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Since i'm doing both armies side by side, and because i've developed a love for steel legion tanks i'm changed this threads title to reflect it.

Update; i've run out of silver and black paints, so i've just been doing detailing and rust work. i've also tried out a new way of producing the lens/glass/thingy effects.







C&C? if anyone wants to know about any of the techniques i'm happy to share.

-skrall

I love how battered and worn these vehicles look.As for technique sharing i'm all ears.

update on primary leman, this is about 98% complete now, theres some pigments on the way i need to finish it, and the driver needs to bebrought back a bit, but he is ment to be that filthy.






and this the third leman, this one will have magnetised options for the spons, incase of small scale games where i can't affford the upgrades, shown with both turret options.




C&C?

-skrall

Thats a sexy tank!

Are the steel legion tanks loyalist?

Johnny-Crass wrote:Thats a sexy tank!

thanks man! i consider it to be one of my better works.

Capitansolstice wrote:Are the steel legion tanks loyalist?

Sadly yeah, i didn't intend that to happen, but i've been having such an insane amount of fun with this i've committed to doing some SL. The blood pact arn't on hold, i've only just got the paints to finish the infantry groups off.




Ok, for those who've got any vague interest in tanks, paticularly in painting them with pretty patterns, i'm doing a tutorial over the course of this week on how to paint steel legion tanks, but the principle apply to all formats of tank from cadians to catachans. There's going to be a more perminant copy in the modelling forums, but i'm adding it here since it'll be a nice way to show my working technique,

Step 1; Prep the tank.

Now, usually people do the drilling of barrels before hand, but my drill bits bust, so i'm doing that further down the line. Otherwise, its standard modelling practise all the way. Before you paint it in your colours i advise a white basecoat for you tank, my techniques will cause it to darken considerably (i've been accused of being the Blanche of the modelling forums so...).



Step 2; base colour
Now your all whited up, you need to pick the tone and colour of your tank. in this case i've gone for my own unique concoction of colours to create a bluish grey. Apply this everywhere, get a good even coating, if your doing it by hand this will be a little harder, but if your looking for an excuse to buy an airbrush, then i'm happy to oblige.



Step 3; masking

I run masking tape for masking, i'm very very cheap, i will find the fastest cheapest way of doing things, more spare money means more paints, more paints > better model. If you have a specific pattern, then obviously take your time, but if your like me and want to slap down a crazy pattern, then tear your tape in two thin strips and apply it, breaking it every so often to change direction;



step 4; the pattern.

So, i thought i'd include a photo of my working set up here for this, see if it makes things easier for others before they start.

i use;
An old box from the company i order my mini's from as a spray box.
A hairdryer bought a thousand years ago which pumps lots of nice warm air out.
two lamps (general modelling rule for better quality of light)
The airbrush itself...




And now you've dried it and sprayed it, this is how you'll look before you take the tape off;



step 5; the peeling.

Pretty straight forwards, take your tape off, but i would advise be careful the paints fully dried before you do, i now have a horrible thumb print on my tank on the bottom (thank god) from where i put... well, my thumb in it when removing the tape.



Specific colours, if requested, can be listed, but i prefer to give people the tools, not the forumula, to making modelling magiks.

Hope this is helpful, any questions or specific points i'll try and put an FAQ up with Part 2, but this is the easy stage.

-skrall

Part 2;

Step 6;

First up, put down your basic boltgun metal colours to break things up, don't worry if they arn't too neat, at this stage its more of a guide.





Step 7;

The unit stripe was achieved using masking tape like before, painting a section red, then covering it and spraying the center of that white.



Step 8; Now unfortunatly my camera was being a little runt and decided to not take the photo of the pre-9 washed tank. however, it's worth giving the tank a quick colour wash, i use a mixture of my own design, tamaya black and scorched brow. When this is watered down it'll create a nice dark layer without giving that thickness that happens with Babad liquid talent black or the other gw washes (though they do well on infantry).

Step 9; Now, using a sponge (i use a car one cost 29p for the big bugger) dab paint of the paticular colour onto your pattern. this is usual best done with the darkest layer first, so i went with my grey (a mix of tamaya dark grey and light blue). It'll help deepen up the colour gradient so long as you don't try and cover the old paint too much, only dabbing to highlight and break it up. DO NOT try to be neat. the more adventurous you are, the better this pattern interacts with itself.



