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Working a bit more on my Sons of Horus army I have yet to be able to base the latest squad (lack of materials/time/primer) but have made significant progress on their painting.

I'm reaching the point where I have to decide whether to decal them or not given my previous struggles with decals on shoulderpads.

Here's the squad so far:



C&C Welcome as always.

Very smooth, nice work! I hate decals too, but we have to learn some time You got any spare marines you can practice on?

Awesome! How did you paint the green? I'm at a loss

 lordcommandercorvus wrote:
Awesome! How did you paint the green? I'm at a loss

Seconded, that colour is so damn elusive.

Looks awesome.

And this has nothing to do with you and I mean no offense, I wish more people did Luna wolves not sons of Horus haha. The 2 schemes are my favorite but everyone just does the green.

Nice job. I have those same marines, but painted as Death Guard. I just wish the poses were more dramatic.

The scheme is Kabalite Green blended upto Sybarite Green with Colia Greenshade wash edged in Sybarite Green. Airbrushing helps ofcourse.

It was honestly a toss up between Luna Wolves and Sons of Horus, But its good to be bad.

As for the Decals despite doing my best with softner and setter previously I ended up with alot of silvering still and visible creases. As shown on pads here:

Looks pretty tidy to me. Keep it up.

It looks great so far. Sons of horus isn't easy to paint.

Great Job!!!!

Wow dude, I missed this until now shamefully :-( but i'm on board and loving the models! like others have mentioned that GREEN! OMG! just so nicely done and makes for one beautiful squad, well done...... now do a contemptor!

I too am having trouble putting decals on PA shoulder pads at the moment, and in fact, depending on how you answer this question, I may have the answer.

In relation to the decal's boundary, is it roughly square or rectangular in shape?

See, the problem I have come across is wrinkling and creases but only with 1 shape of decal. I'm not talking about the decal's picture but the actual edging. When I put the Blood Raven's insignia on, an irregular, wide shape, its fine. But when I try to put on a rectangular shaped one, such as the Roman numerals on Space Marines, I find the problem can come from the shape.

See, the curved nature on the surfaces means as you stretch vertically, the vertical edges, that is, the ones running up and down the shoulder pad, lift off to accomodate. If you then try to stretch horizontally, the edges running across the pad are lifted off to help.


However, I have found that cuttinghe transfer into a circle or oval migitates or remove the problem. The easiest way is to take the transfer, hold with a brush as if applying it, and then cutting straight across the corner with scissors. Keep this up on every corner so it now becomes an octagon rather than a square and it should crease less.

Deadshot, have you heard of microsol?

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MI-2

It's a solvent you paint on to your decals which partially melts them so that they mold to irregular surfaces.


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Those are beautiful looking Sons of Horus marines there.

Microsol and Microset are great products, get them, use them, love them.

Testor's also makes a decal softener as well.

Something else that you can do to reduce silvering is to GLOSS varnish the area where the decal is going to lay, let it dry completely then gloss varnish it again to seal it and then hit it with flat varnish unless you mean to have shiny models, then add a second coat of gloss instead of the flat.

Looks good! Great shade of green there.

Did you consider trying the brass etch FW make? I don't know how easy it is to bend to a shoulder pad, but it could be one alternative to decals.

cadbren wrote:
Deadshot, have you heard of microsol?

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MI-2

It's a solvent you paint on to your decals which partially melts them so that they mold to irregular surfaces.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Those are beautiful looking Sons of Horus marines there.

I don't buy online so I had to make do. Even still, I don't understand how softening the matierial prevents the creasing that happens as I witness.

Thanks for the positive feedback guys, Sons of Horus has quickly become the army that I paint "for me" (as opposed to to sell or to game with, its a labour of love)

nerdfest09 wrote:Wow dude, I missed this until now shamefully :-( but i'm on board and loving the models! like others have mentioned that GREEN! OMG! just so nicely done and makes for one beautiful squad, well done...... now do a contemptor!

Contemptor is on my list of things to do, people might be down on dreads in gameplay but Contemptors are just lovely models, waiting on a Sons of Horus Legion specific one though.

Deadshot wrote:I too am having trouble putting decals on PA shoulder pads at the moment, and in fact, depending on how you answer this question, I may have the answer.

In relation to the decal's boundary, is it roughly square or rectangular in shape?

See, the problem I have come across is wrinkling and creases but only with 1 shape of decal. I'm not talking about the decal's picture but the actual edging. When I put the Blood Raven's insignia on, an irregular, wide shape, its fine. But when I try to put on a rectangular shaped one, such as the Roman numerals on Space Marines, I find the problem can come from the shape.

See, the curved nature on the surfaces means as you stretch vertically, the vertical edges, that is, the ones running up and down the shoulder pad, lift off to accomodate. If you then try to stretch horizontally, the edges running across the pad are lifted off to help.


However, I have found that cuttinghe transfer into a circle or oval migitates or remove the problem. The easiest way is to take the transfer, hold with a brush as if applying it, and then cutting straight across the corner with scissors. Keep this up on every corner so it now becomes an octagon rather than a square and it should crease less.

The decals are rounded ones that I am mostly struggling with, anything with a curve on a curve seems to go wonky even with Decal fix and Decal softner

xraytango wrote:Microsol and Microset are great products, get them, use them, love them.

Testor's also makes a decal softener as well.

Something else that you can do to reduce silvering is to GLOSS varnish the area where the decal is going to lay, let it dry completely then gloss varnish it again to seal it and then hit it with flat varnish unless you mean to have shiny models, then add a second coat of gloss instead of the flat.

I think it may be the vallejo brand decal stuff I'm using, would microsol/set but preferable?

Magos Explorator wrote:Looks good! Great shade of green there.

Did you consider trying the brass etch FW make? I don't know how easy it is to bend to a shoulder pad, but it could be one alternative to decals.

Brass Etch or the Sculpted Pads are definately options I had considered, Decals were cheaper by model but if they wont work out for me I'll have to look at the other options.

LOL you are painting almost the exact scheme as I am. Yours look better, I was using Nuln oil instead of the greenshade and brass instead of gold but otherwise identical in the same steps without the airbrush. Looks great!

Col. Dash wrote:
LOL you are painting almost the exact scheme as I am. Yours look better, I was using Nuln oil instead of the greenshade and brass instead of gold but otherwise identical in the same steps without the airbrush. Looks great!

How does the scheme look with Nuln oil as the wash? I had considered it at one point to stick closer to FW's "gritty" look for HH marines.

Actually I went home and tried the greenshade on a test model and did everything else the same to see the difference since pics dont always show true color. The greenshade is far more vibrant. The nuln obviously makes it darker and a few shades lighter than dark angels green. The greenshade makes it a more turquoise color and truer the sea green look without going crazy on mixes like some of the tutorials I have seen to achieve it. My wife likes the brighter one so guess which mine are going to be? Thankfully I am not too far into the project. I got dibs on being the loyalist company not that we will ever run into each other

Im with you, I hate decals, none of the solvents I used helped improve the fit on my Carcaradons but thankfully the whole eye of Horus thing is an easy freehand job in most of the variations.

I love the green! I've been painting and modeling SoH for the last 5 years. Obviously that is long before Forge World started pumping out Heresy models. so the only thing I really had to go by was art I found online. In all of those pictures the green was much lighter. The way I went about it was base coating with PP Underbelly Blue and washing with GW green ink. The color was... acceptable.

Great job on your legion!