, how did you achieve your melta guns? I recognize 2/3 things onthere....

not sure how the fluff works exactly here, but I did something very similar with mine as what you see with Asuryan, although not as well



I did the whole Black/Gold trim on shoulders.

 poda_t wrote:
begin by cleaning all of the flash and mould lines off of the models. They will look fugly irrespective of how well you paint if you don't clean them up.

Base them with the same stuff as the rest of the army, or at least the same theme.

also, how did you achieve your melta guns? I recognize 2/3 things onthere....

yeah i usually file stuff down as im painting, have no idea why it just works for me, as far as basing the same as the rest of the army..

I have a fluff army of Black Consuls that is being helped by the Salamanders in order to kill Tyranids off of a colonized planet akin to Earth.

Most of the Black Consuls are based on street and rubble with barbed wire and such mixed in, with the exception of my terminators who are based in sand, as to have teleported in near the beach.

My salamanders are based on what looks to be a hilly sandy area with grass. Pretty basic / generic basing as far as im concerned.

__

The idea is to have the sterngaurd come down in a Black Consuls drop pod after having been on the last remaining Black Consuls ship. I was thinking I either wanted them to have landed in the water (fluff wise) and coming out on the rocks ...

OR .. have it so that they landed in a fissure or something and that they are coming out amongst the fire and flames. Typical salamanders entrance lol.

__

I think the water is a good idea and would look good.. but idk how it will seem under salamanders lol.


----------------

Super side note. I made the guns from regular bolters, melta bombs, grenades, and cut up bits of sprue.

Don't get wedged into thinking Salamanders MUST have lava bases. As I'm sure you already know, as Space marines the Salamanders answer as many calls to arms as they can fighting across many planets with varied climates. Look on Lexicanum and you'll see they fought on Vaporis - a monsoon world (Fitting nicely with your water bases I think! ), and they fought in Hive Helsreach - urban. Now this may sound all a bit obvious, but it amazes me that people feel they must do lava bases. Of course I can understand why, because A) They look fething awesome and B) It simply serves to emphasis that they are fiery Salamanders. In all seriousness though, go for water, go for mud or anything else that takes your fancy. Provided it is done well, it'll look great anyway. My own bases are all plain rock, I'm only going to do lava on command characters and other notables.

As for helmets, all my Termies have black Helmets and I reckon they look better as it gives a feeling of balance to the model, not just a green mass with no contrast. Whilst by no means as good as Asuryans (God, they are fg epic!), here's a few of my Terminators just so you can see what black helmets look like (Apologies for the size, I don't know how to get them smaller ):

I think a water base will be really sweet for Salamanders. The green looks really good in a tropical setting (check out my gallery for examples). I haven't messed around with water bases, but someday I may. (Especially if yours look good!)

I've seen Salamander vets done with colored helmets, and don't think it works very well (except for Warpig's terminators!). Power armor vets should stick to green helms, in my opinion.

ok so... i think this model looks DISGUSTING because i HATE painting gold and had to repaint that gak like four times..

either way the base didnt turn out that bad and doesnt look TERRIBLE under a salamander.

so for anyone wanting a look at an ugly ass model on a decent base here ya go

Here is an example of how I did my helmets. Sternquard I gave a lot of white elements but the terminators got a lot of gold and fire. The command squad/mixed vets in the last picture got a lot of different types of heads.

@OverwatchCNC - I'm not a fan of the gold helmets, I don't know if they're fluff or not mind, but the rest of that force looks superb!

@Awfeel - In my honest opinion, I have to agree, the gold is not nice, however, fear not as I hate painting gold too, mine always comes out like gold paste :( This tutorial may be of some help, if just tried it myself and not only is it easy to do, but it looks ace! (Also, you can't go wrong with a wash on the gold - Agrax Earthshade is great for gold)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1440/356350.page

On the subject of the base, it's coming along well. Possibly, because it's shallow water I gather you're wanting to go for, tone down the deepness of the blue and add lighter blue and white highlights to simulate churned up water. Also, depending on how much you want to shell out of course, there is a product that can be poured onto the base which hardens to form a water effect. I can't remember where it can be found but Google is your friend!

Looking good, keep it up!

 Warpig1815 wrote:
@OverwatchCNC - I'm not a fan of the gold helmets, I don't know if they're fluff or not mind, but the rest of that force looks superb!

@Awfeel - In my honest opinion, I have to agree, the gold is not nice, however, fear not as I hate painting gold too, mine always comes out like gold paste :( This tutorial may be of some help, if just tried it myself and not only is it easy to do, but it looks ace! (Also, you can't go wrong with a wash on the gold - Agrax Earthshade is great for gold)

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/1440/356350.page

On the subject of the base, it's coming along well. Possibly, because it's shallow water I gather you're wanting to go for, tone down the deepness of the blue and add lighter blue and white highlights to simulate churned up water. Also, depending on how much you want to shell out of course, there is a product that can be poured onto the base which hardens to form a water effect. I can't remember where it can be found but Google is your friend!

Looking good, keep it up!

that is an awesome tutorial i appreciate that and yeah, i might just as well go over it with just some simple Nuln Oil

and as far as the liquid stuff i have a lot of the splashy highlights on the BACK of the rocks as if the tide was coming in and i do have some of that watery looking stuff just above the dark blue, though its not completely dry in the picture above.

For what it's worth, I briefly poked through my books to check if there was official fluff on how Salamanders mark vet status. One thing I found in the RT-era "how to paint space marines" booklet that came with the SM paint set was that they invert their colors on their shoulder pads. The same book also tells us that the heraldic quartering/etc. on back banners is done in shades of infrared, so YMMV.