Step 10; same prinicpe, this time using tamaya JA grey and GW's Rotten flesh. this, if it dabs over the grey, will marry the two, rather than making them look to seperate.



Step 11; reapply the darkcoat. mentioned in 8. this will give your tank added depth, and depending on how much you water your wash, it'll have a dirty look.



Questions welcomed, Part 3 will be coming soon.

-skrall

Time for some steel legion work now, i've modernised two models to fit with 5th edition guard, so far we have a senior officer and a cadet-commissar (to explain why he's a skinny sod). there's also the obligator magnets eveywhaaaaa chimera.







C&C?

-skrall

They look pretty sweet, The cadet is a skinny twig

Capitansolstice wrote:They look pretty sweet, The cadet is a skinny twig

yeah thats the old gw steel legion commissar, its just his scale means i have to justify (in my mind) why he's a midget... cadet commissar it is.

Update time, the first of the infantry is all but done. need some touch ups and the do the osl on the powersword then its done. the commissar hero shots are for my avatar, and so you get a close up of the average face.







and the steel legion tanks i've started;



C&C?

-skrall

Looks really good, although I think the weathering on the steel legion tanks is way too heavy.

Always loved the steel legion figs, especially the heavy weapon teams and that commissar. Struggling to not add a regiment of steel legion to my guard army myself

@illumini; its my personal stylisation, at the end of the day i love kicking the crap out of my tanks, and steel legion have the atmosphere to do that to a tank! as for the figures, i got a second one rescently, no idea what i plan to do with that commissar... yet.

due to the pigments i want to use not being in stock, i'm waiting on a resuply so the tutorial project is slowed now, however i can now present part 3;

First step take your freshly dried post wash tank, mix up a black/brown mix of about 40/60 so you get a nice dark brown. Take a sponge, i use a 29p massive car sponge cut to various sizes myself, and begin dabbing the mix onto the hull, your end result should be something like this;




Step 2, same thing basically, just using mithril silver. dab carefully but randomly over the top of your previous damage, trying to avoid some of the more subtle area's, the silver should only be a minor detail over the top in most places. results picture;



Step 3; dark rust pigments/powder time! i'm using forge worlds aged rust for this step, and two brushes. my advice is use a small but hard brush so you can rub in it to the nucks and crannies easier. this ones trial and error for most people, you'll find your way to make it work for you. results for me, and what you should be up to so far;




Part 4 coming soon, as always hopes this proves useful!

-skrall

update time, steel legion guy and tanks.







fair bit to do on all the models, but i'm now up to about part 2 on my own tutorial with regardes to progress. got alot to do, but feeling confident.... or more to say, i love painting tanks!!

-skrall

Those tanks look great

Tortured-Robot wrote:Those tanks look great

thanks man, i've actually done a little more work to them, though they arn't quite showing off the battle damage in these photos. maybe a bit too well lit.





-skrall

Looking good Billy Ray.
Here's a masking tip straight from Fine Scale Modeler.
Next time try silly putty as a mask instead of tape,thats how the military modelers paint their NATO camo

Eisenhorn wrote:Looking good Billy Ray.
Here's a masking tip straight from Fine Scale Modeler.
Next time try silly putty as a mask instead of tape,thats how the military modelers paint their NATO camo

nice idea, might be good if i were to paint clean tanks... but i'm quite a fan of the mixing that can happen. the steel legion camo (in the GW books at least) is never solid pattern, they tend to cross into one another, which is also why i use the 'dab' paint technique. i'm not really going for 'ultra-realism', i'm going for my paiting style, rust dirt and atmosphere

-skrall

The putty is also great for masking odd shaped items such as lascannon,exhusts,ect.
But I hear where your coming from,like I said looking great keep em coming.

I did not notice you posted a Alestorm song, once shared a beer with the bassist in San Francisco. Anywho loving the tanks

Leman russ tutorial part 4; IT IS COMPLETE!

Before i begin this tutorial, i advise people get a cup of tea, a beer, or some something of the sort, this is a bit of a doozie.



are we ready?

step 1; oil paints.



For this i've used just 3 colours, black brown and orange. i'd be specific, but when it comes to this stage your probably best looking at the colour ranges open to you. i'm also using low odour thinner, most of this crap i had lying around... (i did actually train to be an artist, graduating from the best course in the uk in the field of illustration, but 6 months on i've yet to take it up as a career). You can use any white spirit, i picked up a bottle for £1.29 yesterday with about a litre in, so plenty for the entire army.




what i've done here is to paint very thin layers of a darker colour into the area's i want, mostly door hinges and the excaust port. do not over do it, that's the best advise i can give. i've also done some orange over the top to boost the rust colour, though this not over the top of all of the dark colour, just parts to get a layering of oil/rust.

Step 2; Lens/glass

now while the oil paint dries (if you thin it down enough, it'll be about 20-1hr drying time) you can actually paint the tank's detail. i'm going to leave the basics to you, decals and so forth. this bit i'm going to show how i paint lens for these lads.



dark angels green, so far so simple.



dark angels and skull white mixes, 67/33 in the first light layers, 50/50 second. then highlight skull white.



this is where i painted it clear green, it'll always retain a shine, even when dry.




Now it's dried all you do is highlight any over structure, to ensure it actually looks sunk in to the kit.


part 3; Weathering extemis.

Your more or less done if you don't want to do this part.

To start; i'm using vallejo pigments, white and ocre. Start off by simply applying the colour to the affect area's, i.e lower hull and tracks.




then lightly brush over this with the ocre,



and that's pretty much you done.





and how it'll look on two tanks of different equipments;



Any feedback or questions?

-skrall

its worth mentioning the photo's will stop working because of photobuckets 10gb viewing per month limit, i'm using my second account and no doubt soon my third will be created. however, despite that i've produced another tutorial, completing my steel legion/tank guide!

step 1;


this steps in before you do any enviormental weathering, start by painting the outline of you decal with thinned down white.

step 2;


highlight the upper area's

step 3;


create a dark brown, 70/30 scorched/chaos black should do it, then dab it on selectivly

step 4;


The same, only just Mithril silver

step 5; add weathering powder.


title says it, add any enviroment marks you're adding

results;




this was the same technique used for my punisher turret further back in the log (which thanks to the failtards at photobucket you can't see till feburary)

C&C?

-skrall

p.s here's a bobafett facebook picture to skip that failriddled auto-post merger.

Interesting, i always fully paint a vehicle (ie decals, markings details), then whether it all at once.

With regards to the photobucket issue, put them in the Dakka Gallery! People can vote and theres no limit to the amount of images you can upload, far better choice imo!

thanks man, though it looks like they've re-upped themselves. as forthe dakka gallery, i sometimes do, i just find the upload process a hastle.

update- Finished hellhound;





and next up, some fixing and painting of my ebay wins;




C&C welcomed as always

-skrall

I love all the tanky goodness here! I have a scratchbuilt Ragnarok that I'm slowly putting together - once its done I'll have a crack at using some of your ideas to weather it up.

Personally, I think your Steel Legion would look at home alongside the Blood Pact if you ever wanted to boost the numbers - the weathering helps them look mucky enough to be renegade if necessary.

Are you still planning for a full company of Blood Pact tanks? I would be interested to see what your revised long term goal is now - though having had experience of your attention span to projects I may be slightly naive here

They look awesome as per usual.

Btw i take it the tracks are just heavily dusty, looks sweet, if not, paint the tracks!

thanks for the comments guys!

Horus commission WIP time, he's taking longer than expected, mostly down to the cost/balance issues. i pitched a low price based on a set number of hours work, so each time i do work on it needs to be maximum efficeny. not the way i usually run commission, but then i don't usually sculpt primarchs.





C&C?

-skrall

Just wondering, is that a rough outline?
It seems a bit, well, rough

Capitansolstice wrote:Just wondering, is that a rough outline?
It seems a bit, well, rough

there's alot of refinement, the lower body needs alot of work done to it, when this photo was taken it was still curing, so it'll be this evening before i feel its ready to be sanded and refined. ther'es alot of issues atm, but its getting the physical shape down first before any refinement like that happens. at the moment most of its just 'bulk', even the fameing will be gw's and smoothed in order to get a more complete finish

-skrall

Ok. Cant wait!

Update... not much of one but i've pushed some of the infantry forwards a bit, and started the second leman russ.



-skrall