@Nevelon - The infrared banners I have heard of and ,just as a point of interest - seeing as that's older fluff, does that not indicate that the designers always conceptualised Salamanders as having mutated eyes? Just some people complain about the newer onyx black and red eyes fluff, but as Salamanders can see in the infrared spectrum in old fluff, it seems to support the newer fluff... As for inverting the colours on the shoulder pads, I've never heard of it before, but even if it is canon I would think it would look very strange - have you tried it before? If so how does it look?

@Awfeel - IMHO, I'd avoid Nuln Oil - that'll just give a greasy oily look to the gold. The Agrax Earthshade gives it a richer brown colour in the recesses which complements the gold and shades it better. However, it's all personal choice.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
@Nevelon - The infrared banners I have heard of and ,just as a point of interest - seeing as that's older fluff, does that not indicate that the designers always conceptualised Salamanders as having mutated eyes? Just some people complain about the newer onyx black and red eyes fluff, but as Salamanders can see in the infrared spectrum in old fluff, it seems to support the newer fluff... As for inverting the colours on the shoulder pads, I've never heard of it before, but even if it is canon I would think it would look very strange - have you tried it before? If so how does it look?

Not the best picture, but the vet is "C" Skin is washed dark, but not the onyx/red of modern salamanders.

The relevant text says "Marine C's shoulder pad has been reversed out to signify he is a veteran, a practice that applies to all Chapters" Earlier in the book we are told that the only major deviation from codex pain schemes in with apothecaries, who paint their left arms/side of helmet red to hide the blood.

Other helmet options is to go old school with stripes.

If you note my Sternguard in the above picture you'll see the shoulder pads are reversed. This was found also in the Insignium Astartes book, and I believe the 4th ed codex which is why their left pad has the flame squad markings and the right has the Salamanders Chapter symbol. It is the same for Terminators because they are also from the 1st company.

 Awfeel wrote:
ok so... i think this model looks DISGUSTING because i HATE painting gold and had to repaint that gak like four times..

either way the base didnt turn out that bad and doesnt look TERRIBLE under a salamander.

so for anyone wanting a look at an ugly ass model on a decent base here ya go

Hey mate, it's not too bad, there is room for improvement though. For painting a gold helmet I would suggest you try painting a brown base colour such as leather brown or whatever it is called now. Then paint your gold metallic on top, try to get a thin coat as possible, let it dry then do an Agrax Earthshade wash as Warpig suggested it will add more depth to your gold without the dirty look if you did a Nuln Oil wash.

I have some Vallejo water effects Mediterranean Blue if you would like it, I have no need for it. PM me your address and Ill send it off. You will have to read up on how it works as I barely used it.


Warpig I have tried the gold helmets myself but I don't think I got the look right and had to banish them to the simple green bucket. I actually have done the reversed shoulder pads on my second picture above if you wanted to see the look.

That's a great find Nevelon, it's incredible the number of changes the have done to the Salamanders since RT. The reversing of the shoulder pads is an interesting note, I have done this for some of mine but just for aesthetic purposes.

 Asuryan wrote:

 Awfeel wrote:
ok so... i think this model looks DISGUSTING because i HATE painting gold and had to repaint that gak like four times..

either way the base didnt turn out that bad and doesnt look TERRIBLE under a salamander.

so for anyone wanting a look at an ugly ass model on a decent base here ya go

Hey mate, it's not too bad, there is room for improvement though. For painting a gold helmet I would suggest you try painting a brown base colour such as leather brown or whatever it is called now. Then paint your gold metallic on top, try to get a thin coat as possible, let it dry then do an Agrax Earthshade wash as Warpig suggested it will add more depth to your gold without the dirty look if you did a Nuln Oil wash.

I have some Vallejo water effects Mediterranean Blue if you would like it, I have no need for it. PM me your address and Ill send it off. You will have to read up on how it works as I barely used it.


Warpig I have tried the gold helmets myself but I don't think I got the look right and had to banish them to the simple green bucket. I actually have done the reversed shoulder pads on my second picture above if you wanted to see the look.

That's a great find Nevelon, it's incredible the number of changes the have done to the Salamanders since RT. The reversing of the shoulder pads is an interesting note, I have done this for some of mine but just for aesthetic purposes.

The reversing of the shoulder pads is not a Salamander exclusive thing to do. It is something that all codex SM chapters do for their 1st Company marines.

The reversing of the shoulder pads is not a Salamander exclusive thing to do. It is something that all codex SM chapters do for their 1st Company marines.

In all honesty I never thought about it, I just did it one way and left it at that. At least now I know, thanks.

@Asuryan - Oh... wow... actually, it doesn't look too bad, I didn't even distinguish it from the normal scheme until second glance - To be honest though, I don't know why I thought it would be bad, I guess I was thinking of either the white or gold that veterans in other Chapters use and thinking that would be strange. However, when I look at yours It looks decent, a bit indistinguishable IMHO, but not as bad as I was thinking! Bearing in mind though, this isn't a slur on your painting skills, just the scheme I'm talking about!

I'm not keen on gold helmets either - It seems that 'Salamander' green is a particular shade that varies massively over the hobby, so it looks good with some shades, but naff with others. On the other hand, it always seems to go well with the red of Blood Angels. Guess it all depends on the shade of colour...

@Nevelon - I wasn't disputing the old fluff saying they had natural black skin etc. I was just trying to get at the infrared eyesight seems to support the later fluff developments of 'special' eyes, possibly indicating that it was just the 'Eavy metal painters interpreted Rick Priestly's concept the wrong way! Anyway, that's by the by - Thank's for pointing out the citation for the reversed pads! Also, the Apothecaries look epic with the red/white halving - I'm intending mine to be done that way.

@Awfeel - I forgot to mention, as Asuryan did, that basecoating brown is best for painting gold on I find. It obscures the black undercoat so you need far less coats of gold to give an opaque finish.